UN group on mercenaries to visit Britain
GENEVA (AFP) — The United Nations said Monday that a group of human rights experts will visit Britain this month to discuss the growing use of mercenaries in global conflicts and their impact on human rights.
The working group "will use this opportunity to take stock of the activities of private companies registered in the United Kingdom, offering military assistance, consultancy and security services on the international market and its effect on the enjoyment of human rights," it said in a statement.
The May 26-30 visit will include meetings with government officials, NGOs, academics and representatives of the private military security industry.
Many private security firms are registered in Britain, and many former British military personnel have become key players in the sector in recent years.
One of the most high-profile recent cases involved Mark Thatcher, son of former Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher.
Thatcher pleaded guilty in South Africa in 2005 to violating anti-mercenary laws, saying he unwittingly helped plotters against Equatorial Guinea's President Teodor Obiang Nguema.
Prosecutors in the West African country have issued an international arrest warrant against Thatcher, accusing him of being an instigator in the failed coup attempt by mercenaries in 2004.
Prosecutor Jose Olo Obono said they believed Thatcher was involved in the alleged plot with a former school friend, former British special forces soldier Simon Mann, who is currently awaiting trial in Equatorial Guinea.
Private companies have also been deployed extensively in Iraq, where they have come under increasing criticism over the past year because of the high number of civilian deaths and injuries they inflict.
Jose Luis Gomez del Prado, president of the working group that will visit Britain, said in March that such companies were operating in a "grey zone" where rights violations were likely to occur.
"The current framework regulating the activities of private military and security companies, based essentially on self-regulation and voluntary codes of conduct, turns out to be insufficient," del Prado said in a report to the UN Human Rights Council.
