|
Mercenaries may be key to oust
Taylor
By Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic
Editor
(Filed: 25/07/2003)
The internationally backed war crimes tribunal in
Sierra Leone yesterday gave the green light for mercenaries to
arrest President Charles Taylor of Liberia if they can raise their
own funds for the operation and deliver him across the border.
"We would not turn down anybody legitimate - whether
government, international organisation or private company - who can
deliver Charles Taylor or any other fugitive to justice," said Alan
White, the court's chief of investigations.
But while encouraging bounty-hunters, Mr White made
clear he was offering no payout. "We won't pay anybody. We're not in
a financial position to do that and would not engage in that
anyway."
The special court, set up jointly by the Sierra Leone
government and the United Nations to prosecute those responsible for
atrocities during the country's appalling civil war, issued an
indictment against Taylor last month.
Taylor, travelling in Ghana at the time, quickly
returned to his capital, Monrovia, to avoid arrest. Within days, the
country's rebel movement, Liberians United for Reconciliation and
Democracy, pushed into the city.
West African leaders, supported by the United States,
are debating whether to send a peacekeeping force to stop the
bloodletting and relieve the civilian population. But Washington has
insisted that Taylor must first step down.
A British-US military company, Northbridge Services
Group, submitted a £3 million plan to arrest Taylor, but the special
court turned it down.
"We have not contracted anybody," said Mr White, "If
this is something they want to do, they would have to find funding
on their own. How they get their money is their own business."
Northbridge sources said he privately told the firm
to try to raise the money from foreign governments, particularly the
United States.
His remarks give a veil of legitimacy to soldiers of
fortune, who are regarded with deep suspicion in Africa after their
involvement in a string of civil conflicts and secessionist
wars.
In recent years, military companies have been awarded
concessions to mine diamonds and other minerals in Africa in return
for their services.
Britain in particular will be wary of endorsing
anything reminiscent of the Sandline scandal, in which the government
was accused of giving its blessing for mercenaries to help Sierra
Leone's exiled president, Ahmad Tejjan Kabbah, to regain power in
1998.
This year the Foreign Office exerted strong pressure
on Northbridge not to honour a contract to help the government of
Ivory Coast, saying its presence would undermine peace talks.
But the Foreign Office is quietly steering plans to
regulate private military companies and increase their role in
stabilising legitimate but weak governments, particularly in regions
such as Africa, where western countries are reluctant to commit
troops.
Private companies are already used by governments to
provide military training abroad and specialised services such as
de-mining, and some have been hired by the American government to
provide armed security in Iraq.
Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, published a
consultative Green Paper last year, saying: "Today's world is a far
cry from the 1960s when private military activity usually meant
mercenaries of the rather unsavoury kind involved in post-colonial
or neo-colonial conflicts."
Pasquale DiPofi, a director of Northbridge Services,
said the opportunity to stage a surprise arrest of Taylor in
Monrovia had now gone.
But he said he still had many of the soldiers he had
recruited for the abortive contract in Ivory Coast, and his firm
could help restore stability in Liberia.
The United States has so far resisted pressure to
deploy troops in Liberia, in the same way as Britain intervened in
Sierra Leone and France stepped in to stop the fighting in Ivory
Coast.
Mr DiPofi said hiring his company would create a
"win-win situation. The US deals with the problem, but is not
putting US personnel in harm's way."
Northbridge could yet strike an agreement with the
rebels. Mr DiPofi said his company had held talks with them and they
offered to give the firm business deals in Liberia in return for
help in defeating Taylor.
"We don't want to do that," said Mr DiPofi.
"Commercial concessions have given the industry a bad name."
Next story: Peaceful
return to Guadalcanal
|
.gif)