Feral Jundi

Friday, July 26, 2013

United Nations: Working Group To Debate UN Use Of PMSC’s

Filed under: Industry Talk,Rwanda,United Nations — Tags: , , , , — Matt @ 9:52 AM

“Rwanda was a horrific UN failure where lives were equated to dollars. Doug’s comments aren’t entirely correct: EO wasn’t “between assignments” nor were we on our way to New York. The UN turned it down because we were “too expensive” – even though we were several hundred million dollars cheaper than they were.” –Eeben Barlow on the UN approaching Executive Outcomes to end the Rwandan Genocide

This should be interesting to watch. Although it would have been nice to see a more varied panel that included some actual CEO’s of companies whom have actually contracted with the UN to provide security. Or at least were approached by the UN to provide services….

The other point to bring up is an effort within the UN to establish an ‘international regulatory framework on PMSC’s’. Here is a video of what they are up to. I imagine we will hear more about this effort in the discussion.

For some interesting discussion and background on the UN’s use of PMSC’s, I have covered the subject in prior posts here. Also, just type in Google Search, ‘UN, Feral Jundi’ or ‘United Nations, Feral Jundi’ for more posts about the UN and PMSC’s.

Also,  check out the Kings Of War blog and their discussion on the UN’s use of PMSC’s here. (check out the comments by Doug Brooks, David Isenberg, myself and others)

Eeben Barlow also has much to add to the discussion about the UN and PMSC’s here and here. His company, Executive Outcomes, was actually approached by the UN to end the Rwandan Genocide. I wonder if the panel will even delve into this history? –Matt

 

Mass grave skulls from Rwandan Genocide.

 

Expert group on mercenaries debates use of private military and security companies by the United Nations
26 July 2013
The United Nations Working Group on the use of mercenaries will discuss the use of private military and security companies (PMSCs) in UN peace and humanitarian operations in the field.
The panel discussion will take place on 31 July 2013 at the UN Headquarters in New York, as part of a special year-long study on the use PMSCs by the UN bodies worldwide, which the expert group will present to the UN General Assembly in 2014.
“As a large consumer of security services, the UN has the opportunity to positively influence the standards and behaviour of the industry to comply with international human rights norms and support the implementation of the UN Charter,” said Anton Katz, who currently heads the expert group charged by the Human Rights Council to monitor and report on the activities of companies providing security and consultancy services on the international market.
“The UN should serve as a model for world Governments and other organizations in its use of private military and security companies,” the expert stressed. “Without proper standards and oversight, the outsourcing of security functions by the UN to private companies could have a negative effect on the effectiveness and image of the UN in the field.”
The five-strong expert body, which has drafted a possible international convention on private military and security companies, has already provided an overview of the UN policy regarding the use of PMSCs in a previous report* to the UN General Assembly in 2010.
The event will feature two panels, focusing on the use of armed security services by the UN and the use of PMSCs in peace operations. Details of the event, including the panelists, are available here.
The panel discussions will be also broadcasted live at the UN web TV.
The Working Group will hold a press conference at 13:30 on 1 August 2013 at briefing room S-237, the UN Headquarters.
The Working Group on the use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination was established in 2005 by the then Commission on Human Rights. It is composed of five independent experts serving in their personal capacities: Mr. Anton Katz (Chair-Rapporteur, South Africa), Ms. Faiza Patel (Pakistan), Ms. Patricia Arias (Chile), Ms. El¿bieta Karska (Poland) and Mr. Gabor Rona (United States/Hungary).

Learn more, log on here.
(*) Check the full report to the UN General Assembly here.
Read the Working Group’s draft of a possible Convention on Private Military and Security Companies here.
For more information and media requests please contact: ?In New York: Nenad Vasiæ (+1 212 963 5998 / vasic@un.org) ?In Geneva: Natacha Foucard (+41 22 917 9458 / nfoucard@ohchr.org) or Junko Tadaki (+41 22 917 9298 / jtadaki@ohchr.org) or write to mercenaries@ohchr.org
For media inquiries related to other UN independent experts:?Xabier Celaya, UN Human Rights – Media Unit (+ 41 22 917 9383 / xcelaya@ohchr.org)
Press release here.

