Examination of Witness (Questions 84 -
99)
TUESDAY 11 JUNE 2002
MR DAVID
STEWART HOWITT
Sir John Stanley
84. Welcome to the Foreign Affairs Committee.
I should like to ask one point for the record and for clarification.
In your memorandum to the Committee[6]
you say that your submission is from Mr David Stewart Howitt,
Global Dimensions, LSE & Bayard Limited. I should be grateful
if you could just tell the Committee whether Bayard Limited have
any involvement or interest in the provision of military services.
(Mr Howitt) No.
85. Thank you. The regulatory option which you
clearly have come down in favour of out of the six listed by the
Government is option E, as I understand your paper, the option
of a general licensing system for private military companies and
private service companies. You have outlined an interesting and
quite extensive add-on to a system of general licensing with a
detailed proposal for that to be coupled with a very full monitoring
and evaluation system. What I should like to ask you is: what
were the reasons why you came down in favour of option E, the
general licensing system and clearly discarded option C, which
is the tighter and more specific licensing system, essentially
on a contract by contract basis rather like the individual licensing
of arms exports from this country?
(Mr Howitt) Specifically the rationale
behind that is the environment in which many of the circumstances
that the world is facing are going through a lot of change. We
saw indications in the 1990s of the extent of change that was
ongoing, we have not in any way seen the limits of how far that
change is going to go. The primary rationale for coming down on
option E was based on the idea that in order for a private military
company or private security company to be able to operate effectively
to the contractor they would need that structure of relationship
to be able to conduct whatever activities were specified in a
given set of terms of reference. A more rigid definition at this
stage was the primary reason, though, as we state in the submission,
this is very much a work in progress. It would be over specific
to say that we came down wholly in favour of E; in fact the submission
includes what we should like to see incorporated within a regulatory
framework. That was more what we specified.
86. Another question I should like to put to
you is the view that has been put forward in the Green Paper and
which would also be argued by the private military companies that
there is a material cost advantage to a government, just looking
solely at the financial considerations when there are obviously
much wider considerations, but just for the moment looking solely
at the financial considerations there is a material cost advantage
in using private military companies rather than in our case British
armed service personnel. I note in paragraph 59 of the Green Paper
it says that the UN operation in Sierra Leone, UNAMSIL, cost about
$600 million a year. It is at least possible that if a task of
UNAMSIL were put out to tender, private companies would be able
to do the job more cheaply and more effectively. I wonder whether
you share that particular judgement, bearing in mind that individuals
working for private military companies are in many cases self-employed
people who will no doubt require a substantial premium for putting
themselves at risk, will require substantial monies to be able
to be attracted to serving in dangerous and far away places. What
is your view as to whether there is, as the Government believes
may be the case, a cost advantage to using private military companies
as opposed to regular British service personnel?
(Mr Howitt) My approach is to answer that question
from a slight angle as such. The specifics of the cost/benefit
equation apply more in a different scenario where the effectiveness
of the UK armed forces in their various deployments worldwide,
be they peace keeping, peace implementation or in war fighting
roles, has very often been due to the professional nature of the
forces and secondly a great skill in adaptability to the circumstances
that they are faced with. The potential advantage of the use of
a private military company in circumstances which would fulfil
a function that the UK armed forces may fulfil on a given deployment
would be that one could include within that structure task-specific
and specific personnel who are trained and familiar with the exact
specifics that they are meant to be dealing with and also with
the environment in which they are operating. By way of a case
in point, the sanctions mission which was put from Yugoslavia
into the Bosnian Serb Republic during the Yugoslav war in 1994
might be quite an interesting example to cite for that. The nature
of the mission was to monitor whether the Yugoslav Government
was in fact imposing a regime of sanctions on the Bosnian Serb
Republic. The staffing of that mission, which included some contracting
through third parties from various countries, was such that I
would not say it was Customs officials and specifically trained
personnel who had a specific training in the nature of the task
who were used for that but rather a different style of body, but
that may show a case in point where specific personnel for a specific
task would be more appropriate and more cost effective than the
deployment of a national answer.
87. On the first page of the paper we have had
from Colonel Spicer he is very up front on the potential type
of non-combat tasks that private military companies can perform.
He refers to training, enemy for exercises, in other words purely
in an exercise role, range management and logistical services.
