George Monbiot (Guardian Utd): Pedigree dogs of war

[Jack Rabbit]

From the Guardian Unlimited (UK)
Dated Tuesday January 25

Pedigree dogs of war
Some people who engage in foreign conflicts are called terrorists. Others are about to be government-licensed
By George Monbiot

What is the legal difference between hiring a helicopter for use in a coup against a west African government and sending supplies to the Chechen rebels? If there isn't one, why isn't Mark Thatcher in Belmarsh? Conversely, why aren't the "foreign terrorist suspects" in Belmarsh prison free and, like Thatcher, at large in London? Why is an alleged engagement in foreign military operations called terrorism one moment and business the next?

The question is an important one, for mercenaries are becoming respectable again. On Thursday Tim Spicer, Britain's most notorious soldier of fortune, will speak at the School of Oriental and African Studies. Last month he addressed a conference at the Royal United Services Institute. Last year one of the companies he runs won a $300m contract from the US government for security work in Iraq. He moves through the establishment like the boss of any other corporation.

Spicer is the mercenary who, in two years, caused two international incidents. The first was in 1997 in Papua New Guinea, where he was hired by the government to recapture the island of Bougainville from separatists. Spicer was seized by resentful army officers, and the subsequent row brought down the Papuan government. The second was in 1998 in Sierra Leone where, with the covert blessing of British diplomats, he imported weapons for troops trying to restore an ousted government. The ensuing scandal almost forced the resignation of the British foreign secretary.

Spicer says his companies "operate strictly within the law". And it is true that, while he has faced criminal proceedings in Papua New Guinea, he has never been charged with an offence in the UK . . . .

In principle, mercenaries are regulated by the 1870 Foreign Enlistment Act. It's an offence to assist the armed forces "of a foreign state at war with any foreign state at peace with Her Majesty". But no one has ever been prosecuted for it, and the act is widely regarded as useless. The government has avoided the need to test it by deciding that some people are terrorists, and therefore contravene a different set of laws, while others are businessmen, and therefore contravene no laws. Their classification depends on their nationality (British subjects, for example, cannot be detained without charge or trial in Belmarsh); the identity of the government they intend to fight or support; and their ideology (if they believe in what they are doing they are terrorists, if they do not they are businessmen).

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