Mary Jane O’Leary
IBEI BARCELONA
Masters in International Relations
Peace Processes and Conflict Resolution
Prof. Gemma Colantes Celador
June 2009
Introduction
The proliferation of private military firms (PMFs) in the previous two decades has not only generated extensive debate in the world’s media, it has challenged the very way modern society conceptualises the fundamental dichotomy between the public and private control over the means of waging war (Singer 2004). The state, interpreted in the Weberian tradition, has maintained a privileged position as the exclusive operator of violence, legitimised in the social contract by its accepted role as provider of national security in spheres of human activity that deal in life and death, and in return for revenue and labour (Singer 2004, Small 2006). More and more however, private firms have moved through the commercial market into this specialised sphere and now present an alternative to national armies, not just in the support, but in the very acts of warfare, crime fighting and security. Over time names like Executive Outcomes, Halliburton and Blackwater have become household names and supply everything from armed security personnel to catering. This cross over from the realm of the mercenary or ad hoc condottiere into quasi-legitimate corporate military presents a new and distinct challenge for the state in the twenty-first-century (Singer 2004, Small 2006). And while it is indeed a question relevant globally, the prevalence of PMFs and the relatively weak and collapsing state of the state in Africa will be the main concern of this paper. The reason for this prioritisation is as follows.
The precarious existence of the Weberian state in Africa, where many states compete with well-armed rebel groups, organised crime and indeed particular regimes struggle to present a viable legitimate candidate for statehood, the struggle to assert and consolidate a monopoly over violence by the state is juxtaposed against a global drive towards the out-sourcing of military activities away from direct state control into the private sphere. That the effects of such a drive impact African countries differently to European countries or the United States can in someway be explained by a comparison of state formation historically and will be dealt with later. The outcome however, is that weak states in Africa have proved fertile ground for private military operations while private military activity proves a key factor in the continuing destabilisation of African states in which they operate. Therefore, while it will be argued that the successful consolidation of coercive violence in the hands of the state is largely contingent on the role of private military on the continent into the future, it is not to say that private military activity is the causal variable in weak and collapsing states in Africa. Rather it is a symptom as well as a contributing factor in the obstruction to possible solutions. Hence, the paper will attempt to analyse the relationship between the Weberian state, PMFs and the struggle to establish stability, peace and development in Africa, finally examining the validity of effective regulation and accountability in the private military industry (PMI) as a more pragmatic solution to current realities.
The Weberian state and Private Military Companies
The modern state, as the ontological point of reference for international relations is measured against the Weberian prerequisite that it wield a legitimate monopoly over violence (Small 2006: 12), thus an erosion of this primary property through the out-sourcing of violence to private companies points to an erosion of the modern state. In her paper on the ‘demise’ of the African state Michelle Small (2006) traces the evolution of mercenarism throughout history. She highlights the employment of private armies as characteristic of the international landscape from Ancient Egypt to Victorian England, and right through to the renting of non-state military actors in the decolonisation process in Vietnam and Afghanistan (Small 2006:7). In other words, the existence of private military agency is not new to international relations. However, its resurgence since the 1990s does present a new challenge.
Since the Peace Treaty of Westphalia more than three hundred years ago private armies have become the ‘antitheses’ of the state (Small 2006:9). The Treaty is considered the birthplace of the modern-state system and the source of the norms that came to define inter-state behaviour. Essentially it delineated the territory assigned to each participant, codified the principle of sovereignty of each actor within their territory, but most importantly granted each the right to a ‘monopoly of and over force’ within that space (Small 2006:10). Small suggests that since 1648 the state has succeeded, for the most part to bring non-state violence under its control, and that a raft of international treaties and conventions have outlawed mercenarism in many countries. Indeed, she says that the major success of the modern system has been to bring order and stability to the conflict and chaos that predated it (Small 2006:11).
Against this backdrop, many modern African states have found themselves in a position where they need to hire private companies to carry out military activity in the face of insurgency or invasion, thus it appears as if these states have failed in their primary and defining function. In Africa, PMFs have been recruited in Angola, Sierra Leone, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Eirtrea, Kenya and Algeria, to name a few, to carry out functions ranging from private security to piloting war planes (Singer 2006:11). Furthermore, while the existence of some form of private military is not unusual historically, moves towards legitimisation and potential legal status, as well as the unprecedented proliferation of such companies under the rubric of neo-liberalism poses the distinctive threat we see today.
Neo-liberalism and PMFs in Africa
In analysing the ramifications of the private military industry for the African state a closer look at the international context in which this question has become topical is also required. The resurgence of private armies and security firms is inextricably linked to the process of deregulation of international markets, a defining feature of the neo-liberal paradigm (Leander 2002:6). Two of the principle private military agents in the previous decades, Executive Outcomes and Sandline International, both developed as part of the Branch Heritage Oil and Gas group as deregulation led to a decrease in border controls, more flexibility in joint ventures and new incentives for foreign investment (Leander 2002:6).