Then he goes on to make it equally clear that as far as he is
concerned, there is also a role in a combat context for private
military companies. When human rights issues are concerned, there
is a very, very important distinction as to whether or not private
military companies cross over from training and logistical work
to combat roles, though one acknowledges that if you are going
to train and involve logistics that is just the trunk of the tree
and the branches come out as combat. Do you believe that it is
legitimate and acceptable for private military companies to engage
in combat roles as well as non-combat roles?
(Mr Howitt) There are two issues there. One is whether
one can separate the question of training from the role they are
actually trained to fulfil. I put that to one side for the moment.
Without looking at and examining each individual case, it is not
possible adequately to provide a framework answer which covers
that. There are different levels of the market, if one can put
it this way. I would say that the use of private military companies
can be envisaged at three different tiers of the market. There
is the international community as the contractor, be it NATO,
the UN, the EU, sub-contracting various services for an international
mission. That exists. Then there is the domicile country of a
PMC, and that might in this case be the United Kingdom, sub-contracting
a PMC to fulfil a task which is consistent with UK foreign policy.
Then there would be the domestic contracting of foreign forces
for that. Each of those individual circumstances presents a different
scenario for the use of PMCs. I think that the 1990s only demonstrates
some of the indications of what may lie ahead, but the events
which happened during that time and the advent of humanitarian
intervention as an evolving ideology begins to open the question
of how to fulfil certain tasks. I can see in another egregious
case where humanitarian intervention is being called upon, that
that may be the case[7].
Andrew Mackinlay
88. You heard me probe the question of giving
governments some arm's-length opportunities for denial. Do you
have any observations on that?
(Mr Howitt) Yes. I think that should be avoided at
all costs. It is not a question of trying to hide an issue here,
it is the provision of services and security. Many of the recent
conflicts, all post 1989 conflicts, have demonstrated that where
there is an absence of the provision of security that void leaves
huge room for exploitation. There are certain circumstances where
national resources can be deployed into that.
89. The deficiency which Kofi Annan or any Secretary
General has, is a real one and well documented. Rather than going
down this road, should we not be arguing and trying to build support
for the United Nations to have a bank of soldiers with all the
multiplicity of skills and committed assets from various countries
so it can take them off the shelf, as it were, in a particular
situation, so a force could be marshalled, indeed they could hire
Colonel Spicer to lead it, because I recognise his skills. Rather
than going to hire a company, should we not be arguing that there
should be people, individuals who are clearly accredited to the
United Nations, who could be recruited short term, assets hired
or bought on the market, or made available by Member States. Could
we not be going down that road?
(Mr Howitt) In essence that is only an adjustment
on the same principle as a PMC. One is making each individual
a private military company as such and resourcing and being directly
sourced by the UN. The UN is faced with almost impossible circumstances
in staffing up some of its peacekeeping missions and 1994 is a
case in point. The provision of adequate resources for the UN
to fulfil its task is no less a question of the Member States
as it is the UN. The inadequacy of the UN to be able to provide
those people is not because they do not wish to, it is because
the Member States do not provide them. If the Member States do
not provide personnel for a given mission, where are those people
going to be provided from? The only alternative which exists is
a PMC.
90. Yes, at the present time, but you have not—my
failure perhaps—responded to my idea. It is probably a matter
I am going to put to Dennis MacShane, the Minister, when he comes
here. If there are these skilled, professional soldiers, retired
in the main, out there, a number of key armed forces, good reputation,
they have their good logbooks and so on, why do we not have a
system whereby they can be marshalled by the United Nations, hired
by the United Nations? They are not PMCs. Like a soldier takes
an oath to the Queen, they would take the oath to the United Nations
and the thing is marshalled, indeed perhaps by somebody like Colonel
Spicer. At the moment he is commissioned to the international
organisation, he is not hired. There is a distinction. Surely
it should be within the capacity of good men and women to be working
towards that objective.
(Mr Howitt) I agree that the idea is extremely sound,
but the practicality of that is impossible in my experience of
the United Nations. Secondly, structurally and organisationally,
it is probably preferable, given the nature of the operations
within which these resources or facilities would be deployed,
to have an organisation which can be sub-contracted to one point
for organisational purposes.
