It’s never easy to obtain from regular armies proper respect of human rights and even the United States, Great-Britain, France, Russia or Israel don’t hesitate to accomplish atrocities in order to protect their own interests. But the mercenaries have always given western states and corporations the opportunity to do whatever they want with transparency, without having any explanations to give about the methods, and even without a direct implication in the military intervention. But these soldiers, in the service of imperialism, who obey more the laws of capitalism than the Geneva Convention, are capable of doing the worst.

After being incorporated in regular armies during a year or two, and fighting for long enough on the battle-front, soldiers intend to forget everything besides their experience of war, and become perfectly lobotomised individuals with no ethic, ready to commit the worst actions for the good will their government. (This issue has been discussed and proved). But mercenaries are even worst. You don’t join a mercenary with a PHD in political science and believing that you can improve foreign countries’ politics by fighting for dictators. No one willing to obtain peace in a sensible manner would ever be interested in their “peace maintaining” methods. Actually, we all know that war itself is the business of these companies, and therefore, permanent peace is the-one-thing they could not hope for.

People decide to fight in these private armies because war is something they simply enjoy, and because it’s something they love to be paid for. They had no real values before starting their mercenary career, and the atmosphere they evolve in doesn’t allow them to understand the concept of crime itself. Nothing matters but the money that they will cash in, once their inhuman duty accomplished.

No one has the power to punish them, for western countries are the ones who have created and used these mercenary groups in the past. And the only people who actually know what crimes they’re committing and where, are the populations that these mercenaries oppress and even massacre.

The most important private armies are American and British, but other western countries developed this kind of activity.

The most significative “private armies” of this planet:

-DYN CORP (United-States)
-SANDLINE (Great Britain)
-MILITARY PROFESSIONAL RESOURCES: MPRI (United-States)
-VINELLE CORPORATION (United-States)
-ARMOR HOLDING-DEFENCE SYSTEMS Ltd (United-States & Great Britain)
-WACKENHUT (United-States)
-LEVDAN (Israel)
-INTERNATIONAL DEFENCE AND SECURITY: IDAS (Belgium and Netherlands)
-EXECUTIVES OUTCOME until 1998 (South-Africa)
-AFRICA SECURITY (France)
-IRIS SERVICES (France)
-SECURANCE (France)
-ERIC S.A. (France)
-GEOS (France)
... And many other! CIEX, CAPCON, KROLL, MAXIMA, HAKLUYT & CO, ASMARA, ARGEN...

You will find links to the home pages of some of the major mercenary companies at the bottom of the article.

DON’T PRIVATISE THE WAR!!! As I like to say, war is just a trans-dimensional gateway to an evil parallel universe.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE RETURN OF MERCENARIES: THESE DOGS OF WAR

Article by MICHEL BEURET

“The night had already fallen. Suddenly, we heard helicopters and armed men invaded the village. They lined up the Indians in front of their house. Two villagers were taken away. We’ve never seen them again. They were not uniforms from the Bolivian army. There, were Americans.”
Other expeditions like the one described by this Swiss priest in Bolivia are multiplying themselves in South-America. Who besides the regular army or the police dares behaving this way? Rambos of the US army? A local guerrilla? Actually, it’s a subtile mixture of both. “In Bolivia, expeditionary-task forces are paramilitary groups paid by the United-States” denounces Evo Romales, Bolivian congressman, hero of the small coca planters. Similarly to other countries, Bolivia is in deep debt. It can’t make opposition to the American will to lead a crusade against narco-traficants on its own soil. And Bolivia can’t lead it its own way either. That night, in the small village of the Amazon, these men were actually mercenaries paid by Washington doing one of their interventions: the new “dogs of war”.

The phenomenon is unfortunately spreading over all continents. A renewal that “partially results in the growing disponibility of this kind of workmanship following the end of the cold war and the apartheid, and the reduction in number of men of regular armies”, declares François Misser and Philippe Chapleau, authors of “Mercenaires S.A.” (Editor: Desclée de Brower). All over the world, obeying states but also corporations, mercenaries are spreading and they either worry, or give ideas. On Feb 12th 2002, the British minister of defence, JACK STRAW, gave the Parlement a report in favour of a regulation of these private armies. On another hand, his French homologue, ALAIN RICHARD, explained to the ministers’ council his project of repression against mercenary activities. And just a month ago, the U.N. commission for human rights adopted a resolution denouncing “the danger that these mercenary groups represent for peace”. A declaration with a derisory intention, as we know that all “furnishing” countries have either voted against the resolution, or abstained. Despite the recent coming into force of the “international convention against recruiting, using, financing and instructing mercenaries” you can bet that the mercenary business has an great future ahead. Nothing is troublesome to the states that didn’t sign it for the definition of the mercenary already makes a problem.

