Libya: the First Totally Privatized War in Modern History
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LIBYA: THE FIRST TOTALLY PRIVATIZED WAR IN MODERN HISTORY A report by Javier Martín Only Turkey has officially sent troops, THE FIRST although not for combat. And the LNA has a structure that could bring it closer to that of a regular armed force, with uniforms and TOTALLY a clear consolidated chain of command. The rest of the combatants are native PRIVATIZED militias and local and foreign PMSCs contracted by both rival governments in a sort of outsourcing that offers multiple WAR IN advantages, especially for foreign powers. MODERN COSTS, WITHDRAWALS HISTORY AND ACCOUNTABILITY Javier Martín The existence of mercenaries and PMSCs is nothing new, true. They have existed since ancient times, but their pattern has changed in the last forty years. From the Alsa Masa, the anti-communist forces A victim of chaos and war since March created in the Philippines in 1984 during 2011, when NATO -pushed by France- the presidency of the controversial decided to intervene and contribute with its Ferdinand Marcos, to the armed groups missiles to the victory of the different rebel "the awakening", promoted by the United factions over the long dictatorship of States in 2006 to fight the insurgency in Muammar Al Gaddafi, Libya has been since the Sunni regions of Iraq, to the Janjaweed then the scene of an armed conflict that in tribes in the Darfur region of Sudan, the ten years has evolved from a rudimentary Community Guards in Mexico and even the civil war conditioned by the terrorism of LAGs in Spain, the militias and jihadist ideology to a highly sophisticated paramilitary organizations associated with multinational conflict, becoming the first governments have been a planetary totally privatized armed conflict in constant since at least the end of World contemporary history. War II. Defined as "groups that identify themselves as pro-government, sponsored Unlike the war in Iraq (2003), where the by an Executive (national or sub-national), trend was driven by the regular use of that are not part of the regular security groups such as "Blackwater", and the war forces, are armed and have a hierarchical in Syria, where the use of Private Military organizational structure", according to the Security Companies (PMSCs) became classic description of Sabine C. Carey, widespread, armies do not fight in the professor at the University of Mannheim Libyan conflict. Not even local ones, since ( G e r m a n y ) , t h e s e c o n t r o v e r s i a l both the "Volcano of Anger" platform, organizations act on the limits of legality, linked to the UN-supported National normally in countries in conflict or Accord Government in Tripoli and its only transition, and have more or less close, local ally, the city-state of Misrata; and the more or less visible links with the authority so-called Libyan National Army (LNA), under whose interests they prosper. under the orders of the controversial Marshal Khalifa Hafter, tutor of the According to a study conducted by Carey unrecognized Executive in Tobrouk and herself with Professors Neil J. Mitchell, a strongman of the country, are nothing more researcher at College London, and than a self-serving alliance of local militias Christopher K. Butler, from the University and warlords that have unstable loyalties. of New Mexico, "between 1982 and 2007 the governments of nearly sixty countries were linked to and cooperated with of ethnic cleansing broke out in 2003. The informal armed groups within their Janjaweed are part of the bloody criminal borders". A figure and a panorama that record of former Sudanese President remain stable, grosso modo, a decade later, General Omar Hasan al Bachir, who is but now include a series of particularities accused of genocide, war crimes and that transform these militarized entities crimes against humanity. Cruelties were into a different threat, more disturbing and similar to those attributed in the former alarming if possible: advanced 2019, most Yugoslavia to groups such as the Red of them - especially in the Middle East and Barets or the Arkan Tigers, the latter having North Africa - tend to conform to the come out of one of the most tedious pattern set by the new private military quarries of militias, the stands of football security companies in the style of the stadiums. As Xan Rice points out in his multinational Blackwater, whose use was article Terror link of Village spared by popularized by the United States after the Janjaweed, militias and paramilitary groups illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003. Once the are usually made up of former rebels, profitable business of war has been religious extremists, violent football privatized, in some regions, especially rural radicals, bandits, "the case of the areas in the north of the Sahel, Europe's Janjaweed", or