AP Enterprise: Blackwater founder trains Somalis

[Thankful]

AP Enterprise: Blackwater founder trains Somalis

 

NAIROBI, Kenya – Erik Prince, whose former company Blackwater Worldwide became synonymous with the use of private U.S. security forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, has quietly taken on a new role in helping to train troops in lawless Somalia.

 

Prince is involved in a multimillion-dollar program financed by several Arab countries, including the United Arab Emirates, to mobilize some 2,000 Somali recruits to fight pirates who are terrorizing the African coast, according to a person familiar with the project and an intelligence report seen by The Associated Press.

 

Prince's name has surfaced in the Somalia conflict amid the debate over how private security forces should be used in some of the world's most dangerous spots. Blackwater, now known as Xe Services, became a symbol in Washington of contractors run amok after a series of incidents, including one in 2007 in which its guards were charged with killing 14 civilians in the Iraqi capital.

 

A U.S. federal judge later threw out the charges on the grounds that the defendants' constitutional rights were violated. Last year, Iraq's Interior Ministry gave all contractors who had worked with Blackwater at the time of the shooting one week to get out of the country or face arrest for visa violations.

 

Though Somali pirates have seized ships flying under various flags, most governments are reluctant to send ground troops to wipe out pirate havens in a nation that has been in near-anarchy for two decades and whose weak U.N.-backed administration is confined to a few neighborhoods of the capital. The forces now being trained are intended to help fill that void. They will also go after a warlord linked to Islamist insurgents, one official said.

 

In response to requests for an interview with Prince, his spokesman e-mailed a brief statement that the Blackwater founder is interested in "helping Somalia overcome the scourge of piracy" and has advised antipiracy efforts. Spokesman Mark Corallo said Prince has "no financial role" in the project and declined to answer any questions about Prince's involvement.

 

Prince's role revives questions about the use of military contractors. Critics say it could undercut the international community's effort to train and fund Somali forces to fight al-Qaida-linked Islamist insurgents.

 

The European Union is training about 2,000 Somali soldiers with U.S. support, and an African Union force of 8,000 Ugandan and Burundian peacekeepers is propping up the government.

 

By introducing contractors, "You could see the privatization of war, with very little accountability to the international community," said E.J. Hogendoorn, a Nairobi-based analyst with the International Crisis Group think tank. "Who are these private companies accountable to and what prevents them from changing clients when it's convenient for them?"

 

Although Hogendoorn's concerns are shared by some U.S. officials, the director of one private security company welcomed the effort and Prince's involvement.

 

"There are 34 nations with naval assets trying to stop piracy and it can only be stopped on land," said John Burnett, director of Maritime Underwater Security Consultants. "With Prince's background and rather illustrious reputation, I think it's quite possible that it might work."

 

Prince, now based in the United Arab Emirates, is no longer with Blackwater. He has stoutly defended the company, telling Vanity Fair magazine that "when it became politically expedient to do so, someone threw me under the bus."

 

Last month, the AP reported that the Somalia project encompassed training a 1,000-man antipiracy force in Somalia's northern semiautonomous region of Puntland and presidential guards in Mogadishu, the ruined seaside capital. The story identified Saracen International, a private security company, as being involved, along with a former U.S. ambassador, Pierre Prosper; a senior ex-CIA officer, Michael Shanklin; and an unidentified Muslim donor nation. Prosper and Shanklin confirmed they were working as advisers to the Somali government.

 

Since then, AP has learned from officials and documents that Prince is involved and that a second 1,000-man antipiracy force is planned for Mogadishu, where insurgents battle poorly equipped government forces.

 

Lafras Luitingh, the chief operating officer of Beirut-registered Saracen International, said the company had sought to keep the project secret to surprise the pirates. He said his company signed a contract with the Somali government in March. He declined to say whether Prince was involved in the project and said he was not part of Saracen.

 

Since the signing, a new Somali government has taken office and has appointed a panel to investigate the Saracen deal and others, said Minister of Information Abdulkareem Jama. He said he had not been aware of Prince's involvement. Separately, the U.N. is quietly investigating whether the Somalia projects have broken the blanket embargo on arms supplies to Somali factions.

