Blackwater Founder Starts Private Anti-Pirate Army

Erik Prince founded Blackwater Worldwide in 1997, and his private security firm quickly became a controversial factor in the occupation of Iraq-Nam. The company now goes by the name Xe Services LLC, (pronounced Zee), and Mr. Prince is no longer attached to it. However, his experience and political interests have brought him to a new theatre for the same old show. He is now working on building a private army to wipe out the pirates operating in Somalia. The world community has been gutless in attacking the pirate bases, and so this adventurer is stepping into the void. Just what Somalia needs, another group of armed men acting on the profit motive.

No one argues that the piracy that takes place off the coast of Somalia is bad for just about the entire world. No fewer than 34 nations have naval assets in the region to fight piracy. Most recently, South Korean troops stormed one of their country's vessels that had been captured. But as anyone who has studied piracy for more than an hour or two comes to realize, the ocean is big, their ships are small, and they can only be beaten on land.

The Associated Press reported, "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." This will undercut the efforts of the EU, which is training 2,000 Somalis and which is supported in the effort by the US. And it does nothing to support the African Union's 8,000 Ugandan and Burundian peace-keepers propping up what passes for a government in Somalia.

The nations of the world have been reluctant to send in troops to clean up the mess because no one wants to spend billions and billions for decades to create a nation out of the territory. The "Blackhawk Down" episode in 1993, during which US forces were attacked by the very people they were supposed to be helping. Moreover, African nations still have a paranoia (quite justified when one looks at the historical record) about outsiders coming to provide peace and stability. This makes any operation using non-African forces problematic.

Enter Mr. Prince. His private army will answer to no one, not even his paymasters in the Arab world. "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?" The quick answers are "no one" and "nothing."

What is worse is that Mr. Prince is entering a market where a private army already exists. Again the AP notes, "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."

These private armies are not going to make Somalia any better off. Increasing the number of actors there only increases the instability. And it is instability that gave the pirates their opening in the first place. Mr. Prince is putting out a fire with gasoline.

© Copyright 2011 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.

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