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Industry Talk: Bancroft Global’s Bet On Peace In War-Torn Somalia

Filed under: Industry Talk,Somalia — Tags: , , , , , , , — Matt @ 5:04 PM

This was a story that came up on my radar back in April that needed to be put out there. It helps to fill in some of the blanks about this company and what they have been up to in Somalia. I had no idea that they were involved in the construction of a resort in Somalia and here are the details.

International Campus, which he says cost more than $6 million, is now open for business and mostly booked. Beyond the pool and the ocean views, there is a bunker, a trauma hospital and something akin to Mad Max’s version of an auto body shop, where specialized gear heads will fix “the ballistic glass on your armored vehicle,” as Mr. Stock puts it.
He expects the new place to break even next year. The trailer park, he says, is grossing about $2 million a year. When his cement-making business opens up, there is an entire city to patch and restore.

His strategy is pretty simple, and summed up in this statement.

Mr. Stock’s gamble: The security outfit will help guide the country toward peace, turning his investments into big money. “It’s like getting in at the bottom of the stock market,” says Mr. Stock. His unusual war operation is making him into a kind of ultimate gentrifier, a mini mogul of Mogadishu, perhaps.

In the article below, it mentioned that the security component was actually losing money. But because that operation is helping to push the country along towards peace and stability, that it will support the company’s main goal of being situated to make money off of it’s real estate/reconstruction investments there. Everything needed to stand up a country during the reconstruction phase will be a market that BG is positioned for. Very smart, but risky and I hope it pays off for them.

And Bancroft isn’t the only group trying to set up shop in Somalia to support the future reconstruction efforts. Check this one out.

With dwindling war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, other American contractors are moving in, too. A Virginia company, Atlantean, is setting up an airport hotel in the south. Among its board members, according to its website, is former Maj. Gen. William Garrison, who led the mission associated with Black Hawk Down. In the movie version, he was played by Sam Shepard. Maj. Gen. Garrison couldn’t be reached for comment.

My other thought about this deal is that Somalia will be the model for what is going on in Mali. That mission will require logistics and support for the post-conflict reconstruction effort. These folks will need hotels/living areas to support the various missions, and companies like BG will step in to make it happen.  As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down, numerous companies will be looking at places like Somalia to fill a need. They will also be watching how this business model works out and take notes.

There will also be plenty of capable folks willing to do this work, and men like Michael Stock will be leading the charge. Pretty cool and we will see how it goes. –Matt

 

Michael Stock is pursuing an extreme version of that basic investor’s principle: Get in early. He’s just finished building a resort on the coast of war-torn Mogadishu, Somalia. WSJ’s Christopher S. Stewart reports. (Photo: Dominic Nahr/WSJ)

A Bet on Peace for War-Torn Somalia
By CHRISTOPHER S. STEWART
April 26, 2013
Michael Stock sees things that others don’t. “Imagine this,” he says one recent afternoon, standing on the sunny second-floor deck of his new oceanside hotel in Somalia’s war-battered capital. “There are banana trees where there’s desert now, and there’s this view.”
The banana trees haven’t grown in yet, but International Campus, as he calls the complex, is the closest thing to a Ritz for many miles. A fortified compound sprawled across 11 acres of rocky white beach, it offers 212 rooms including $500-a-night villas, several dining rooms, coffee and snack shops, and a curving slate-colored pool where sun-seekers can loll away Somali afternoons.
“It’s going to be ridiculous!” Mr. Stock said, just weeks before residents began arriving for April’s opening.
A few hours later, the jittery sound of gunfire split the warm February air not far from his new hotel—a reminder that the country is still muddling through a decades-old conflict and that there are still bullets flying, bombs detonating.
Bananas in the Desert
Most Western countries have avoided Somalia, leaving a void to be filled by contractors like Michael Stock’s Bancroft Global Development. He envisions ‘banana trees where there is desert.’
Mr. Stock isn’t just anyone gambling on a far-fetched idea in a conflict zone. In an unusual twist of the war business, the 36-year-old American is deeply involved in the conflict itself. In addition to being a real estate developer, his company also helps train Somalis in modern military techniques.

