By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, December 27 -- Amid growing doubts about private military contractor Saracen working for the Somali Transitional Federal Government and Puntland, the lawyer for the program, former US Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Pierre Prosper, spoke to a half dozen UN correspondents on December 23, ostensibly on background.
In remarks subsequently disseminated, Prosper said that he was briefing the Group of Experts of the UN's Somalia Sanctions Committee but would not yet provide the name of the program's funder, due to concerns the UN would leak it.
Afterward, Inner City Press on the record asked the outgoing chairman of the UN's Somalia Sanctions Committee, Claude Heller of Mexico, if he or the Committee had been briefed about the use of PMCs or mercenaries in Somalia. No, Heller said, he had only read about it in the newspapers. Video here.
With Mexico leaving the Council at the end of the month, India is to be given the chair of the Somalia Sanctions Committee, as first exclusively reported by Inner City Press. Will Saracen reach out to India? We will be asking.
Inner City Press asked Prosper about the involvement in Saracen of a brother of President Museveni of Uganda, which provides the majority of African Union peacekeepers to the TFG. Prosper's answer involved different arms of Saracen, one in South Africa as opposed to the Uganda based arm in which Museveni's brother is involved.
When Uganda's Permanent Representative to the UN Ruhakana Rugunda gave a briefing later in the day, Inner City Press asked about Museveni's brother's interest in Saracen. He is a retired general, Rugunda answered, of course he wants to stay involved in the field.
Rugunda said that Saracen's “private” work “has nothing to do with AMISOM,” the African Union peacekeepers. Video here. Does that mean the two don't coordinate?
Despite three rounds of questions, two on the record and one on background, this use of mercenaries in Somalia gets more and more murky. Who is funding it? Watch this site.
Footnote: Ambassador Heller's and Rugunda's press conferences were in connection with each leaving the Council after two years. We hope to cover this wider context in the next few days. And we will report anything we hear on the record from Saracen, "the funder" or Mr. Prosper -- even what he may think of his successor's positions on war crimes ranging from Sri Lanka to Cote d'Ivoire.