From Bagadadji to Abu Hashim: New Approaches to Combat Female Circumcision
Asma Mohamed Abdel Halim
Is female circumcision a vicious act of mutilation and injury or a virtuous act of purity and rectitude? Two opposing views dominate current debates, one authorising cultural accommodation and the other advocating the observance of universal standards of human rights. The former view has been widely vilified for sanctioning violence under the guise of culture, and the latter has been reproved for its ethnocentric stance toward cultural rights. The fundamental ideas embedded in these divergent viewpoints toward the practice deserve consideration.
The last three decades of the 20th century witnessed a rapid growth in human rights activism in general and women's rights in particular. One of the issues that caught the attention of activists and scholars was female circumcision (FC). African activists and scholars and their counterparts around the world, are now evaluating their work and getting ready to embark on the next phase. Aided by first hand knowledge of multiple issues that complicate life for the povertystricken African nations, African activism succeeded in achieving some culturally sensitive approaches for the eradication of FC. When the discourse amongst scholars and activists took a leap towards understanding FC rather than condemning it, change in programmes and services was easy to come by and the African grassroots responded positively. The practice of FC has decreased remarkably in some African communities; success stories are being reported from Senegal to Egypt.
I will continue to argue that FC is a form of violence against women and girls. However, an understanding of certain premises and approaches is indispensable for activists and scholars advocating women's rights; remaining sensitive to the views of the communities in which FC is practiced is imperative for the success of any intervention. Sensitivity advocated here is not one that further cements traditional beliefs but rather one that brings in a sense of temporality to those very traditional beliefs. The involvement of grassroots is one way to destabilise inherited beliefs and expose them as human-made rules rather than fixed immutable norms.
One of the issues that took prominence among Western scholars and activists is using law to stop FC. There is no doubt that the law is a good tool to employ provided that it is part of a comprehensive educational programme. While women are not reluctant to use available laws to avoid other practices such as forced marriage, there is little indication that the same women would use law to avoid FC. Despite the internationally commended law of Burkina Faso, some Burkinabes are still practicing and educational programmes are still necessary, responding better to the educational programmes than they do harsh laws. After the campaigns of Tostan, a Senegalese organisation, in some of the areas around the capital Dakar, the government wanted to stipulate criminal laws against FC. The Senegalese women involved in the campaign against FC petitioned the legislature to delay promulgation of such laws. They knew from their own experience that women have to be convinced that FC is a practice that they want to avoid before using the law to avoid it. Indeed, the persistence of FC in many societies today calls for new strategies and tactics and decisions on the normative content of the campaigns against FC.
So far three factors have contributed greatly to the relative success of activism around FC. These factors are: (1) acknowledgement of indigenous knowledge and its value in solving local problems. Much of the resistance of the grassroots seems to wane when they take the lead and sit in control of their lives; (2) a growing number of non-govern-mental organisations (NGOs) that are active on other issues that are of concern to communities; and (3) paying attention to the rapid cultural change that is taking place without programmed intervention, i.e. effect of education and exposure to other cultures. In this briefing I would like to present two experiences that managed to have the local communities directly participate in the campaigns. Of course there are other successful programmes, but I will not be able to explore them here.
A Senegalese Experience
In 1999 I participated in the celebrations of one of the Senegalese communities that took place a few kilometres outside Dakar. The Senegalese women are benefiting from the world-renowned programme that has been designed and implemented by Tostan.1 The women who were involved in the programmes expressed themselves in clear terms with a clear vision. Clearly they admitted the pains of FC they suffered to achieve an acceptable status in the community. However, after going through Tostan's programme they were able to express their real feelings towards FC. They talked about their own lives and how they viewed themselves within the community rather than how they should look in the eyes of others. They regarded their community with respect and with a deep conviction; their changed attitude was not alienating them from their community. While we gathered around a feast of fish, the translator conveyed to me one woman's words:
The better I feel the better my community gets. We [women] are not in a competition with our men or the government or anyone else. This is about our life and our children's life. We had knowledge before, but now we added something new. The new does not invalidate all of the old, only what we decide is harmful to us. Our culture stays, because if our culture is gone we are gone.
Women's ability to use their new knowledge to change their lives was evident in how they made changes in their income generation activities such as applying simple health-improving touches, e.g. cleaning the streets and covering food on sale in those streets and doing simple feasibility studies to see if the business they were planning was worth the effort. Amazingly enough their discussions around health improving information have unexpectedly revolutionised their views on some of the cultural issues that directly affected their status and health; FC was such an issue. To change a revered custom, women had to gain the status necessary to raise their voices. They gained that status by feeling their weight as community members. As one woman put it:
Difference around FC did occur with men in the village, but we did not fight with our husbands or call for a mutiny. We exerted our weight as important members of the community. It is not difficult to do that; you know why? Because men already know that we are important.
FC is but a process within the culture, a process that may be done away with without losing sight of the culture. The culture is mainly to abstain till marriage, ya'ani (meaning) - no sexual freedom; the process to achieve that was thought by older generations to be FC. So far we are not proponents of sexual freedom; we are fighting to prove that our culture can stand without FC.
No one could have been more surprised upon first learning about their [women's] decision than Tostan, since ending Female Genital Cutting in communities practicing this tradition had not been one of the specific objectives of the education program. Yet this same decision quickly spread from Malicounda, to Nguerigne Bambara, to Keur Simbara, to 10 more villages in the region of Thiès and then to 18 villages in the region of Kolda (www.Tostan.org)
A valid question may arise here: the above theory is not a new statement or discovery but why didn't individuals and communities listen to it before? Why are they listening now? The difference between now and then is clear: women and other members of the community may have known many ways to better their lives but did not act on that knowledge. The recognition that as women they have the power to act and use their knowledge to their benefit made a significant difference. The change was not merely a change of attitudes towards FC, but a shift towards achieving a better life. A life that does not paralyse the indi-vidual's potential for progress. It was this thinking that brought about the conviction that FC does not fit in the future of women who are longing for gender equity and equal benefits in their communities.
A great deal of the positive change of attitudes towards what women want and how they should achieve it may be credited to the change in the discourse about FC. Debate over FC has evolved during the past decade from being a gruesome account by disgusted and/or horrified people, from non-practicing cultures,2 into one that goes on between the community members and openly discusses the rights of women and their bodily integrity. I did not have to go far to find out whether men are of the same view. Under the huge neem trees in the village of Keur Simbara, a short distance out of Dakar, I met with Dimba Diwara, whose quest to end FC was reported by the international media3 and other men from the village. Diwara is a renowned religious figure of the village and a respected one among his ethnic group. He did not mince words when he talked about how wrong it was to attach FC to Islam. He made himself available to go, by himself or with Tostan, to other villages to explain why they in Keur Simbara had given up FC. Dimba Diwara took me by the hand and pointed to his two wives and proceeded to explain:
We keep doing things most of the time without thinking about them. I say, this is what my grandfather left for my father and I ended up trusted to keep what my father did. But I do not keep everything they left me, do I? I am dressed differently; I travel on cars and trains and sometimes airplanes that they never saw. If they were here they would tell me to be a good man and a good Muslim and that is what I am being right now. Our little girls deserve better and we the men deserve healthy children and wives.
Khira's Choice: The Positive Deviance Approach in Egypt
For the first time they are not cawed into silence for fear of society's reaction to their opposition of FGM. For the first time people (who are typically the least empowered members of the community) from closed and traditional communities are standing up and speaking their mind.
The Positive Deviance Approach (PDA) or Inquiry (PDI) was pioneered by Jerry and Monique Sternin in nutrition projects in Vietnam.4 This approach is defined as an approach rather than a solution. PDA identifies those who already have found a solution to what has been identified as a problem as opposed to the traditional methods of looking for the causes of the problem (CEDPA, 1999:9). It is an approach that can be carried out only by the community and for the community. The first step is to identify ‘positive deviants’, i.e. individuals who chose not circum-cise their daughters and get those daughters and their families to hold an open discussion with members of the community. However, the definition of a positive deviant has been extended, in FC programmes to include anyone who may stand against the practice. This definition made it easy to include men and circumcised women in the efforts.
A workshop designed to provide training for community members who agreed to participate in a PDA programme, to be implemented in their neighborhoods, was held in Boulaq El-Dakroor, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Cairo, at the Center for Egyptian Women's Legal Assistance (CEWLA). Azza Suliman, an Egyptian lawyer and CEWLA's director, talked passionately about CEWLA and its location. She talked about how Boulaq El-Dakroor was not even on the map as a residential area, yet it was the home of thousands of people. CEWLA helped the members of that community get identification cards (I.D. cards were not available to people living in unplanned areas) and provided legal assistance to women. Such efforts to get governmental recognition and make the legal system accessible to those women, brought trust in the Center and attracted the community to its activities.
The women who were being trained were of different levels of education, however they all had an input on how to word the questions in a questionnaire being prepared for the community. One of the questions to be asked of the women was whether their daughters would like to undergo FC. One participant noted:
I do not expect any of my neighbors to tell me whether her daughter would not like circumcision. First, we usually do not ask daughters that question, so mothers do not know the answer. Secondly, girls know little about FC and thirdly, mothers tell them it is a good thing to have it done. End result: mothers would answer this question by saying yes. I think we should ask mothers about their own circumcision rather than what their daughters might think of FC.
If I see two people quarrelling on the street, I will tell them to disengage and move away from each other, they listen to me. When you are given the gift of being listened to it is a shame (haram) to waste this ability and not use it to benefit the community.
As someone who is a witness to the persistence of FC, I doubted that PDA would be effective as an empowering process for women. Such doubts were cleared when I met Khaira and her friends. Khaira was a 19 years old Egyptian residing in the predominantly Christian village of Abu Hashim, a few kilometres from Bani Swaif south of Cairo. The Coptic church of Bani Swaif had already formed a working relationship with Khaira. Sister Yoannah of the Coptic Organization for Services and Training (COST) had provided Khaira with a first aid kit as a service to the community. Khaira was already a caregiver involved in providing a daily service of first aid in her village. Khaira enthusiastically explained what the programme had done for her. She and her colleagues in the programme started by locating families who had uncircumcised daughters. Khaira explained:
It was not easy for a woman to admit that she was uncircumcised. There were incidents of marriage arrangements being cancelled because it was found out that the bride–to-be was not circumcised. But we kept talking to them. Once we got together and talked about our experience with circumcision, they started to feel easy and agreed to talk to us. The more we talked about our bad experiences as circumcised women and our feelings against FC, the more the uncircumcised women felt privileged. The feeling of being subordinate left them and they participated in our daily talks wherever there is a gathering of women. They started to tell us about others who were not circumcised.
