The Global Economy of Mercenary Violence 3
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
World News Briefs
U. & NAVAL BASE WORLD NEWS BRIEFS GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA Seychelles LONDON (AP) -- Britain yesterday promised a new con- stitution for the Seychelles Islands designed to ad- vance this tiny Indian Ocean colony toward indepen- dence. A foreign office announcement said the consti- tution will be worked out in talks this fall. "Her majesty's government would propose to reach decisions on constitutional advance and, subject to the approval of Parliament, on final progress toward independence," it added. In exchanges with the foreign office, the Seychelles' Chief Minister James Mancham said his ad- ministration aims to achieve full statehood by the end of 1975. Friday, May 10, 1974 Bmzil NOTE: The article in Thursday's edition gave incorrect information on Old Dominion courses--See page 3. BRASILIA (AP) -- A group of Roman Catholic bishops and missionaries released a 28-page document here yes- Nuclear terday denouncing government policy toward Brazil's primitive Indian population as fatal for the Indians. It was banned from MELBOURNE (AP) -- An Australian yacht left Melbourne publication in the Brazilian press. The yesterday for Mururoa Atoll to protest French nuclear document entitled, "The Indian, the One who Must Die," was signed by six bishops, all in the western testing in the Pacific. Aboard are skipper Rolf Heiman, 34, and Kathy Bradley, 24, who hope to reach the atoll and northwestern region of the country where many in two months time on their 30-foot ketch La Flor. They Indians live, and six missionaries. It was prepared will have a stopover in New Zealand to get another crew- months ago as a "manifesto of urgency on the dramatic man for the long haul to Mururoa. -
A Dirty Little War In
Air war analysis MozambiqueA dirty little war in espite having total air supremacy, elsewhere, and who has communicated directly – the Wagner Group has undertaken numerous mobility on the ground, excellent with this writer, suggested that by moving into actions against an enemy that is entrenched in D communications and access to a northern Mozambique in force, the so-called the rugged jungle and mountain-clad terrain range of sophisticated hardware – including Islamic State (IS) is only a step away from fringing southern Tanzania. That much we know. drones and some of the best squad weapons becoming fully active in South Africa. He said: What we do not is how many guerrilla fighters on the planet – a sophisticated Russian “This radical movement already has a strong there are, how they are able to bring their mercenary force has been driven out of northern presence that includes military training bases.” weapons – possibly including man-portable Mozambique after only months of mixing it with Having entered the conflict at the behest of air defence systems (MANPADS) – into the a tough jihadist force that has Somali roots. It Russia’s President Putin last October – and country (likely through Tanzania) and how many goes much further. A confidential report by a enjoying complete dominance in the air with foreign fighters there are within their ranks. senior United Nations official who has served an array of Hind helicopter gunships as well as It’s also not clearly understood how this low- in Afghanistan, both Sudans, Yemen and Mi-8/17 Hip medium twin-turbine transporters key insurgency managed to escalate into an efficient, elite combat force under the very nose of the Mozambique Army. -
A Rock, an Island: Exploring the Independence of African Island
A Rock, an Island: Exploring the independence of African Island Nations in the Indian Ocean By Alexander Rijpma Student Number: s1501143 E-mail: [email protected] Word Count: 13,848 s1501143 Introduction: A vast majority of African countries gained their independence in the 1950’s and early 1960’s, with over 30 countries gaining independence in quick succession in the six year period between 1956 and 1962 alone (Boddy-Evans, 2018). The year 1960 in particular was a significant landmark in the history of decolonisation as, in that year alone, 17 African countries gained independence (Talton, 2011). However, in the vast literature that exists detailing this period of decolonisation, very little is written about the African island nations of Mauritius and The Seychelles. These two nations lie very close together in the Indian Ocean, east of the African mainland, and have similar sizes and population densities, not to mention cultural similarities in their customs, language and ethnic makeup. Despite the fact that these countries are both included in the African Union, they are rarely treated in literature regarding African independence as being part of the decolonisation process at all. This is not, in itself, that surprising given that there is generally little academic literature to be found on states on the periphery like these, and this is particularly true for states on the periphery of the African continent. That being said, it is important that we attempt to curb this (lack of) practice by shifting our attention (and our research) to countries like the Seychelles and Mauritius, that exist largely in the periphery. -
Sanctuary Lost: the Air War for ―Portuguese‖ Guinea, 1963-1974