This development was mirrored by the push for structural readjustment in Africa as the IMF and the World Bank granted development aid conditioned on extensive privatisation of state functions (Collier 2007:41). Programmes that were aimed at eradicating inefficiency and corruption led to the privatisation of many of the ‘sovereign functions of the state’ such as tax collection and customs services, and notably security (Collier 2007:41). As Small suggests, corporate networks have come to own a large part of the state in Africa (2006). Leander labels this a ‘diffusion’ of authority away from states:
“State authority has moved upwards to international or regional institutions, sideways to firms and markets, but also downwards to (sub-national) authorities or regions.” (Leander 2002:1)
The question here is to what extent does such privatisation and globalisation concerning military functions affect the African state and in what way is this different to its Western counterparts? Differentiation between the stages of state formation is necessary here. African states did not undergo similar state-formation process as its European neighbours (Small 2006:13). The reason for this, as argued by Abdel-Fatau Musah (2002:915), is that the state in Africa is merely an imposed version of the organisation structure evolved over centuries in Europe and exported to Africa during colonisation; its principle aim was merely to secure access to natural resources and raw materials (Musah 2002:915). Essentially the outlines of a Weberian state system were grafted on to pre-existing traditional social structures and were devoid of any genuine institution-building objectives (Musah 2002:915). Under the surface, Abdel argues, parts of Africa are in fact undergoing the ravages of an evolution towards an extreme Tillian state system (Musah 2002:915).
The Tillian form of state characterised the preliminary stages in the forging of the social contract of the Weberian State, that the state would provide security for its citizens, who would in turn provide labour and taxes. This was then followed by the consolidation and legitimisation of the Weberian state model through the provision of public goods and bureaucracy (Dasgupta 2004:3). In Africa however, countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Somalia are characterised by a seemingly unending cycle of violence, perpetuated by state and non-state actors. Therefore, when exponents of the private military industry draw on the argument that private military can extend or benefit the state by allowing it, for example, to carry out missions in conflicts it would not otherwise consider committing troops, this argument becomes skewed. Introducing private military into a system where the state in different places is Tillian, weak or in various stages of collapse can mean that links between private interests and state structures is in fact detrimental to the state, especially where it is left up to a private firm to decide what is a legitimate state, grievance of a rebel group, or a charity or non-governmental organisation. Privatisation of state functions where the state barely exists is counter-productive, the privatisation of military functions in this type if state is especially dangerous, Below we will see examples of how.
National interest or natural resources
The recruitment of private military in conflicts in Africa can contribute to the undermining of the state through the compromise of national interests. In the broadest sense, the continuation of violence is what ultimately benefits the PMI, when peace is clearly in the national interest. Theoretically, the successful eradication of violence in Africa is in effect the liquidation of the PMI’s primary market. This then highlights another crucial factor evident in most cases of PMF involvement in Africa; their activities have primarily been carried out in countries with abundant natural resources (Francis 1999, Musah 2002, Small 2006). Sierra Leone, Liberia and Angola have been the main stages for PMF activity on the continent and in all three cases payments were made in the form of concessions to oil, diamond and timber extraction, either directly to the PMC or to a parent corporation with extractive interests in the region (Masuah 2002). On the one hand, conflict is to the private military company what diamond mines are to their parent multi-nationals. However, if mining companies require their partner PMCs to pacify strategic mineral zones, then by extension, conflict resolution might indeed be seen as the core objective of a private army; once their job is done the focus for profit within such interconnected entities can be shifted to lucrative extraction deals, thus providing an incentive for genuine pacification and stability of the state.
The reverse however, proves more akin to reality. The quest for concessions by extractive firms leads in most cases to the support by partner PMFs of sectoral interests within African societies; they distort conflict by contracting services to the group that can provide concessions to strategic mineral fields regardless of the legitimacy of that group (Francis 1999, Musah 2002, Small 2006). Ultimately, PMFs fuel the continuation of the conflict, which is destabilising the state by focusing on the pacification of mineral-rich enclaves rather than the priorities for stability required by the local population. In the 1990s African-American mercenaries and US private security firm Brown & Root (a subsidiary of Halliburton) trained and augmented Rwandese Hutu forces with arms and logistics as it took part in an attempt to overthrow Mobutu Sese Seko, an invasion widely regarded as an attempt to open up the Democratic Republic of Congo (then Zaire) for resource exploitation.
