Examination of Witness (Questions 1 -
19)
TUESDAY 11 JUNE 2002
LT COLONEL
TIM SPICER,
OBE
Sir John Stanley
1. Colonel Spicer, welcome back to the Foreign
Affairs Committee. Our Chairman, Donald Anderson is unavoidably
absent this morning and that is why I am going to chair this particular
session. You will remember that when you were in front of this
Committee four years ago in 1998 at the time of this Committee's
inquiry into the arms to Sierra Leone affair, you set out to the
Committee and also in your article in The Sunday Times
of 24 May 1998, which was headed "Why we can help where governments
fear to tread", the case you felt there was for national
governments and possibly international organisations making use
of private military companies (PMCs) for military training and
indeed combat purposes and why you felt there was a role for reputable
companies in this field. You will also remember, no doubt fairly
vividly, that your views at that time, that there was a legitimate
role for such organisations, were treated with a very considerable
degree of scepticism and indeed some degree of derision in some
quarters. Four years on we have the Government's Green Paper which
certainly sets out the disadvantages of using private military
companies but also sets out in one paragraph after another the
possible advantages of governments using private military companies
where those companies are reputable. I should like to ask whether
you consider that there has indeed been something of a sea change
in the British Government's approach and language and tenor in
relation to private military companies since four years ago. If
you do feel that there has been something of a sea change, why
do you think that sea change has occurred?
(Lt Colonel Spicer) There has certainly
been a sea change and the whole tone of this Green Paper would
support that. The reason I think it has changed is that at the
time I was in front of this Committee before, as you quite rightly
pointed out, some of my ideas and the ideas of others who supported
the use of private military companies were pretty new and fairly
radical. In the time it has taken to produce the Green Paper,
because I believe it was promised shortly after this Committee's
investigation into Arms to Africa, a wide spectrum of people has
been consulted and a realisation of the complexities and dangers
of the international situation has become clearer. If you combine
that with the lack of resolve of some countries to become involved
internationally, the difficulties that the United Nations sometimes
finds itself in and other factors, finance perhaps being one of
them, then people in government, certainly in this Government,
have come to realise that there is a role providing that you can
separate the good from the bad, you can identify what is acceptable
and how it can be employed and find a mechanism for regulation
which is acceptable across the board, both to industry, to government
and to the public at large.
2. In your own memorandum to the Committee[1]
you have set out the roles which you see private military companies
being able to perform. It is clear that you envisaged them forming
not merely non-combat training and logistical support roles but
also in certain circumstances combat roles. I should like to put
this point to you. Would it not be the case that as far as any
British Government are concerned, there would always be a very
substantial disadvantage and risk attaching to a British Government
using private military companies in a combat role by virtue of
the fact that when the British Government use members of our armed
services in that role the Armed Forces Acts apply and the full
basis of statutory discipline applies. The Armed Forces Acts will
not apply to private military companies and therefore that must
always, from a human rights standpoint, put private military companies
at potentially a much greater risk as far as usage by British
Government is concerned, than members of our armed forces.
(Lt Colonel Spicer) I would not disagree
with the fact that there is a level of risk, neither would I accept
nor suggest that the use of a private military company is in any
way a substitute for the use of national sovereign forces or indeed
the forces of an organisation under the umbrella of an organisation
like the United Nations. However, I think that in certain circumstancesand
I am setting aside a contract with an overseas government in addressing
the use of private military companies by British Governmentwhere
the Government of the day might feel that it did not wish to deploy
British troops or did not have the capacity to do so, for whatever
reasons, overstretch and the like, there is a case for some form
of intervention force, purely and simply to stabilise the situation,
prevent loss of life and the examples of genocide that we have
seen relatively recently, both in Europe and in Africa and elsewhere.