Sanctuary Lost: The Air War for ―Portuguese‖ Guinea, 1963-1974 Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Matthew Martin Hurley, MA Graduate Program in History The Ohio State University 2009 Dissertation Committee: Professor John F. Guilmartin, Jr., Advisor Professor Alan Beyerchen Professor Ousman Kobo Copyright by Matthew Martin Hurley 2009 i Abstract From 1963 to 1974, Portugal and the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde, or PAIGC) waged an increasingly intense war for the independence of ―Portuguese‖ Guinea, then a colony but today the Republic of Guinea-Bissau. For most of this conflict Portugal enjoyed virtually unchallenged air supremacy and increasingly based its strategy on this advantage. The Portuguese Air Force (Força Aérea Portuguesa, abbreviated FAP) consequently played a central role in the war for Guinea, at times threatening the PAIGC with military defeat. Portugal‘s reliance on air power compelled the insurgents to search for an effective counter-measure, and by 1973 they succeeded with their acquisition and employment of the Strela-2 shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile, altering the course of the war and the future of Portugal itself in the process. To date, however, no detailed study of this seminal episode in air power history has been conducted. In an international climate plagued by insurgency, terrorism, and the proliferation of sophisticated weapons, the hard lessons learned by Portugal offer enduring insight to historians and current air power practitioners alike. -
Security Council GENERAL - S/15492 17 November 1982
UNITED NATIONS Distr. Security Council GENERAL - s/15492 17 November 1982 ORIGINAL: ENGLISH SUPPLEMENTARY REPORT OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL COMMISSION OF INQUIRY ESTABLISHED UNDER RESOLUTION 496 (1981) CONTENTS Paragraphs s Letter of transmittal ...................................................... 2 INTRODUCTION .................................................. 1 -.15 3 A. New mandate of the Commission ...................... l-2 3 B. Organization of work ............................... 3 - 15 3 P. REVIEW OF RELEVANT DEVELOPMENTS ........................ 16 - 59 4 A. The trial in Seychelles ............................ 16 - 21 4 El. The trial in South Africa .......................... 22 - 59 5 II. FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS OF THE COMMISSION ............. 60 - 81 12 III. RECCNMENDATIONS ....................................... 82 - 85 15 Annexes I. List of the accused in the South Africa trial . 18 I 1 . Extract from the Court judgement in the South Africa trial . 23 III. Text of the statement made by the Prime Minister of South Africa on 29 July 1982 . 28 IV. Extracts of testimony by some of the &xused in the South Africa trial . 29 82-32610 0840a (E) / . s/15492 English Page 2 Letter of transmittal LETTER DATED 17 NOVEMBER 1982 FROM THE SECURITY COUNCIL COMMISSION OF INQUIRY ESTASLISHED UNDER RESOLUTION 496 (1981) ADDRESSED To THE PRESIDENT OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL 1n our capacity as members of the Security Council Commission of Inquiry established under resolution 496 (1981), we have the honour to transmit herewith the supplementary report of the Committee, prepared pursuant to paragraph 12 of resolution 507 (1982). This report was unanimously adopted today, 17 November 1982. We avail ourselves of this opportunity to express the hope that the Commission of Inquiry has fulfilled its mandate to the satisfaction of the Security Council and our deep appreciation for the confidence shown by the Council in designating our respective delegations to be members of the Commission. -
Essay War, Profits, and the Vacuum of Law: Privatized Military Firms And
FORMATTEDSINGER006FINAL.DOC 01/22/04 1:35 PM Essay War, Profits, and the Vacuum of Law: Privatized Military Firms and International Law * P.W. SINGER Over the last decade, a new global industry has arisen, made up of private firms that sell military services. These companies, known as “privatized military firms” (“PMFs”), sell everything from small teams of commandos to massive military supply operations. PMFs have operated in places as diverse as Sierra Leone and Iraq, and on behalf of many states, including the United States. The rise of PMFs signals an important new development in the way that war is now carried out. Unfortunately, the legal side has not yet caught up to these events. This article examines the applicability of present international laws and definitions to PMFs and finds a gap in effectiveness. It next looks at national attempts at legal regulation and the challenges that they face. Finally, it surveys some of the potential solutions that have been offered to this legal quandary, seeking to offer workable proposals for how the PMF industry might be brought under some standard of regulation. * Peter Warren Singer is National Security Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution and Director of the Brookings Project on U.S. Policy Towards the Islamic World. He has a Ph.D. in Security Studies from Harvard University. His book, CORPORATE WARRIORS (2003) is the first overall survey of the privatized military industry. Dr. Singer has published in Foreign Affairs, International Security, Survival, and World Policy Journal, and has served as a commentator for ABC, BBC, CNN, Fox and al Jazeera. -
Al-Qaeda and Weapons of Mass Destruction
