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Saiia Archives •—**»• 'SrXtyr, i'V * / «\r K& SAIIA ARCHIVES The Privatisation of Security in Africa ©SANA, 1999 AN rights are reserved While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in the South African Institute of International Affairs, copyright in the text rests with the individual authors, and no chapter may be reproduced in whole or in part without the express permission, in writing, of both the authors and the publishers. It should be noted that any opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and not of the SANA nor the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). ISBN: 1-874890-94-3 Published by the SANA, March 1999 (Printed by Print Inc.) Cover designed by Brian Robertson and Andre Snyders Photograph by Ruvan Boshoff of For$as Armada de Angola (FAA) troops under training by Executive Outcomes, 1995 Acknowledgements Acknowledgements This project was made possible by the generous financial support of the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). Grateful thanks are made to this institution, as well as the many individuals who participated, notably the respective authors and those who attended the public seminar at Jan Smuts House, Johannesburg on 10 December 1998. In addition, the SAIIA's Heather Thuynsma, Andre Snyders, Anne Katz, Pauline Watts and Pippa Lange, in particular, contributed immeasurably to the success of that event and to the production of this publication. It should be noted that nothing published here should reflect on any of these institutions or individuals. Foreword Foreword Kader Asmal1 The activities of people who perform military duty for gain are sufficiently controversial and potentially destructive to warrant close attention — even regulation — by democratic government. Our finally free South Africa has resolutely embarked on a course of regulation, in the face of considerable scepticism, including even some expressed in this volume. Regulation is not an easy path to tread, but we are determined not, in enlightenment, to repeat the delinquencies committed in darkness. We have therefore decided, with the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act, to grapple with the problem, to deal directly with the difficulties and challenges, and at all costs not to ignore this potential threat to our and our brothers' and sisters' statehood. There is no outright ban on privately-provided foreign military assistance; there is regulation. This we do acutely mindful of the problems and pitfalls that lie in our way — for instance, the difficulties of definition. This we do, too, in the ordinary discharge of our democratic responsibilities. It is at times a cumbersome burden, but we cannot but accept it. We shall not be turned from this course — which is fully in line with the requirements of our Constitution. We have been encouraged by the fact that far older democracies than ours have shown considerable interest in the statutory arrangements we have made. There is no doubt that the role of private protectors and armies has grown as conventional war has given way in much of the world to irregular, internal conflict. Africa is a case in point, as this study points out, where more than thirty wars have been fought since 1970, most of them 'intra-state' in origin. The glut of trained military personnel and equipment unleashed by the collapse of the Soviet Union and also of apartheid South Africa has provided vast new resources for those embroiled in such activity. The value of this volume is that it sheds new light on the whole subject, and draws necessary distinctions, for instance between those private domestic security firms doing a job in the fight against ordinary crime, and those murky irregular mercenary forces which can only be called the 'dogs of war1. To the extent that this work equips governments, the international community, KADER ASMAL is the South African Minister of Water Affairs and the Chair of the Parliamentary National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC). The Privatisation of Security in Africa continental and regional groupings, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), and interest groups — including human rights organisations and churches — to grapple with greater clarity and effectiveness in the matter, is a distinct advance. There is one danger that stalks Africa and certain parts of the world as never before. It is warlordism. It feeds on failed statehood. It is a rapacious protection racket, run in the interest of the few. Ordinary people are the victims and dysfunctional governments are incapable of doing anything about it. The scourge must be combated, otherwise the very fabric of society will be destroyed. And the best way to combat it is to forge the widest of coalitions, spanning world bodies, national governments, aid organisations, other NGOs and the private sector, to be resolute in dealing with it. The capacity of the state to defend itself and to protect its citizens is the essence of an ethical and moral order. We should be restrained in our support for private bodies taking over state or