PRIVATISATION OF VIOLENCE: THE RISE OF CORPORATE MERCENARIES

Owachgiu Dennis

The concept of the mercenary is as old as that of the state. Today, however, mercenaries are not just individual soldiers of fortune selling their skills. They are corporations, providing a range of services above and beyond what the traditional mercenary could offer.

Blackwater Training Center

Private Military Companies (PMCs) provide a wide variety of services previously carried out by national military forces. The industry comprises hundreds of companies operating in more than 50 countries worldwide, and working for governments, international institutions and corporations. They provide combat support, including training and intelligence provision, operational support, strategic planning and consultancy, technical assistance, post-conflict reconstruction and a wide range of security provision [1]. The companies have grown to have the capability of doing virtually every service required in a war zone.

 

Over the recent years, governments have tended to gradually outsource more of their responsibilities to the private sector, and the military is also beginning to succumb to market forces. PMCs are flourishing in this environment and profiting from the privatization of war. The companies claim they can do the state’s work more effectively, more quickly and more cheaply than the state’s own forces. For example if a country wanted to expand its Airforce Squadron to immediately accomplish military objectives, hiring “ready” experts from PMCs is a quicker option. It would otherwise take years for a nation to train its own pilots to fly new aircrafts.

 

PMCs came to prominence during the period of Yugoslavia’s collapse, when Western governments were unwilling to intervene directly in the conflict but retained an interest in its outcome. In the former Soviet Union, the war in Chechnya has seen a plethora of PMCs emerge. The real breakthrough for Western governments has been Iraq. The Iraq war was the first conflict fought using PMCs on an unprecedented major scale. Iraq war that employed slightly above 100,000 PMC personnel propelled the industry past the $100 billion mark.

 

In the contemporary world, PMCs are increasingly taking a leading role in military affairs on behalf of states [2]. More recently, Simon Mann was imprisoned in Zimbabwe in September 2004 for attempting to buy weapons to lead a military coup in Equatorial Guinea.

 

Silver Shadow, an Israeli PMC has worked in the Republic of the Congo, Angola and Colombia, where they assisted Defence Systems Limited in providing security for BP. In Liberia, Intercon Security personnel guard the US embassy, and have been involved in combat with rebel forces during sieges.

 

In Saudi Arabia, US PMCs are playing leading roles in protecting the monarchy from unrest [3]. The PMC parent company of Vinnell provided logistics, intelligence and maintenance services to Saudi Airforce until recently. Vinnell itself trains Saudi Air Force, while Booz Allen Hamilton manages the national military staff College. SIAC supports the Navy and Air Defence. O Gara provides protection to the royal family and trains local security forces. In Afghanistan, the task of protecting president Karzai and other leading figures in the Afghan government was contracted to a team of 150-strong DynCorp employees [4].

 

Tens of thousands of solders demobilized from the Soviet Armed Forces have joined the ranks and files of PMCs. One example is Moscow-based firm Alpha Firm, which was founded by former elite soviet Special Forces units and has now become a subsidiary of British PMC ArmorGroup [5]. In Chechnya, contract soldiers have been found operating alongside national regular forces. In Azerbaijan, Armenia and Kazakhstan, PMC soldiers have been used to defend facilities.

 

PMCs have also extended their dispositions into training foreign military, police and Special Forces across the world. US PMCs alone undertook training in over 42 countries during the 1990s [6]. DynCorp has trained 32,000 Iraqi recruits in Jordan, and given technical training to the Colombian army. Erinys Iraq (an affiliate of Erinys International), MPRI and ArmorGroup also provide training in Iraq. Levdan, an Israeli PMC, trained the Congo-Brazzaville army,[7] while Vinnell has trained the Saudi palace guard [8].

 

PMCs are getting more and more engaged in direct combat operations [9]. In 1995, the now defunct South African company Executive Outcomes employed a Battalion sized force of infantry, with the support of attack helicopters and light artillery in order to regain the control of the diamond-rich Kono district of Sierra Leone. The Revolutionary United Front rebels were defeated just as they were approaching the capital [10]. Sandline, also now disbanded, later played a similar role in the conflict [11].

 

Some firms now openly advertise their role as service providers of combat services. Northbridge Services Group founder Andrew Williams bragged that he could put up a combat-ready brigade on the ground, fully equipped with full logistical support anywhere in the world within three weeks [12]. Meanwhile the President of Blackwater (Now Academi), Garry Jackson is hoping to put together the largest, most professional private Army in the world, ready for active duties in any country [13].

The line between combat and non-combat operations is getting blurred wherever they are operating. The International Charter Inc (ICI) and Pacific Architects and Engineers (PAE) provided military aviation support to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) peacekeeping force in Liberia [14].