Khaira's efforts against FC were consistent and systematic. She talked about the practice wherever she went and to everyone including her father, uncle and the male youth in the village. Khaira noted that COST and the Western funders of the programme were alarmed by her enthusiasm, but she was unbowed: ‘I told them, COST and others, it was none of their business. They showed me the way and I am grateful, but they cannot limit my success with their fears.’ Khaira's example demonstrates that the participants not only implemented the programme but also progressed to build their own strategies without feeling a need to check with the organisations that designed the programme. The young women did not want to stop their campaigns with the end of the programme, nor were they content that reports by the implementing organisation should be the end of their efforts.
The young ladies of Abuhashim had a personal battle against FC. It was not an organisation's objective to be attained through certain rules. It was a battle to be won. Khaira said, ‘we are doing it for our younger sisters and for those ashamed of being uncircumcised, for everyone to think about FC and other issues that are holding us down.’ At first some of the neighbours told Khaira and friends to stop talking about FC, she recalled:
One woman said to me your face is the same, your eyes are the same but your tongue has changed. I told her that it was not my tongue that had changed it was up here [pointing to her head] that had changed.
The change is obvious, these days it is those who circumcise their daughters who have to hide, they go to other places to do it and will not admit to it. That is how far along we are in Abu Hashim.
we women do not need someone to ring a bell to gather us. We are fetching water in groups, gathering at weddings, funerals, baby naming, you name it we are there in groups.
The work of the positive deviants was supported by other forces in the community. The advocates and implementers of PDA found allies in the leadership of the community. Religious leaders, Muslims and Christians, came together to condemn the practice as not being part of their faith. The young men admitted for the first time that they would rather marry an uncircumcised woman.
What Is Next?
Short programmes that address FC as an isolated problem are destined to have little effect if any. As the experiences described here demonstrate, long term comprehensive programmes, that span a wide area within a certain country or a group of countries, are needed to successfully decrease the incidence of FC and to end it once and for all. Governments will have to be involved in more than legislating laws. If governments are not catering for and answering the needs of people in other vital issues, why should they expect people to listen to them when it comes to FC? Actually history tells us of how FC was used as a weapon to defy and defeat the colonisers in Africa. African communities must be trusted to be more than recipients of instructions, who should be subjected to severe laws that ensure that they follow instructions. Laws are useful to protect those who opt out of FC regardless of what the community thinks, however, there is a huge pool of knowledge and culture that may be utilised by all activists who are looking forward to reducing the incidence of FC. Laws will be more effective when the majority of people opt to follow them. If disregarded by the majority, then their implementation becomes a humanitarian and a political problem.
Peace & Development in Africa
Henning Melber
During a visit to India in early February 1956, Dag Hammarskjöld presented one of the very rare impromptu speeches of his career as second Secretary General to the United Nations (1953 to 1961) when addressing the Indian Council of World Affairs. Prompted by a moving encounter with local culture performed in his honour earlier, his mainly extemporaneous speech explored the dimensions of human universalism. A commonality beyond Western – or, as a matter of fact, any other culturally, religiously or geographically limited – ideology or conviction.
It is no news to anybody, but we sense it in different degrees, that our world of today is more than ever before one world. The weakness of one is the weakness of all, and the strength of one – not the military strength, but the real strength, the economic and social strength, the happiness of people – is indirectly the strength of all. Through various developments which are familiar to all, world solidarity has, so to say, been forced upon us. This is no longer a choice of enlightened spirits; it is something which those whose temperament leads them in the direction of isolationism have also to accept (Hammarskjöld, 1972:661).
Isolationism is a phenomenon guided by a lack of reality or selective perceptions, found often by leaders and their followers. It is a universal feature and not confined to any particular society or group. By no coincidence it has been the British Lord Acton, who stated within the society considered to be one of the cradles of the modern day political system called democracy, that power corrupts, and that absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Former liberation movements, who after long and painful sacrifices by the oppressed people fighting against colonial occupation ultimately secured the fundamental right of self-determination and seized the legitimate political power based on popular vote, are not protected from these temptations. As a result of such ‘limits to liberation’ (Melber, 2003), Zimbabwe is in the midst of an ongoing crisis. The ‘political economy of decline’ (Dansereau/Zamponi, 2005) can hardly been ignored by anyone living in or having insights into the social and political realities. Even though Zimbabwe has in many cases recently denied the freedom of movement and the freedom of expression to those seeking to form or to articulate a view on the ground (Melber, 2004) – just as the apartheid settler colonial regimes of Rhodesia, South West Africa and South Africa had done so during earlier (and definitely not so good old) days.
Notwithstanding such disturbing features of limiting the freedom of individuals, to which numerous (and much more serious) incidences against its own people over the years since the Gukurahundi of the mid-1980s in Matabeleland have alerted, some maintain the impression as if there would exist ‘business as usual’ (and maybe it does?). There remain ‘professional denialists’, who continue to dismiss any such notion – even if the authorities of a state without any serious crisis of legitimacy could afford to allow visitors to enter their country freely. Zimbabwe's ambassador to neighbouring Namibia (where an increasing number of Zimbabweans are seeking refuge and thereby testify to the ongoing crisis at home) stated in an interview to the state-owned daily newspaper as late as mid-September 2007 that, ‘Zimbabwe […] is a peaceful paradise and politically stable since 1980’. Asked how the political situation in his country can be resolved he answered: ‘The question is misleading because it assumes that there is a political problem in Zimbabwe. This is not the case. There is no political situation in Zimbabwe’ (Sasman, 2007). According to most others and in direct contradiction to the diplomat's view there clearly is.
These more critical views do not have to be a part of or closely affiliated to any of the organised political rival groupings contributing to a chronic state of protest, unrest and repression spiralling the coun-try's people further down into misery and suffering. As the sub-regional body, SADC officially acknowledged, there is the need to mediate with the goal to bring the decline to a halt and the country back on track towards a peaceful future in stability. The Communiqué of the Extraordinary Summit of the SADC Heads of State, held because of the Zimbabwe crisis on 28-29 March 2007 in Dar es Salaam, however, provided a classic example of a dilemma when it ‘reaffirmed its solidarity with the Government and people of Zimbabwe’. In this case, obviously, one can hardly have it both ways. It is fair to assume that Zimbabwe,
has posed fundamental questions about the extent to which SADC members can and should intervene in the internal affairs of other member countries for the sake of regional interests. […] SADC has been slow to respond to the crisis. It has failed to replicate the positive solidarity that SADCC members once levelled against apartheid South Africa (Lee, 2007:129).
The next few months present a moment of truth. […] SADC and its member states have the capacity to reverse a downward spiral which increasingly threatens the region's stability but they must be prepared to support the initiative they have begun and Mbeki's mandate. This means using economic leverage, conditioning a recovery package on performance and making clear that if there is no cooperation they will not hesitate to call the initiative a failure and reject elections that are not a product of their mediation and do not comply with SADC's own democratic standards (International Crisis Group, 2007:20).
But seeking for a lasting solution for Zimbabweans means more than entering a negotiated compromise in terms of power sharing among segmented political elites representing different interests while offering guaranteed protection for perpetrators if they comply with such controlled change. In an analytically remarkable Pastoral Letter released by the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops' Conference on Holy Thursday of 2007 the internal, class-related roots of the current Zimbabwean crisis were brought to the point:
Black Zimbabweans today fight for the same basic rights they fought for during the liberation struggle. It is the same conflict between those who possess power and wealth in abundance, and those who do not; between those who are determined to maintain their privileges of power and wealth at any cost, even at the cost of bloodshed, and those who demand their democratic rights and a share in the fruits of independence; between those who continue to benefit from the present system of inequality and injustice, because it favours them and enables them to maintain an exceptionally high standard of living, and those who go to bed hungry at night and wake up in the morning to another day without work and without income; between those who only know the language of violence and intimidation, and those who feel they have nothing more to loose because their Constitutional rights have been abrogated and their votes rigged (Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops' Conference, 2007).
This briefing opened with a quote from a rather spontaneously motivated speech by Dag Hammarskjöld in 1956, documenting his firm belief in the unity of humankind and its shared values and norms. Much is left in this world even half a century later as a continuing challenge to enhance such understanding further. A challenge, which clearly embraces the need to reduce the gross imbalances, which in a very concrete and lasting material sense prevent the full implementation of such universal ethical and moral norms to the benefit of most if not all in this world of the early 21st century. But the lack of progress does not mean that Hammarskjöld's words and visions were neither practical nor realistic. For him, the work of the United Nations should build on the commonality of humankind, its conduct and experience:
With respect to the United Nations as a symbol of faith, it may […] be said that to every man it stands as a kind of ‘yes’ to the ability of man to form his own destiny, and form his own destiny so as to create a world where the dignity of man can come fully into its own (Hammarskjöld, 1972:660).
Such a demand is by no means a Eurocentric fantasy of neo-colonial or imperialist interventions, as so often claimed by those local elites under siege, simply because they are measured and judged against universal standards and values relating to fundamental and undivided human rights based principles and norms – the same principles and norms, they claimed to be fighting for, when fighting against settler-colonial minority regimes denying them those rights. The same rights they are now denying to so many among their ‘liberated’ people. The current necessity to take sides is by no means drawing a dividing line along race or the North-South axis (as relevant as such criteria for historically rooted privileges, identities and interests might generally be). Instead, such dismissals of human rights related notions are nothing more than a smokescreen, a constructed escape route for those, who try to get away cheating again the ‘wretched of the earth’. As a Pan African human rights campaigner clarified:
I have heard some people argue that the ‘enemies’ of Africa now crying about human rights did not burden their conscience with such luxuries when benefiting from 400 years of industrial scale slavery, colonialism and brutal exploitation of Africa and its peoples. In other words, that ‘white farmers’ deserve some of their own medicine. Not only does such thinking reduce Africans to the moral bankruptcy of colonialists, it also fails to understand that it risks granting unlimited and indefinite power to Africa's actual and imaginary liberators such that we may all end up be shackled by them. Africa's liberation movements drew their moral strength from the fact that on the balance, they fought for social justice, human rights, equality and democracy – for all […] (Sankore, 2007).
