Corporate Mercenaries in Somaliland!
Biyokulule Online
Friday, February 25, 2011

 
Right: Wayne Hermanson, a former officer in the South African National Defence Forces (SANDF) and the founder of a private security company in Somaliland, called Physical Risk Solutions (PRS).

�As the saying goes, old soldiers never die, they fade away. The same can be said about mercenaries, they never die, they simply adapt to a changing world,� wrote Salhani in 2002.

Hundreds of former South African National Defence Forces joined Africa`s booming �mercenary� industry, calling themselves as private security consultants and instructors.

Historically, white mercenaries fought on behalf of one tribe or the other. Thus, Hermanson and his mercenary`s front office, PRS, cannot be trusted to support for the right cause. Roobdoon Forum is aware that Hargeysa junta wants to get outside help for the filthy clan-war when no country will do it, and Silanyo may have no alternative but Hermanson the mercenary.

Roobdoon Forum offers a criticism against the use of a former SADF officer, which it says can not be regarded as a �private security instructor� but rather as a mercenary.

�As the saying goes, old soldiers never die, they fade away. The same can be said about mercenaries, they never die, they simply adapt to a changing world,� wrote Salhani in 2002. Therefore, the presence of Hermanson in Hargeysa, under the guise of private security expert, may destabilize the northern regions of Somalia. Since clan fighting has already erupted in the region, without a doubt, Hermanson and his staff has already took off their plain clothes and became hired soldiers (mercenaries), zealously protecting the interest of Hargeysa clan militia.

Double Standard

The International Community has been advocating the position that the arms embargo imposed by the UN on Somalia is a solution to end the ongoing civil wars in Somalia. They have, however, not fully abided by it and have shipped weapons in many covert forms � including private security hardware.

The International Community`s double standard can be noticed, in its most vivid and repugnant form, when the issue concerns Hargeysa Administration.

Some countries and stakeholders are obviously adopting their double standards for a reason. For instance, Hargeysa Administration has always been seen as an important obstacle to the realization of Somalia Proper. Hargeysa Administration is the only local Administration in Somalia which has declared its secessionist agenda. Therefore, there are rumors circulating in Somalia that some countries resorted to this double standard in order to instigate and encourage secessionist movements in northern Somalia.

South Africa`s Shady Engagements in Somali Affairs

In May 2002, Somaliland`s leader, Mohamed Ibrahim Egal fell ill and flew to Pretoria, South Africa for receiving treatment. Egal was admitted to One Military Hospital in Pretoria and died there, as a result of surgery complications.

To illustrate the shady relationship between South Africa and Hargeysa Administration, Pretoria allowed Hargeysa Administration to open an office in South Africa. In addition, Dahir Riyale has once stated that �Ethiopia has said it will be second to recognise Somaliland. We are searching for number one�.

Iqbal Jhazbhay, who is the informal South African lobbyist (but writes and publishes a pro-Hargeysa argument), has appealed Hargeysa`s case to Pretoria. However, Jhazbhay`s cause met a highly significant defeat from Pretoria, although he kept trying again and again to revive Hargeysa`s futile ambitions. Usually lobbyists are salespersons whose trademark are selling fear from something (i.e. fear of terrorism etc). What is unusual about Jhazbhay is that he lobbies for aggression and the subjugation of a large number of Somalis in the north by a small clique in Hargeysa. He is volunteering (probably with pay, as mercenaries do) to be an instrumental in facilitating the outbreak of a long clan warfare in the northern parts of Somalia.

Therefore, the recent South Africa`s covert relation with the secessionists is grossly incompatible with African Union`s supposed dedication to its charter, particularly �the inviolability of colonial borders�.

The Current Wars in the North

The Sool, Sanaag, and Cayn Resistance army have recently accused Hargeysa junta of using mercenaries to attack their regions. The resistance commanders believe that the latest aggressions from Hargeysa were orchestrated by the so-called �private Security experts�. That is, Silanyo is counting on men like Wayne Hermanson to carry out the eradication of the anti-secessionist natives of SSC regions. One SSC native said to the Forum that �Officials from UNPOS and AU are sweepingly hypocritical�, pointing at their silence in the face of the recent Hargeysa aggression against civilians in Buuhoodle district. He ruled out the idea of �Somaliland recognition� and concluded his statement with �We are fighting for the liberation of our regions from the secessionists, not to profit from aggression as some South African mercenaries earn their living from chaos�.

Saracen Out and �Physical Risk Solutions� Still In!

Last year, Villa Somalia was contemplating the idea of relying on private security firms that provide security services in an unstable environment, since it failed to win over hearts and minds of enough local troops. Subsequently, the Somali Information Minister Abdikarim Hasan Jama announced last December that his government has indeed signed a contract with Saracen International to train bodyguards. Last month, Villa Somalia has however reviewed rigorously and re-positioned its policy, ordering Saracen International to disband and leave the country amid public outcry over their employment.

Physical Risk Solutions, the South African company involving a shaded activities that describes itself as a private security firm, is said to be one of hundreds affiliated private firms with mercenary businesses in Africa. Locals insisted that Wayne Hermanson`s PRS company may not deliver front-line services, but would train clan militia to strike against the SSC people.

