South Africa passes mercenaries bill

From: CNN.com - South Africa passes controversial mercenaries bill - Aug 29, 2006: "South Africa passes controversial mercenaries bill. POSTED: 1728 GMT (0128 HKT), August 29, 2006

Until the end of the XVIII century, armies were armies of mercenaries. You hired a bunch of Scots, Swiss, Suabes or other people from deprived areas and you could go to war. During the 18th century, the French and Prussian kings started to organize national armies and started forced conscription. This was a big step forward in civilization, for it gave rise to civic statistics, even statistics as such. The Napoleonic armies were completely based on conscription, as were the masses of soldiers who died in the First World War for their different countries. The Second World War, the Korean and Vietnamese Wars were also based on conscription.

Meanwhile, the use of mercenaries never completely disappeared. The British used, and still use, Ghurkas from the Himalayas as elite soldiers, the French have their Foreign Legion, and the policemen and soldiers left over from the South African Apartheid regime offer their services for all dirty work to be done in Africa and elsewhere. We have seen Serbs taking part in genocide operations in the Republic of Congo and Latin American mercenaries, trained in the Panama Canal Zone by the US, intervening as "guerrillas" in different Latin American countries.

One of the most striking innovations, the Bush administration, led on this point by Rumsfeld's Pentagon, has introduced in warfare for "Democracy", is the broad use of mercenaries for jobs as crucial as interrogation, individual protection and undercover prison management. Alongside of the 130.000 "official" American military in Iraq, there are 30.000 "contractors" for (often) the dirty work, operating in a legal vacuum."Contractors" in Iraq, guarding US viceroy (april 2003, Baghdad)

In a sound reaction, the South African Government and Parliament have taken steps to put an end to the lawless actions of the former Apartheid officials, engaged for an important part in the Iraq war at this moment:

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (Reuters) -- South Africa passed an anti-mercenaries law on Tuesday that could bar thousands of its nationals from working for security companies in global hotspots such as Iraq and in other national armies.

Defense Minister Mosiuoa Lekota told lawmakers before the bill was passed by an overwhelming majority that one of the intentions of the measure was to stop local mercenaries 'subverting democracy' across Africa.

The government wants to stop civilians and former soldiers -- many trained in the apartheid army -- from fighting or offering security services after South Africans were found to be involved in a number of attempted coups and conflicts in Africa.

'Mercenaries are the scourge of poor areas of the world, especially Africa,' Lekota said.

'Killers for hire, they rent out their skills to the highest bidder regardless of the political agenda,' he said.

But critics say the bill is too wide-ranging and could affect civilians involved in legitimate security work and in other military services, including the British army. The Department of Foreign Affairs has estimated at least 4,000 South Africans are employed in conflict areas around the world, but the actual number may be closer to 20,000.

The bill requires citizens working as security personnel to seek permission from the government and allows certain conflict countries to be declared regulated zones.

The law, which must still be approved by parliament's second house and President Thabo Mbeki, has been widely criticized for infringing on South Africans' rights to freedom of employment.

The British High Commissioner to South Africa appealed for changes to provisions that would impact on about 800 former South African soldiers working in British forces.

HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES

Lekota said the last two decades had seen the emergence of a global trade in hired guns.

"A number of human rights abuses have been committed by some firms and in many instances their operations have led to a rise in internal tensions and sometimes even military coups in certain states," he said.

About 2,000 South Africans, many trained as soldiers in the apartheid-era military force, are believed to be working in the security sector in Iraq. Several have been killed there.

Lekota said the government was also concerned South Africans could end up fighting for foreign armies in conflicts that contravened international law or Pretoria's foreign policy.

Former South African soldiers were linked to a foiled coup plot in the oil-rich west African state of Equatorial Guinea and in the past were hired as private soldiers in conflict-ridden Sierra Leone.