Henning Melber , Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, Uppsala, Sweden; e-mail: Henning.Melber@123456dhf.uu.se
Editor's Note: The Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO released a statement on the SADC mediation process which was published in The Herald in Harare on Sunday, 30 September 2007: ‘The Human Rights Forum welcomes and is fully committed to any process that is founded on principles of democracy. Such a process cannot be achieved without the full participation of the Zimbabwean people. The Forum reiterates its concerns over the SADC mediation process and its outcome, Constitutional Amendment Number 18. A people-driven constitutional process, work towards transitional justice, the holding of free and fair elections under international supervision, and the implementation of the recommendations from international human rights bodies are some of the steps needed to restore Zimbabwe to a state of good governance. The Forum is however concerned that the SADC initiated mediation process does not conform to these principles and the minimum pre-requisites of participation, transparency and accountability. The mediation process is neither transparent nor participatory, the parties have been sworn to secrecy, and there is no accountability to the citizens of Zimbabwe. The pillars of democracy can not rest on the shoulders of four men whatever their credentials may be. The Forum acknowledges that there are steps in Constitutional Amendment Number 18 towards a ‘semblance’ of democracy. The Forum however cannot support such an amendment as it does not result in a people driven constitution. Such a sectorial approach to constitutional reform does not level the ground to facilitate for democratic processes in Zimbabwe. Further, given the social, economic and political climate currently prevalent, it is doubtful that democratic elections can be held in Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum calls on all stakeholders involved in the mediation process to return to a participatory, transparent and accountable process that enjoins the hope and aspirations of all Zimbabweans. Harare, 25 September 2007.
Negotiations in Western Sahara: The UN's Last Chance?
Jacob Mundy
In recent months, the 32-year old Western Sahara conflict has generated almost unprecedented media coverage, all because of one de-contextualised fact. The pro-independence Polisario Front and the occupying Moroccan government met to discuss the disputed Britain sized territory in June and August 2007. Optimists pointed out that these were the first face-to-face meetings between the two antagonists since 2000. For pessimists, this author included (see Mundy, 2007) the mere existence of talks has come as a surprise. Nonetheless, the chances of a Polisario-Morocco agreement any time in the near future remains nil given that both sides are still attached to diametrically opposed positions. As always, Polisario continues to demand a selfdetermination referendum on independence for the native Sahrawi population of Western Sahara. Morocco, on the other hand, says independence is off the table, though it is willing to discuss an asymmetric power-sharing agreement (i.e., limited ‘autonomy’).
High Stakes, Low Expectations
In terms of substance, there is little to report from the talks. According to participants and close observers, both rounds – 18-19 June and 10-11 August on Long Island in New York – were essentially a meet-and-greet. On the one hand, Polisario's delegation was the same respected ‘founding fathers’ who had represented Polisario at previous UN talks: Mahfoud Ali Beiba, Brahim Ghali, Ahmed Boukhari and Emhammed Khaddad. Morocco, on the other hand, sent an all new ‘dream team’ to the talks.
Though King Mohammed VI's closest advisors, they had no direct experience with Polisario: Tayeb Fasi Fihri, Fouad Ali Himma, Chakib Benmoussa and Yassin Mansouri. Making matters even more awkward, the Moroccan delegation included two members from the Royal Advisory Council for Saharan Affairs. From Morocco's point of view, the Western Sahara conflict is an internal matter and Polisario are thus separatists. To make this point, elements of the interior ministry, internal security chiefs and Rabat's co-opted Saharan leaders dominated Morocco's delegation. Yet in previous negotiations in 1997 and 2000, Morocco's delegation could only consist of members of the Foreign Ministry. Given that Morocco's delegation was entirely new, and composed in such a way as to offend Polisario, little progress was made. Following the second round of talks, UN Secretary-General Ban Kimoon flatly noted,
Even though there has not been any visible progress in these negotiations, both sides had I think substantively good discussions […]. What is important at this time is that they have agreed to continue their dialogue (Associated Press, 14 August 2007).
A date for the next round of talks has not been set, though any meetings will likely take place after the UN Security Council gathers in October to discuss the ‘progress’ made so far. In the meantime, the Moroccan government will be tied down with aftermath legislative elections in early September and Polisario has scheduled its major congress for December. It is unlikely that the outcome of these events will change the Western Sahara dynamic, unless Morocco is unsettled by an Islamist landslide and/or Polisario's leaders face stiff challenges from disgruntled constituents.
The peace process in Western Sahara was originally predicated on the idea that Morocco was willing to participate in a referendum on independence. This was the promise the late King Hassan II of Morocco made at the 1981 Organization of African Unity summit in Nairobi. In 1975, Morocco had invaded Western Sahara with the support of the United States and France, forcing Spain, the colonial power, out. Polisario contested the occupation and received backing from Algeria to fight for independence. The war for Western Sahara continued until 1991, when a UN peacekeeping force arrived to hold a referendum on independence. Disputes over who should vote in the referendum raged for the next nine years. When Hassan II died in 1999, his son, King Mohammed VI, soon reversed Morocco's Sahara policy and insisted independence is off the table. Polisario, however, remains firmly tied to the idea that the native Sahrawi people of Western Sahara are owed the right to self-determination, an idea that has substantial backing in the international community.
Making matters worse, this insurmountable divide between Morocco and Polisario is coddled – not confronted – by the UN Security Council. To comfort Morocco, the Council's last resolution on Western Sahara, the one that triggered the new round of talks (Resolution 1754, 30 April 2007), called for negotiations ‘without preconditions’ to achieve ‘a mutually acceptable political solution’. To further grease the wheels with Rabat, the Security Council – under pressure from the US – deemed Morocco's recent so-called autonomy proposal for Western Sahara ‘serious and credible’. Moroccan could now participate in negotiations because its diplomats could reasonably claim (1) that self-determina-tion was not a ‘precondition’, (2) that a ‘mutually acceptable’ solution precludes the UN from imposing a settlement, and (3) that Morocco's autonomy proposalwould be central to the negotiations.
For Polisario, Resolution 1754 said that any negotiated solution ‘will provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara'. This allowed Polisario to enter into negotiations with their most basic demand: self-determination intact, even if the Council was at pains to avoid casting it as a precondition.
The summer 2007 talks were a victory for quiet diplomacy of the UN Secretary-General's Personal Envoy to Western Sahara, former Dutch diplomat Peter Van Walsum. He took the post in 2005 and had some rather large shoes to fill, those of former US Secretary of State James Baker, who attempted to resolve the Western Sahara conundrum from 1997 to 2004.
Though Van Walsum's initial assessments were bleak, he slowly manoeuvred the parties into negotiations. His first task was to coax a counter-proposal out of Morocco. From 2003 to 2007, the deadlock stemmed from Rabat's rejection of the 2003 ‘Baker Plan’, which was accepted by Polisario and Algeria and supported by the Security Council (see Mundy, 2005). Finally, on 11 April 2007, Morocco presented its long-awaited autonomy proposal.
There was little to note in Morocco's autonomy proposal, for it was simply a carbon copy of the 2003-2004 ‘nonpapers’ submitted in secret to Baker but leaked to the Moroccan press. Yet the ‘new’ Moroccan proposal, like previous offers, fails to meet the most basic minimum juridical requirement of autonomy. The local government in Western Sahara is still subject to the ultimate authority of the Moroccan King. It does not even need mentioning that the idea of a referendum on independence is nowhere to be found in the proposal.
Once Morocco's proposal was on the table, Van Walsum had to convince Polisario that it had nothing to lose if it engaged in negotiations with Morocco. Since 2003, Polisario's basic demand for talks was that Morocco had to accept the principles of the Baker Plan, above all a referendum with an independence option. While the 2003 Baker Plan was quickly dropped from Security Council resolutions (though not explicitly rejected either), the Council and the Secretariat continued to promise the Western Saharans their long-due referendum on independence. If Polisario had held out any longer, then it would, by implication, become the obstructionist party, a label it has successfully pinned on Morocco by accepting the Baker Plan in 2003.
This is not to suggest that the UN Security Council's Permanent Five and the Secretariat really care about the principle of self-determination in what is Africa's last official colony. Indeed, the Secretariat let slip its feelings on the matter when its 29 June interim report on Western Sahara was first released after the first round of negotiations (18-19 June). Under the ‘observations’ heading, Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon stated,
I would like to recommend that the Security Council call on all Member States to lend assistance to the process by urging both parties to make every effort to maintain the momentum and to impress upon them that a final resolution of the conflict will require flexibility and sacrifice from both of them. In that context, the Frente Polisario could be asked to test Morocco's readiness to take part in serious, constructive negotiations by making concrete proposals to define, clarify or amend provisions in the proposal of Morocco, leaving the final status out of consideration at this stage (UN Security Council document S/2007/385, 27 June 2007, first release).
If the UN Secretariat seems to think there is an opening in the Western Sahara conflict, the cause of this belief likely lies in Washington, not North Africa. In the past year, the US has taken an abrupt turn away from its longstanding ambivalence and towards a more openly pro-Moroccan position. While the peace process was under Baker's guidance from 1997 to 2004, the Bush administration deferred to his leadership. During the brief tenure of John Bolton – a Baker protégé – as the US representative to the United Nations (2005-2006), US policy remained basically torn between its interests in Rabat and Algiers. However, after Bolton's departure, White House pressure increased on the State Department to show more support for Moroc-co's autonomy proposal. This is emanating from the office of Elliot Abrams, head of Middle East policy on the US National Security Council, a staunch neoconservative and a former Reagan era official convicted of crimes relating to the Iran-Contra Affair. In addition to this ‘ace in the hole’ in the White House, Morocco has also spent millions of dollars on high-powered lobbying firms in the US Congress, eroding Polisario's bi-partisan backing while building support for ‘autonomy’ (Zunes, 2007).
Like most Bush administration policies in the Middle East, its new tack on Western Sahara is short sighted and will likely prove counter-productive. Even if expectations are low, the stakes in Western Sahara are higher than they have ever been. The Morocco-Polisario negotiations are proceeding under bad faith: Polisario has no interest in autonomy; Morocco has no intention of discussing a referendum on independence; and the Security Council has no intention of forcing Morocco to re-consider its position on this key issue. The almost inevitable collapse of these talks will leave Western Saharan nationalists with even less faith in the ‘good offices’ of the United Nations and a greater feeling that armed struggle is the only language Morocco will understand.
Intifadah
The ongoing nationalist ‘Intifadah’ inside the Moroccan controlled Western Sahara entered its second year in May. Large demonstrations, like those witnessed in 1999, 2002 and 2005, have become rare. When there are protests, they are small in scale and typically spontaneous. Meanwhile, Sahrawi youths have continued their block-by-block efforts to graffiti pro-independence messages and hang Polisario flags on power lines. Sahrawi youths have become so radicalised at increasingly younger ages that many of the primary schools in the cities of Western Sahara are now surrounded by Moroccan police and military guards.