Roobdoon Forum is using all possible venues available to stop Silanyo using quasi mercenaries in his secessionist and expansionism wars against the people of SSC regions. Finally, the Forum demands the unconditional termination of all controversial contracts approved by the TFG and all Regional Administrations.

Concluding Milestone Quote

[At a press conference convened in June 1997 to discuss the ongoing civil war in Sierra Leone, Secretary General Kofi Annan bristled at the suggestion that the United Nations would ever consider working with �respectable� mercenary organizations, arguing that there is no �distinction between respectable mercenaries and non-respectable mercenaries.�]

Roobdoon Forum
Friday, February 25, 2011

WHO`S WHO
Wayne Hermanson
The Indian Ocean Newsletter
March 27, 2010

Wayne Hermanson, a former officer in the South African National Defence Forces (SANDF) where he spent 15 years before going to work in the private sector in the mid 1990s, founded a private security company in Somaliland a few months ago called Physical Risk Solutions (PRS). This company is based in Hargeisa, where its director of operations is Farah M. Jimaale, and calls on the experience of Physical Risk Consultancy (PRC), a company that Hermanson created in South Africa in 2005 and which has carried out several operations for clients in Africa and the Middle East. Hermanson had previously worked for a mining project in Angola during the civil war (1996) and on securing the premises of a brewery in Nigeria in 2001 - 2002. In 2009 PRC won a contract to protect members of the United States International Republican Institute (IRI) in Somaliland. This is what had prompted Hermanson into creating PRS, which had the IRI as its first client in Hargeisa.

PRS should also have protected members of the IRI who had the task of supervising the presidential election in Somaliland in the first half of 2009. But the date of this election was put back several times and has yet to be held.

� Copyrights 2010 Indigo Publications All Rights Reserved

Hargeisa`s lobbyist in South Africa
The Indian Ocean Newsletter
December 16, 2006

Hargeisa`s lobbyist in South Africa has once again pleaded the case for Pretoria to �provisionally recognise� Somaliland. In a document from the Centre for Policy Studies in Johannesburg dated November 2006 and published with the help of funding from Sweden. Iqbal Jhazbhay considered that recognising Somaliland should be an integral part of a larger South African proposal to the African Union (AU). According to him, this initiative would come under the wing of the negotiation of a non-aggression pact and a peace treaty for the Northeast of Africa through the establishment of a Conference on Security, Stability, Development and Cooperation for Northeast Africa. A lecturer in the religious studies department of the University of South Africa (UNISA) and a member of the religious affairs commission of the African National Congress (ANC, ruling party), Jhazbhay is an old friend of Somaliland.

According to him, �provisional recognition� of this administration of the North West of Somalia by Pretoria and promoting this decision to the AU would send a clear signal to the radical Islamists in Mogadishu and their allies, against any initiative to expand their power in the North of Somalia.

�Copyrights 2006 Indigo Publications All Rights Reserved

White S. African soldiers resurface as `consultants`
Straits Times
November 16, 1994

OLD soldiers never die or even fade away, they resurface as �consultants�.

White South African mercenaries are now training more than 5,000 Angolan government troops.

The two to three-month training ranges from motorised infantry to artillery, engineering, signals and medical support as well as sabotage and reconnaissance.

The efforts of the former South African Defence Force (SDF) troops are havin g a big impact on Angola`s civil war - a bizarre situation considering that SDF forces launched a mission during the 80s which resulted in the deaths of more than 700 Angolan soldiers. The mercenaries, who see themselves as military consultants, last year completed their first one-year contract worth �24.5 million (S$58 million) with the government of Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos.

The main training base is situated about 200 km south of Luanda next to the Longa River. After training, the recruits - some as young as 16 - are given uniforms and sent to the front.

The South African Foreign Affairs Department has condemned the �consultants� publicly, saying that they were wrecking peace efforts in the region.

� 1994 Singapore Press Holdings Limited

Angola: `Many` Executive Outcomes Mercenaries To Stay Behind
Report by Stefaans Brummer
Johannesburg MAIL & GUARDIAN in English, 19-25 Jan 96 p4
MAIL & GUARDIAN
Monday, January 22, 1996

South Africa`s much-lambasted �mercenary� outfit Executive Outcomes is withdrawing from Angola, but many of its soldiers are staying behind.

The United Nations Verification Mission III in Angola confirms Pretoria-based Executive Outcomes appears to be closing shop in Angola. The withdrawal has silenced many who said the company`s continued presence violated the November 1994 Lusaka Protocol peace agreement, which forbids mercenary support for the MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola) government or its UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola) rebel counterparts.

But the fact that many Executive Outcomes soldiers -- employed to �train and advise� the Angolan government armed forces -- are still in Angola, gives new force to UNITA`s charges, initially made a year ago, that �the Angolan government has decided to retain the strike capacity available to it through Executive Outcomes throughout the transition period�.

Executive Outcomes first entered Angola in February 1993, contracted by oil concerns to repulse UNITA rebels from their installations around the northwestern town of Soyo.

