Gun Control and Corporate Mercenaries

[el_gato]

Given all the news lately about corporate mercenaries running amok in
Iraq, planning a coup in Equatorial Guinea, etc., I would like to know
if the gun control advocates here would like to see laws that criminalize corporate mercenaries or at least make it a crime to
use weapons in the name of profit and power.

Also would you support a law that that specifies corporate mercenaries could never be used on U.S. soil?





Note:

In principle, the use of mercenaries has been banned since 1989 by the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries, 4 December 1989, an additional protocol to the Geneva Convention. Nineteen countries have ratified the Convention: Azerbaijan, Barbados, Belarus, Cameroon, Cyprus, Georgia, Italy, Maldives, Mauritania, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Seychelles, Suriname, Togo, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uruguay, and Uzbekistan. An additional nine have signed but have yet to ratify the Convention: Angola, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Germany, Morocco, Nigeria, Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia. The US and UK, each with a huge private military industry, are notable for their absence as signatories.
http://www.kathryncramer.com/wblog/archives/000481.html

[saigon68]

1. Those Corporate mercenaries have full auto M-16 A4s

Nice touch ---I wonder if they use these in the US when protecting right wing talk show hosts like Glenn Beck

[CO Liberal]

2. I've Got Better Things To Do With My Time.....

...than to go off on a tengent that I'm sure you're gonna use to show that you're right and the rest of the world is wrong.

Nope - won't do it!!!

[el_gato]

3. I'm just curious

[el_gato]

4. corporate killers should be the first target of the gun control advocates

I wonder why they are not.

[CO Liberal]

5. Logic and Reason Should Be YOUR First Target

So far it seems to have eluded you.... :-(

[DavidMS]

6. It seems that mercanaries are excluded from the Geneva Convention

http://www.icrc.org/IHL.nsf/0/9edc5096d2c036e9c12563cd0051dc30?OpenDocument

Which means they, like combatatants that do not wear uniforms and bear arms openly, are deleberately placed outside of the accepted scheme of international protections.

[DoNotRefill]

8. Ummm...if they're American citizens....

They're a national to a party in the conflict, and therefore are not mercenaries under this definition.

"(d) is neither a national of a Party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a Party to the conflict;"

[DavidMS]

10. One little problem

Some of the mercanaries are recurted from 3rd party nations.

This is from the Moonie Times but show the problem:

http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040401-021959-4986r.htm

Second problem is command and control.

The american law makes mercenaries answer to the law of the state they are opperating in and as a result, I don't know their status under 4th Geneva. I suspect that as long as they behave in a manner that respects the convention, they are protected by it. However they may not be legaly protected from a local prosecutor or the Mad Mullah of Kufa (Al Sadr) setting up islamist courts and claming that he is making Iraqi law. Don't know what the international law calls for in these cases. Unfortunatly they are unlikley to follow it as al-Sadr's forces do not seem to follow international or Isamic law on war.

[iverglas]

7. hmm

An international convention I wasn't at all familiar with. Learned something new today in J/PS.

http://www.un.org/ga/documents/gares52/res52112.htm

<UN General Assembly Resolution> 52/112 Use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the rights of peoples to self-determination

... 4. Calls upon all States that have not yet done so to consider taking the necessary action to sign or to ratify the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries; ...

... Against: ... Canada ...

Now there's a question. Why the hell is Canada voting against this resolution, and not ratifying the convention??

The full list of nay-sayers: Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Federated States of Micronesia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States. Not the kind of places that have to worry much about mercenaries on their soil.

That resolution did pass, I gather, and here is the Special Rapporteur's report it directed be prepared:

http://www.hri.ca/fortherecord1999/documentation/commission/e-cn4-1999-11.htm

84. Mercenaries have been particularly active in Sierra Leone, where they were taken first by Executive Outcomes, the security and military advisory and assistance company registered in South Africa, and then by Sandline International, which is registered in the Bahamas and has offices in London. These two played an important role in the overthrow of the military junta of the alliance formed by the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and in restoring democratically elected President Tejan Kabbah to power. They also trained the Kamajor paramilitary troops who are fighting the rebel forces of the overthrown Government with the acquiescence of the current Government and are responsible for grave human rights violations against prisoners and the civilian population. As a result of this intervention, a number of affiliates of Executive Outcomes and Sandline International are now exploiting Sierra Leone's mineral resources and the Diamond Works company has become Canada's largest diamond producer thanks to its operations in this West African country.

Pretty disgusting.

I'm a little short of the time needed to become truly conversant with this convention and the various resolutions referring to it, but here's another interesting one: http://www.hri.ca/fortherecord2003/vol1/mercenarieschr.htm


And all of this does, of course, bring us to the issue of the illicit traffic in small arms, doesn't it just? What would a mercenary be without his <insert name(s) of firearm(s) favoured by mercenaries and other violators of the human rights of civilian populations and the self-determination rights of peoples>??

Kinda useless, I'd think.


(formatting fixed)

[Union Thug]

9. when corporations are allowed to organize armies,

the commonwealth is dead.

Let's face it, unless something is done to purge this exercise in fascism, we may as well change the name of this country to the corporate states of america. The democratic experiement is over. Checkmate.

[Quint57]

11. They are not mercenaries.....

You guys kill me. Do you even know who most of these guys are? Most of them are SF guys in-between deployments doing security details for U.S. personnel. When Rumsfeld traveled to Afghanistan his security detachment were all SF provided by a contractor. Do you think this is something new?

When Clinton played golf in the city I work he also had corporate security along with U.S. Secret Service. I know this because I was on the EMS detachment.

I realize that it is a different story when we are at war and it is out of the country but you make it sound like they are over there on their own accord and "running amok"

Also would you support a law that that specifies corporate mercenaries could never be used on U.S. soil?


Let me understand what you are advocating here.... In what capacity are you talking about? Does this include private corporations like Blackwater not being able to supply security forces for.... let's say a nuclear power plant? You do know that there are private companies that handle the security for these facilities right? Are you looking to outlaw this?

[Quint57]

12. Is this what you were talking about in Equatorial Guinea?

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,6119,2-7-1442_1545326,00.html

Were any links found back to US corporations?

[iverglas]

14. uh, I'm smelling ethnocentrism

Is this what you were talking about in Equatorial Guinea?"
Were any links found back to US corporations?

Was anyone talking only about US corporations?

The international convention that was referred to doesn't refer to mercenaries employed by US corporations. And the post that started this thread didn't refer to US corporate mercenaries.

Here's an example, the now defunct classic, not of the US:
http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/magazine/issue4/cw4f8.html

Somewhat randomly, but from some fairly decent assorted sources --

http://www.faoa.org/journal/newmerc3.html
http://www.cdi.org/issues/mercenaries/merc1.html
http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/99summer/adams.htm
http://victorian.fortunecity.com/vangogh/827/military8-97.html
http://www.cdi.org/adm/1113/transcript.html
This one for luna:
http://www.beastieboys.com/bbs/showpost.php?p=244496&postcount=73
http://www.nlectc.org/justnetnews/05242001.html
(scroll down to "More Americans, U.S. Equipment Becoming Involved in Drug Crackdowns")
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/27a/064.html


Of course there is indeed US domestic history; does no one remember the Pinkertons?
http://uncpress.unc.edu/chapters/norwood_strike.html


And you may recall an earlier imperialism operated by corporate proxy (or did the empire serve the corporation ....?)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_East_India_Company

[Quint57]

13. I stand corrected....

A little digging and I find this....

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FE20Ak02.html

"Are we going to let a few bad apples ruin a good time for all of us?"

Eric Stratton
Faber College, class of '62