Over the past two years, Moroccan efforts to squelch the Intifadah have met with some success. Morocco has shrewdly refrained from overt mass coercion, which tends to draw unwanted attention from the international press and makes an easy targets for now ubiquitous digital cameras. Instead, the Moroccan security apparatus in Western Sahara has opted for more selective harassment of pro-independence activists of all ages. The Sahrawi Association of Victims of Grave Human Rights Violations (asvdh.net) has collected and disseminated testimonies and images of these cases of selective abuse, detailing many instances where Morocco has harassed, detained, and even tortured Sahrawis of various ages, including minors and young women. The result is that the Intifadah remains at a low simmer. Potentially, though, the situation could completely boil over.
Perhaps as a reaction to increasing Morocco surveillance, persecution and repression, there were growing signs that the Intifadah might adopt more violent forms of resistance. Until recently, the Intifadah has attempted to maintain a strict code of non-violent civil disobedience. In July, however, an unknown group attacked a police vehicle with Molotov cocktails. The scant commentary on this event offered by the Moroccan government suggests that there was something to hide (i.e., it really happened). In other words, rather than publicise this attack as a terrorist act to gain sympathy, the Moroccan press ignored it. This silence was similar to Rabat's treatment of an apparent attack on the conveyor belt that shuttles raw phosphate from the large mine at Bukra' to the port of al-‘Uyun several months ago. Contrast this to the recent spat of botched suicide bombings in Morocco proper, which have received endless streams of coverage and comment.
Within the Intifadah, there are roughly two generations of activists: first-genera-tion nationalists who remember Spanish colonialism and second-generation activists who have grown up under Moroccan occupation. While it is the latter that give the Intifadah its in-the-street militancy and ‘You-Tube’ savvy, the former act as the political leadership at home and abroad. In recent months, this latter segment of Sahrawi civil society has taken a more explicitly nationalist role. In the past, Sahrawi activists had avoided touching on ‘final status’ issues, partially out of fear of Morocco's likely negative reaction and partially out of quiet deference to Polisario. Before the ascension of King Mohammed VI in 1999, Sahrawis were only allowed to form charitable (i.e., non-political) organisations under the previous King, Hassan II (d.1999). In the democratic opening promised by Mohammed VI, one Sahrawi human rights organisation was officially recognised, the Sahara Branch of the Moroccan NGO, the Forum for Truth and Justice. However, the Moroccan state dissolved the Sahara Branch in 2003 and has refused to recognise any of the other Sahrawi human rights groups in operation.
The Moroccan regime's refusal to accommodate Sahrawi nationalist elements is symptomatic of Rabat's longstanding refusal to acknowledge Western Saharan nationalism. It is also indicative of the retrograde democratisation process under King Mohammed VI, where press freedom and the right to free association are clearly under attack from the throne in Western Sahara and Morocco (Freedom House, 2007). As the Committee to Protect Journalists recently noted, ‘[P]ress freedom has eroded under what many journalists and human rights groups consider a government-inspired judicial assault against outspoken newspapers’ (2007).
Nevertheless, dissident Sahrawi groups have kept up the pressure as best they can. Shortly before the second round of negotiations, several Sahrawi groups, most of them human rights organisations, sent an open letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. They called for a self-determination referendum, but only after providing a litany of complaints: abuses by Moroccan security agents, the large number of Sahrawi political prisoners held by Morocco, the danger posed by Moroccan land-mines to nomads, and the still unknown fate of several hundred Sahrawis who disappeared into Moroccan prisons in the 1970s and 1980s.
Following the negotiations, one of the leading Sahrawi rights groups, the Collective of Sahrawi Human Rights Defenders (CODESA) released a statement on 13 August in which they reiterated the demands of the previous letter. One of those is a standing request to the United Nations to publish a 2006 report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. In 2006, a UN human rights mission visited both sides of the conflict: the Moroccan controlled Western Sahara and the Polisario administered refugee camps near Tindouf, Algeria. What is noteworthy about these statements is that, for the first time, Sahrawi nationalists living under Moroccan occupation are asserting themselves into the political sphere.
That is, instead of directing their appeals to Amnesty International and European solidarity groups, the Sahrawi civil society now feels comfortable addressing themselves to the highest levels of the international community. Furthermore, these actions, and the Intifadah generally, serve to boost Polisario's legitimacy in the peace process, as it further affirms that Morocco has clearly failed to win the hearts and minds of many Sahrawis. In fact, the Intifadah has become central to Polisario's overall strategy. Following the second round of talks with Morocco, Polisario's president in exile, Mohammed Abdelaziz, threatened, ‘Saharawi Intifada in the occupied territories of Western Sahara will continue and develop in new methods until the independence’ (Sahrawi Press Service, 24 August 2007). The most pressing question for Polisario is not, When will the negotiations with Morocco collapse? That is already a given. The bigger question the one that will preoccupy discussions at the forthcoming Polisario congress - is, What will Polisario do when it is finally faced with no realistic option besides a return to armed conflict?
Jacob Mundy, e-mail: Jacob.A.Mundy@ exeter.ac.uk
‘How an Ordinary Boy Became an Extraordinary Man’: Hussein Adam
Faisal Roble
On the evening of Friday, 17 August 2007, under heavy and thunderous skies of Columbus city in Ohio, one of Soma-lia's eminent scholars [and one of ROAPE's longest-serving editors], Dr. Hussein M. Adam, was honoured by the Somali Studies International Association (SSIA) for his sustained contributions to Somali Studies.
Professor Said S. Samatar of Rutgers University, who skillfully served as the MC, organised a by-invitation-only dinner; it was to be an exclusive banquet, or so we thought, until a horde of uninvited individuals crashed in, prompting Professor Samatar to snap at them, in order to shame and eventually steer them into paying up, but to no avail. A la Somali culture, they quickly transformed themselves into hard-to-ignore guests, just like the nomad who for the first time came to a city and, when ignored by its pedestrians, retorted, Magaaloy waligaaba i dhaaf dhaaf, haddee aduun baa marti laguu yahay.
In its thirty years of existence, founded in 1978, the Association did not give such an honour until now to anyone of its elders or founding members. As a founding president and the inventor of the very name of the association, Said eloquently delivered an engaging tribute, with which he entertained us during the course of a delicious dinner, that introduced Hussein the author, the activist and the extraordinary intellectual to a captive audience.
In honouring Hussein, or, as he is nicknamed, ‘Hussein Tanzani, Professor Samatar hit a home-run for his effort to familiarise us with Hussein the prodigious child, the man, and the soon-to-be senior citizen. In between was a long narrative of his survival, the premier learning institutions he has attended, a range of contributions to a nationbuilding campaign. But above all, we came to know the stick-to-it and loving husband that he is to his ailing wife, Fadumo Abulsamad.
With his unparalleled command, and, may I say, agility, to tap dance around and massage the written word, thence mincing at each line that he artfully weaved into a tasty and pertinent text, the master of ceremony of the night took us to the foothills of Kilimanjaro and the environment that shaped Hussein's childhood, a child longing for returning to his forefathers landscape in exchange for East Africa's alienating society. Born to and raised in a mosaic world of a Somali father, a Masia and Indian mother, Hussein, we came to know, had been an outsider and has always defied categorisation for most of his 63 years; he longed for a social and political space of Somali dominance, to mainly embrace its values and in turn be embraced.
I first met Dr. Hussein in 1978 when I was a junior at Lafoole College, Somali National University, where Dr. Hussein's footprints are hard to erase. My early impressions about his intellectual prowess and his leftist orientation were cemented at the wake of the 1979 Annual International Franz Fanon Conference, held in Mogadishu, Somalia. The ‘who's who’ of Pan-Africanism (Amiru Baraka, Granga, founder of the ‘Kwanza’ tradition, Claudia Mitchell-Kernnon, Vice chancellor of UCLA, who was instrumental in my admission to that institution in 1982, thanks to her unbridled love for Somalis after that conference, Karim Abdul-Jabbar, yes, that Abdulkarim-Jabar! et al.) descended into the Mogadishu of 1979, a city of peace and prosperity. It is fitting here to add that Dr. Hussein wrote his dissertation for his Harvard Ph.D. (in Political Science) on ‘The Social and Political Thoughts of Frantz Fanon’ – a manuscript that I devoured (in 1978) at the then bustling but modestly stocked Lafoole library. As a young Marxist, or so I thought of myself, who fled Ethiopia's oppressive conditions, Hussein's dissertation, a comprehensive review of Marxism in the tradition of Fanon, left me with lasting impressions (for further info, see wardheernews).
US to Create New Regional Military Command for Africa: AFRICOM
Daniel Volman
On 6 February 2007, President Bush announced that the United States would create a new military command for Africa, to be known as Africa Command or Africom. Throughout the Cold War and for more than a decade afterwards, the US did not have a military command for Africa; instead, US military activities on the African continent were conducted by three separate military commands: the European Command, which had responsibility for most of the continent; the Central Command, which oversaw Egypt and the Horn of Africa region along with the Middle East and Central Asia; and the Pacific Command, which administered military ties with Madagascar and other islands in the Indian Ocean.
Until the creation of Africom, the administration of US-African military relations was conducted through three different commands. All three were primarily concerned with other regions of the world that were of great importance to the United States on their own and had only a few middle-rank staff members dedicated to Africa. This reflected the fact that Africa was chiefly viewed as a regional theater in the global Cold War, or as an adjunct to US-European relations or, as in the immediate post-Cold War period, as a region of little concern to the United States. But when the Bush administration declared that access to Africa's oil supplies would henceforth be defined as a ‘strategic national interest’ of the United States and proclaimed that America was engaged in a Global War on Terrorism following the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 11 September 2001, Africa's status in US national security policy and military affairs rose dramatically (Volman, 2003, Klare & Volman, 2006).
According to Theresa Whelan, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for African Affairs – the highest ranking Defense Department official with principal responsibility for Africa at the Pentagon, who has supervised US military policy toward Africa for the Bush administration – Africom will attain the status of a sub-unified command under the European Command by 1 October 2007, and is scheduled to be fully operational as a separate unified command no later than 1 October 2008 (Whelan, 2007). The process of creating the new command will be conducted by a special transition team – which will include officers from both the State Department and the Defense Department – that will carry out its work in Stuttgart, Germany, in coordination with the European Command (Whelan, 2007).
