Response to a blog previously posted on TLS
Earlier in June, we published a blog from James Matheson on an event he attended that was hosted by MSF called ‘Friend or foe? Cooperation with private military and security companies’. Since publication of the blog, Dr. Dominick Donald from Aegis has been in touch with James and asked that we publish his response to the article, which we are happy to copy below:
[excerpts from James’ blog] ….‘Dr Donald spoke next and passionately about why PSCs had an interest in the humanitarian field.’
No, I did not. I was speaking about COIN and its reliance, if it is to be successful, on ‘soft security’, how states have lost the capacity to deliver ‘soft security’ themselves, and how NGOs - the now-traditional deliverers of ‘soft security’ - are in danger of losing dominance of this ground because of their (entirely understandable and laudable) refusal to be part of a COIN campaign. In fact, I emphasized throughout that I wasn’t sure PSCs would benefit from this shift, but that I was pretty sure that, thanks to the way the US government is now approaching COIN, NGOs would lose.
‘…and what they were doing there. He used the example of Iraq to illustrate his point. In post-war Iraq the Coalition leadership had a chart of reconstruction functions including healthcare, education, governance and many others and a timescale alongside them’.
Again, absolutely not. This diagram is in the latest Stabilisation Ops doctrine. It puts into concrete form the lessons learned from Iraq - that the NGOs and civil servants wouldn’t turn up in time or on team.
‘They hoped that these tasks, begun by the military might be taken over and fulfilled by civil servants and NGOs - neither showed up. As a result contractors were called in and here the PSCs found a role. Dr Donald talked about some of the quick impact projects his own company, Aegis, were delivering in Iraq and then explained that these were not only at the behest of governments but that his company carried out its own aid work - a measure he said helped them operate more readily in the country - and fundraised as a charity to do so.’
No, we don’t. We set up two charities, in the US and UK, to raise funds for this effort. They fulfil all the requirements of both countries’ regulation of the charity world. They are as much charities as MSF or the RSPCA. The charities have boards that are mostly made up of people with no Aegis connection.
MSF will be publishing a transcript of the evening where readers may see the full discussion (http://www.msf.org.uk/events_past_events.aspx).
To clarify, the comment about PSCs ‘passing themselves off as charities’ was not intended to suggest that these organisations were dressing as or introducing themselves as charity workers in the field (Dr. Donald stresses that in Aegis’ case their personnel are in Aegis uniform and introduce themselves as contractors working for the US Army Corps of Engineers) but rather that, in fund-raising and carrying out projects of a ‘humanitarian’ nature they are undertaking work which may be perceived as the work of charities.
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