With regard to human rights and therefore the regulation and discipline
of these types of operation that we are talking about, I would
respond by saying that if one accepts that there is a role for
private military companies, one has also to accept that there
is a requirement for regulation, which is after all the thrust
of the Green Paper. Part of that regulatory process must address
the question of the standards of human rights awareness and behaviour
and the sanctions which could be applied in the event of those
standards of behaviour being breached. Certainly in my response
to the Green Paper, I have addressed that. If you superimpose
national regulation and in some way perhaps as a second step link
it to regulation within the United Nations or within the international
community, if you take the principles of international law, national
law, regulation, media scrutiny, contractual obligations, there
are enough checks and balances to ensure that having sorted the
wheat from the chaff in terms of who is allowed to conduct these
operations, there is enough weight of law to address that particular
issue. I accept that there is nothing like the sanction of the
Armed Forces Acts or at a much lower level the manual of military
law and other legal balances one has when deploying national forces.
It would have to be addressed as part of the regulatory process,
if the principles contained in this paper are to be moved forward.
Mr Pope
3. At the height of the Rwandan crisis no national
government was prepared to intervene. Kofi Annan said that he
considered engaging private firms at that point, but he concluded
that the world was not ready to privatise peace. Do you think
he is wrong? If he is wrong, could you give the Committee some
examples where private companies could be used to enhance the
role of the UN in enforcing Security Council resolutions?
(Lt Colonel Spicer) I would not argue with his reading
of the temperature at the time because I have direct experience
of that myself. His point was well made. If you have a situation
in a country where there is lack of state control, lack of a sovereign
army and police force which is going to maintain law and order
in that country and elements of the population of a country are
being victimised, to use the example of Rwanda, and there is a
move not just towards murder and mayhem but downright genocide,
then whatever the circumstances and whatever the temperature is,
there is always a case for somebody trying to stop it. If that
is not going to be done by a sovereign nation or by an international
organisation, then there is a role. Part of the problem, if I
may address the question generally, is the complexity of how the
UN has to operate. I am not intending this as a criticism, but
it is really just a statement of fact. In recent years the intervention
and peace enforcement as opposed to peacekeeping role of the United
Nations does not have a particularly glorious track record. The
problem is the bureaucracy under which it has to labour and procedures
for putting together an intervention force, the canvassing of
Member States and contributing nations, gearing that up, organising
it, producing a headquarters to get into technical detail, how
it is going to communicate, how it gets there, what it does when
it gets there, what its mission is and then it works under a number
of military constraints like its inability to gather and develop
intelligence. If that procedure and complication were addressed,
perhaps by the creation of a United Nations standing military
force, or, a more radical example, by the creation of a database
or register of private companies, who could either work in the
first instance on behalf of the United Nationswhether they
wear blue berets or not is a moot point, the purpose being to
deploy a force which could stabilise and stop what was going on
in a particular countryin order to allow an organisation
like the United Nations a breathing space to follow its necessary
procedures before it can deploy a United Nations force, which
one would hope by that stage would be a peacekeeping force rather
than a peace enforcement force, there is still a problem within
the United Nations amongst contributing nations about the precise
role of what their troops are going to do and their vulnerability.
Peacekeeping is more attractive than peace enforcement. Quite
often the terms are muddled and the role of peace enforcement
is glossed over. The best example of this I can think of, of which
I have personal experience, was the question of Sierra Leone.
It was quite clear that the Government was ousted by a military
coup backed by a pretty unpleasant rebel movement. There was no
immediate rush to go and sort the situation out and in fact having
then gone through the diplomatic and administrative process, it
took some considerable time before a United Nations force was
deployed. It was extremely large and extremely expensive and one
could argue that it did not actually achieve its aim in a short
space of time.
4. I am interested by that. It strikes me that
there is a good case for private military companies. Some countries
which are providing troops for UN peacekeeping are sending fully
equipped, highly trained troops and, let us face it, some of these
countries are doing it because of the money they can get back
from the UN. Compared with that, what we could be talking about
are highly trained, very professional forces who could do a good
job for the United Nations; cheaper, more specific, highly focused.