Africom will not look like traditional unified commands. In particular, there is no intention, at least at present, to assign the new command control over large military units. This is in line with ongoing efforts to reduce the presence of large numbers of American troops overseas in order to consolidate or eliminate expensive bases and bring as many troops as possible back to the United States where they will be available for deployment anywhere in the world that Washington wants to send them. Since there is no way to anticipate where troops will be sent and the Pentagon has the ability to deploy sizable forces over long distances in a very short time, Washington plans to keep as many troops as possible in the United States and send them abroad only when it judges it necessary. This, however, was exactly the intention when the Clinton and Reagan administrations created the Central Command and based it in Tampa, Florida; and now the Central Command is running two major wars in southwest Asia from headquarters in Qatar.
Africom will also be composed of both military and civilian personnel, including officers from the State Department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and the commander of the new command will have both a military and a civilian deputy. On 10 July 2007, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced that the President had nominated four-star General William E. ‘Kip’ Ward to be the commander of Africom. General Ward, an African-American who was commissioned into the infantry in 1971, is currently serving as the deputy commander of the European Command. Previously he served as the commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry) in Mogadishu, Somalia during ‘Operation Restore Hope’ in 1992-1994, commander of the NATO-led Stabilization Force in Bosnia during ‘Operation Joint Forge’ in 2002-2003, and chief of the US Office of Military Cooperation at the American Embassy in Cairo, Egypt. The novel structure of the new command reflects the fact that Africom will be charged with overseeing both traditional military activities and programmes that are funded through the State Department budget (see below for details on these programmes).
The Bush administration has emphasised the uniqueness of this hybrid structure as evidence that the new command has only benign purposes and that and that, in the words of Theresa Whelan, while ‘there are fears that Africom represents a militarization of US foreign policy in Africa and that Africom will somehow become the lead US Government interlocutor with Africa. This fear is unfounded’ (Whelan, 2007). Therefore, Bush administration officials insist that the purpose of Africom is misunderstood. As Theresa Whelan (Whelan, 2007) put it in her congressional testimony,
Some people believe that we are establishing Africom solely to fight terrorism, or to secure oil resources, or to discourage China. This is not true. Violent extremism is cause for concern, and needs to be addressed, but this is not Africom's singular mission. Natural resources represent Africa's current and future wealth, but in a fair market environment, many benefit. Ironically, the US, China and other countries share a common interest – that of a secure environment. Africom is about helping Africans build greater capacity to assure their own security.
The hope that the Pentagon can build up African surrogates who can act on behalf of the United States is precisely why Washington is providing so much security assistance to these regimes and why it would like to provide even more in the future. Indeed, as argued below, this is actually one of the main reasons that Africom is being created at this time.
So why is Africom being created and why now? I would argue that the answer to this question is twofold. First, the Bush administration would like to significantly expand its security assistance programmes for regimes that are willing to act as surrogates, for friendly regimes – particularly in countries with abundant oil and natural gas supplie -and for efforts to increase its options for more direct military involvement in the future; but it has had difficulty getting the US Congress and the Pentagon to provide the required funding or to devoting the necessary attention and energy to accomplish these tasks. The creation of Africom will allow the administration to go to the US Congress and argue that the establishment of Africom demonstrates the importance of Africa for US national security and the administration's commitment to give the continent the attention that it deserves. If Africa is so important and if the administration's actions show that it really wants to do all sorts of good things for Africa, it hopes to be in a much stronger position to make a convincing case that the legislature must appropriate substantially greater amounts of money to fund the new command's operations. And within the Pentagon, the establishment of Africom as a unified command under the authority of a high-ranking officer with direct access to the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff will put the new command in a much stronger position to compete with other command for resources, manpower, and influence over policymaking.
Secondly, key members of the Bush administration, a small, but growing and increasingly vocal group of legislators, and influential think-tanks have become more and more alarmed by the growing efforts of China to expand its access to energy supplies and other resources from Africa and to enhance its political and economic influence throughout the continent. These ‘alarmists’ point to the considerable resources that China is devoting to the achievement of these goals and to the engagement of Chinese officials at the highest level – including President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, both of who have made tours of the continent and have hosted high-level meetings in Beijing with African heads of state – as evidence of a ‘grand strategy’ on the part of China that jeopardises US national security interests and that is aimed, ultimately, at usurping the West's position on the continent. The creation of Africom, therefore, should be seen as one element of a broad effort to develop a ‘grand strategy’ on the part of the United States that will counter, and eventually defeat, China's efforts. It should also be understood as a measure that is intended to demonstrate to Beijing that Washington will match China's actions, thus serving as a warning to the Chinese leadership that they should restrain themselves or face possible consequences to their relationship with America as well as to their interests in Africa.
So, what will Africom actually do when it becomes fully operational? Basically, it will take over the implementation of a host of military, security cooperation, and security assistance programmes, which are funded through either the State Department or the Defense Department. These include the following:
African Center for Strategic Studies (ACSS)
This academic institution was created by the Defense Department in 1999 to conduct research, analysis, and education on issues of African security and defense activities. Based at the National Defense University in Washington, DC, the ACSS opened an annex at the US embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 2006 and is planning to establish other annexes elsewhere on the continent.
Africa Clearinghouse
This agency was created by the Defense Department within the European Command in 2004 to coordinate US activities with those of other countries engaged in security cooperation and assistance in Africa, particularly with France and the United Kingdom.
Bilateral & Multilateral Joint Training Programs & Military Exercises
The United States provides military training to African military personnel through a wide variety of training and education programmes. In addition, it conducts military exercises in Africa jointly with African troops and also with the troops of its European allies to provide training to others and also to train its own forces for possible deployment to Africa in the future. These include the following:
Flintlock 2005 & 2007
These are Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) exercises conducted by units of the US Army Special Forces and the US Army Rangers, along with contingents from other units, to provide training experience both for American troops and for the troops of African countries (small numbers of European troops are also involved in these exercises). Flintlock 2005 was held in June 2005, when more than 1,000 US personnel were sent to North and West Africa for counterterrorism exercises in Algeria, Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, and Chad that involved more than 3,000 local service members. In April 2007, US Army Special Forces went to Niger for the first part of Flintlock 2007 and in late August 2007, some 350 American troops arrived in Mali for three weeks of Flintlock 2007 exercises with forces from Algeria, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Tunisia, Burkina Faso, France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Both Flintlock exercises were conducted as part of Operation Enduring Freedom – Trans-Saharan Counter-Terrorism Partnership (TSCTP) which now links the US with eight African countries: Mali, Chad, Niger, Mauritania, Nigeria, Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria. In 2004, the TSCTP was created to replace the Pan-Sahel Counter-Terror-ism Initiative, which was initiated in 2002. The TSCTP also involves smaller, regular training exercises conducted by US Army Special Forces throughout the region. Although changing budgetary methodology makes it difficult to be certain, it appears that the TSCTP received some $31 million in FY 2006, nearly $82 million in FY 2007, and is expected to receive approximately $100 million annually from FY 2008 through FY 2013 (Daly, 2007).
Africa Contingency Operations Training & Assistance Program (ACOTA)
This programme, which began operating in 2002, replaces the African Crisis Response Initiative launched in 1997 by the Clinton administration. In 2004, it became part of the Global Peace Operations Initiative. ACOTA is officially designed to provide training to African military forces to improve their ability to conduct peacekeeping operations, even if they take place in hostile environments. But since the training includes both defensive and offensive military operations, it also enhances the ability of participating forces to engage in police operations against unarmed civilians, counter-insurgency operations, and even conventional military operations against the military forces of other countries. By FY 2007, 19 African countries were participating in the ACOTA programme: Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. New budgetary methodology makes it impossible to ascertain the levels of funding for ACOTA, since the programme's funding is subsumed within the budget for the Global Peace Operations Initiative.
International Military Education & Training Program (IMET)
The IMET programme brings African military officers to military academies and other military educational institutions in the United States for professional training. Nearly all African countries participate in the programme including Libya for the first time in FY 2008; in FY 2006 (the last year for which country figures are available – it trained 14,731 students from the African continent (excluding Egypt) at a cost of $14.7 million.
Foreign Military Sales Program (FMS)
This programme sells US military equipment to African countries; such sales are conducted by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency of the Defense Department. The US government provides loans to finance the purchase of virtually all of this equipment through the Foreign Military Financing Program (FMF), but repayment of these loans by African governments is almost always waived, so that they amount to free grants. In FY 2006, sub-Saharan African countries received a total of nearly $14 million in FMF funding, and the Maghrebi countries of Morocco and Tunisia received almost another $21 million; for FY 2007, the Bush administration requested nearly $15 million for sub-Saharan Africa and $21 million for the Morocco and Tunisia; and for FY 2008, the administration requested nearly $8 million for sub-Saharan Africa and nearly $6 million for the Maghreb.
African Coastal & Border Security Program (ACBS Program)
This programme provides specialised equipment (such as patrol vessels and vehicles, communications equipment, night vision devices, and electronic monitors and sensors) to African countries to improve their ability to patrol and defend their own coastal waters and borders from terrorist operations, smuggling, and other illicit activities. In some cases, airborne surveillance and intelligence training also may be provided. In FY 2006, the ACBS Program received nearly $4 million in FMF funding, and the Bush administration requested $4 million in FMF funding for the programme in FY 2007. No dedicated funding was requested for FY 2008, but the programme may be revived in the future.
Excess Defense Articles Program (EDA)
This programme is designed to conduct ad hoc transfers of surplus US military equipment to foreign governments. Transfers to African recipients have included the transfer of C-130 transport planes to South Africa and Botswana, trucks to Uganda, M-16 rifles to Senegal, and coastal patrol vessels to Nigeria.
Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA)
In October 2002, the US Central Command played the leading role in the creation of this joint task force that was designed to conduct naval and aerial patrols in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and the eastern Indian Ocean as part of the effort to detect and counter the activities of terrorist groups in the region. Based at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti, long the site of a major French military base, the CJTF-HOA is made up of approximate 1,400 US military personnel – primarily sailors, Marines, and Special Forces troops – that works with a multinational naval force composed of American naval vessels along with ships from the navies of France, Italy, and Germany, and other NATO allies. The CJTF-FOA provided intelligence to Ethiopia in support of its invasion of Somalia in January 2007 and used military facilities in Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Kenya to launch its own attacks against alleged al-Qaeda members involved in the Council of Islamic Courts in Somalia in January and June of 2007 (Gordon & Massetti, 2007). The command authority for CJTF-HOA, currently under the US Central Command, will be transferred to Africom by 2008.