 

In April 2004, eight Blackwater commandoes defended the US headquarters in Najaf against an attack by hundreds of Iraqi militia [15]. They used variety of military maneuvers including flying helicopter to resupply fresh ammunitions. Later on that day, three other PMCs – Hart Group, Control Risks and Triple Canopy were also involved in pitched battles in Iraq [16]. These incidents lay bare the fact that in a conflict zone such as Iraq, with the war fought in the heart of cities with unclear distinctions between combatant and non-combatant, it is impossible to distinguish defensive and offensive roles. Precisely, PMC soldiers in Iraq are involved in exchanges of fire with insurgents on a daily basis.

 

In developing countries, PMCs have provided crucial combat and non-combat assistance to governments in return for a share of profits derived from the use of that force [17]. Such was the case of the now defunct Executive Outcomes, which had a close relationship with the Branch-Heritage Group. After Executive Outcomes secured resource-rich areas on Angola on behalf of the government, a Branch-Heritage subsidiary gained concession over those same resources [18]. A similar situation transpired in Sierra Leone, where another Branch-Heritage subsidiary gained concession in the Kono diamond fields following action by Executive Outcomes to secure them for the government [19].

 

The increased profits have led to high growth rates of PMCs. Some of the leading PMCs include DynCorp, a subsidiary of Veritas Capital, a private equity investment firm, and employs over 25,000 employees [20]. Blackwater, another huge PMC was founded by multi-millionaire Erik Prince [21] in North Carolina in 1997. Gary Jackson, its president and a former US navy SEAL, has declared his intent to expand into the largest, most professional private army in the world.

 

Military Professional Resources Inc. (MPRI) was founded in 1987 by retired US military officers. MPRI has 3,000 employees and reputedly more high-ranking military officers per square metre than the Pentagon. It is part of mega-corporation L-3 Communications, whose government services companies (of which MPRI is one) brought in revenues of US$2 billion in 2005. MPRI provided tactical training to the Kosovo Liberation Army in the weeks before the NATO bombing campaign [22].

 

Vinnell Corporation (USA) is another ground-breaking PMC that was directly involved in US military and intelligence operations in South-East Asia from 1965 to 1975. At the height of the Vietnam War it had more than 5,000 employees in Vietnam, and later trained Saudi forces to protect oil fields [23].

 

In the aftermath of World War, public opinion has shown an increasing unwillingness to accept the costs of conflict, especially the death and personal loss which are concomitant with full-scale wars. This public resistance to the cost of military operations is often referred to as “Vietnam syndrome”. In spite of the war-weary public, Western governments still have an undiminished penchant for military interventions to further their national interests around the globe.

 

To overcome this challenge, most governments are increasingly turning to PMCs to take on conflicts that are too costly – in terms of resources or public opinion – to undertake themselves, with the advantage that lines of accountability become increasingly blurred. PMCs help countries to transfer the costs of war to other countries by paying foreign nationals to take the risks. Human costs of casualties and deaths are thus not experienced by the country whose interests the PMCs are executing. According to Daniel Nelson, a former professor of Civil-Military Relations at the US Defence Department’s Marshall European Centre for Security, “Private military corporations become a way to distance themselves and create what we used to call ‘plausible deniability’… It’s disastrous for democracy.”

 

PMCs are constantly upgrading their capabilities so much that they can do about everything. DynCorp even managed to support the rebel Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement in their negotiations. Asked by campaign group Corporate Watch why DynCorp was contracted, a US Official answered: “We are not allowed to fund a political party or agenda under United States law, so by using private contractors, we can get around those provisions.” [24]

 

PMCs also allow governments to circumvent legal obstacles in many other major ways. In 1991, for example, a UN arms embargo prohibited the sale of weapons to, or training of, any warring party in the former Yugoslavia. But a Croatian contract with MPRI effectively allowed the USA to circumvent the embargo.

 

Even global organizations like the UN are turning to PMC’s. The unwillingness to commit soldiers for UN forces led Kofi Annan to consider using PMCs in Rwandan refugee camps in 1997[25]. PMCs were contracted to support UN operations, for instance, ArmorGroup in Mozambique, Angola and Democratic Republic of Congo. The Australian Forces leading the UN Transitional Administration peacekeeping force in East Timor in 1999 depended on logistics outsourced to PMCs, while the UN employed private intelligence and security firms to assist the peacekeeping force. Even governments in developing countries themselves are now delegating the task of securing life and property to PMCs. [26].

