Copyright Royal Institute of International Affairs Aug/Sep 1997| [Headnote] |
| Executive Outcomes, the South African private security firm that has specialised in helping out governments in Africa, has been at the sharp end of the blossoming private security business. It has faced unprecedented condemnation from critics influenced by its military origins at the heart of the apartheid regime. The enduring hatred of mercenaries left over from the 1960s has also stuck. But the company insists it is both legitimate and serving a useful role. It has held up its work in Sierra Leone as a showcase of how force can be applied to shift a country's fortunes in war and bring peace. |
EXECUTIVE OUTCOMES WAS HIRED BY the Sierra Leonean government in April 1995 and conducted training and offensive operations until this February. But in May, three months after the company left the country, the Sierra Leonean army ousted the government, which had been democratically elected just a year earlier. The army invited the rebels they had been fighting for the past six years to join them.
This change of fortune has refuelled the argument that private military force has limited value. But most conclusions are based on scant information. A closer analysis of Executive Outcomes' (EO) operations in Sierra Leone reveals that the company made a very real impact on the course of the war and the eventual signing of a peace agreement at the end of last year. But its role in this case raises other questions about the capacity of private military forces to secure a more permanent peace, and about their limitations and dangers.
What is Executive Outcomes?
The company was formed in 1989 with personnel drawn almost exclusively from former members of the South African Security Forces. They had extensive combat experience in Namibia, Angola and Mozambique. The majority of the soldiers are black, mostly Angolans who served in the 32 Buffalo Battalion that spearheaded South African destabilisation in southern Africa. In general the officers are white. The first major contract was Angola in 1993, initially securing stability around mineral fields and later fighting on behalf of the Angolan government against Jonas Savimbi's UNITA forces - their former allies from apartheid days.
Its willingness to be involved in combat alongside those it has trained distinguishes EO from other companies. Employees believe this is its strength; one argues: `If you're a boatbuilder it would be unusual not to take your client out on the water.' 1
Although EO works as an independent security firm, it has close ties to mineral exploration companies. This combination has been likened to a modern version of the British East India Company that employed its own security force to protect its economic interests in India during the eighteenth century.
Although the comparison is exaggerated, EO's ability to link up with other mining companies is a potent combination. Mining operators have turned to it for the security to enable them to exploit mineral reserves in unstable areas. It is a high-risk, high-return strategy. But it provides access to potentially valuable areas otherwise out of bounds to companies lacking a comparable security element.
| [Photograph] |
| A rally for peace following the May coup in Sierra Leone |
Exact details of EO's company connections are concealed in offshore registration offices. But a director of one of them likens the relationship between the companies to two hands: `One hand is involved in mineral exploitation, the other with security; but both work together.'
In reality, the combination is a strategic accommodation between two broad umbrella companies. Executive Outcomes is one of a number of firms in the Strategic Resources Corporation (SRC) group - the security hand - based in South Africa and managed by Eeban Barlow, the former deputy commander of the 32nd Battalion.
The other group is housed in Plaza 107, a London-based service company that provides support for a swathe of offshore-registered, mainly mineral operators, including Branch Energy, Diamond Works, Heritage Oil and Gas and Sandline International.
But Plaza 107 also handles many of EO's business dealings. The contracts between EO and the Sierra Leonean government, for example, were negotiated by individuals working with mineral companies in Plaza 107. This close liaison illustrates the strategic necessity for mining companies to guarantee their security before investing.
Conflict in Sierra Leone
Executive Outcomes was employed in April 1995 to win the war for the Sierra Leonean military government against the rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). The Front had emerged five years earlier to oppose the endemic corruption and unaccountable government.
The RUF's leader, Foday Sankoh, found receptive followers among unemployed and disgruntled youth. In response to the RUF threat, the Sierra Leone military forces (SLMF) expanded from around 4,000 troops in 1991 to 14,000 just a year later. Ironically, they were drawing from the same pool of recruits as the RUF but also attracting petty criminals from Freetown's streets. Following the briefest of training, they were dispatched to the front line.
