From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Tue May 25 2010 - 08:35:23 EDT
'Shadow Foreign Policy' - Somali Warlord Hires German Mercenaries to Provide
Security Services
05/25/2010
Politicians have reacted angrily to reports that a German firm has signed a
deal with a Somali warlord to provide security services. Former members of
German special forces and an elite police unit could soon be working as
bodyguards and trainers in the lawless country.
For years, German politicians and pundits have been taking the moral high
ground over the activities of the American private security contractor
Blackwater, now known as Xe Services, in places such as Iraq. "The US
government has allowed private security firms to develop into an
omnipresent, uncontrollable apparatus in the war zones of this world,"
<http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,514593,00.html> wrote
one German newspaper back in 2007.
That moral outrage is now looking distinctly shabby, however, in the light
of revelations that a German security company is planning to supply
mercenaries to a Somali warlord. On Monday, Thomas Kaltegärtner, CEO of
Asgaard German Security Group, confirmed a report by the German public
broadcaster ARD that his company plans to send former German soldiers to
Somalia.
In a December 2009 press release, Asgaard announced it had signed an
"exclusive agreement on security services" with Abdinur Ahmed Darman.
Darman, a Somali warlord who styles himself as the country's president, does
not recognize the legitimacy of the United Nations-backed transitional
government of Somali President
<http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,695224,00.html> Sheikh
Sharif Sheikh Ahmed. The agreement, the company said, would cover "all
necessary measures to reintroduce security and peace to Somalia." The
country has not had a functioning central government since 1991.
According to Kaltegärtner, himself a former Bundeswehr soldier, Asgaard
employees would provide security for Darman and train police and military
forces. He stressed, however, that combat operations were not planned. He
said that over 100 mercenaries could be involved in operations. Although
negotiations were not yet complete, it was possible that Asgaard employees
would be operating in Somalia in the near future, Kaltegärtner told the
Tagesspiegel newspaper. Kaltegärtner also told the newspaper that his
company employed former members of the German army's special forces, the
KSK, and Germany's elite GSG-9 police force.
Privatizing State Violence
Several German politicians have reacted angrily to the news that former
soldiers could soon be in action on the Horn of Africa. "In my opinion, this
is not acceptable," Rainer Arnold, the defense expert of the center-left
Social Democrats, told the Tuesday edition of the Frankfurter Rundschau
newspaper. He called for new legislation to "clearly limit" such operations,
adding: "One cannot privatize state violence."
Speaking to the same newspaper, Green Party politician Omid Nouripour
accused the German government of not doing enough in the past to regulate
private security firms. Paul Schäfer of the far-left Left Party and Rainer
Stinner of the liberal Free Democratic Party, which governs in coalition
with Merkel's conservatives, also criticized the deal, with Schäfer talking
of a "shadow foreign policy."
Observers warn that German employees of the firm could be killed or targeted
for kidnapping in Somalia. The Islamist
<http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,695224,00.html> Al-Shabab
militia, which controls several regions of the country and parts of the
capital Mogadishu, has allied itself with Al-Qaida, which wants Germany to
withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. The Islamist groups would be pleased
to get their hands on German hostages, experts say.
"If a German firm were to train and support a Somali militia, that would
certainly go against Germany's interests," said Annette Weber from the
German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in remarks to
ARD. The German Foreign Ministry and Defense Ministry now want to look into
what Asgaard is planning to do in Somalia, according to the Süddeutsche
Zeitung.
The company itself tried to play down the significance of the operation. "We
want to work closely together with the German government and will in no way
act against its interests", Asgaard said in a statement published on its
website on Sunday. "There are currently no German citizens working on behalf
of Asgaard in Somalia." The company stressed that it would only begin its
operations in Somalia once Darman "once again assumes control of state
affairs with the approval of the UN."
dgs - with wire reports
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