On this ground, Colombia has become THE kingdom of mercenary activities: private groups are training the governmental army (that has grown from 22’000 to 100’000 men) to fight the 17’000 guerilleros from the FARC (“Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia”). The big owners and rich industrials are financing their own army: the “united self-defence of Colombia”, 10’000 paramilitary forces of the extreme right wing, formerly trained by an Israeli mercenary, YAIR KLEIN, for Pablo Escobar. The methods and the financing of these mercenaries are usual: respectively, terror and drugs.

In Colombia, even corporations ask for help from mercenaries. A U.N. official recalled in 1999 the means of the British oil company “British Petroleum” to watch its installations. The company called a “security” giant for this task: the DSC, Colombian branch of DSL ( “Defence Systems Ltd.”: US-GB). According to the report, the DSC forces have been guilty, with the help of their mercenaries, of planed acts of torture on local residents around the pipeline in construction, in order to obtain information about the guerrilla.

Colombia is bloodless: 2 million people have been moved, 4 million have exiled and 3000 people have died in average every year for 37 years. And this isn’t over. Everything forecasts an intensification of massacres. ALVARO URIBE, the new president of Colombia, has been elected on May 26th with a program of war against the “Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia” and to reinforce the “Colombia Plan” imposed by Washington. In coincidence, the FARC have been assimilated as Al-Quaïda since the Sept 11th events. Everything seems to be permitted against the so-called “Axis of Evil”. The strategy of the Marxist revolutionary guerrilla is to be within the population, like “a fish in water”, among villagers. The strategy to be adopted by the government is clear: “empty the water tank”.

Who will do this dirty job? Who will burn down forests, run out resources, and deport habitants...? Who will asphyxiate the fish? Washington, of course, massively supports Colombia (biggest military help after Israel and Egypt), and Bogotá received 60 “Black Hawk” and “Huey 2” helicopters, paid by the “Colombia Plan” ($1,3 billion). But engaging directly the U.S. army’s “boys” in the jungle would result in casualties that the American public opinion would never tolerate. Thus, America makes an abusive use of mercenary with 300 to 400 instructors on the ground. The advantages? Officially: no casualties, and most important, NO EXPLANATIONS TO GIVE ABOUT THE METHODS.

Irony of History, today’s crusaders against drugs traficants are sometimes the same people who used to collaborate to that traffic. Thus, OLIVER NORTH was given the task to set the objectives of the “plan”. Background secretary of Ronald Regan’s shadow during the cold war, it was under his responsibility that weapons paid with Colombian cocaine were furnished clandestinely to the Nicaragua’s “Contras” (paramilitary extreme right wing men) fighting the Sendinist (left wing) government.

Similarly, the EAST aviation company (Eagle Aviation Services and Technologies) spreading defoliant on coca fields is the same firm that used to transport weapons and drugs. Two other giant American mercenary agencies are at work in the area: “Dyn Corp” and MPRI (Military Professional Resources Inc.), who furnish pilots and instructors as well as “non conventional” wars “specialists”. The MPRI, very close to the Penthagon, is being considered like a second American army. A private one.

On the old continent, mercenary activities are blooming. The “know-how” of the Serbian of Croat “dogs of war”, who were hiring themselves during the war in Yugoslavia, are recycling themselves in the service of African dictators. Perpetuating the drama of Africa, the now deceased former president MOBUTU had invited a few packs of these “dogs of war”, to reinforce his ghost army in Zaire. But these new-comers have proved themselves of a cowardice that has marked everyone’s spirit. In Congo-Brazzaville, the two presidential rivals, LISSOUBA AND SASSOU, have engaged war with the help of interposed mercenaries: “LISSOUBA employed the Israeli group LEVDAN, lead by an accountable of the massacred of SABRA and SHATILA, in southern Lebanon” as François Misser recalls it in his book. In order to help LISSOUBA’s “Zoulous” unit to fight SASSOU’s “Cobras”, the Israelis of LEVDAN recruited South-Africans, Ukrainians, Russians, Croats and a few French who decimated the region: 6’000 dead, at least.

On another battlefront, more recently, Albanian rebels from Kossovo and Macedonia have also enrolled their soldiers in Europe, and even in Switzerland. “In Lausanne, a few bars were well known for sheltering such recruitment burros”, tells Pierre, a former Swiss legionary. “You just had to speak with the boss and then...”. The man is aware of the manoeuvres for, like other Swiss at the time, he joined mercenary groups after renouncing serving the Legion. But, for the former legionaries who have tried this kind of life, it is complete amnesia: “We’re not proud of it. We were totally lost”.