Not surprisingly, both these groups found targeting civilians, and the opportunities to mine Sierra Leone's rich diamond fields, more attractive than engaging each other in war. Terrorising villagers and committing atrocities were frequent occurrences. Amputation of fingers and hands was a common RUF intimidation tactic. The fighting was far from straightforward. A system of collusion evolved between the RUF and the army - the lower echelons of the army used the RUF as an alibi to loot homes and businesses, while the upper levels distributed diamond concessions to their supporters.
Enter Executive Outcomes
By the time EO entered Sierra Leone in May 1995, the RUF had advanced to within 20 kilometres of Freetown, threatening the military government and prompting the evacuation of many international staff. The government had also lost control of Sierra Rutile's titanium dioxide mine and the Sieromco bauxite mine that had produced over half of the country's export earnings. The diamond areas of the Kono district had also fallen under RUF control. In conjunction with the Sierra Leonean government, EO set four military objectives:2
Make safe Freetown from the RUF threat.
Generate revenue for the government by securing the Sierra Rutile area and diamond fields, to guarantee payment.
Eliminate the RUF headquarters. Clear the remaining areas of RUF occupation.
EO's military operations relied heavily on mobile assaults from helicopters, preassault barrage from mortars and ground assaults. Support during some operations was given by a Nigerian artillery battalion that had been sent to Sierra Leone as part of the West African peacekeeping force, ECOMOG, to support the government and protect key installations.
Throughout 1995, most fighting was undertaken by EO personnel with some SLMF support. Around 150 EO staff were employed, although this figure increased to over 300 briefly in early 1996. Later that year the kamajors, the traditional hunters found in Sierra Leonean society, were heavily used as infantry.
Originally the kamajors were a small armed group that provided some protection to civilians from attacks by both the RUF and SLMF. However, during 1996 they became more organised, expanding rapidly to become a force in their own right and mounting their own operations.
EO planned its main operations jointly with the SLMF and by the end of August 1995 had fulfilled its first two objectives. The RUF was defeated outside Freetown and cleared from the Kono diamond mining area, allowing the government access to mining revenue. In January 1996, EO was again used in a major operation to eliminate an RUF stronghold in the Kangari Hills.
The success of this last operation had two major effects. The RUF agreed to negotiate with the military government, the first negotiations since fighting had begun five years earlier. Second, a degree of stability was achieved that allowed elections to go ahead the following month, despite RUF opposition and the government's desire to stall them and retain their hold on power.
After the election the new civilian government continued to use EO expertise. Military force put pressure on Sankoh when he reneged on signing a peace agreement. A series of operations orchestrated by EO that relied heavily on kamajors ground assault destroyed the RUF headquarters. A few days after this defeat, in November 1996, Sankoh agreed to sign the peace accord. Unsurprisingly, at the insistence of the RUF, it called for the removal from the country of EO immediately following the arrival of a UN observer force.
Conflict resolved?
EO achieved two key results. First, the government was put in a much stronger strategic position; it helped make elections possible and parts of the country were made safe for some of the more than one million displaced to return home.
Second, there was a clear correlation between the outcome of EO's military operations and the willingness of the RUF to negotiate. A senior international diplomat remarking on the influence of EO's military operations on the RUF observed that, `always military pressure was needed to be put on before negotiations could succeed'.3
This pattern is not unusual. The motivations of parties to explore a negotiated settlement comes not from a desire for reconciliation and peace, but because military and political conditions compel them to stop fighting. EO left two months after the peace agreement was signed, with the government confident that peace was secured and wanting to minimise their expenditure.
However, the RUF also used the lull provided by negotiations to reorganise. This illustrates the limitations of EO's mandate. As a contracted company, it may have been able to deliver a party to the negotiating table - on terms favourable to its client - but it relied on others to broker the agreement.
Yet, the political settlement was not supported by confidence-building measures needed to ensure the planned demobilisation of the RUF, nor the restrucuturing of the bloated and unruly SLME The deployment of UN observers was a critical part of the settlement. But the UN baulked when the RUF refused to grant its consent. The UN's insistence on consent as a general principle for any deployment limits its ability to respond in civil wars where agreements can be fickle.