91. One thing does unite the Committee's questioning
and I wonder whether you have a brainwave on how we might deal
with it. Where perhaps an individual act or atrocity is committed—and
it does happen, it happens in the most disciplined and regulated
armies—you do then have military law, a court martial system
and now also some international jurisdictions, but how can we
create a system whereby a hired soldier does not disappear into
the ether, as it were, when he has committed an atrocity or a
group of them? How can we overcome that? Sure as night turns into
day that will happen at some stage because there will be a bad
soldier, bad officer.
(Mr Howitt) This is a question of global jurisdiction,
is it not? Where is the global judiciary? The arrival of the ICC
in due course will ultimately provide the ultimate sanction for
that. UK domestic legislation provides the immediate accountability
framework for that. In the event of an atrocity or a breach of
contract, which is essentially what the issue would be, then those
individuals should be accountable in UK law ultimately.
92. Indeed, but nobody has said, neither Colonel
Spicer, nor our other witness, nor yourself, and I do not mean
this critically but it is why I am opposed to this Green Paper,
anything other than that companies are disciplined. No doubt it
is written in their contracts, but there is no way of ensuring,
and it is very important that there is a sanction, that people
can be ultimately put in prison and brought to account. It just
will not happen, will it, because there will be an atrocity somewhere
in some jungle and nobody will be able to trace the person?
(Mr Howitt) As such that is no different from actions
which have been committed. In principle it is no different from
a UK soldier committing an atrocity.
93. It is entirely different, is it not? Even
after My Lai, though we might think the result was wrong, nevertheless
people were brought before a court. There may well be a political
decision taken at some stage that the person should not be put
in prison or should be reinstated in the armed forces or whatever,
but that is transparent and then subject to parliamentary control
and scrutiny and becomes part of the political debate. All the
people employed by sovereign governments are ultimately answerable
to those court systems. There is nothing in this Green Paper,
nor has anybody today been able to come forward with a system
which will ensure that there is accountability. That seems to
me why the idea of contracting out is fatally flawed. To extend
it would be compounding this problem.
(Mr Howitt) I do not share your concern in this respect,
specifically because—and I shall reiterate a point which
Colonel Spicer made—the vetting procedure and ensuring that
one is employing experienced, competent men and women of integrity
within the nature of these operations is going to be fundamental
to the successful provision of security in the environments we
are talking about. If, in the process of screening and vetting
personnel for these operations, there is a flaw and a character
gets through, that is certainly a weakness, but that is a weakness
which exists within the military overall. About after the fact
is a separate question and tracking people who have allegedly
committed crimes and that is due process of law and that is an
issue of global jurisdiction or the global judicial framework
or where that is going to go. That is essentially a separate question
from the procedure. By regulating the process of PMCs, one is
actually in a greater position to pre-empt or to prevent such
circumstances happening whereby worst practices rather than best
practices are being applied in the provision of security.
Mr Illsley
94. We have talked this morning about the legitimacy
of private military companies, the regulation of private military
companies, either licensed themselves or licensed to enter into
a particular conflict. We are discussing this whole idea of the
legitimacy of PMCs and licensing. We have arrived at this situation
from a report by this Committee on a private military company
possibly breaching a UN arms' embargo by taking military equipment
and weapons into a country in Africa in return for a concession
for diamonds which subsequently became known as blood diamonds
or war diamonds or whatever. We seem to have gone from a situation
where there was international outcry and national outcry in relation
to that incident, to a position now where we are setting out the
rules and regulations for the licensing of private military companies.
From my point of view we have similarly moved from looking at
the PMCs at the time of the Sandline affair, the Sierra Leone
affair if you like, as being organisations running pretty close
to the wind, to now being peacekeeping forces for the United Nations
and NATO, being contracted as the good guys in every scenario.
I am finding difficulty in coming to terms with this and in thinking
that this is going to work. Even if we had a regulatory regime
in the United Kingdom for private military companies, that they
could only contract to the UN, to NATO, that they could only go
into situations of conflict which did not conflict with our own
Government's foreign policy, what is to stop a company setting
up outside the UK or setting up in Africa where that regulation
did not exist and flouting those rules and regulations? What guarantee
is there that these private military companies are going to stick
to the rules, bearing in mind how we got to this situation from
the Sandline affair?