We intend to delve somewhat deeper into this mercenaries phenomenon. The 1949 Geneva Conventions are very explicit on the prohibition of the use of mercenaries. Listen to what the UN Commissioner had to say about this, in March 2002:

Utilización de mercenarios como medio de violar los derechos humanos y de obstaculizar el ejercicio del derecho de los pueblos a su libre determinación

Intervención del Relator Especial Sr. Enrique Bernales Ballesteros

En los párrafos 53 a 69 de mi informe escrito me ocupo en extenso de la situación actual de las actividades mercenarias. Me remito a ese texto que da amplia cuenta de la actividad mercenaria como un fenómeno de características mundiales. Así, por ejemplo, me ocupo de su extensión, de las modalidades que reviste, de la amplitud de las actividades ilícitas que realizan y hasta de su "modernización", dicho en este caso con el sarcasmo que la situación merece, cuando los mercenarios son presentados como "los buenos muchachos" y cuando se les compara en términos de costo-efectividad con las fuerzas armadas regulares. Los mercenarios se ponen a disposición de empresas privadas de seguridad internacional, que prestan servicios multipropósito con gran eficiencia y profesionalismo, pero donde también, la falta de marcos legales, de escrúpulos éticos y de mecanismos de supervisión y regulación, llevan a algunas de estas empresas a no actuar con respeto al principio de la libre determinación de los pueblos y de goce de los derechos humanos.

This is an outright condemnation, condoned by the American representative at that meeting, of the use of mercenary forces. The next year, the Rumsfeld invasion of Iraq, started an unheard-of deployment of many kinds of mercenaries in Iraq. Even if it would, the regular Army are incapable of controlling their doings.

It is urgent, to do something about this, by way of the UN, but also, like South Africa does, by way of national legislation.

The Road to Taliban Land

Dutch Prime Minister, Jan Peter balkenende, among his troops, last Saturday (Photo NRC, Holland), click on image to see the sunglasses...

The announced disaster - it happened.
After a visit to the 1.400 strong Dutch NATO-ISAF contingent in Tarin Kowt (Uruzgan, Southern Afghanistan), Dutch PM, Jan Peter Balkenende, participated in a press conference with Afghan president Hamid Karzai.
Karzai complained, that US-led forces had provoked Pakistan critics who support "taliban" insurgency. The Dutch are into the Afghan morass over their (horrible) sunglasses and ears.

Disputes Spur His Critics, Karzai Says - New York Times:

"Disputes Spur His Critics, Karzai Says
By SULTAN M. MUNADI

KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 26 — President Hamid Karzai said Saturday that recent criticism of his leadership and his administration stemmed from disagreements that he had had with some partners of the United States-led coalition in Afghanistan over the conduct of military operations.

“For some time, some circles of the Western media have started special propaganda against me and the Afghan government,” he told journalists at a joint news conference with Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende of the Netherlands.

There is no record of Balkenende refuting these statements. It is an implicit condonement of the "run-and-kill" tactics that British and Australian military are applying in their Helmand and Kandahar provinces. Dutch F16s are already participating in these killing parties. Dutch commanders of the ground forces are proposing their participation in those actions. Like the Germans (see In Europa Zuhause). Karzai continues:

“We had some disagreements with some members of the international coalition against terrorism concerning counterterrorism, and maybe they did not like those arguments,” he said. “And their media, because of that, started propaganda against us.”

Translation: The Indian secret service, in order to create diversion from the Kashmir rebellion, supports anti-Pakistan movements in Baluchistan and the Pashtun area and the military government of Pakistan has a policy of severe repression against those rebellions.
Saturday, the Pakistan army killed a former minister and important Baluch clan leader, Bugti.
Demonstrations, strikes, manifestations all over the Baluchi Sindh, the Baluchi and Pastuni areas.
A connection with the "Peters" document, published recently in the Pentagon Army Weekly, which proposes a "Free Baluchistan" country, independent from Pakistan, cannot be excluded.

Mr. Karzai has recently come under sharp criticism at home and abroad for failing to protect the country from violence and manage the economy, and for allowing widespread corruption in his government. And as the insurgency has worsened, confidence in his leadership has fallen.

In the real world, the "Taliban" are virtually non-existant. It is all about clanic rule. Pakistan's military ruler Muzarraf does not control the powerful secret service ISI, that foments tribal insurgence in Afghanistan. After the American retreat, the European NATO-ISAF forces are left to deal with their creations. No help from the powerless Karzai.

In response, he has repeatedly blamed the worsening insurgency in southern Afghanistan on infiltration from Pakistan, and has called on the United States and its coalition"

Again: A unified EU policy to stabilise Afghanistan, promote talks with local lords in the way Karzai has repreatedly proposed, combat Indian as well as Pakistani ingerence, could still work. Left alone, the English-Australian-Dutch military will not be able to do anything else as to terrorize local insurgents and create a strong movement against the West.
Some imagination and courage is needed. Could it come from Brussels?

