Blackwater's Prince Revealed as Anti-Piracy Trainer

From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — Erik Prince, the founder of the international security giant Blackwater Worldwide, is secretly backing an effort by a controversial South African mercenary firm to insert itself into Somalia’s bloody civil war by protecting government leaders, training Somali militias, and battling pirates and Islamic militants there, according to Western and African officials.

The disclosure comes as Mr. Prince sells off his interest in the company he built into a behemoth with billions of dollars in American government contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan, work that mired him in controversy and lawsuits amid reports of reckless behavior by his operatives, including the deaths of civilians in Iraq. His efforts to wade into the chaos of Somalia appears to be Mr. Prince’s latest endeavor to remain at the center of a campaign against Islamic radicalism in some of the world’s most war-ravaged corners. Mr. Prince moved to the United Arab Emirates late last year.

According to a report by the African Union, an organization of African states, Mr. Prince provided initial funding for a project by Saracen International to win contracts with Somalia’s embattled government. The Somali government has been cornered into a small patch of Mogadishu by the Shabab, a Somali militant group with ties to Al Qaeda.

Saracen International is a private security company based in South Africa, with corporate offshoots in Uganda and other countries. The company was formed with the remnants of Executive Outcomes, a private mercenary firm composed largely of former South African special operations troops that operated throughout Africa in the 1990s.

The company makes little public about its operations and personnel, but it appears to be run by Lafras Luitingh, a former officer in South Africa’s Civil Cooperation Bureau, an apartheid-era internal security force notorious for killings of opponents of the government.

With its barely functional government and a fierce hostility to foreign armies since the hasty American withdrawal from Mogadishu in the early 1990s, Somalia is a country where Western militaries have long feared to tread. This has created an opportunity for private security companies like Saracen to fill the security vacuum created by years of civil war.

Saracen International has yet to formally announce its plans in Somalia, and there appear to be bitter disagreements within Somalia’s fractious government about whether to hire the South African firm. Somali officials have said that Saracen’s operations — which would also include training an antipiracy army in the semiautonomous region of Puntland — are being financed by an anonymous Middle Eastern country.

Several people with knowledge of Saracen’s operations confirmed that the country is the United Arab Emirates.

Mr. Prince could not be reached for comment.

According to a Jan. 12 confidential report by the African Union, Mr. Prince “is at the top of the management chain of Saracen and provided seed money for the Saracen contract.” A Western official working in Somalia says he believes that it was Mr. Prince who first raised the idea of the Saracen contract with members of the Emirates’ ruling families, with whom he has a close relationship.

American officials have said little about Saracen since news reports about the company’s planned operations in Somalia emerged last month. Philip J. Crowley, a State Department spokesman, said in December that the American government is “concerned about the lack of transparency” of Saracen’s financing and plans.

Mr. Prince for years has tried to spot new business opportunities in the security world. In 2008, he sought to capitalize on the growing piracy endemic off the Horn of Africa to win Blackwater contracts from companies that frequent the shipping lanes there. He even reconfigured a 183-foot oceanographic research vessel into a pirate hunting ship for hire, complete with drone aircraft and .50-caliber machine guns.

In an interview in the November Men’s Journal, Mr. Prince expressed frustration with the wave of lawsuits filed against Blackwater, which developed a reputation in Iraq and Afghanistan for reckless behavior.

Mr. Prince, who said that moving to Abu Dhabi would “make it harder for the jackals to get my money,” said he intended to find business opportunities in “the energy field.”

Despite all of Blackwater’s legal troubles, Mr. Prince has never been directly accused of criminal activity.

Leaving Prince’s involvement aside for the moment, there’s nothing inherently right or wrong about a foreign funded, privately-trained security unit. Its used determines its value. An anti-piracy force could serve a purpose by allowing governments to concentrate on Somalia itself, leaving the coast to government oversight and locally-trained forces.

African Union (AU) and United Nations (UN) officials frequently criticize the West’s disproportionate emphasis towards piracy. In contrast to the hundreds of millions spent on Naval operations, UN Special Representative for Somalia Augustine Mahiga recently warned, "I should take this opportunity to inform that the [UN] Trust Fund for paying both AMISOM and TFG soldiers is at its lowest.”

Of course the secrecy surrounding private security also yields a list of concerns, starting with the chain of command. Who actually controls this force: Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG), a foreign government, a corporation? Do the three split power, and if so can that relationship remain stable?

Chain of command influences the force’s use. Eliminating piracy is one thing, resource exploitation another. Some political actors have lauded the possibilities for foreign investment, oil in particular, but Somalia’s piracy is already rooted in corporate waste dumping and illegal fishing. Mohamed Farole, the son of Puntland President Abdirahman Mohamed Farole, has flatly stated, "You cannot have oil exploration if you have insecurity. You have to eliminate the pirates and al-Shabab."

Though secret Arab governments and private corporations sound good to those in charge, they usually don’t leave much for the people. Given the entire region’s susceptibility to corruption, Somalia and oil resemble another Nigeria.

And the NYT times writes of Prince, “In 2008, he sought to capitalize on the growing piracy endemic off the Horn of Africa to win Blackwater contracts from companies that that frequent the shipping lanes there.”

Also, Somaliland and Puntland have attempted to train anti-piracy forces before, with indecisive results. More lasting are mutual feelings of distrust. As the two provinces disagree on statehood, with Somaliland declaring independence in 1991 after the fall of Mogadishu and Puntland opting for autonomy in a federal Somalia, each views the others’ security forces with suspicion. Territory and coastal disputes are a common occurrence.

So the anxiety over self-interested militias - possibly envisioned to protect future oil installations - is justified.

As for Prince himself, the undisclosed donors and Somalia’s (TFG) probably didn’t expect his presence to be revealed, though his profile shouldn't have been underestimated. The TFG must be careful not to wreck its ongoing propaganda campaign on Blackwater, especially as it gears up for a new offensive in Mogadishu. Prince might be the angel he makes himself out to be, or he might not be. Regardless, a simple name-change cannot scrub away the impression many Muslims and non-Muslims still hold: a mercenary group above U.S. law.

It would be uncharacteristic of al-Shabab not to exploit Blackwater’s presence.