Joint Task Force Aztec Silence (JTFAS)
In December 2003, the US European Command created this joint task force under the commander of the US Sixth Fleet (Europe) to carry out counter-terror-ism operations in North and West Africa and to coordinate US operations with those of countries in those regions. Specifically, JTFAS was charged with conducting surveillance operations using the assets of the US Sixth Fleet and to share information, along with intelligence collected by US intelligence agencies, with local military forces. The primary assets employed in this effort are a squadron of US Navy P-3 ‘Orion’ based in Sigonella, Sicily. In March 2004, P-3 aircraft from this squadron and reportedly operating from the southern Algerian base at Tamanrasset were deployed to monitor and gather intelligence on the movements of Algerian Salafist guerrillas operating in Chad and to provide this intelligence to Chadian forces engaged in combat against the guerrillas (Jane's Islamic, 2004; Jane's Defense, 2004; Hunt, 2007).
Naval Operations in the Gulf of Guinea
Although American naval forces operating in the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea and other areas along Africa's shores are formally under the command of the US Sixth Fleet based in the Mediterranean, and other US Navy commands, Africom will also help coordinate naval operations along the African coastline. As US Navy Admiral Henry G. Ulrich III, the commander of US Naval Forces (Europe) put it to reporters at Fort McNair in Washington, DC, in June 2007, ‘we hope, as they [Africom] stand up, to fold into their intentions and their planning,’ and his command ‘will adjust, as necessary’ as Africom becomes operational (Gilmore, 2007). In a significant expansion of US Navy operations in Africa, the USS. Fort McHenry amphibious assault ship will begin a six-month deployment to the Gulf of Guinea in November 2007. The ship will carry 200-300 sailors and US Coast Guard personnel and will call at ports in eleven countries: Angola, Benin, Cameroon, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Nigeria, Sao Tome and Principe, and Togo. Its mission will be to serve as a ‘floating schoolhouse’ to train local forces in port and oil-platform security, search-and rescue missions, and medical and humanitarian assistance. According to Admiral Ulrich, the deployment matches up perfectly with the work of the new Africa Command. ‘If you look at the direction that the Africa Command has been given and the purpose of standing up the Africom, you’ll see that the [Gulf of Guinea] mission is closely aligned,’ he told reporters (Gilmore, 2007).
Base Access Agreements for Cooperative Security Locations & Forward Operating Sites
Over the past few years, the Bush administration has negotiated base access agreements with the governments of Gabon, Kenya, Mali, Morocco, Tunisia, Namibia, Sao Tome, Senegal, Uganda, and Zambia. Under these agreements, the United States gains access to local military bases and other facilities so that they can be used by American forces as transit bases or as forward operating bases for combat, surveillance, and other military operations. They remain the property of the host African government and are not American bases in a legal sense, so that US government officials are, technically, telling the truth when they deny that the United States has bases in these countries. To date, the United States has done little to improve the capabilities of these facilities, so that there is little or no evidence of an American military presence at these locations.
In addition to these publicly acknowledged base access agreements, the Pentagon was granted permission to deploy P3 ‘Orion’ aerial surveillance aircraft at the airfield at Tamanrasset in southern Algeria under an agreement reportedly signed in during Algerian President Aldelaziz Bouteflika's visit to Washington in July 2003 (Jane's Islamic, 2004; Jane's Defense, 2004; Hunt, 2007). The Brown and Root-Condor, a joint venture between a subsidiary of the American company, Halliburton, and the Algerian state-owned oil company, Sonatrach, is currently under contract to enlarge military air bases at Tamanrasset and at Bou Saada. In December 2006, Salafist forces used an improvised mine and small arms to attack a convoy of Brown and Root-Condor employees who were returning to their hotel in the Algerian town of Bouchaaoui, killing an Algerian driver and wounding nine workers, including four Britons and one American (Smith, 2006).
Over the course of the next 18 months, there is one major issue related to the new command that remains to be resolved: whether and where in Africa will Africom establish a regional headquarters. A series of consultations with the governments of a number of African countries – including Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Djibouti, Kenya – following the announcement of Africom found than none of them were willing to commit to hosting the new command. As a result, the Pentagon has been forced to reconsider its plans and in June 2007 Ryan Henry, the Principal Deputy Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy told reporters that the Bush administration now intended to establish what he called ‘a distributed command’ that would be ‘networked’ in several countries in different regions of the continent (Tisdall, 2007; Whitlock, 2007). Under questioning before the Senate Africa Subcommittee on 1 August 2007, Assistant Secretary Whelan said that Liberia, Botswana, Senegal, and Djibouti were among the countries that had expressed support for Africom – although only Liberia has publicly expressed a willingness to play host to Africom personnel – which clearly suggests that these countries are likely to accommodate elements of Africom's headquarters staff when they eventually establish a presence on the continent sometime after October 2008 (Tate, 2007).
Daniel Volman is the director of the African Security Research Project in Washington, DC, and the author of numerous articles on US military policy toward Africa and African security issues.
Corporate Mercenaries: The Threat of Private Military & Security Companies
Fabien Mathieu & Nick Dearden with an Introduction by Louise Richards, Chief Executive, War on Want
Corporate mercenaries are known by a variety of terms: private military companies, private security companies, military contractors or simply mercenaries. We have chosen to use the term private military and security companies (PMSCs), primarily in order to express the essential continuity between the military and security services provided by the companies in question. The same formulation is increasingly being used by the United Nations and by UK government officials, and is fast becoming the standard terminology.
War is one of the chief causes of poverty. War can completely undermine a coun-try's development prospects, destroying schools and hospitals and putting agricultural land out of use for years to come. Fully 80% of the world's 20 poorest countries have suffered a major war in the past 15 years, and the human legacy continues long after. Nine of the 10 countries with the world's highest child mortality rates have suffered from conflict in recent years.1
Yet not everyone is made poorer by war. Many companies thrive off conflict, whether through supplying military hardware to armed forces or running mercenary armies on behalf of combatant states. Others fuel conflict through their operations in war zones, such as oil companies in volatile countries like Colombia and Iraq [or Nigeria], or through their continued trade in goods such as blood diamonds. Others profit from financing the war effort.
This report forms part of War on Want's campaign to confront those companies which profit from war. The aim of the campaign is to expose the many different ways in which the corporate sector is involved in conflict, and to suggest public action to call such companies to account. This report also examines who these corporations are, what they do, how they rose so quickly to prominence, and most importantly, how democratic societies should deal with this new element of warfare.
The campaign complements War on Want's longstanding support for our partners in conflict zones: some of the world's bravest men and women, on the front line in the struggle for human rights.
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Today, the PMSC industry comprises hundreds of companies operating in more than 50 countries worldwide and working for governments, international institutions and corporations. They provide a wider array of services than traditional mercenaries, and employ better public relations machines. They are involved in direct combat, operational support, the provision of security, intelligence gathering, training, technical assistance and post-conflict reconstruction. PMSCs also encompass a wide variety of legal structures: private companies, companies listed on the stock market, and subsidiaries of much larger entities. Over the last 10 years these companies have moved from the periphery of international politics into the corporate boardroom, and are now seeking to become a respectable part of the military sector.
One recent report estimates that there are 48,000 mercenaries in Iraq. Income for the industry reached $100 billion in 2004. Behind the rise of PMSCs lie changes in political, economic and social structures over the last 30 years, and the public perception of wars that accompanied these changes. PMSCs enable governments to cover their tracks and evade accountability; they are usually not accountable to government or the public and so allow governments to get round legal obstacles. PMSCs have become so much a part of war efforts that it is believed that some major Western countries, like the UK and US, would now struggle to wage war without PMSC partners. In a conflict environment like Iraq, the distinction between combat and combat support breaks down. There is often no perceptible difference between regular soldiers and their private support workers involved in protecting convoys or materials. The potential for human rights abuses in such situations in an ever-present threat, and it is nearly impossible to hold PMSC employees to account for their actions.
The Rise of the PMSC
Private military and security companies (PMSCs) now constitute the second largest occupying force in Iraq behind the US military. Although no one knows exactly how many of these mercenaries are active in Iraq, most estimates have settled on a minimum figure of 20,000.2 The US Government Accountability Office, however, in its June 2006 report to Congress, cited a newer calculation from the Private Security Company Association of Iraq (whose membership includes many of the PMSCs featured in this report) that there are actually more than 48,000 PMSC employees working for 181 different companies in the country.3 By May 2006 at least 428 PMSC employees had been killed in Iraq.4 Others have been implicated in the scandal at Abu Ghraib prison. In Washington, DC one Democratic senator has referred to these armies as ‘a large paramilitary force’, asserting that their mission is to make the war more palatable to the public.5 British PMSC Aegis Defence Services, run by Lieutenant-Colonel Tim Spicer, coordinates all PMSCs working in Iraq today. Another PMSC previously run by Spicer, Sandline International, attracted unwanted attention for contravening a UN arms embargo by delivering weapons to the government in Sierra Leone in the 1998 ‘Arms to Africa’ scandal. Spicer claimed both the knowledge and approval of the UK government.6
From Ignoble Beginnings …
The concept of the mercenary is as old as that of the state. Today, however, mercenaries are not just individual soldiers of fortune. They are corporations, providing a range of services above and beyond what the traditional mercenary could offer. In the 20th century mercenaries were regularly involved in conflicts, especially across Africa, propping up illegitimate regimes, denying selfdetermination to indigenous peoples and actively participating in human rights abuses. Amongst the most famous was Mike Hoare, who attempted a coup in the Congo in the early 1960s and a later one in the Seychelles. More recently, Simon Mann was imprisoned in Zimbabwe in September 2004 for attempting to buy weapons to lead a military coup in Equatorial Guinea. Sir Mark Thatcher pleaded guilty to negligence for helping to finance a helicopter to be used in the attempt, receiving a four-year suspended sentence and a £265,000 fine under South Africa's anti-mercenary legisla-tion.7 The use of mercenaries increased following the end of the Cold War, as did their involvement in human rights abuses.8 But recent years have seen a new evolution in privatised warfare in the shape of PMSCs selling their services at home and overseas.