 

The money is moving through a web of international companies, the addresses of which didn't always check out when the AP sought to verify them.

 

There are at least three Saracens — the one registered in Lebanon, and two run by Luitingh's business partner and based in Uganda, where government office employees told the AP the registration papers have disappeared. An AP reporter in Beirut could not find the address Luitingh's company provided in the Somali contract. Lebanese authorities had no address listed for Saracen in Lebanon and said it is based in the United Arab Emirates.

 

Afloat Leasing, which owns two ships that have been working with Saracen, said it was Liberian-registered, but an AP reporter didn't find it at the address given or in Liberian records.

 

The force's mission may be more than just curbing piracy.

 

A former U.S. government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he isn't authorized to talk to the media, said that besides targeting pirates, the new force in Puntland will go after a warlord who allegedly supplies weapons to al-Shabab, Somalia's most feared insurgent group. Luitingh said he had never heard of such a plan.

 

Luitingh was a founding member of Executive Outcomes, a controversial South African mercenary outfit linked in the 1990s to conflicts in Sierra Leone, Angola and as far away as Papua New Guinea.

 

He said Saracen will ensure it does not recruit child soldiers, will pay recruits regularly, and will be legally answerable to the Somali government. One group of 150 recruits finished training in November in Puntland and a second batch will soon complete the training course there. Training has not yet begun in Mogadishu.

 

Saracen has declined to disclose the source of its financing. A person familiar with the project, insisting on anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media, said Prince is overseeing the antipiracy training.

 

The intelligence report, in which the United Arab Emirates was identified as a funder and Prince as a participant, was given to the AP on condition its author and agency not be disclosed because the document was confidential. Several Western security officials said in interviews that those findings were trustworthy.

 

Pirates use long stretches of Somali coastline as a base to prey on busy shipping lanes in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. Al-Shabab controls most of south and central Somalia and much of Mogadishu. Western governments fear Somalia could be used as a base for attacks on the West.

 

Some American officials worry that the Saracen projects encourage the idea that more guns and money — rather than better governance and transparent defense training — can defeat the insurgency. The Somali army has been weakened by defections because a series of corrupt administrations has been incapable of paying its soldiers.

 

The Somalis being trained by the European Union are supposed to earn $100 a month. A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on talking to the media, said Saracen is offering $300 a month during training and $500 a month after graduation.

 

That could lure the best trained people away from the Somali army, the U.S. official said, and lessen the burden on the government to follow higher standards.

 

Many nations, including the Gulf states, have offered Somalia assistance. Several Arab nations who gave cash then found that the money could not be accounted for, said Hogendoorn, the Somalia analyst. That could be one reason for Arab rulers to support the Saracen project, he said.

[Thankful]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110120/ap_on_re_af/af_somalia_military_force

[Qodax Qorax]

Thankful, what is you opinion on this?

[Thankful]

I have a mixed opinion on this to be honest. For starters, I think that it is good for Puntland's internal security to have a well trained security force - this is for obvious reasons such as fighting Al-Shabaab and more importantly fighting the pirates. Plus, I want to see a professional looking security force that is well financed and capable of defending the state.

 

With that being said, I highly doubt that the ex-blackwater head Erik Prince is a person that we should be doing business with. Especially after the events a few years ago where his men were indicted for killing civilians in Iraq, this resulted in his company being banned by the Iraqi government for operating there. I think the man is not sincere and is looking to make a buck, and more concerning he seems to have hidden motives from what I have read.

 

So yeah, if Puntland has a piracy issue than it would only make sense to have a strong anti-piracy force! However, dealing with Mr. Prince doesn't seem like a good idea.

[Thankful]

'Prince of Mercenaries' who wreaked havoc in Iraq turns up in Somalia

 

Blackwater founder sets up new force to tackle piracy

 

 

Erik Prince, the American founder of the private security firm Blackwater Worldwide, has cropped up at the centre of a controversial scheme to set up a new mercenary force to crack down on piracy and terrorism in the war-torn East African country of Somalia.