REPORT DOES INTENT EQUAL CAPABILITY? Al-Qaeda and Weapons of Mass Destruction Sammy Salama and Lydia Hansell The prospect of terrorists deploying weapons of mass destruction (WMD) is often referred to as the foremost danger to American national security. This danger has become more realistic because of al-Qaeda’s expanding global network and the expressed willingness to kill thousands of civilians. In the past four years, numerous media reports have documented the group’s ongoing quest for WMD capabilities; many reports have detailed al-Qaeda members’ attempts to manufacture or obtain certain chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) agents to use in WMD against targets in the West and the Middle East. Yet the question remains: Does al-Qaeda’s current WMD capability match its actual intent? While most studies of the group have focused on its explicit desire for WMD, allegations of CBRN acquisition, and the killing potential of specific CBRN agents, few open-source studies have closely examined the evolution of al-Qaeda’s consideration of WMD and, most notably, the merit of actual CBRN production instructions as depicted and disseminated in the group’s own literature and manuals. The following report will examine the history of al-Qaeda’s interest in CBRN agents, the evolution of the network’s attitude toward these weapons, and the internal debate within the organization concerning acquisition and use of WMD. More so, the following research will assess the validity of actual CBRN production instructions and capabilities as displayed and disseminated in al-Qaeda’s own literature and websites. KEYWORDS: Al-Qaeda; Terrorism; WMD terrorism; Nuclear; Biological; Chemical; Radiological; CBRN; Terrorist manuals; Uranium; Radium; Plague; Ricin; Cyanide; Hydrogen sulfide; Mustard gas; Botulinum toxin; Cesium 137; RDD; Dirty bomb; Osama Bin Laden; Abu Musab - al Zarqawi; Nuclear preparation encyclopedia; WMD Fatwa The prospect of terrorists deploying weapons of mass destruction (WMD) is the foremost danger to U.S. -
PRIVATISING WAR by Al J Venter, Africa and Middle East
PRIVATISING WAR By Al J Venter, Africa and Middle East correspondent for Jane’s International Defense Review and a special correspondent for Jane’s Intelligence Review, Jane’s Terrorism and Security Monitor and Jane’s Islamic Affairs Analyst. For more than three weeks early 1999, a lone Mi-17 gunship - flown by a South African helicopter pilot Neill Ellis was all that stood between a depleted Nigerian ECOMOG force and the collapse of the Sierra Leone government. Anarchy was a whisker way. Alone at the controls for 12-hours a day without a break, except to refuel, he struck at rebel units in and around Freetown. During the course of it, Ellis took heavy retaliatory fire and, as he later told Jane’s Intelligence Review 1, ‘while the rebels had a lot of RPGs and SAMs, I suppose I had my share of luck’. Washington Post’s former West African correspondent James Rupert tells of an interesting insight to that period in a report from Freetown, Sierra Leone2. When Sierra Leone’s lone Mi-24 combat helicopter blew an engine late last year, he wrote, it meant disaster for the government. The ageing Soviet-built gunship had been the government’s most effective weapon against a rebel army that was marching on the capital. Officials scrambled to repair the machine. But rather than rely on conventional arms dealers, they took bids from mining companies, gem brokers and mercenaries, most of whom held or wanted access to Sierra Leone’s diamond fields. The government finally decided to buy $3.8m worth of engine, parts and ammunition through a firm set up by Zeev Morgenstern, an executive with the Belgium-based Rex Diamond Mining Corp. -
Online Appendix To: “Critical Junctures:Independence Movements and Democracy in Africa”
ONLINE APPENDIX TO: “CRITICAL JUNCTURES:INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENTS AND DEMOCRACY IN AFRICA” Omar García-Ponce Léonard Wantchékon University of California, Davis Princeton University [email protected] [email protected] May 2017 This Online Appendix contains two sections. Section A provides additional results, including a num- ber of robustness and sensitivity checks. Section B provides an overview of the cases analyzed in the paper, as well as the coding decisions for each country. Below we explain in more detail the content of each section. 1 ADDITIONAL RESULTS In Table A1, we present the full set of results from regression models that allow for interactions between rural insurgency and subregion dummies (we report both OLS and 2SLS estimates). In Tables A2–A7, we show that our main results are robust to the inclusion of measures of pre-colonial institutions, ethnic partitioning, and settler mortality. In Tables A8 and A9, we examine the relationship between rough ter- rain and conflict onset within Africa, replicating the model specifications from Fearon and Laitin (2003). Table A10 presents evidence of the relationship between rural insurgency and authoritarian views at the individual level using Afrobarometer data. Figure A1 shows a world map of democracy based on 2010 Polity IV scores. Figure A2 shows a plot assessing the sensitivity of our main results to the exclusion of specific countries and subregions. Figure A3 plots the results from coefficient stability tests based on Oster (forthcoming). Figure A4 shows the confidence intervals around the treatment effect while relax- ing the exclusion restriction, following Conley et al. (2012). Figure A5 shows the relationship between independence movements and accumulation of democratic capital (based on Persson and Tabellini 2006) between 1960 and 1990. -
Seychelles Country Report