The worry we all have is about accountability of those companies.
The Green Paper arguesand I am not sure this is convincingthat
those companies would behave well, their troops would behave well,
simply because they wanted to have their contract with the UN
renewed and it would be an ongoing process in which it would be
in the interests of private military companies to behave well
in terms of human rights because they would want their contract
renewed. Do you think that is enough incentive? Is the marketplace
the right amount of accountability? Is there not a moral distinction
to be drawn between private military companies and forces of a
sovereign nation?
(Lt Colonel Spicer) I am quite often asked a similar
question. There is an assumption that people who run private military
companies do not subscribe to a good moral standpoint or the law
of armed conflict or respect for human rights, which I think is
probably unjustified. If you start from a basic point of view
that those people who wish to contribute to peace and stability
in the world, albeit as a commercial enterprise, are starting
from the same viewpoint as everybody else, in other words bad
is bad and good is good and the bad has to be stopped, the development
of that attitude through the law, which I referred to earlier
on, and some form of regulation and oversight, as well as commercial
common sense, would be the way I would answer that particular
question.
Sir Patrick Cormack
5. You said "in certain circumstances"
and you slightly amplified that by your references to Rwanda and
Sierra Leone. What conflicts and what situations where a great
deal of blood has been shed in recent years, could have been made
different, or could have been avoided if there had been a sensible
use of private military companies, in your opinion and under whose
authority would they have had to operate?
(Lt Colonel Spicer) Scale is quite important in this
because there needs to be an understanding of the true capabilities
of private military companies. Any small-scale conflict, primarily
within the boundaries of a sovereign state rather than interstate
conflict, where the legitimate forces of law and order could not
cope and there was no desire to intervene. I suppose Rwanda and
Sierra Leone and other conflicts in Africa are the best examples
but one could have argued that perhaps in the case of some of
the problems in the Balkans, Kosovo possibly, where there was
a lot of hesitation about the right course of action and it was
quite clear that regardless of some of the less desirable attributes
of some of the protagonists, genocide was going on, particularly
in the case of Kosovo, there might have been a case, but that
is a complicated one. It is much easier in other less militarily
sophisticated environments. Any small-scale conflict would be
my general answer. Under whose auspices? That would depend on
who was taking an interest. It could be a national government
but we have heard the concerns about the British Government using
it and it could be the United Nations. In any of the examples
I have given you, the United Nations was not ready for it. It
may be in the future. I do not know.
Mr Illsley
6. May I refer back to a comment you made earlier
about having military companies contributing to peace and stability?
The thrust of our discussions so far this morning tends to suggest
that private military companies could be used in peacekeeping
operations on behalf of the United Nations, perhaps on behalf
of national governments. By definition, private military companies
are private companies, they will exist to make a profit and will
have to seek out ways of generating their income. What happens
in areas where it is not a peacekeeping situation and there is
some doubt as to the definition of the conflict? You mentioned
Kosovo a few moments ago. Some of the combatants operating on
behalf of the Serbian Government were also private military companies
themselves. What happens in those situations where there is less
definition about the morality of the conflict which these companies
could be involved in?
(Lt Colonel Spicer) That sort of distinction and the
desire for clarity is really what this Green Paper is about or
an attempt to produce a set of circumstances whereby that confusion
would not exist because there would be oversight and there would
be a requirement to discuss under certain either general or specific
principles what, in the case of a British company, it was going
to get up to. I come back to the point I made when Mr Pope was
asking me his question. There really is in most what I would perhaps
define as honourable and the good side of private military companies
an understanding of what is right and wrong and which side they
should work on. Quite often the whole business of the private
security sector, whether it is private military companies, private
security companies and others, is criticised because there is
a feeling that they will work for anybody. In the example of Kosovo,
you referred to Serb paramilitary units. I would disagree with
you in trying to equate them to private military companies because
they were quite clearly elements of the Serb Government and the
military machine. They may have been dressed up in some other
way, but that is what they were and their paymasters were the
Government of Serbia. It is somewhat different and they were put
in to carry out a military task which everybody knew was going
to be illegal and they were going to conduct abuses of human rights
and mass murder. You would not find a private military company
in there and if it were, it would not last five minutes. As to
the question of working for the highest bidder or switching sides,
again I would say that is precisely the sort of thing that the
Government is trying to produce a methodology to prevent. I cannot
think of a properly constituted private military company or private
security company or any other of the variants of the security
industry which would actually do that. You may find individualsand
this is where there is a distinction between what I would describe
as mercenaries as opposed to private companieswho may choose
to have a different view and may operate outside the law, both
national and international and outside regulations. Certainly
my reading of the Foreign Secretary's foreword to this is that
is precisely what he is trying to stop.