The number of soldiers left aside regular armies didn’t use to be so important. Just between 1988 and 1995, the Russian army has reduced of 500’000 of its soldiers. Complicated to recycle. But POUTINE has actually found them a new job in the context of war in TCHETCHENIA. Parents don’t want to see their children dying at the battle-front? We’ll just send “KONTRAKNIKIS“, voluntary soldiers, ready to commit the worst, and to fight for $20 a day. Even if they’re not always paid, these men never fall short of their employer’s expectation. The worst crimes committed in TCHETCHENIA were accomplished by these “KONTRAKNIKIS”. On another way: no one. No matricul. No identity.

In spite of the appearances, the time of the furious descendents of Bob Denard, who’ve decimated Africa, and who went impulsively on their savage journeys, is over. They now compete with other modern mercenary groups – just like the former Executive Outcomes – more organised and constituted like real corporations (between 100 and 1’000 men). These companies, “perfectly in phase with the ambient ultra-liberal speech”, as François Misser tells us, are playing the card of market, competition, and are now counting on know-how, technologies and a visible transparency.

When navigating trough internet sites of the huge mercenary companies like VINELLE; MPRI or DYN CORP, you could think that war has become the new product to commercialise. Their home pages look like the ones of ordinary council companies; offering diversified services such as strategy, weapons, training, “peace maintaining”, guarding, logistic and technical help... They describe proudly the operations the company is leading abroad at the time. They also take care of their own image and “values”. On their page for job offers, it looks like they’re more looking for ingeniors than for soldiers. You only need to fill the application.

The question is now: regulate and vulgarise, or abolish the mercenary activities? The talking has already begun, but one thing is sure: this market is exploding. We don’t exactly know how many mercenaries are fighting today, but the size of their business is known: MPRI, for example, has signed a contract to instruct the Bosnian army for $50 million a year. DSL showed in 1997 a $33 million net profit and the other British company, SANDLINE, received $30 million from the Papouasian government to liquidate the rebels from Bougainville. The biggest contract came from the Gulf: DYN CORP signed two of them worth $48 million each, in Qatar and Kuwait. A danger? One thing seems certain: the war is going to be privatised.

MICHEL BEURET
In the Swiss weekly magazine: “L’HEBDO” may/30/2002
Original article:  http://www.webdo.ch/hebdo/2002/22/pol_2.html
(translated by Some1else)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MERCENARY GROUPS OFFICIAL SITES:

UNITED STATES:
->Dyn Corp Ltd:  http://www.dyncorp.com/
->Vinelle corporation:  http://www.vinnell.com/
->MPRI:  http://www.mpri.com/channels/home.html
->Wackenhut:  http://www.wackenhut.com/
->Armor Holding - Defence Systems Ltd:  http://www.msi-dsl.com/

GREAT-BRITAIN:
->Sandline: http://www.sandline.com/site/index.html

Jack Straw's proposal to regulate privat armies:  http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/peacekpg/general/2002/pmc.htm

SITES DENOUNCING MERCENARY ACTIVITIES :

-by Africa business:  http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/icpubs/ab/dec97/abcs1201.htm
-Profile of the mercenary activity:  http://www.cdi.org/issues/mercenaries/merc1.html
-World Socialist Website:  http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/jun2000/sier-j26.shtml
-U.N.'s human rights resolution:  http://www.unhchr.ch/Huridocda/Huridoca.nsf/(Symbol)/E.CN.4.2002.20.En?Opendocument
-Coverage of mercenaries in India:
 http://www.jammu-kashmir.com/archives/archives2000/kashmir20000213b.html
-pretty much against Dyn Corp:  http://www.dyncorp-sucks.com/

OTHER GREAT SITES !!!IN FRENCH ONLY!!!:

 http://strategique.free.fr/archives/textes/div/archives_div_03.htm
 http://www.frstrategie.org/version_fr/index_fr.asp
 http://www.globenet.org/survie/campagne/mercinfo.htm
François Misser's book (in french):  http://rights.free.fr/armee/mercenaires.htm

The best way to learn is by looking at it yourself. Go, surf the net, search for proofs, and witness the crimes that we occidentals are responsible for, somehow.
We often despise thirld world countries and the problems they’re enduring. It’s time to realise that a good proportion of the deloping countries’ mischief is dued to a system that we’re all participating to.

“I tell you, all men are created equal
But behind the trigger it's a different sequel
Some are murdering people just to collect medals
Stop committing dirty acts for the high officials
You could wash your hands until you can't wash them any more
It is like an epidemic and you won't find a cure
Upper class you could be rich, middle class whether you are poor
Only the righteous won't feel insecure
Have you ever thought about your skill getting bored

Murderer! Blood is on your shoulders
Kill I today you cannot kill I tomorrow
Murder! Your insides must be hollow
How does it feel to take the life of another” (Buju Banton – song: “Murderer”)

Save the planet!
Peace & love
Some1else