Mercenaries have been around almost as long as war itself. What is new, however, is the emergence of the "corporate mercenary" companies, which employ ex-military personnel and others and then sell their services to governments, mining companies, relief organisations and others. The corporate mercenary companies are often refered to as private military and security companies, or PMSCs. In 2002, the UK government produced a Green, or consultative, Paper with options for the regulation of the burgeoning industry.
After a flurry of activity, and a report by the Foreign Affairs Committee, the issue disappeared from the political agenda until 2005 when then Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw MP, asked officials to review the options. This review considered ways forward including self-regulation, national regulation along the lines of arms export controls and / or licensing systems for companies and personnel.
Government abdicating responsibility for regulation
After that, while the need for regulation did not go away, the Government went quiet for a long time until finally, in April 2009, Foreign Secretary David Miliband MP rejected the call for regulation. Instead, he is proposing that the trade organisation, the British Association of Private Security Companies should promote high standards through a code of conduct to be agreed with and monitored by the Government. The Government would also itself only contract companies which could demonstrate that they operate to high standards and would work internationlly to promote high standards. A consultation on this proposal runs until July.
CAAT and other organisations working on this issue, such as War on Want, think that the UK government's proposals are a total dereliction of duty. Also, by abdicating responsibility to the trade association, the Government allows mercenary groups to legitimise themselves as "respectable" private military and security corporations.
Ask your MP to take action
MPs have tabled Early Day Motion 1537, a kind of parliamentary petition, on Private Military Companies. It criticises the Government's proposal and calls on it to consider a licensing and monitoring system. You can see the EDM here. If your MP has not yet signed, please ask him or her to do so. Most MPs' email addresses can be found here or you can write to her or him at the House of Commons, Westminster, London SW1A 0AA.
The background
An employee of US mercenary
firm Blackwater on duty in Iraq.
The issue of private military companies came to prominence in the 1998 Arms to Sierra Leone affair when UK company Sandline International was alleged to have broken a UN arms embargo by providing forces of the exiled government of Sierra Leone with 28 tonnes of small arms from Bulgaria. The founder of Sandline, Colonel Tim Spicer, moved on to form a new company, Aegis Defence Services, which in 2004 was awarded a $293million contract by the Pentagon to 'coordinate' the 50-odd security companies operating in Iraq.
Though no one knows the numbers for certain, "private security operators" are the second biggest force in Iraq after US military personnel. Officially the roles of such operators are confined to protecting key sites and individuals, and military training, but increasingly they have been sucked into combat roles and it is alleged that they also do the 'dirtiest' kind of work in the interrogation centres.
The upper ranks of the companies are often filled with recently serving officers in the US and UK armies, who get up to five times as much money in their new positions as they had working for their governments. Overall, however, the companies are cheap, because most of their staff come from Iraq or from poor countries like Nepal and Fiji and are willing to serve for a fraction of a UK soldier's pay. The growth in private military and security companies is not confined to Iraq. Others work in Afghanistan and many other countries around the globe.
Further Reading
Miliband and the mercenaries, a guardian.co.uk comment by War on Want's John Hilary responding to the UK government's rejection of regulation, April 2009.
Getting away with murder (PDF 352kb), a War on Want report, with action ideas, about the tens of thousands of mercenaries in Iraq who are committing human rights abuses and operating outside the law, 2007.
Corporate Mercenaries (PDF 165mb), a War on Want report and campaign on the threat of private military and security companies, 2006.
CAAT's response to the Green Paper on Private Military Companies, 2002.
The Privatisation of Violence, CAAT Report, 1999.
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