7. You do not see any situation where the British
Government some years down the line could have a licensing regime
for private military companies and be in a position where we as
a government have licensed a company which is operating perhaps
in conflict to British Government policy. I suppose it comes down
to the definition of what a conflict is and whose side you are
on, but national governments are notorious themselves for backing
the wrong horse one time and then changing. Iran/Iraq is an obvious
example where we back one regime one year and then a few years
down the line we are backing another.
(Lt Colonel Spicer) It is a complication and nobody
who is involved in the business or in government would think that
this is an easy process. I should like to think that situation
would not exist because there would be a much closer understanding
and working relationship between national governments or international
bodies and the private security sector; those situations should
not happen. I am not saying they would not happen. There are two
angles to your question. One is: could a government find a company
registered and licensed in its own country working against its
national interests? Or: have those national interests changed
and the contractual obligation not caught up with it? I do not
have an answer to that. That is something which would have to
be worked out if and when this develops.
Mr Chidgey
8. I am quite intrigued by your description
of the circumstances which could or could not have arisen in the
Balkans conflict. I am reminded that only recently it has been
revealed that our own armed forces and the SAS in particular were
training a group of Albanians in the arts of their particular
military operations only to find that they had previously been
rebels or whatever and there was quite an outcry about that. I
can see a situation here where a company such as the ones you
have been involved with could take on just such a mission; particularly
as you quote in your paper that many of your personnel are former
SAS or intelligence service personnel, they could well be involved
in that sort of operation which would clearly be against British
interests. I link that with your comment earlier that you felt
that one of the most important attributes of private military
companies was the speed with which you could act. Knowing how
the legislative process works, or does not, as we like to say,
particularly with the licensing of strategic exports, do you not
think that in fact a private military company could be into that
situation and out of it before any regulatory process could even
be brought to bear upon them?
(Lt Colonel Spicer) It depends on how the regulatory
process is structured. If it is a general licence to operate,
I could see that situation happening. In the same way that government
forces have found themselves doing something at the Government's
behest at the moment but six months ago it may have had a very
different colouring, that would apply to the private sector as
well because of the speed perhaps of the requirement to operate
in order to intervene. Training is slightly different. I could
see it becoming a complication in intervention scenarios, but
I believe that the example you gave was a question of training
people who were former
9. My point was that that particular type of
training is the sort of training you would not want to be spread
around liberally without knowing who was getting it.
(Lt Colonel Spicer) Yes, I can understand that, but
there are plenty of examplesand I am putting my ex British
military hat on hereof the training of former rebels after
a peace agreement or a change in circumstances in a country; Zimbabwe
being a case in point. There are circumstances where the political
scene changes and there may be a desire by Government to go and
assist those who were formerly in opposition either to them or
to their own government. I am talking very generally. In the question
of training, one would have to be careful in the same way that
sovereign forces ought to be careful, as to how these contracts
are brought about, where that knowledge is going and to whom it
is being imparted. There is always a danger, whatever you do in
the military or security arena, when you impart skills and capabilities
to people in other countries that at some stage in the future
they could be used against you.
10. Is it not the case therefore that the risk
would be greater if this were in the hands of private military
companies rather than our own armed forces?
