In December 1990, Oliver Queen – the comic book superhero known as Green Arrow – embarked on a quest. Unlike his most famous journey with Green Lantern during the early 1970s, however, this adventure was not in search of America but to find himself instead. Queen’s latest journey was also more international in nature, taking him from Canada to England and then Africa. But just as his earlier travels with Green Lantern corresponded with social issues of the times, the same held true in 1990 when Green Arrow found himself confronting the slaughter of African wildlife in Zambia.
In the three-issue narrative arc “Around the Horn” – part of writer Mike Grell’s late 1980s/early 1990s Green Arrow comic book series – Oliver Queen joins a clandestine operation to uncover the source of rhino poaching on the continent. Recruited by an anonymous diplomat from an unnamed nation and paired with a team of mercenaries, Queen’s mission is to follow the trail of poachers to the dealers, then expose their operation and shut down the illegal trade at its source.
“We intend to declare war on poachers,” Oliver Queen is told by the diplomat. “It will be a small war, unannounced and unnoticed – except by other poachers. For them the message will be clear, ‘Find another line of work!’”
In 1988, a real world group of mercenaries arrived in South Africa with a similar goal of exposing the source of rhino poaching. Instead of being enlisted by a government, however, this expedition was privately organized and funded by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands and John Hanks, who was serving as director of the Africa Program for the World Wildlife Fund at the time, a non-profit that Prince Bernard helped establish.
Code named Operation Lock, the mission of these mercenaries involved infiltrating the illegal poaching trade in Africa to uncover the higher-up dealers who operated it. Operation Lock thus differed from the mission of Oliver Queen in Green Arrow, which was designed to simply spy on the poachers and then track them to the dealers.
In both cases, these unofficial operations were considered necessary after traditional efforts failed to curtail poaching in Africa. The reasons were numerous, from a lack of funding and training to many African nations only offering words of support as opposed to tangible actions. The poachers themselves were also becoming more sophisticated, operating in teams that were heavily armed and willing to kill when confronted by authorities.
When Operation Lock was first exposed by the media in 1991, there was a general outcry and misinterpretation of its objectives, although others within the anti-poaching community understood the necessity of such tactics. “Poachers have proved to be totally ruthless,” John Hanks quotes one such supporter in his 2015 book Operation Lock and the War on Poaching. “It is important to remember, however, that confronting poachers is a military operation. A large number of brave game guards and scouts have been killed or wounded by poachers, who are often armed with machine guns and other weapons far more powerful than those carried by the guards. To be effective, game guards need to be trained in a paramilitary manner.”
The “Around the Horn” narrative of Green Arrow supports the above assessment. In the opening pages of the story arc, for instance, African safari guides hear the sound of automatic weapons killing an unsuspecting rhinoceros. When they report the activity to the game warden, however, they are told an investigation would have to wait until instructions arrived from headquarters. One of the safari guides sarcastically replies, “What you mean is you’ve no desire to meet up with the killing team.”
During their patrols of the Zambezi Valley, meanwhile, Oliver Queen and his cohorts stumble upon a large group of poachers armed with rocket-propelled grenades. “What the hell are poachers going after armed like that?” one of Queen’s associates asks. The answer is revealed on the following two-page spread showing the poachers gunning down a herd of elephants.
The small unit that includes Oliver Queen are heavily armed as well, having been recruited by a London-based security firm called SIS International that employs ex-special forces and bodyguards as personnel. The real world Operation Lock also had ties to a private military company in London – KAS Enterprises – that hired former members of the British Special Air Service (SAS) for the mission.
While out on patrol, one of Oliver Queen’s associates offers his personal thoughts on poaching. “The elephant is going to be extinct by the turn of the century because some well-intentioned assholes convinced some other assholes to ban the sale and trade in ivory and elephant parts,” he says. “And drove the price up, creating a booming black market for something in limited supply. People who had no previous interest suddenly crave ivory because it’s forbidden.”
John Hanks offers a similar viewpoint in Operation Lock and the War on Rhino Poaching. As the number of elephants in Africa continued to decline, a movement to ban the trade of ivory picked up steam in 1988. The calls for a ban, however, did not originate from countries on the continent – who believed that the legal trade of ivory by their governments could raise funds to support conservation efforts – but by supporters of organizations like the World Wildlife Fund living in the United States and Europe.
Faced with a potential loss of donations if a ban on ivory was not enacted, the WWF and other non-profits urged the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species to pass a ban despite opposition from Africa itself.
Once uncovered by the media, Operation Lock was quickly shut down. Although it failed in its primary mission of exposing the dealers of rhino horns and elephant tusks, intel gathered during the operation did lead to numerous arrests on the lower level of the illegal trade nonetheless. More importantly, members of Operation Lock helped train game guards to think and act more like soldiers so that they would be better prepared for confrontations with poachers.
The outcome of Oliver Queen’s adventures in Africa was likewise a mixed bag. “Don’t be too surprised when we find out who’s on the other end,” he is told at the outset of the mission. “It’s probably someone very ordinary and unlikely. That’s what kept him in business this long.” At the end of the narrative, however, the opposite is true as the culprits are not average criminals but high-ranking officials within the governments of various African nations.
This also coincided with the real world, as corruption in Africa was extremely prevalent at the time. In Operation Lock and the War on Rhino Poaching, John Hanks notes that although President Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya publicly decried poaching, it was members of his immediate family who underwrote illegal activities in the country.
In Zimbabwe, meanwhile, poaching efforts were coordinated by the North Korean embassy, which was granted diplomatic immunity by government executives. Given such official protection of poachers, it should be no surprise that members of Operation Lock wanted to adopt a policy of “shoot-to-kill” as opposed to relying on the judicial system. The same can be said of Oliver Queen, who declined to return to England and report the group’s findings because “if I traveled all the way back to London, I think a jury could prove premeditation.”
Decades after the conclusion of Operation Lock and the “Around the Horn” story arc of Green Arrow, illegal poaching continues to push rhinoceroses and elephants to the brink of extinction in Africa. But as both the factual Operation Lock and fictional Oliver Queen make clear, the solution is not an easy one to grasp – despite the numerous attempts and varying methods that have been tried over the course of decades.
Anthony Letizia