 

PMCs are turning to be the real career choice for many elite soldiers. The high salaries PMCs are offering in Iraq have reportedly caused record numbers of elite soldiers from the UK and US to retire early from their regular forces [27]. In August 2006, the British army was compelled to increase pay for Special Air Service (SAS) and other special forces personnel by 50% to thwart the rate of defections to PMCs.[28] MPRI has on call more than 12,000 former US military officers, including several four-star generals.

 

Some PMCs have been bold in seeking to redefine their roles. Blackwater’s vice-chair Cofer Black told a conference in March 2006 that Blackwater was ready to move towards providing private armies, up to battalion size, for use in low-intensity conflicts. He suggested Sudan as a country which might benefit from such a presence [29].

 

As the PMCs are redefining their roles in what they call “Peace and Stability industry”, there is fear that unregulated PMCS are causing some harm in some of their operations. The UN Special Rapporteur Enrique Ballesteros reported to the UN Commission on Human Rights in March 2002 that mercenaries were inexorably linked to the illegal diamond trade in Africa [30]. Colombia’s PMC-supported civil war meanwhile has left hundreds of thousands of people displaced, and thousands dead in political violence every year.

 

Previously, Defence Systems Colombia (DSC), a subsidiary of DSL (now ArmorGroup), was implicated in providing detailed intelligence to the notorious XVIth Brigade of the Colombian army, identifying groups opposed to BP’s presence in the region of Casanare. This intelligence has been linked to executions and disappearances [31].

Amidst the growth of PMCs as discussed here above, it’s apparent that some form of regulation is required to streamline their operations and make them accountable for their omissions and commissions. Self-regulation isn’t an option. While wars are the sources of profits for PMCs, war happens to be one of the chief causes of poverty. War can completely undermine a country’s development prospects, destroying schools and hospitals and putting agricultural land out of use for years. Some 80% of the world’s 20 poorest countries have experienced a major war in the past 15 years, and excruciating human suffering continues long after. Nine of the 10 countries with the world’s highest child mortality rates have suffered from conflict in recent years.

Regulation of PMCs would curtail a tendency of some companies instigating wars in mineral-rich poor countries. Mercenaries must not be allowed to threaten peace and security around the world in the name of corporate profit.

References:

[1] War on Want. Corporate mercenaries report.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Holmqvist, Private Security Companies

[7] Singer, Corporate Warriors

[8] TS Millard, Overcoming Post-Colonial Myopia: A Call to Recognize and Regulate

Private Military Companies, in Military Law Review, Vol. 176, June 2003

[9] JK Wither, European Security and Private Military Companies: The Prospects for

Privatized “Battlegroups”, The Quarterly Journal, Partnership for Peace Consortium of

Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes, Vol. 4, No. 2 June 2005.

[10] US State Department Background on Sierra Leone,

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5475.htm.

[11] BBC Online, “Mercenaries in Africa’s conflicts”, 11 March 2004

[12] J Lovell, Privatized Military Wave of the Future, Firms Say, Reuters, 14 May 2003

[13] Wither, European Security and Private Military Companies,

[14] Singer, Corporate Warriors

[15] D Priest, Private Guards Repel Attack on U.S. Headquarters, Washington Post, 6

April 2004

[16] D Isenberg, A Fistful of Contractors: The Case for a Pragmatic Assessment of Private Military Companies in Iraq, British American Security Information Council Research Report 2004, September 2004

[17] Schreier and Caparini, Privatising Security

[18] Ibid.

[19] Private Military Companies: Options for Regulation, London, The Stationery Office, February 2002

[20] A Barnett, Scandal-hit US firm wins key contract Observer, 13 April 2003

[21] Scahill, Blood Is Thicker Than Blackwater

[22] W Masden, Mercenaries in Kosovo: The US connection to the KLA, The Progressive, August 1999

[23] E Schrader, US Companies Hired to Train Foreign Armies Los Angeles Times 14 April 2002

[24] P Chatterjee, Darfur Diplomacy: Enter the Contractors, Corpwatch, 21 October 2004

[25] T Cook, Dogs of War or Tomorrow’s Peacekeepers?: The Role of Mercenaries in the Future Management of Conflict, in Culture Mandala, 2002

[26] Singer, Corporate Warriors

[27] Schreier and Caparini, Privatising Security

[28] M Smith, SAS get 50% pay to halt quitters, Sunday Times, 6 August 2006

[29] U.S. firm offers private armies for low-intensity conflicts, World Tribune, 29 March 2006

[30] Ballesteros, Use of mercenaries as means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the rights of peoples to self-determination UN Economic and Social Council Report, E/CN.4/2002/20, 10 January 2002

[31] D Whyte, Lethal Regulation: State-Corporate Crime and the United Kingdom Government’s new Mercenaries, Journal of Law and Society,Vol. 30, No. 4, 2003