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French Mercenaries To Patrol Somalia, Blackwater in Mia
Farrow's Dream for Darfur
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
June 16 -- That the UN might pay
mercenaries to do peacekeeping missions appears closer all the time.
French private
military firm Secopex has announced
a contract with Somalia's Transitional
Federal Government, worth 50 to 100 million Euros over three years, to
patrol
the coastline and to protect president Yusuf, whose plane is fired at
every
time it leaves or enters Mogadishu airport.
Secopex founder Pierre Marziali has been quoted
that the company
will "be seeking backing from the International Maritime Organization
and
other UN bodies, as well as from the European Union." He added that he
expected the EU countries to respond all the more readily following the
decision
of the UN Security Council to authorize international navies to go into
Somali
waters to combat piracy. So here is an early beneficiary of the
Council's
piracy resolution.
Monday
at the UN,
Inner
City Press asked Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson Michele Montas about
Pierre
Marziali's statement that backing will be sought from "UN bodies... Is
it
in the UN mandate to pay money to a private security firm to protect a
transitional federal Government?"
Ms. Montas replied,
"I can inquire into this, but I don't think so." Video here.
Somali pirates, Secopex and UN funding not yet shown
Friday,
the idea of
the UN paying U.S.-based Blackwater to go into Darfur was given the
blessing of
actress Mia
Farrow, at a Press breakfast high over UN Plaza. The only problem,
Ms. Farrow told Inner City Press and others, was that Sudan might not
given
Blackwater visas. Last
week in Sudan, officials said they intend to pull the visas
of the employees of U.S.-based military contractor Lockheed Martin in
July, when the extension to its $250 million no-bid contract runs
out. Secopex apparently will not have that problem in Somalia.
One
wonders what the UN's security chief for Somalia, who has a satellite
phone
with a "Mission Impossible" ring-tone, thinks of all this. He has
confirmed that resource extraction firms in Somalia's breakaway
Puntland region
have hired up second-tier militias to protect and extend their claims.
Would
Secopex work for commercial fishing trawlers arguably violating
Somalia's
exclusive economic zone? Watch this site.
* * *
These reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click
here for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
Feedback: Editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
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718-716-3540
Other,
earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available
in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
Copyright
2006-08 Inner City Press, Inc. To request
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