(Mr Howitt) A broad question. The requirement for
provision of security is ever increasing and central Asia, Indonesia
and Africa in themselves have more than enough potential to keep
the process of the UK armed forces busy for the foreseeable future.
My own view on it comes again from a slightly different angle.
The international community has a crying need for the provision
of basic services in the provision of security which are not met
by the national contributions to peacekeeping and peace enforcement
missions. Those needs are not being met and that is making the
task of the international community impossible. It is a very simple
equation that in order to stabilise the post-war environment there
needs to be the provision of security. The combatants themselves
are not in a position to provide the security for the opposing
parties. Herein lies the nub of the question in terms of the international
community's requirement for the provision of various services.
The UK has been successful because it is adaptable, not because
it is ideally suited to each of these individual circumstances.
If you ask how we have come from 1998 to today, we have come through
to here because of Kosovo maybe, because of that big sea change
in terms of the nature of an intervention, of what was happening
and that was a humanitarian intervention. Increasingly, there
is a void in the international community's toolbox or there are
tools missing for adequate nation building and stabilisation.
I hesitate to use the term but in these circumstances it is probably
appropriate: in many respects the market is demanding these services
and will continue to demand these services. Surely it is preferable
to have a regulated environment where that is measured rather
than an environment where anyone who is available is going to
be used to conduct those tasks: a vehicle through which international
best practices can be transferred to the given polities, entities
or nation state or region. I would say that is the process whereby
we have come to where we are.
95. I can understand that but I am thinking
of a situation, if we go back to Sierra Leone, where if we have
a private military company licensed by this country, who is going
to employ it? Is it going to be the United Nations, which is strapped
for cash at the best of times anyway and is probably always calling
on other countries to provide peacekeepers? Or is it going to
be the country where the conflict is taking place? Will the United
Nations say to Sierra Leone that they can employ these mercenaries
or this private military company under the rules and regulations
agreed with them and under this licensing regime? Or would Sierra
Leone say to the United Nations that they do not want that and
they are going to go to this company which is set up in another
country which is not subject to that licensing and over whom they
have more control and whom they are paying because they want this
type of task to be done? It seems to me that you can always find
a way around the regulatory framework. I appreciate what you said
about the need. It throws up the question that if this need was
there, then basically what Sandline were doing in Sierra Leone
can be looked at in a wholly different light in terms of the approval
and permissions they were saying they had. Surely all this regulation
could be circumvented by a country who did not want an army or
a private military company which was subjected to that type of
regulation.
(Mr Howitt) Yes, but then that company would choose
to put itself outside the definition of "legitimate"
and that would be the choice of that company.
96. But only in countries where there was regulation.
(Mr Howitt) Absolutely; that is the case, but there
is no regulation here at the moment.
Mr Chidgey
97. May I draw your thoughts back to some responses
you gave to Mr Mackinlay a few minutes ago where you were talking
about accountability and the audit trail? I am not sure whether
you were here to hear the responses we received from the good
Colonel this morning.
(Mr Howitt) Yes, I was.
98. You will recall that I questioned him to
some extent on the accountability of armed service personnel employed
by PMCs in extreme conditions of danger to themselves. You may
recall also that he did agree at the end of the discussion that
the commercial sanctions which were imposed on a company like
his, whilst they were effective in terms of the way the company
was managed, could not be as effective in dealing with the individual
personnel as the Queen's Regulations and the Armed Forces Act,
that they did not give him the same confidence in knowing that
his personnel would act in a way they would as professional armed
personnel under the Queen's Regulations and the Armed Forces Act.
Do you agree with him?
(Mr Howitt) Yes, I do, but one is not comparing like
with like. A national army is a different thing from a PMC and
part of what this process should be about is actually drawing—
99. May I stop you there? One is not comparing
like with like? Surely if we send a force into Afghanistan or
wherever, they are doing the same duties? Why is it not like for
like?
(Mr Howitt) I am sorry, in fact, and I draw it out
in the evidence submitted, part of this process is drawing the
lines of legitimate activities of PMCs and those of national armies
and that is a process which I think has some way to go in terms
of defining what the functions of a PMC should be.
6 See Evidence, pp Ev 21 to Ev 23. Back
7
Note by witness: In such cases, for example, PMCs could
be used in a combat capacity. Back
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