In fact, the America Mineral Fields mining company part-financed the Joseph Kabila rebellion against Mobutu and were the first entity to recognise Kabila’s government (Peleman 2000:155).
Also, on the other side of the confrontation a Serb mercenary army, tacitly backed by French intelligence, attempted to buttress Mobutu’s debilitated forces (Musah 2002:923). This illustrates the distortion caused by PMC involvement in such conflicts, here they have in effect supported both sides, escalating the fire power and deadliness of each sides’ military capacity, while blurring the legitimacy of each sides’ claims. That Mobutu presided over the prime example of a failed state in Africa, and that his credentials as a tyrant were more than evident by this time does not validate any claims to humanitarian or legitimate intervention by the Hutu army. More importantly, that the decision on what constitutes a legitimate democratic state, or even a genuine claim to displace a particular regime, should be at the whim of a private entity premised on profit through violence, is an urgent question for international relations.
Another direct effect of the payment-in-concessions scheme that has emerged in conflicts in Africa is the consequences this has for the consolidation of the African state through development. A conglomeration of Sandline International, EO, and their mining wing, Branch Heritage, effectively dictated the conditions of the Koidu diamond and security concession to respective regimes in Sierra Leone in the 1990s. When EO left Sierra Leone in 1997, it left its security branch LifeGurad Systems to protect Branch Energy’s interests in Koidu. When the government was overthrown just months later, former employee of LifeGuards Systems Johan van Zyl confirmed that his company had provided rockets and AK-47 ammunition to the military junta that replaced the administration in return for continued mining operations at Koidu (Sunday Times 2000, Punch 2000, in Musah 2002:925). Then, in 1997 Asian businessman Rakeshn Saxena provided US$10 million to the Sierra Leone government in exile in Guinea to pay Sandline International to help restore Kabbah to Freetown (Francis 1999:328). Was Mr Saxena’s first concern the consolidation of a legitimate state in the small West African country or did his status as owner of Diamond Works and prospective owner of Branch Energy play a part in his investment decisions? Whatever his motives, the civilian government was restored to Freetown in 1998 and corporate interests at the Koidu mines were once again made secure; the eventual confluence of corporate interests and state consolidation came about only after the private companies changed sides depending on who could protect their mining rights as any given time.
Hence, if the moral premise is as precarious as it appears, could the activity of private companies have at least a positive side-effect through the coincidence of securing mining enclaves for both public and private interests? In answer to this Musah argues that the presence of a superior military force entrenched in and around a mineral zone can demand favourable contractual conditions from a society devoid of negotiating structures and weakened by conflict (Musah 2002:929). These weak states effectively mortgage their primary commodity in order to elicit a quick fix to destabilizing power struggles. This is not to say that there is no nefarious enrichment of sectoral interests through the allocation of these concessions within the state itself. The process does ensure however, that any prospects for economic development through the ownership and export of its natural resource are severely diminished for an already struggling African state well into the future. Compounded in no small way by the diversion of valuable investments into private security rather that other more necessary economic activities (Small 2006:15). Even if these mines were located in consolidated democratic states, market structures allow for the outflow of the majority of the profits to the shareholders of these companies, and in the African context this is generally not the poor population who live in and around the mining regions. Peter Klerks suggests that “the trend is now for private corporations to actively reach out and ‘establish’ governments that will then make their decision with an eye on corporate interests, so that instead of a country’s citizens, foreign shareholders become the real basis of sovereignty” (Klerks in O’Brien 1998).
If the primary legitimising characteristic of the modern state is the social contract between ruler and ruled, the exchange between protection and revenue, then the processes of private security provision and transnational corporate resource extraction are indicative of a fatally flawed premise for aspirations of such a contract in Africa today. In short, and as P. W. Singer asserts succinctly; “the public good and a private company’s good often conflict” (Singer 2001/02:203).