Ann Jones, who, as a NGO worker, was in Kabul for 4 years, depicts the disastrous US practices in Afghanistan (Read the complete artice on: TomDispatch - Tomgram: Ann Jones on the Road to Taliban Land):

"[..]The Road to Taliban Land

The criteria by which contractors are selected have little or nothing to do with conditions in the recipient country, and they are not exactly what you would call transparent. Take the case of the Kabul-Kandahar Highway, featured on the USAID website as a proud accomplishment. In five years, it's also the only accomplishment in highway building -- which makes it one better than the Bush administration record in building power stations, water systems, sewer systems, or dams.

The highway was featured in the Kabul Weekly newspaper in March 2005 under the headline, 'Millions Wasted on Second-Rate Roads.' Afghan journalist Mirwais Harooni reported that even though other international companies had been ready to rebuild the highway for $250,000 per kilometer, the U.S.-based Louis Berger Group got the job at $700,000 per kilometer -- of which there are 389. Why? The standard American answer is that Americans do better work -- though not Berger which, at the time, was already years behind on another $665 million contract to build Afghan schools. Berger subcontracted to Turkish and Indian companies to build the narrow, two-lane, shoulderless highway at a final cost of about $1 million per mile; and anyone who travels it today can see that it is already falling apart.

Former Minister of Planning Ramazan Bashardost complained that when it came to building roads, the Taliban had done a better job; and he too asked, "Where did the money go?" Now, in a move certain to tank President Karzai's approval ratings and further endanger U.S. and NATO troops in the area, the Bush administration has pressured his government to turn this "gift of the people of the United States" into a toll road, charging each driver $20 for a road-use permit valid for one month. In this way, according to American experts providing highly paid technical assistance, Afghanistan can collect $30 million annually from its impoverished citizens and thereby decrease the foreign aid "burden" on the United States."

It is an illusion, to think that a "Dutch approach" (friendly soldiers, local meetings) could become a solution to the humiliation and marginalization that the Afghans feel. A completely different, distinct, approach by ISAF (as an EU NATO undertaking) is the only solution.

Circumstances are favorable for such a policy: The US cannot and will not continue its Afghan intervention. There is a free field.
Politicians are called to do what they are hired for: Make policy.

EU: A common policy for the Middle East, before sending troops!

Next Wednesday, August 23, an EU-meeting in Brussels will deal with the conditions for a military contribution by European countries to Unifil II, the "robust" UN force to be deployed in South Lebanon.

A blessing in disguise, this face-saving manoeuver.

An eager France, during the dealings in the Security Council, hoped to resurrect its colonial role in Lebanon, to suppress Hizbollah and reinstaure the "Lebanon de Papa", its ninteenth century protectorate, led by a Maronite élite.
But the French Army, who did not forget its Bosnian frustrations and aware of the carnage in 1983 of 88 French parachutists in Beirut at a similar ill-defined "peace"-mission in Beirut (Le Monde, 21/8/06: Les réticences des miltaires français, hantés par le syndrôme 'Drakkar'), revolted.
And, what is more: French Foreign Minister Douste-Blazy, on visit in Beirut, had to accept, that the whole Lebanese political spectrum is against disarming its coalition partner Hizbollah. After 15 years of civil war, national unity has become a priority for all Lebanese factions, Hizbollah not excluded, as it has shown convincingly during the so-called Cedar Revolution of last year.

Without the Lebanese, the French would find themselves doing the dirty work for Bush and the NeoCons, as a temporary replacement for Likud. The French are proud and stubborn, but not silly.
So they called, too late, "Europe" to save their faces.
Which means, that, for some wrong reasons, the problem has been transferred to the only forum, where it belongs. No hard feelings, please. Let's see what opportunities this offers.

Neither France, nor the UK, and certainly not Italy or Spain, could handle this situation on their own. Maybe, the EU as a whole, can.

But it is necessary, then, that a common EU-policy for the Near-East is laid down first.

For, without a framework of a common political objective, a military operation is senseless, counterproductive and doomed to turn into a great failure. It would help in one way or another those people who actually have an agenda for the Middle East, that is to say, the Bush administration and/or Israel. There are only two days to go until Wednesday. A short time. Too short?

