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Noah Shachtman |
| Contributor, TCS |
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Hired Guns
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| By Noah
Shachtman |
06/26/2003
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| A consortium of mercenary
groups has made the UN a deceptively simple proposal: give us $200
million, and we'll help bring an end to the war in the Congo.
Tribal militias are running rampant in the eastern part of
the central African nation, slaughtering hundreds of villagers at a
time. Since 1998, the violence there has claimed 3.3 million lives.
The world's response has been, to say the least,
underwhelming. A few thousand UN peacekeeping troops have been
stationed there since 2001. But these brave souls watched helplessly
last month as the militias murdered 430 innocents in the provincial
capital of Bunia.
The killings shamed the European Union
into sending 1,400 French and British soldiers into the area. But
they'll operate only in Bunia -- no matter how bloody things turn in
the countryside. And on September 1, the troops are going home. End
of story.
What happens then? The UN Security Council is
trying to decide that now. An unusual suggestion has come from the
International
Peace Operations Association (IPOA), an association a private
military companies. They won't stand in between the warring armies.
But for $100-$200 million, five such contractors could form a rapid
reaction force, to combat the militias' mass rape and ethnic
cleansing; train the local police force; provide logistics for UN
operations in the area; and use aerial surveillance to keep tabs on
the region.
"It's a novel concept. And certain aspects
deserved to be implemented ASAP," said Peter Singer, a Brookings
Institution scholar and author of the recently-published Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized
Military Industry. "But the proposal needs to be fleshed out
much further before it can be taken seriously. What is the chain of
command? Who decides when to deploy this rapid reaction force? How
do we ensure accountability, and how do we make it workable under
international law?"
For the moment, the UN Security isn't
even bothering to consider such questions, as it ponders its next
move in the Congo. They won't even talk to the IPOA, its president,
Doug Brooks, said.
But there aren't that many other options
on the table for the Congo.
"I cannot -- and don't know
anyone else who does -- support a private military solution," said
Peter Gantz, with the Partnership for
Effective Peace Operations, a coalition of think tanks and aid
groups. "But it's hard to dismiss, in the absence on any other
credible solution."
"It's the only thing that might
be successful," he added.
The private military firms making
the offer have had a jumbled history: stunning successes, and awful
failures. In 1996, Liberian rebels sacked the capital city,
Monrovia. ICI of
Oregon, employing Soviet Red Army veterans and former US special
forces, helped save the American embassy there. Battlefield
consultants MPRI
(Military Professionals Resources Inc.) helped turned the Croatian
army from a "group of drunken militias" into a force capable of a
"multi-arm, NATO-style offensive," Singer said. The attack turned
the tide of the Balkan conflict. But it was "one of the worst
episodes of 'ethnic cleansing,' an event that left more than 100,000
homeless," according to the New York Times.
Airscan, a
Florida-based aerial surveillance firm, has kept watch over NASA
space launches. But, in Colombia, company employees mistakenly told
government pilots that a village was filled with FARC guerillas. The
area was bombed. No rebels were there, however. Instead, 18
civilians died.
With such a mixed record, Singer isn't sure
he's comfortable giving these corporate guns-for-hire the authority
to pull the trigger in the Congo. The companies say they'll employ
for their rapid reaction force 475 to 1200 British-trained Gurkha fighters from Nepal -- guys with a
seriously bad-ass reputation. But it's unclear who would command the
mercenaries. And what happens, Singer asks in the latest issue of Policy Review,
if corporate interests and humanitarian interests begin to divide?
Security is now at the mercy of any change in market
costs and incentives... A firm hired to establish a safe haven
might later find the situation more difficult than it originally
expected. The operation might become unprofitable or, due to any
increase in local opposition, more dangerous than anticipated.
Thus, the company could find it in its corporate interest to pull
out. Or, even if the company is kept in line by market
constraints, its employees might decide that the personal risks
they face in sticking it out in an operation are too high relative
to their pay. Not bound by military law, they can simply break
their contracts without fear of punishment and find safer, better
paying work elsewhere.
A better, safer idea,
Singer believes, is to let the private military groups handle
logistics and transport. For years, contractors like ICI have been
carrying out these duties for armies around the world -- including
our own. It may be time, he thinks, to give the firms a chance in
the Congo.
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