… to Multi-billion Dollar Industry
ArmorGroup estimated that the international market for ‘protective security services’ alone was worth around US$900 million in 2003 (US$300 million in Iraq), rising to an estimated US$1.7 billion by August 2004 (US$900 million in Iraq).9 Industry officials have estimated that the figure will continue to rise as US and UK forces withdraw. Other experts have suggested that combined revenues for all PMSCs across the world, broadly defined, could already be close to US$100 billion.10
PMSCs have a history of direct engagement in combat operations.11 In 1995, now-defunct Executive Outcomes employed a battalion-sized force of infantry, supported by combat helicopters and light artillery, in order to regain control of the diamond-rich Kono district of Sierra Leone and defeat Revolutionary United Front rebels who were approaching the capital.12 Sandline, also now disbanded, later played a similar role in the conflict.13 In Liberia, Intercon Security personnel guard the US embassy, and have been involved in combat with rebel forces during sieges. Few firms openly advertise their role as providers of combat services. However, Northbridge Services Group's founder Andrew Williams boasted that he could ‘put a brigade on the ground fully equipped and with full logistical support anywhere in the world within three weeks’,14 while Gary Jackson, president of Blackwater, aims to have ‘the largest, most professional private army in the world’ ready for active duties in any country.15 MPRI claims to have more than 12,000 former soldiers and other professionals on call, and though it ostensibly eschews a combat role, one US State Department official noted: 'the only difference between [Executive Outcomes and MPRI] is that MPRI hasn't pulled the trigger – yet.’16 In modern warfare, involvement in direct combat does not have to mean troops on the ground; combat refers to a broad spectrum of activities. As one analyst put it,
Rather than being simply security guards in the domestic conception, such firms stake out the control of zones and fend off military tasks, sometimes using militarystyle force. 17
Defending Corporate Interests
PMSCs have provided critical force for developing country governments in return for a share of the profits derived from the use of that force. Such was the case for former PMSC Executive Outcomes, which had a close relationship with the Branch-Heritage Group. After Executive Outcomes secured the resourcerich areas of Angola on behalf of the government, a Branch-Heritage subsidiary gained concessions over those same resources.18 In Sierra Leone, another Branch-Heritage subsidiary gained a concession in the Kono diamond fields following action by Executive Outcomes to secure them for the government.19 In the post-Executive Outcomes world, PMSCs claim that their long-term profits are dependent on their public image, and such ‘cowboy’ operations have been put behind them. Yet protecting extractive industry infrastructure remains a key element in PMSC operations. De Beers, Texaco, Chevron-Schlumberger, British Gas, Amoco, Exxon, Mobil, Ranger Oil, BP, American Airlines and Shell have all contracted DSL (now part of Armor Group).20 In Angola, US oil giant Chevron was part of a consortium that contracted AirScan to work with the Angolan army to ensure their continued control over key oil fields, thereby guaranteeing Chevron's own continued presence.21 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.22 In 1998, Belgian PMSC International Defense and Security (IDAS) sold Angolan diamond concessions obtained through a partnership with the Angolan State Mining Company to America Mineral Fields. The two companies already had a close relationship, and shortly thereafter IDAS became a wholly owned subsidiary of America Mineral Fields.23 Meanwhile in Nigeria in 2003, PMSC Northbridge set off on an operation to free dozens of British and US oil workers taken hostage by striking co-workers. Ultimately peaceful negotiations prevailed before the force arrived.24
What do PMSCs Actually do?
A s non-linear battlefields and asymmetrical methods of warfarecome to characterize more contemporary armed conflicts, the distinction between combatant and noncombatant has become increasingly blurred (J.K. Wither, ‘European Security and Private Military Companies’, PJP Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes, June 2005).
In a conflict zone such as Iraq the distinction between combat and combat support breaks down. There is often no perceptible difference between regular soldiers and the private contractors protecting convoys or materials. Even providing security for an oil company, aid agency or media outlet in such an environment necessitates being armed and ready to shoot, often under uncertain circumstances where combatants and civilians are difficult to separate. PMSCs such as Control Risks Group which have traditionally maintained that they do not employ armed guards have been cited as doing precisely that – an indication of the increased militarisation which Iraq has introduced.25
Moreover, other activities traditionally termed ‘combat support’, such as intelligence provision and military training, contain within them significant scope for human rights violations in modern warfare. As such it is impossible, when considering the impact of PMSCs, to draw neat lines between combat and noncombat operations. Some PMSCs 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.26
Intelligence gathering is another area where PMSCs are taking a larger role in what was formerly the purview of government agencies. PMSCs increasingly provide a range of services, from interrogation to strategic intelligence, in a field that is a key aspect of waging war. USAID and DFID (UK) increasingly rely on PMSCs to provide training in support of security sector reform programmes aimed at strengthening political control over the military and security establishments of weak states. While this may be a laudable objective, critics ask whether using PMSCs is the best way to spread awareness of democracy, transparency and accountability.
While there may be broad agreement on the undesirability of PMSCs playing a combat role, the definition of combat is far from clear cut. With the introduction of new technologies, operating a weapon ‘in the field’ is only one small aspect of what combat entails. Recognition of this complexity has important implications for any attempts to regulate the activities of PMSCs. PMSCs have grown to become a central component of US and UK military activity. They are now multimillion dollar enterprises, and the market is still growing… particularly the desire of governments to maintain their global reach while evading accountability from a general public increasingly unwilling to pay the costs of war.
The Privatisation of War
rivate military corporations become a way to distance themselves and create what we used to call ‘plausible deniability’… It's disastrous for democracy (Daniel Nelson, former professor of civilmilitary relations at the US Defense Department's Marshall European Center for Security Studies).
The use of PMSCs also enables governments to cover their tracks and evade accountability. Evidence which may otherwise be made available to the public under freedom of information legislation is impossible to obtain from private contractors.27 When campaign group Corporate Watch asked a US government official why the United States had awarded a contract to DynCorp to support the rebel Sudanese People's Liberation Movement in their negotiations, he replied:
The answer is simple. 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. Think of this as somewhere between a covert program run by the CIA and an overt program run by the United States Agency for International Development. It is a way to avoid oversight by Congress.’ 28
Most national armies, including those of Britain and the US, are undermanned and overcommitted. A wide range of national interests overseas demand attention and protection that uniformed soldiers are not available to provide (Max Hastings,‘We must fight our instinctive distaste for mercenaries, The Guardian, 2 August 2006).
For instance, since the mid-1980s, the British government has steadily outsourced military service functions, embracing a marketoriented approach to the military sector.33 More recently still, the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) has required private tenders for contracts covering the construction, maintenance and servicing of military facilities – contracts which typically last between 10 and 40 years. To date the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has signed 55 private finance deals, bringing private sector investment through PFI to the MoD to over £4.57 billion.34 PFI contracts do not have to be approved by parliament, which means less transparency and accountability to the public over what can amount to enormous contracts.
Weapons Trade
The end of the Cold War has also seen an erosion of political control over the means of war, and large stocks of arms have fallen onto the open market. Machine guns, helicopters, tanks and even fighter jets have become available. In Africa, a T55 tank costs US$40,000, while an AK-47 rifle can be purchased for the price of a chicken in Uganda.35 In this context, PMSCs have easily obtained the armaments they need. In Sierra Leone, Executive Outcomes mercenaries possessed attack and transport helicopters fitted with fully automatic cannons and grenade launchers.36 More worrying still, PMSCs have themselves channelled weapons into conflict situations. Life-Guard Systems, which protected diamond fields in Sierra Leone, was strongly believed to have shipped arms during the civil war there, including RPG-7 rockets, AK-47 ammunition, mines and mortar bombs to the rebel forces. A further link between PMSC operations and the weapons trade was made explicit by the UK government in its 2002 Green Paper, Private Military Companies: Options for Regulation (treated more fully in www.waronwant.org).
Western governments and multinational corporations do not represent the only market for PMSCs. Weak governments and rebel groups, especially in Africa, have relied on their expertise and force in numerous conflicts, and PMSCs are credited with shifting the balance of wars in Angola, Croatia and Sierra Leone. Yet even where the interventions may seem to have been humanitarian in their aims, troubling aspects remain. Two major problems arise from PMSCs augmenting the military capability of one side or other in a conflict.37 Firstly, the availability of mercenary assistance means that the use of force continues to be prioritised as a decisive means of bringing war to an end, as opposed to developing less bloody forms of conflict resolution. Secondly, and as a consequence, victories may be temporary. This ultimately means that weak states either come to rely on PMSCs in the long term or that the situation degenerates into conflict again as soon as the PMSCs end their contract. The profit motive behind all corporate adventures means that, at one level, PMSCs have an inherent interest in ongoing conflict and the social tensions that lie behind it. Moreover, many PMSCs are now part of large business empires involved in intelligence, surveillance and information systems, construction and energy production, and even production of weapons. These business interests provide ‘synergies’ which allow the company concerned to derive greater profits from controlling more aspects of an economic sector. Northrop Grumman and Raytheon are major arms contractors also selling PMSC services. Halliburton specialises in energy exploration and construction, but also provides logistical support to the US military. While conflicts such as the Iraq War have brought companies enormous profits, their gain has come at the expense of the victims of war. The rapid expansion of PMSCs over recent years means that there is now an urgent need to bring their activities within the compass of both legal and democratic control (see www.waronwant.co.uk for the legal initiatives in train).
In recognition of the large numbers of South Africans who have set up or served in PMSCs, the South African government has led the way in PMSC legislation. Around 2,000 South Africans are believed to be serving in PMSCs in Iraq, many trained under the Apartheid government.38 The Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance (FMA) Bill was passed in 1998 in the wake of the controversy surrounding Executive Outcomes. It bans ‘mercenary activity’ and regulates military assistance including advice, training, personnel, financial, logistical, intelligence or procurement support.39 However, loopholes and insignificant penalties have undermined the Bill's effectiveness.40 As a result, a new law, with unprecedented reach, is currently before the South African parliament. It is intended to prevent South Africans from working for PMSCs in conflict zones altogether.41 The legislation will outlaw mercenary activity and allow the government to declare certain conflicts prohibited to South Africans. The penalty for infringement will be losing South African citizenship. The US lobby group IPOA has called the legislation ‘a threat to the peace and stability industry worldwide’.42
Buying Influence
One reason for the lack of regulatory legislation is governmental unwillingness to interfere in an industry that is profitable and useful to it. However, in order to remind officials and ministers of these and other considerations, PMSCs have also developed significant lobbying capacity to prevent unwanted government interference in the US and UK alike.