(Lt Colonel Spicer) I started my answer by saying
it rather depends on how they are regulated and what legislation
emerges as a result of this debate. I personally favour a general
licence, for the very reasons you alluded to, the complications
and the time frame for a bureaucratic process to take place on
a case by case basis. One of the options is a general licence
and a licensing of each particular project. That is not going
to be attractive in my view in general terms to private military
companies and probably not to their clients, if their clients
were overseas governments. In the case of a UK sponsored contract
or a United Nations sponsored contract, I do not think that would
arise because the requirement to move as rapidly, as in the case
of an intervention force or stabilisation force, would not be
there. Nevertheless, of course there would be mistakes.
11. I now want to question you a little further
on accountability and start with the theme we have been pursuing.
Earlier you particularly made the point that a British company
would be very much concerned about its reputation with the British
Government. In your paper to us, you talk about the need for confidentiality
and a number of issues arise there. One of those relates to ownership.
I can foresee a situation where it might not be clear whether
the company we were dealing with was British, or a multinational
or an international company outside any regulatory process which
we may have introduced in this country. Those of us who have been
involved in commerce know just how flexible one can be in these
matters about which company, registered in which country does
what and where. I do not honestly see how you can keep that accountability
process flowing when you have a sensitive area you want to operate
in outside the gaze of your sponsoring country, which in this
case would be the UK.
(Lt Colonel Spicer) What I said in my response to
the Green Paper about accountability is that I believe that the
registration process, which I chopped up into various phases of
how a company gets the final seal of approval, should be two-tiered.
There is the requirement for public accountability, which would
apply to any commercial organisation registered and based in this
country. Then there should be a further more detailed examination
of the company, its personnel, its ownership, its finances and
how it conducts its business which is not necessarily available
in the public domain, but is a government requirement and is treated
in a confidential manner somewhat akin to the government vetting
process, which used to be called positive vetting process in my
day but is called something else now where you are really given
a thorough going over. In my view, if you wanted to practise and
operate here and you followed the guidelines and had received
a thorough vetting process, that should ensure that the less scrupulous
companies or those who wished to hide their true ownership or
their financial arrangements did not get a licence. It would be
a pretty good catchall.
12. You mentioned earlier a number of reasons
why legitimate or reputable companies would behave responsibly.
You talked in terms of human rights: I would prefer to talk in
terms of the Geneva Convention as it applies to warfare. You said
that you felt the commercial pressures on a legitimate and reputable
company would be strong enough to ensure that the company was
properly run and its personnel behaved in a proper manner. I can
well understand from the perspective of the people who owned the
company that is exactly what they would wish to happen, of course
it is the case, because otherwise you would be out of business.
We are talking here about very highly trained fighting men, operating
in very extreme circumstances often, without of course the security
and backup of their country, their sovereign state and the ability
to reinforce their activities should the need arise. We are talking
about people with all those skills and with that attitude and
ability operating outside the Armed Forces Act. I find it hard
to imagine how the commercial pressures which you as the owners
of the company might feel would carry on down to the level of
the guy who is holding the weapon, faced with a difficult situation,
being prepared to add greater risk to their lives by operating
within army regulations, as you would obviously well know, when
in the circumstances they also know that army regulations do not
apply to them and neither do the Geneva Conventions. I think this
is a key point in terms of accepting the viability of licensing
and regulating private military companies. At the sharp end how
can you, wearing both your hats, your previous career and this
one, be sure that the personnel you are employing and deploying
literally in the front line behave in the way they behaved when
they were trained by you and operated by you under the Armed Forces
Act?
(Lt Colonel Spicer) It would be my responsibility
to ensure that our own vetting process, not a registration or
Government licence vetting process, although that would help,
and the type of people we employ, the database of employees, sorted
that out. We are very careful to make sure that we are not employing
those who might react adversely and carry out those breaches of
the Geneva Convention. Just as an aside, we spent a lot of time
talking about combat and direct combat. That is not the only business
private military companies get up to, it is the controversial
area. I would answer that by saying that if there were the situation
which exists now where it is my responsibility to ensure that
the people I employ behave properly and within the law of armed
conflict, I am confident that those I employ would not carry out
those breaches.