Peacekeping possibilities
One potentially positive role for such firms in the future would be to employ them as peacekeepers in situations where governments are unwilling to send national armies; one example would have been Rwanda. As there were no foreign strategic interests threatened during this conflict there were no incentives for foreign countries to commit and risk their soldiers to intervene and prevent the genocide that took place. If private firms are willing, for a price, to intervene in such situations then the argument in favour of such operations seems to gain considerable weight. However, in the broader theoretical sense the very consideration of such an intervention as legitimate and conceivable feeds back into the argument on the detrimental effects of the existence of these companies on the state. Drawing on Tilly and Weber, and the assumption that it is only the state itself that can bring violence and stability under its control Michele Small argues:
“Employing external expertise is not a lasting way of building up internal state capacities. It does not seek to re-establish the social contract between state and citizen, it does not seek to address the root cause of instability, nor does it seek to negotiate in the quest for peace. Coercive force is made the defining characteristic for achieving peace, a situation where violence meets violence. This is the antithesis to peacekeeping…PMCs are not institution builders, they are not nation builders, nor are they socio-economic development specialists.” (Small 2006:25)
Private forces operating in conflict zones where violence is perpetrated by numerous non-state actors, and in many cases the state itself, will not further the cause of resolution, institution building or positive, sustainable peace. Its very presence would only serve to up the ante in terms of physical violence, and any successes would be premised on superior and asymmetrical force, either perpetuating or superficially and temporarily suppressing the causes of the conflict (Francis 1999:328). In so far as institution building it can be said that training and guidance in security sector reform is perhaps a valid and positive role for private companies, but in much the same way their very existence and the distortions it causes for the monopoly of violence centred in the state is still in question. The recruitment of PMFs to carry out state coercive and protection functions can be viewed as a “crowding out” effect of the state institutions whose existence and stability would in fact negate the necessity for private military in the first place (Leander 2002:9). Furthermore, any increase in their recruitment further boosts their legitimacy and weakens the incentives for international organisations such as the UN and the African Union to consider using their own, and therefore more legitimate troops in cases like Rwanda. In this sense the counter-discourse on humanitarian intervention as opposed to national interest needs to be reinvigorated.
Accountability, transparency and regulation
In response to the criticisms mentioned above many exponents of the privatisation of military action turn to pragmatism: the private military industry is already in existence, the question now is simply a matter of regulating it. Regulation, accountability and legal issues therefore form the core of the pragmatist argument on how to ensure these companies comply with a set of international norms and expectations. However, if PMFs are hired through non-state actors such as IGs and NGOs then to whom are they accountable? If there are any violations of human rights law carried out by a private company how does international law account for them? Is the company that hired them responsible, or the military company itself?
PMFs are not signatories to the Geneva Convention or the Rules of Engagement treaty and the evidence appears to suggest that a dearth of concrete international law dealing with transnational companies in general allows the PMI considerable scope for action that may not necessarily be in line with international human rights norms (Small 2006:15). For example, in a contravention of UN Resolution 1132 (UN.org) banning the sale of arms to Sierra Leone in 1997, Sandline International arranged for the shipment of 35 tons of weaponry in support of the government in exile (Musah 2002: 926). While regional international force ECOMOG successfully carried out a counter-coup before the supplies arrived, no one has been prosecuted for the sale (Francis 1999:334). Furthermore, in many African countries where democratic norms are considered fragile at best, there is a further disconnect between civilian rule and military activity as the employment of PMFs by private civilians, non-governmental organisations, intergovernmental organisations or the regime in question, are not subject to the political rigours of deliberation and prosecution that an institutionalised, parliamentary and party-system would provide (Small 2006:15).
Would stricter regulation then solve this problem of accountability? Two points here highlight the dangers in resorting to the imagined restrictions that more formalised integrated regulation would imply. Firstly, in the genuine attempt to curb private military activities in South Africa the government ended up incorporating 28 of 36 proposals offered to it during the research stage by EO into their Foreign Military Assistance Bill. Secondly, if it was possible to formalise international regulations of PMFs how could this be monitored and enforced if there is no integrated legal system through which to pursue violators. It is also telling that since the 1989 UN International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries finally came in to effect in 2001 none of the major PMCs have signed it (Leander 1997:13). The fact that 80 private security firms registered in Angola after EO ended its contract there also signals the administrative feat involved in keeping track of such firms even if they had signed conventions and agreed to regulation (Leander 1997:14). In this way private military armies are free to act above and beyond the state.
Conclusion
The central argument of this paper is that the existence of a private military industry threatens the consolidation of the Weberian state in Africa by displacing the state in its core function. The diffusion of authority, capability and legitimacy of the state over coercive force signals the retreat of the state in its traditional role and is especially worrisome for African states where the consolidation of the Weberian state is still in sharp focus. That it is the weaker states that are more prone to PMF activity is the tragic irony of the case, as it is the weaker states that most need to reinforce their legitimacy and monopoly over violence as the first step towards building the Weberian state that would allow the establishment of a social contract that would in turn set in motion the economic and democratising processes, and institution building in general that would arguably allow more rapid, stable egalitarian development. Many countries are still in the process of overcoming the trauma of colonisation and imported governing mechanisms as well as adapting to the demands of enforced privatisation processes. Private military companies, by their very nature, profit from destabilisation and violence. The widespread commodification of violence that their existence creates presents the danger that the debate will move from a question of legitimacy to one merely of logistics, regulation and legal parameters. Their proliferation threatens to engender a serious dependency on private security in Africa, crowding out the need to build a legitimate monopoly over violence, and by extension a dilution of the social contract.
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