In 2001, the 10 leading US private military firms spent more than US$32 million on lobbying, and donated more than US$12 million to political campaigns.43 DynCorp gave more than US$500,000 between 1999 and 2002 (72% to Republi-cans).44 CACI and Titan, the two PMSCs involved in the Abu Ghraib scandal, made political donations and employed lobbying firms to divert political pres-sure.45 Titan spent US$2.16 million from 1998 to 2004 on lobbying,46 and fully 96% of its US$1.8 billion turnover in 2003 came from US government con-tracts.47 Blackwater founder Erik Prince and his family have given US$275,550 to Republican campaigns since 1989, with nothing going to the Democrats.48 In 2001, two firms retained by DynCorp worked to block a bill that would have forced federal agencies to justify private contracts on cost-saving grounds.49 One was the lobbying firm Alexander Strategy Group (ASG).50 The ‘revolving door’ between government and PMSCs – the movement of former officials and military officers to and from the private sector, exerting political influence through their connections and inside knowledge – is also a key factor in explaining the sector's success. Black-water's vice-chair Cofer Black was coordinator for counterterrorism at the US State Department and director of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, while Joseph Schmitz, COO of Blackwater's parent company, was the Pentagon's inspector general. Three members of CACI's board have formerly worked for US government security.51 Titan's team includes two former senior air force officials and a Pentagon official.52 Best of all, MPRI president Carl Vuono is a former chief of staff for the US army (1987-1993), while the five MPRI vicepresidents were senior personnel in the army or FBI. James Roche, secretary of the air force, is a former vice-president of Northrop.53 From 1997 to 2004, the 20 largest US federal contractors hired 224 former high-ranking government officials to serve as lobbyists, board members or executives. The US non-profit organisation Project On Government Oversight (POGO) noted that:
the revolving door has become such an accepted part of federal contracting in recent years that it is frequently difficult to determine where the government stops and the private sector begins. 54
PMSCs have grown so large and so fast that legislation to regulate them is now a critical necessity. It is already four years since the UK government published its Green Paper on PMSCs, and in that time the explosion of mercenary activity in Iraq has effectively rewritten the sector's role in contemporary conflict. The UK remains in the unhappy position of having one of the most developed PMSC sectors in the world, and yet having no legal or democratic controls over it. War on Want will contribute more detailed recommendations on what form these controls should take once the government launches the public consultation which is a necessary precursor to legislation (see the War on Want website for an update on their recommendations).
Editor's Note: Thanks to War on Want for permission to publish this excerpted version of their report. See their website for the full version: www.waronwant.org.
CORPORATE MERCENARIES: THE MAJOR PLAYERS
Blackwater (USA) www.blackwaterusa.com
Blackwater was founded by multi-millionaire Erik Prince in North Carolina in 1997. Gary Jackson, its president and a former US navy SEAL, has declared that he would like to have the ‘largest, most professional private army in the world’,and other Blackwater officials have spoken of a brigade-sized armed force ready to be deployed in ‘stability’ missions. In Iraq, the company guards officials and installations and trains Iraq's new army and police forces. It provided security guards and helicopters for Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) head Paul Bremer and the then US Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte, under a contract worth US$21 million. Since June 2004 the Bush administration has paid Blackwater over US$320 million to provide ‘diplomatic security’ overseas. Blackwater has also won contracts to combat opium cultivation in Afghanistan and to support a maritime commando force in Azerbaijan.
DynCorp International LLC (USA) www.dyn-intl.com.
DynCorp is owned by Veritas Capital, a private equity investment firm, and employs 25,000 employees. It won a US$50 million contract to send 1,000 ex-police officers and security guards to Iraq to train the new police force there. Its revenue was just under US$2 billion in 2006, and it provides a broad range of military services including building camps, protecting borders and protecting Afghan president Hamid Karzai, in which role the company has acquired a reputation for aggressive behaviour. DynCorp employees in Bosnia were implicated in prostitution rings trading girls as young as 12, while others were accused of filming the rape of two women. A number of employees were fired, but no prosecutions followed.
Military Professional Resources Inc. (USA) www.mpri.com.
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, while its collaboration with the Colombian military has been widely questioned. A range of programmes continue in Africa, former Soviet states, Asia and the Middle East.
Vinnell Corporation (USA)www.vinnell.com
Vinnell is a ground-breaking PMSC 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. It was described by a Pentagon official as ‘our own little mercenary army in Vietnam … We used them to do things we either didn't have the manpower to do ourselves, or because of legal problems.’ Now a subsidiary of Northrop Grum-man,Vinnell has been awarded a US$48 million contract to train the nucleus of a new Iraqi army, while Northrop itself has been involved in counternarcotics missions in Colombia.
Aegis Defence Services (UK) www.aegis world.com
Aegis is the UK's biggest PMSC success story. The firm's 2003 turnover of £554,000 rose to £62 million in 2005, three quarters of which came from work in Iraq. It became one of the world's largest private armies with the awarding of a US$293 million contract by the CPA in Iraq in May 2004, at a time when the company was two years old and had no experience in that country. Aegis now coordinates the operations of all PMSCs working in Iraq, including handling security at prisons and oil fields. The company is run by Lieutenant-Colonel Tim Spicer, former chief executive of Sandline International of the 1998 ‘Arms to Africa’ scandal.
ArmorGroup (UK) www.armorgroup.com
Probably the largest UK-based PMSC, Armor Group has provided protective services to the extractive industries since its original incarnation as Defence Systems Limited (DSL) in 1981. ArmorGroup registered as a public limited company in 2004 and is the only British PMSC currently listed on the London Stock Exchange. Its turnover has increased from US$71 million in 2001 to US$233.2 million in 2005. The British Foreign Office and Department for International Development (DFID) awarded Armor Group armed security contracts in Kabul (March 2005), Baghdad (June 2005) and Basra (June 2005), as well as control of the Iraqi police mentoring programme in Basra. ArmorGroup recently fostered the creation of the British Association of Private Security Companies (BAPSC), the UK's trade association and lobbying arm for PMSCs.
Northbridge Services Group Ltd. (UK) www.northbridgeservices.com
When the USA was deliberating over whether to intervene in Liberia in 2003, Northbridge said it could deploy between 500 and 2,000 armed men to the country in three weeks to halt the fighting and offered to arrest Liberian president Charles Taylor for a fee of US$4 million. In 2003, the British government publicly chastised the company after reports that it was hiring British, French and South African mercenaries on behalf of the Cote d'Ivoire government; Northbridge expressed surprise given foreign secretary Jack Straw's previous support for the use of such forces.
Control Risks Group (UK) www.crg.com
Control Risks works around the world primarily with the energy sector, but also with the pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, maritime and telecommunications sectors. It provides security information, assessments and training, as well as site security. The company's turnover increased from £47 million in 2003 to £80 million in 2004. Control Risks has been employed in Iraq by the US Office of econstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), the CPA, US Department of Defense, USAID and several UN bodies to provide security and to distribute the new Iraqi and Afghani currency. The British Foreign Office has used Control Risks to provide armed guards for staff in Baghdad and Basra.
Erinys International Ltd (UK/ South Africa) www.erinysinternational.com
Erinys was formed in 2003 when the Coalition Provisional Authority awarded it security contracts worth US$100 million to defend oil sites and pipelines in Iraq. Led by a former political adviser to Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi, Erinys protects oil interests in Nigeria and has contracts from major corporations including AMEC, BHP Billiton, Anvil Mining, Siemens and the BBC.
Editor's Note: all references to this section are on the War on Want website.
CAAT & The Corner House Win Landmark Ruling on BAE-Saudi Corruption Case
At a hearing on Friday 9 November 2007 in the High Court in London, Lord Justice Moses, sitting with Mr Justice Irwin, granted permission to CAAT (Campaign Against the Arms Trade) and The Corner House to bring a full judicial review hearing against the UK Govern-ment's decision to cut short a Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation into alleged corruption by BAE Systems in recent arms deals with Saudi Arabia. Lawyers for the two groups argued before the two judges that the SFO decision was unlawful under the OECD's Anti-Bribery Convention, which the UK signed in 1997.
Lord Justice Moses agreed with the groups that the issue ‘cries out for a public hearing’ because it involves ‘matters of concern and public importance’. He stressed that the issue was closely concerned with the legal system in the UK that ‘judges have to protect’. He concluded that ‘it is in everyone's interest that a full hearing take place.’ The full judicial review hearing has now been scheduled for late January-early February and is expected to last two days.
Symon Hill of CAAT said, ‘This is brilliant news for everyone who wants to see an end to arms companies’ influence over government. We are now one step further today to the point when BAE Systems is no longer calling the shots.’ Nicholas Hildyard of The Corner House said, ‘Today is a great day for British justice. The courts have today shown that no one is above the law – not BAE Systems, not the Government, not Saudi princes. There are key legal principles at stake here. At last this case will get the public hearing it deserves.’
On 15 January 2007, 140 NGOs from 37 countries called upon Prime Minister Tony Blair to re-open the investigation of the Al Yamamah defence contract between BAE and Saudi Arabia government because of the impacts of corruption on democracy, sustainable development, human rights and poverty.
And it won't stop here. On 13 November 2006, the following was a report by David Leigh in the Guardian:
BAE Systems is being investigated for suspected corruption over an arms deal with the heavily indebted African country of Tanzania, in which commissions of more than 29% may have been paid …
Of all the company's international deals being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), the Tanzanian deal is the most politically sensitive, although it was relatively small in cash terms. The £28m military air traffic control sale was pushed through the cabinet in 2001 by Tony Blair against the heated opposition of thendevelopment minister Clare Short, who subsequently alleged corruption …
Westminster sources say that the SFO and the Ministry of Defence police, who are conducting a joint investigation into BAE's deals around the world, believe that millions of pounds were paid into Swiss banks to cement the sale. One said: ‘I was told the SFO would not be surprised if commissions exceeded 29%’. … John Bredenkamp, a Zimbabwe-based tycoon who acted as a agent for BAE in the sale by the Labour government of Hawk and Gripen warplanes worth £1.6bn to the ANC government in South Africa [is also under investigation]. He is also believed to have acted as a BAE agent in other African countries. The SFO investigations started three years ago following disclosures in the Guardian of corruption allegations against BAE, and began by inquiring into alleged ‘slush fund’ payments to Saudi Arabia. Inquiries moved to Chile, Romania, South Africa and now Tanzania.
To people in South Africa and millions around the world who supported the struggle against apartheid, it is incomprehensible that the ANC government's first major decision was to buy warships and warplanes when there is no conceivable foreign military threat and when the real threat to the consolidation of democracy is poverty. Instead of houses, schools and clinics being built, instead of money to tackle AIDS, South Africa bought submarines.
When allegations arose that BAE Systems had paid £1 million to various South African politicians (including Tony Yengeni) as a ‘first success fee’, they were referred for investigation to the British Secretary of Trade and Industry, Stephen Byers. Byers delegated the task to the London Metropolitan Police who, with desultory indifference, reported back that there was insufficient evidence to pursue the matter. The British government, however, was at that time under pressure from BAe Systems to stall on implementation of the 1997 OECD Anti-Bribery Convention. It was apparently then not illegal in Britain to bribe officials of foreign countries and, accordingly, it would seem that there was a feeling in London that there was no crime to investigate.