Executive Outcomes was keen to inflict a comprehensive military victory. Its commander in Sierra Leone, Bert Sachse, noted bluntly: `If you want to destroy the serpent, you have to cut off its head and make sure that it can't strike any more.'4 Whether this was entirely feasible is questionable. While EO destroyed the bulk of the RUF's logistic and planning capabilities, the pursuit and elimination of small, disconnected RUF groups in the jungle was better achieved by the kamajors.
The future way?
Security companies have been around for some time. The British company Lonrho, for instance, employed Gurkhas to protect investments in Mozambique in the 1980s. But private military forces like the EO have only emerged in the past seven years. They are likely to be sustained by two factors. A regime facing certain annihilation by opposing military factions will cling to whatever life-buoy is available, private or not. It is unlikely to get help from elsewhere. The UN and Western states have little strategic interest in nations like Sierra Leone and no appetite for military intervention after experiences in places such as Somalia and Bosnia.
| Sites of main operations by Executive Outcomes |
Governments are also likely to use private military force to gain the upper hand. Papua New Guinea approached the security firm Sandline International - which in turn sub-contracted EO - when its own military forces were unable to settle a nine-year civil war on the island of Bougainville. It faced the strain of a war on its economy and stability and the loss of one-third of its exports from the closure of the Bougainville copper mine.
Second, the general failure of mediation will tempt more states to conclude conflicts by force. The evidence is that they will have more success this way. Between 1900 and 1980, only 15 per cent of civil wars ended by negotiation; the remaining 85 per cent were concluded by one side winning.5 The cocktail of measures most common in recent years, of agreement to a cease-fire supported by the deployment of peacekeepers and mediation, has more frequently led to prolonged intractable conflict, with displaced civilian populations bearing the brunt.
The costs of private security
However, the cost of private armies for a developing country is steep. The Sierra Leonean government signed three separate security contracts with EO over the 22 months they were in country. They were for a total of $35 million - an average of more than $1.5 million a month to be paid in cash.
EO is a commercial venture motivated principally by profit and will charge what it feels the market will allow, not merely to cover its costs. The expense may prompt a desperate regime to empty its country's coffers, thereby jeopardising future government programmes.
There is little incentive for a security company to prolong its stay if a country is unable to pay. The company may cut short its operations when the money runs out, regardless of the consequences. Alternatively, a lucrative contract may act as an incentive to prolong violence and justify a company's existence.
In EO's case there was a commercial interest to maintain stability. Branch Energy had obtained a diamond concession in August 1995 and any investment was threatened without security.
But there are other reasons to be cautious. The advantages private military force might bring to stabilising a conflict might upset the delicate balance between the country's political leaders and its military. The decision by a government to employ outside military expertise is an admission of its own forces' failure. It is likely to cause severe loss of face for its military personnel.
In both Sierra Leone and Papua New Guinea, where EO has been involved, the military has turned on its political masters. The Sierra Leonean army overthrew the government in May 1997 because it believed its position had been undermined. Arguably, EO was a contributing factor in highlighting military inadequacies.
The rapid increase in the use of private security companies poses dilemmas for international stability. In Sierra Leone there is considerable evidence that EO brought stability and the chance of negotiations. Condemnation needs to be tempered with the more tragic episodes in UN peacekeeping, notably the behaviour of Canadian, Italian and Belgian soldiers in Somalia. It also compares favourably with ECOMOG efforts in neighbouring Liberia, where 150,000 died. But neither is it a panacea for all conflict.
However, when governments continue to refuse to intervene when intervention is is needed, the finger can hardly be pointed at states that choose to hire private forces. Where a market exists for military intervention, the private sector will surely seize its chance. Oddly, the states that employ private military force receive less criticism than the companies themselves.
Yet the unaccountable nature of private firms has not been addressed, nor has their longer-term impact on states. Private security firms are not about to go away. Their existence and impact should be debated in an environment that recognises their reality and the current reality of international affairs.
Civil wars should be understood as highly idiosyncratic phenomena for which a variety of remedies are necessary.
| [Author Affiliation] |
| DAVID SHEARER is a Research Associate with the International Institute for Strategic Studies and is writing an Adelphi Paper on private security forces. Over the past eight years he has worked in six different conflicts with the Save the Children Fund (UK) and the United Nations. He was in Sierra Leone a week before the coup in May. |
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