Of
Mercenaries
in Congo &
Bahrain, Who
Are UN's
Guards in
Somalia?
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 1 -- In
Somalia, which
private armed
guards were
running around
Mogadishu with
UN Mine Action
Service chief
David Bax,
as
acknowledged
but not named
by UN envoy
Nicholas Kay?
Were they
with South
Africa-based
Denel?
In
Eastern Congo,
would
Ukrainian
pilots in
helicopter
gunships be
considered
mercenaries,
while recently
naturalized
Bahrain
"security"
force members
are not?
These were the
questions
Inner City
Press put
to three
members of the
Working Group
on the Use of
Mercenaries on
Thursday, and
unlike at the
UN's own
briefing in
this room,
each
question got
an answer. Video
here, from
Minute 40:24.
On
Somalia,
Working Group
rapporteur
Anton Katz of
South Africa
said he
and fellow
member Faiza
Patel of
Pakistan had
been there in
December
and would be
reporting
soon. He said
Denel may be
working for
some
other entity
-- UNMAS? -
but that the
UN system does
not employ
Denel. Video
here, from
Minute 18:32.
This
seemed
strange, since
three Denel
employees were
killed in the
most
recent attack
on UN Compound
on Mogadishu.
An
arms expert
tweeted to
Inner City
Press that
Denel mostly
doesn't do
armed guards.
Then who were
they? We'll
await Kay's or
less likely
Bax's answer.
On behalf of
the new Free
UN Coalition
for Access,
Inner City
Press
suggested to
the Working Group
members that
they encourage
UN agencies to
publicly disclose
which security
companies they
use, and for
what.
On
Ukrainian
pilots in the
Congo, Gabor
Rona replied
that if they
were
members of
Ukraine's
army, they
could not be
mercenaries,
only
parties to a
conflict. On
Bahrain, he
said that
naturalization
is
enough,
legally, to
come out from
the definition
of mercenary.
Can
one be
naturalized
retroactively,
Inner City
Press asked,
laundered
so to speak? Video
here from
Minute 42:38.
Anton
Katz asked, to
some laugher,
Are you
thinking of
becoming one?
, 