That September, Executive Outcomes started the first of two consecutive 12-month contracts with the Angolan government, each worth about $20-million plus a similar amount for logistics. The company`s strength in numbers was never disclosed, but a maximum of 500 men is thought to be accurate.

The involvement of South Africans -- mostly from specialist units of the old South African Defence Force who fought alongside UNITA in the bush war -- brought criticism from the South African government, which said it impaired South Africa`s credibility as an impartial peace-maker.

UNITA claimed Executive Outcomes soldiers were directly involved in the fighting, a charge the company denied, although it admitted to battle planning and advice on the battlefield.

Morality apart, the Executive Outcomes gamble is widely accepted to have paid off for the Angolan government.

From July 1993 government troops, trained and directed by Executive Outcomes, reclaimed strategic centres from UNITA -- probably the reason UNITA accepted the peace conditions of the Lusaka Protocol.

After the protocol was signed, pressure by the United States and others increased for Executive Outcomes to leave. But the company entrenched itself in a series of �business units�, among them the gold and diamond mining company Branch Energy, the air charter company Ibis Air and Saracen International, a security company which was again helping oil companies secure their interests in Soyo. These �business units� appear to be part-owned by Strategic Resource Corporation (SRC), Executive Outcomes` holding company, and partly by Angolans.

A year ago, about the time Saracen was starting up in Soyo, UNITA claimed it had information Executive Outcomes, in response to pressure to withdraw, was transferring key military capabilities to a �public enterprise security company� staffed with new �mercenaries�; and that several hundred existing Executive Outcomes personnel would be repatriated in a public display to appease calls for the company`s withdrawal.

Saracen appeared during a visit by reporters in April last year to be partially staffed by new recruits and partially by employees transferred from Executive Outcomes` original Angolan operations.

As in the UNITA charge, Saracen is registered in Angola as a �public enterprise security company (PESC)�, legally entitled to the possession of arms. Legislation allowing for the creation of these �PESCs� was adopted by the Angolan parliament when the Lusaka Protocol outlawed mercenary activity.

Late last year, a push by government soldiers around Soyo -- a United Nations-certified violation of the protocol -- was claimed by UNITA as the reason it was halting the demobilisation of its soldiers, causing another delay in the peace process.

Not long afterwards an embattled President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos announced during (words indisinct) to Washington that he was abandoning the Executive Outcomes contract, which by then was being renewed monthly. That the government violation had been committed in Soyo, where Saracen is based, clearly increased UNITA`s distrust of Executive Outcomes` commercial spin-off companies.

When Executive Outcomes sent 178 men back to South Africa last week, the company`s Angolan head, �Brigadier� Nick van den Berg, said: �We are withdrawing the last of our men, but some are staying on to farm and others have decided to stay and do business in their personal capacities.�

It appears, though, that many are remaining in Angola in the SRC fold. One SRC source said this week only about half the Executive Outcomes men had been brought back to South Africa. Others were allocated to Executive Outcomes operations in other countries, while more �may� have been given jobs with Saracen. Another SRC source confirmed many personnel had been reassigned to the �existing business units�.

Executive Outcomes spokesperson Nico Palm confirmed the business units would stay in Angola, but said Executive Outcomes had withdrawn �completely� and that suggestions of sinister motives behind the business operations were �politicking� by UNITA.

-- Meanwhile, this week`s coup in Sierra Leone, where Executive Outcomes has a contract to support government forces in its fight against Revolutionary United Front guerrillas, may present the company with problems of credibility.

Executive Outcomes has always, maintained it will only work for �legitimate governments�, and defended its contract with Sierra Leone`s military ruler, Captain Valentine Strasser, on the grounds that he was committed to democratic elections next month.

Copyright � 1996 NTIS, US Dept. of Commerce. All rights reserved.

Additional Information

Below are other local sources about Wayne Hermanson`s Physical Risk Solutions (PRS). Numerous Hargeysa based internet-based newspapers have described (according to their understanding of the United Nations Resolution S/2010/91) PRS`s objectives and capabilities as:

Waxyaabaha kale ee ay warbixintu xustay waxa ka mid ah, in shirkad ammaanka qaabilsan oo shisheeye ahi ay ka jirto Somaliland, taas oo ogolaansho ka haysata Wasaaradda Arrimaha gudaha ee Somaliland, waxaanay sheegtay inay shirkadaasi ogolaansho u haysato inay saanado milataro dalka Somaliland keento, waxaanay warbixintu tidhi, �Physical Risk Solutions waa shirkad amni oo si gaar ah loo leeyahay oo ka diiwaan gashan Somaliland uu maamulana nin muwaadin reer Koonfur Afrika ahi. Shirkaddani waxa ay ku shaqaysaa ogolaanshiyaha wasaaradda arrimaha gudaha ee Somaliland, waxa aanay adeegyo ilaalineed siisaa shirkado gaar loo leeyahay iyo ururrada aan dawliga ahayn. Shirkaddan mamnuuc kama ah in ay ciidamo qalabaysan ama qalab milateri keento Somaliland.�

Source: http://www.geeska.net/content/view/1012/2/