multinational functions. Table of Contents Table of Contents Acknowledgements Foreword vii Kader Asmai The Privatisation of Security in Africa: An Introduction Greg Mills and John Stremlau African Security Systems: Privatisation and the Scope for Mercenary Activity 23 Christopher Clapham Mercenaries and the Privatisation of Security in Africa in the 1990s 47 Alex Vines The Contemporary Legal Environment 81 Garth Abraham The Regulation of Private Security Forces 107 JeffHerbst Select Glossary 129 Mills and Stremlau: An Introduction The Privatisation of Security in Africa: An Introduction Greg Mills and John Stremlau^ Cry 'Havoc!', and let slip the dogs of war.2 Mercenaries are not a new phenomenon in international relations; nor are they unique to Africa.3 Across the centuries they have played a variety of roles, notorious and noble, on offence and defence, in support of governments, armed insurrections, private corporations and cartels, and international and Non-Governmental Organisations {NGOs). Colourful examples abound in fact and fiction: defenders of the Dutch East India company, Swiss guards of the Vatican, British Gurkha regiments and the French Foreign Legion defending colonial and post-colonial interests, Pakistani soldiers protecting emirs in the Gulf, the many foreigners under contract to the former South African Defence Force (SADF), or the bands of armed European malcontents bent on overthrowing some small African country in a Frederick Forsyth novel. Definitions are difficult and evaluations controversial. Just as one protagonist's guerrilla is another's freedom fighter, the same individual may be branded a mercenary by some, while being welcomed by others as a security service provider or even as a defender of humanitarian assistance. However the work is defined, there can be no doubt that what may be called the 'global private security industry' is both booming and adapting to the changing nature of war. Alex Vines, in his paper for this volume, notes that sales are projected to increase world-wide from US$56 billion in 1998 to over US$200 billion by 2010. The current boom may reflect structural changes in the nature of modern warfare, notably the long-term decline in military discipline and professionalism in battle. During the First World War, 10% of the casualties DR GREG MILLS is the National Director of the South African Institute of International Affairs (SANA) based at Jan Smuts House, University of the Witawateisrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. PROFESSOR JOHN STREMLAU is the Jan Smuts Professor in the Department of International Relations at the University of the Witwatersrand. Shakespeare W, Julius Caesar, III, 1.273- See, for example, Puren J {as told lo Brian Pottinger), Mercenary Commander. Alberton: Galago, 1986; and Cermani H, While Soldiers in Black Africa. Cape Town: Nasionale Boekhandel, 1967. For an expose of the role of the modern mercenary outside Africa (in this case the role of British mercenaries in Bosnia], see Cory-Jones K, Wardogs. United Kingdom: Century, 1996. The Privatisation of Security in Africa were civilian. Today, 90% of the casualties in deadly conflicts are civilians.4 Equally dramatic has been the decline of interstate wars and the sharp rise of mass violence within countries. In 1995 there were 58 armed conflicts under way around the world, according to a University of Maryland study. Twenty had recorded deaths in excess of 1,000 during the preceding 12 months. Forty-nine were being fought over ethno-political issues: wars of secession or regional autonomy, conflicts among ethnic rivals for control of the state, communal or clan warfare. Only one was an interstate conflict, a border dispute between Ecuador and Peru.5 During the 1990s there have been major increases in both the supply and demand for the services of private international security companies. It does not matter whether the contract calls for fomenting or suppressing armed conflict, and the client's objectives can be political, economic, humanitarian, or sometimes criminal. Moreover, sovereign states, the rightful arbitrators of the threat or use of organised force, lack the international norms, institutions and political will to regulate or even adequately monitor the many new and diverse providers of armed security services. About Africa Africa's spedal'attractiveness as a market for mercenaries is no mystery. Mass violence has become endemic, typically arising from reactions to authoritarian rule, exclusion of minority or majority groups from governance, socio- economic deprivation and inequity, and the inability of weak states to manage political and social conflict.6 United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in an unprecedented March 1998 report to the UN Security Council on the causes and nature of conflicts in Africa, notes:7 Since 1970, more than 30 wars have been fought in Africa, the vast majority of them intra-state in origin. In 1996 alone, 14 of the 53 countries of Africa Ahlstrom C, Casualties of Conflict: Report for the World Campaign for the Protection of Victims of War.
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