An EU-roadmap
UNSC Resolution 1701could become a foundation for an EU roadmap. A programme ("process") of mutual steps in the direction of a stabilisation of this part of the Middle East.
F.i.:
1. Demilitarisation of the area south of the Litani river as a condition for redeployment of the Israeli Army 15 KMs from the Lebanese border.
2.Restitution of the Shebaa Farms as a condition for swapping hostages.
These small steps could be monitored and secured by the projected UN army, it is strong enough for that, not for controlling the Hizbollah armament at this moment.
In the mean time, restart of the Israel-Palestine Roadmap. Work with the Fatah-Hamas coalition.
But an EU-policy for the region will have to deal with Syria also:
3. The Avi Dichter (Haaretz today) proposals for an arrangement on the Golan Heights with Syria.
4. Guaranteeing Israel's borders with Lebanon, Syria and Palestine, with an effective border-control by the greater Unifil II (25.000). A control, that guarantees both sides of the border.

In order to stabilize really the region, a nuclear disarmament of Israel (and the whole M-E) would be unavoidable. Here, only an intervention with the USA could bring a solution.

But the procedural steps mentioned before, lie within the power of a solid EU, alone, without American support, or even more or less against it. Important will be an effort to engage Turkey into the EU effort. The Turks have diplomatic, military, economic and nuclear relations with Israel.
Their army is well-equipped and competent, and, something that is not often discussed, their nuclear capabilities are strong enough, to neutralize an eventual Israele nuclear blackmail.
Maar de voorgaande stappen liggen binnen de macht van een gezamenlijk optredende EU.

In this way, an UN-covered strategic intervention by the EU, could secure the state of Israel step by step, and secure other countries in the region as well.
It would offer an opportunity to realize the Cohn-Bendit plan to have Joschka Fischer as an omniguarantee between Israel and its neighbours, including Palestine.

Wednesday, this could start, in Brussels.

Translingual crossposted to L'Europe Chez Soi, In Europa Thuis, In Europa Zuhause and At Home in Europe

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One Flew Over the Sparrow's Nest

Le Moineau on Lebanon and USA strategic gaming.

Intriguing.

"Le Moineau" (the Sparrow") landed in August on Blogger.com.

I found him through a somewhat condescending comment by Juan Cole in his as always well-"Informed Comment" blog on the Middle East. It reads:

Is a serious diplomatic engagement with Iran Washington's next step[?] Well, I shouldn't have thought so. But the aftermath of wars is a time when the unexpected happens.

I followed the link. And found an unusual blog. It is written in the style of a learned scholar (international relations), mixed with elements of style of an administrative policy adviser. The articles are numbered and carry mentions like: "first draft" or "working draft". That is what a civil servant would do, in order to cover himself and his directors against the dangers of, for instance, congressional inquiries. I did so myself, when I worked for the Dutch Government.
But the Sparrow doesn't position himself as an insider. Here is his profile:

Le Moineau

Le Moineau is a concerned citizen who follows international relations keenly and tries to piece together confusing world events using a simple mental model and readily available resources. The articles are a reflection of such an analysis and try to bring some strategic sense to the actions of nations playing the 'great game'.

"Great Game" offers a cue (Wikipedia):

The Great Game is a term, usually attributed to Arthur Conolly, used to describe the rivalry and strategic conflict between the British Empire and the Tsarist Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia. The term was later popularized by British novelist Rudyard Kipling in his work, Kim.

Le Moineau is clearly somebody who knows his classics and loves to derive his analyses from a wider historic and strategic framework.

It is no wonder, therefore, that he likes Henry Kissinger, the (still) living embodiment of classic realist international power policies.

And, it must be said, a historic-strategic approach to what happens at this moment in the Middle East produces interesting, and often surprising, insights. Their usefulness is undisputed. They have the invaluable merit to shatter current illusions about the practicability of "regime change" or "value change", "state building" or "community building" from the outside.

The difference between Le Moineau and William Kristol is best illustrated by this:
The last one urged Bush at the outset of the Israeli Lebanon war "to go immediately to Jerusalem" in order to proclaim "the New Middle East" and attack Iran, whereas the former one urges Bush to go immediately to Tehran, in order to "engage" seriously in a strategic alliance and secure the "American energy [oil] compound" against Russia (the great game resurrected, HR!).

The difference is striking, geographically.
But the likeness ("immediately"), too.