 

The project, which emerged yesterday when an intelligence report was leaked to the US media, requires Mr Prince to help train a private army of 2,000 Somali troops who will be broadly loyal to the country's UN-backed government. Several neighbouring states, including the United Arab Emirates, will pay the bills.

 

Mr Prince is working in Somalia alongside Saracen International, a murky South African firm which is run by a former officer from the Civil Co-operation Bureau, an apartheid-era force notorious for killing opponents of the white minority government.

Related articles

 

* Daniel Howden: In this endless war, the lines of battle are badly blurred

* Search the news archive for more stories

 

News of his latest project has alarmed, though hardly surprised, critics of Blackwater. The firm made hundreds of millions of dollars from the "war on terror", but was severely tarnished by a string of incidents in post-invasion Iraq, in which its employees were accused of committing dozens of unlawful killings.

 

Mr Prince, a 41-year-old former US Navy Seal with links to the Bush administration, subsequently rebranded the company "Xe Services" and sold his stake in it. But he remains entangled in a string of lawsuits pertaining to the alleged recklessness of the firm.

 

For most of the past year, he has been living in Abu Dhabi, where he boasts close relations with the government and feels better positioned to dodge lawsuits. In an interview with a men's magazine, he recently declared that the Gulf State's opaque legal system will make it "harder for the jackals to get my money."

 

The exact nature of his sudden presence in Somalia remains unclear. The Associated Press said yesterday that the army Mr Prince is training will focus on fighting pirates and Islamic rebels.

 

The leaked intelligence report which prompted the news agency's story was compiled by the African Union, an organisation of African nations. It claimed that Mr Prince's money had enabled Saracen International to gain the contract to train and run the private militia. However that element of the report was flatly contradicted by a spokesman for the Blackwater founder, who claimed that Mr Prince had "no financial role of any kind in this matter".

 

In a written statement, the spokesman, Mark Corallo added: "it is well known that he has long been interested in helping Somalia overcome the scourge of piracy. To that end, he has at times provided advice to many different anti-piracy efforts." He declined to answer any further questions.

 

Whatever the exact details of Mr Prince's role, his presence in Somalia will inevitably lead to renewed soul-searching about the growing privatisation of warfare. Critics of mercenary organisations, which are often prepared to operate where traditional armies fear to tread, claim they are often trigger-happy and lack proper accountability. In Iraq, Blackwater employees shot dead dozens of civilians; 17 people were killed in one incident alone in Nisour Square, Baghdad.

 

Criminal charges were eventually brought in the US against five Blackwater employees. However, they were dropped in 2009 after a federal judge ruled that the defendants' rights had been violated during the gathering of evidence. Iraq's Interior Ministry subsequently expelled all contractors who had worked with the firm at the time of the Nisour Square shooting.

 

Somalia, where the country's UN-backed regime is fighting a civil war against Shabaab, a group of Islamic insurgents with links to al-Qa'ida, is if anything a more volatile country than post-invasion Iraq.

 

The government controls only a small portion of the capital, Mogadishu, where it has the support of 8,000 UN troops from Uganda and Burundi. It is training an army to extend its reach, but observers fear that its ranks will be weakened by the arrival of Mr Prince – who will pay his troops a far better wage.

 

Meanwhile Saracen International's shady corporate structure has not inspired confidence in its accountability. In 2002, the UN accused its Ugandan subsidiary of training rebel paramilitaries in the Congo. Recently, the firm has claimed to be registered to a string of addresses in Lebanon, Liberia, Uganda and the UAE, some of which seemed not to exist when reporters tried to visit them this week. Over the years, the firm has consistently refused to comment on the source of its funding, prompting the US State Department to say in December that it is "concerned by [its] lack of transparency."

[Thankful]

Qodax, what's you opinion on it?

[nuune]

^^ If Eric's company were deployed in Somaliland, Qodax would have said, duushey cabdoow, but now, Qodax would come back and give his opinion by saying "the Qaanfuuriyaans are in deep shiit".

 

 

Qodax, xageed Hargeisa ka joogtaa aan isla barjeenee, mise you are one of those people who never set foot in motherland but knows everything

[Thankful]

Indeed, I am quite interested in knowing what our countrymen in the NW of Somalia think of Erik Prince and this whole military training that is going on?