(more…)

Monday, March 25, 2013

Industry Talk: US Embassy In Iraq Reducing Staff From 10,500 To 5,500 By End Of Year

Filed under: Industry Talk,Iraq — Tags: , , , — Matt @ 10:01 AM

Wow, that is a pretty substantial cut in personnel. Although from the sounds of it, there will still be a significant security force to support the fewer than 1,000 diplomats that remain. Which makes sense, because the embassy is still a large area to cover down on, regardless of how many folks are in it.
If anything, the reduction in security folks would be WPS personnel who would normally provide PSD teams to go out into the countryside. But even that might not see too much of a reduction just because the diplomats that are left, still have to go outside the wire. I also wonder how many missions they were really doing ever since the troops pulled out and the threats not going away in Iraq? If anyone with an inside track on this would like to comment, feel free to do so below.
I also think it is telling that we have had this massive presence at the embassy in Iraq, and the return on investment has been so poor. Meaning recently, Secretary of State John Kerry visited Iraq and got into it with Iraq about their policy of supporting the Assad regime with cargo/weapons flights coming out of Iraq into Syria. Obviously this is a source of contention, and Iraq could care less what the west wants them to do. So much for having a thousands of diplomats and a $750 million dollar embassy? lol –Matt

 

Massive American Embassy in Baghdad cutting staff sharply decade after war in Iraq began
March 20, 2013
A decade after the start of the war in Iraq, the American diplomatic footprint here is shrinking fast.
As recently as a year ago, the immense U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and other sites around the country were staffed by more than 16,000 personnel. Today, that number has fallen to about 10,500, U.S. Ambassador Robert Stephen Beecroft said this week.
By the end of the year, Beecroft said he expects to have just 5,500 employees in Iraq. Most of them will be security personnel and other outside contractors assigned to support the fewer than 1,000 diplomats who remain. More cuts are expected beyond the end of the year.
“That number will continue to go down. . And they’ll go down largely on the contracting side,” Beecroft said in his residence on the heavily guarded compound on the banks of the Tigris River.
The sprawling, fortress-like U.S. Embassy officially opened in early 2009 at a cost of more than $730 million as the largest American mission in the world. But it has been under pressure to cut costs.
The downsizing in many ways reflects how sharply wartime assumptions about the extent of American influence in Iraq have shifted since construction on the Vatican City-sized compound began in 2005. Sweeping reconstruction and nation-building efforts championed early on are much less of a priority today, even as Iraq’s Shiite-led government forges stronger ties with neighboring Shiite powerhouse and U.S. foe Iran.
America still has influence here, with Iraq-based diplomats and officials in Washington in frequent contact with Iraqi political and military leaders. But Washington was unable to win Iraqi guarantees that would have allowed a continued military presence — something that deprived the U.S. of important leverage in Baghdad, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta recently told a government watchdog.

(more…)

Friday, March 15, 2013

Industry Talk: Page Group Wins EU Security Services Contract For Afghanistan

Filed under: Afghanistan,Industry Talk — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Matt @ 10:28 AM

Last year I posted about the EEAS contract and here is the winner. So folks that were waiting on this news, here you go. Although I am kind of curious how they were able to side step Presidential Decree 62 and this APPF thing? Obviously they have made deals with the Afghans to make this happen. Or maybe they are in compliance via some stipulation in the law. Who knows and congratulations to the Page Group. –Matt

 

Security firm wins EU contract despite tax problem
03/15/2013
British private security firm Page Group has scooped a contract to protect EU diplomats in Afghanistan, but faces delays over local tax compliance.
A Page Group spokesperson confirmed to EUobserver on Thursday (14 March) that “this company’s tender for the provision of security services at the EU delegation has been accepted.”
The contract, worth between €30 million and €50 million over the next four years, is to see it provide at least 100 security guards as well as mobile patrol teams and armoured vehicles to protect EU staff, their families and visiting VIPs.