gangs formed in the streets, new southern border, or in countries in like the Chimeras, used in Haiti during the chronic conflict such as Libya, the regime of Jean Bertrand Aristide (the springboard for irregular migration in the Caribbean dictator also had a praetorian Mediterranean, they have begun to become mercenary guard trained by the Steele solid heterarchies, a new concept that Foundation, one of the first PMSC US alludes to territories managed by armed companies in an already expanding sector). groups and sustained in the informal economy where the authority of the state The benefit for governments lies in the fact has practically been turned upside down. that it makes it easier for them to evade the obligation of "accountability", one of Beyond their structure and the power that the essential principles of international law they have begun to accumulate in the and the tool that prevents, in transition territories where they have settled, one of processes, the repetition of crimes, as the the concerns of the experts is their Jael Irish journalist Pady Woodworth, author of once the wars have ended, and the threat Dirty War, Clean Hands: ETA, the GAL, and they pose both to good governance and the the Spanish Democracy, recalls. "Informal defense of and respect for human rights. groups allow governments to shift With war as the reason for their existence, responsibility and use repression for a some become enforcers for policies of strategic dividend while avoiding any repression and fear that governments could accountability," insists Mitchell, Butler, not take on. As Janice E. Thomson points and Carey in their study The impact of out in her book Mercenaries, Pirates and pro-goverment Militias on Human Rights S o v e r e i g n s : S t a t e - b u i l d i n g a n d Violations. The main consequence of this extraterritorial violence in early Modern gap is a significant increase in abuses and Europe, "few governments resist the a greater difficulty in monitoring and temptation to condone and even authorize restraining the militias, the first ones non-state violence while denying their interested in the persistence of violence responsibility for it or accountability". from which they profit. In this context, the There have been many significant examples lack of control is also much more in recent decades. Take the example of the pronounced and dangerous the more fragile Jajaweed militia, the hammer of the the State authority with which they are Sudanese Government in the Darfur region. associated. In an interview published in Recruited and encouraged under ethnic April 1987 by The New York Times, one of pretexts, this Arab tribe traditionally linked the leaders of Alsa Masa stated that this to pastoralism and the camel trade has Philippine paramilitary organization "was been spreading terror in north-western useful to the military because it avoided Sudan and eastern Chad since a war with a the investigation of human rights abuses" political appearance and obvious features perpetrated in Davao City. migrant detention center in Tajoura, which was bombed at the beginning of July 2019: it was run by the local militia, one of the THE LIBYAN CASE most powerful among those acting under the umbrella of the government supported by the UN and the EU. Weeks earlier, the humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières had denounced the systematic Today, the most notable example is Libya, a violations of migrants' rights committed failed state, victim of chaos and civil war, there. "The use of these often poorly where militias condition the political trained and poorly monitored groups often agenda and rule over its economy. opens up more opportunities for violence Especially in the capital, the seat of a and contributes to more human rights ghost government imposed by the UN after violations," argued Carey, Butler and the failure of the reconciliation plan Mitchell. promoted in 2015 by the then special envoy Bernardino León, which helped to The use of these companies was introduced strengthen the influence of armed groups. in Libya by Marshal Hafter in 2015, when Although on paper the authority belongs to he launched his offensive "Operation the entity led by Fayez al Serraj, the reality Dignity" to expel the Salafist militias on the ground shows that it is the multiple associated with the former democratic katibas that impose the law in the Libyan government in Bengazi, capital of neighborhoods they occupy. And those that the east and second-largest city in the handle the economic levers: access to country, and to conquer both the city of employment, housing and even banking Derna - one of the bastions of Jihadism in services depends on the degree of northern Africa - and the Gulf of Sidra, a involvement with the group, which acts like pearl of the opulent Libyan oil industry. a mafia family, but more and better armed.