13. Do you feel you can do that without the
sanctions you would have had as a serving officer to enforce upon
your men the sanctions available under the Armed Forces Act? In
any circumstances?
(Lt Colonel Spicer) In the majority of circumstances.
In the same way I would say, putting my previous experience hat
on, yes, of course you have the luxury of the Armed Forces Act,
the law of the country, etcetera, but you cannot guarantee it
100 per cent. Something could go wrong.
14. But at least you have the opportunity of
an example under the Act for those who do transgress to encourage
the others.
(Lt Colonel Spicer) Yes.
Mr Hamilton
15. Do private military companies have a vested
interest in conflict?
(Lt Colonel Spicer) It is a question which is often
raised and often asked. The implication is that private military
companies, because they profit from military services, have a
vested interest in conflict. I do not think that is necessarily
the case. There are plenty of other things than combat or the
direct involvement in conflict that private military companies
do, including training, defence consultancy and others. I should
like to think they do not; they certainly do not in my case. Having
said that, of course the business of private military companies
is defence security. Nobody would wish to generate, exacerbate,
prolong, any form of conflict because in the case of the people
who work for me that is really not what their background is all
about. It is about preventing conflict. If private military companies
are going to continue to exist and contribute, then it has to
be very clearly understood that there is no desire to perpetrate
conflict for commercial gain. The fact is that there is plenty
of business to be had in the security field which is non-contentious
and is protective and passive and defensive and all the other
things which people would wish to see in terms of the application
of security for the promotion of stability. Conflict is the extreme
and the quicker it can be extinguished, the better for everybody.
16. Would you therefore see any licensing regime,
for example under the United Nations auspices, root out those
companies which fall outside the parameters which you have just
suggested as far as conflict is concerned?
(Lt Colonel Spicer) I would say that would be one
of the main principles of any form of regulatory process.
17. May I move on to something you said about
economic exploitation? You suggested that a mineral concession,
for example, is worthless to a private military company, yet paragraph
41 of the Green Paper suggests that from their point of view it
may be one of the few ways that private military companies can
be sure of getting paid. Second, an interest in mineral extraction
will give a private military company a vested interest in peace
and stability. Who do you think is right?
(Lt Colonel Spicer) My interpretation of the paragraph
in the Green Paper which you are referring to is that the sovereign
government of the country concerned, who may wish to engage a
private military company, has the right to use its natural resources
in any way it chooses. If somebody came to me and said they wanted
me to help but they could only pay with a piece of paper which
is the right to extract minerals or go fishing or harvest dates
or whatever, it would be of absolutely no use to me whatsoever
because I would have to convert that into commercial reality.
I just do not think there is any substance in that argument at
all because, as I have said in my response to the Green Paper,
I have a business to run, I have payrolls to meet, I have overheads
and to turn a piece of paper which is virtually worthless into
commercial reality, that is to turn it into a gold mine or an
oil well or whatever, takes an awful lot of outlay. It is not
just something of value, it is something which may have value
once you have spent a lot of money on it in several years time.
18. And if you have the skills to use it.
(Lt Colonel Spicer) And if you have the skills to
use it. Our skills are not related to any of those particular
industries.
Andrew Mackinlay
19. I think you are here becausewe have
invited you but I make the suppositionyou feel you are
the top end of the profession, the market, you have an ethical
policy which I think you would want to summarise, help me if I
am wrong, but for the good guy, recognise sovereign governments,
will always be sensitive to United Kingdom foreign policy interests
and also recognise international regional bodies. Would that be
correct?
(Lt Colonel Spicer) That would be fair comment.
1 See evidence, pp EV1 to EV4. Back
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