(more…)

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood’s Proposal To Use Private Security Causes Controversy

Filed under: Egypt,Industry Talk — Tags: , , , , , , — Matt @ 12:03 PM

With this deal, the Muslim Brotherhood (Freedom and Justice Party) is trying desperately to restore order and get some kind of control over the people. The police have gone on strike because they are refusing to do business with Morsi government and protesters are going nuts over the soccer riot verdict. Here is a quote about the current situation.

Clashes between police and rioters protesting against the Muslim Brotherhood regime had been ongoing over the past two weeks, ending over the weekend. Currently not even traffic police are visible in several cities.
Abdallah Mash-hoor of the Muslim Brotherhood said that the police have not been cooperating for the past two weeks and refuse to carry out Muslim Brotherhood government orders. “They just don’t want to work with the Muslim Brotherhood,” he said.
Some policemen demanded the interior minister resign, another sign they are refusing to collaborate with the regime. “We don’t want to be the stick for the ones in charge, we don’t want to be a tool for the government to achieve its political objectives,” said one police officer who asked to remain anonymous.
Meanwhile, the Egyptian Sunni Islamist movement Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya’s branch in Assuit issued a statement announcing its readiness to take over police activities and maintain security there instead of the striking policemen. “Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya in Assuit announces its willingness to take full responsibility to secure the city in response to the police strike,” the statement said.

The basic situation is that the new government wants to impose order onto the population and the enforcers are not cooperating. So they could order the army to do it, but then that would look heavy handed and put the new government in the same light as the regime they toppled. Or they could use militias directly, or militias in the form of ‘law abiding’ private security. lol

That is where I think these guys are coming from. Of course the opposition to this new government is going to frame it as ‘militia in private security clothing’. Because I highly doubt that the Muslim Brotherhood would let a company like G4S come in and play cop on the streets, and I doubt G4S would even want to be a part of something like that. If so, riot training would be in order. Although you never know with this stuff and we will see where this goes? –Matt

 

 

FJP leader’s proposal to deploy private security firms provokes controversy
Amid Egypt’s ongoing police strike, member of Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom & Justice Party proposes draft law allowing use of private security firms to maintain public order
Ayat Al-Tawy,
Sunday 10 Mar 2013
The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) is currently mulling draft legislation aimed at allowing the state to use private security firms for domestic policing duties, prominent FJP leader Saber Abul-Fotouh said on Saturday.
The proposal comes within the context of an ongoing nationwide strike by large numbers of Egyptian police officers.
According to Abul-Fotouh, who served as head of the labour committee in the People’s Assembly (the now-dissolved lower house of Egypt’s parliament), the legislation would give privately-owned security companies the right to carry arms and make arrests.
The proposed law – which Abul-Fotouh wants referred to the Shura Council (the upper house of Egypt’s parliament, currently endowed with legislative powers) for ratification – is ostensibly meant to fill the security vacuum resulting from the ongoing police officers’ strike.
“I’m calling for a draft law to be submitted to the Shura Council, and put before a popular referendum, to allow private security firms to safeguard the state,” Abul-Fotouh told Ahram Online.
“I also recommend the formation of popular committees tasked with safeguarding the citizenry and state institutions in the event that police continue their strike action,” he added.
The twin calls come against the backdrop of what Abul-Fotouh describes as “the blackmail of the interior ministry by former regime loyalists who are spearheading a counter-revolution, which is to blame for Egypt’s current state of turmoil.”

(more…)

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