SEYCHELLES COUNTRY REPORT For use in Radiology Outreach Initiatives Author Mohammad Ziaul Haque, MBBS, M.phil -: 1 :- Table of Contents General Country Profile A. Geography and Population 3 B. History and Culture 7 C. Government and Legal System 9 D. Economy and Employment 10 E. Physical and Technological Infrastructure 14 National Health Care Sector Review A. National Health Care Profile 16 B. National Health Care Structure 24 National Radiology Profile A. Overview of Imaging in Seychelles 27 B. Workforce, Training and Professional Representation 30 C. Radiology Regulation and Policy 32 Conclusion 33 References 36 Appendix A 38 -: 2 :- SEYCHELLES “The Paradise” General Country Profile Figure 1: Seychelles Flag (CIA, 2018) [1] Figure 2: Seychelles Map (CIA, 2018) [1] A. Geography and Population The Republic of Seychelles is an island nation that lies more than 1,500 km from the east coast of Africa and north of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. Its 155 scattered islands have a combined land area of 455 sqkm with an exclusive economic zone of 200 nm. The islands fall into two main physical types. The islands of the central group, including the main island ‘Mahé’, are formed from granite and consist of a mountainous heart surrounded by a flat coastal strip. The “Outer Islands” are made up of coral accretions at various stages of formation, from reefs to atolls. These are generally smaller and almost entirely flat, lying only a few meters above sea level. The majority of these islands have no water, and only a few are inhabited. The three main islands, housing nearly the entire population, are deemed the “Inner Islands” and include: Mahé, Praslin, and La Digue. -
Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism
Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism www.middlebury.edu/institute/academics/centers-initiatives/ctec The Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism (CTEC) conducts in- depth research on terrorism and other forms of extremism. Formerly known as the Monterey Terrorism Research and Education Program, CTEC collaborates with world-renowned faculty and their graduate students in the Middlebury Institute’s Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies degree program. CTEC’s research informs private, government, and multilateral institutional understanding of and responses to terrorism threats. Middlebury Institute for International Studies at Monterey www.miis.edu The Middlebury Institute for International Studies at Monterey provides international professional education in areas of critical importance to a rapidly changing global community, including international policy and management, translation and interpretation, language teaching, sustainable development, and nonproliferation. We prepare students from all over the world to make a meaningful impact in their chosen fields through degree programs characterized by immersive and collaborative learning, and opportunities to acquire and apply practical professional skills. Our students are emerging leaders capable of bridging cultural, organizational, and language divides to produce sustainable, equitable solutions to a variety of global challenges. Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism Middlebury Institute of International Studies 460 Pierce Street Monterey, CA 93940, USA Tel: +1 (831) 647-4634 The views, judgments, and conclusions in this report are the sole representations of the authors and do not necessarily represent either the official position or policy or bear the endorsement of CTEC or the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. © The President and Trustees of Middlebury College, 2019 ASSESSING THE RISK OF ISLAMIST TERRORISTS USING HUMAN VECTORS TO DEPLOY CONTAGIOUS PATHOGENS Jeffrey M. -
Eisa Pre-Election Assessment Mission Seychelles Presidential Election
EISA PRE-ELECTION ASSESSMENT MISSION SEYCHELLES PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION REPORT 09-14 December 2015 Page 1 of 20 Table of Contents Page 2 of 20 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Page 3 of 20 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND AND POLITICAL CONTEXT The Seychelles islands were occupied by France in the 18th century, and the French brought in African slaves. Britain took over from France in the early 19th century, and ruled the territory until the Seychelles became a independent in 1976. In 1960s, two main political movements were created: the Seychelles People's United Party (SPUP), which would later become the Seychelles People's Progressive Front (SPPF), led by France-Albert René, advocated for independence from Britain, and the Seychelles Democratic Party (SDP), led by James Mancham, which represented the interests of the business and land-owner class, wanted close ties to Britain. Britain introduced elections in 1966 that the SDP won. A new Constitution came into force after the 1970 elections, which the SDP won again as well as in 1974. Britain agreed to concede independence within the Commonwealth on 29 June 1976, and James Mancham became President, with France-Albert René as Prime Minister. A military coup d'état deposed James Mancham on 5 June 5 1977, and as a result France-Albert René became President. The Seychelles became a one-party state, under the rule of the Seychelles People's Progressive Front (SPPF). For 15 years, the Seychelles was a socialist welfare state, with close ties to the Soviet bloc. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the SPPF decided to re-introduce multi-party politics with the approval of a new Constitution in 1991.