Wanting, hoping, imagining that something like engaging in a nuclear war, or in a "renversement des alliances", has to be done "immediately", is very often a warning signal that we have to do with a reductionist "believer".
A reductionist, for he does not acknowledge a possible relevance of analytic instruments outside of his scope. A believer, for he thinks that the stone of wisdom has been for once and for all time been given to mankind by Kristol Senior or Kissinger.

Wit William Kristol, we dealt here, here and here, recently.

To deal with Le Moineau is more agreeable, for sure, for his approach is intelligent, independent and far more realistic. You may join his dreams. It feels like when, as a history student in Amsterdam (1967), I prepared a paper about the role of the "run to Baghdad" between Germany, France, Russia and the UK as a runner-up to the First World War. It was all about diplomatic and small military manoeuvers around the controlling of sea-routes, railway-lines and cynical alliances with local rulers or local rebellions. How France and the UK sabotaged the German railway-line to Baghdad, supporting a Kurdish guerilla round Diyarbakir (1910). How the Russians supported the forerunners of the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo against the British. Lovely and easy. Like a chessboard.

But the "great game" was also a "Devil's Game".

The cynical "divide-et-impera" policies, as practiced by the British, but also by French, Russians and Germans, led to alliances with evil rulers (the Wahhabi Saudis) and secret societies like the Muslim Brotherhood, with their own, hidden, agenda. In 2005, Robert Dreyfuss of the American Empire Project, wrote a book about the devilish consequences of international power policies as a "game" concept, i.e. not taking into account, that humans are no chesspieces, but that they are liable to be frustrated and that frustrated people are not necessarily less intelligent and wicked as you are. Subtitle: "How the United States helped unleash Fundamentalist Islam". (Amazon Reference)
The Brotherhood, set up at the end of the nineteenth century, was a freemason-like structure, also in its relation to religion. For decades, its policy was: If you cannot beat them, join them. The Brotherhood elites, seeing that, as a middle class, they were unable to get their legitimate share of power, exploited religion (Islam, but it could have been any other religion, and in some cases it has in effect been Christianism) to get a mass following. During a long period and in different shapes in different countries, they allied themselves with any (imperialist) power, that could bring them nearer to control over the state. Until the eighties, this failed every time, for their only power basis were parts of the poor masses, who were in the end not willing or able to carry them to Government. That changed, when (oil) money permitted the establishment of networks of "Islamic Banking". Somehow, the Islamic interdiction of capital-interest was circumvened successfully (Islam can be modernized, if you really want it!) and the Brotherhood-like elites got a huge leverage on power.
Thus, the elites got more and more independent of their mass followings. They can buy them now.
And it permitted global terrorism on a Bin Laden scale.

Le Moineau, however, is constructing his diplomatic manoeuvers, as if history has halted just before November 1956, when Americans and Russians stopped imperiously the Anglo-French war with Israel against Nasser over the Suez Canal.

Then, the Americans did the right thing, assessing the new reality of an independent and irremovable national entity ("cannot be bombed away"). A wisdom, that lamentably was absent when the US condoned the recent Israeli attack on Lebanon.

But Le Moineau thinks, that this NeoCon folly is "marginalized" now, in Washington, as he repeats over and over again. As a rare specimen of a cynic-realistic optimist, he fantasises, that Condi Rice is preparing a US disengagement from Israel, that would have to separate itself from its nuclear bombs. And that Bush is secretly furthering the Iranian nuclear bomb-making, in order to make Israel do that!

As if he is Lawrence of Arabia, in a broad swoop, he also finds some ulterior imperialist designs for the US in the Middle East. An alliance with Iran, could give the US a controlling position over China's and Europe's oil supply. (For his statements about the benefits of an US control of the Middle East oil exports to Europe, see his post Marhsall Plan, Anyone? dated August 7.)

This is a nice example of the Sparrow's handicap. Under the 1947 Marshall Plan, the US financed an "oil tap" for Europe, i.e. a pipeline that runs from the Arabian peninsula to a South Libanese port, passing through the Golan Heights, Syria and Jordan. As a matter of fact, it never had a chance to function. It has been closed for half a century. The benefit of returning the Golan Heights to Syria, would be that this oil outlet would come under US control, so that the US would control again, as during the Marshall Plan aera, Europe's oil provision.
As if 2006 Europe is the same as devastated postwar Europe of 1948!

Concluding: A sparrow cannot fly as an eagle.

But it can make nice nests. In the margin.