| | Corporate mercenaries are known by a variety of terms: private military companies, private security companies, military contractors or simply mercenaries. We have chosen to use the term private military and security companies (PMSCs), primarily in order to express the essential continuity between the military and security services provided by the companies in question. The same formulation is increasingly being used by the United Nations and by UK government officials, and is fast becoming the standard terminology.
War is one of the chief causes of poverty. War can completely undermine a country's development prospects, destroying schools and hospitals and putting agricultural land out of use for years to come. Fully 80% of the world's 20 poorest countries have suffered a major war in the past 15 years, and the human legacy continues long after. Nine of the 10 countries with the world's highest child mortality rates have suffered from conflict in recent years.1 Yet not everyone is made poorer by war. Many companies thrive off conflict, whether through supplying military hardware to armed forces or running mercenary armies on behalf of combatant states. Others fuel conflict through their operations in war zones, such as oil companies in volatile countries like Colombia and Iraq (or Nigeria), or through their continued trade in goods such as blood diamonds. Others profit from financing the war effort. This report forms part of War on Want's campaign to confront those companies which profit from war. The aim of the campaign is to expose the many different ways in which the corporate sector is involved in conflict, and to suggest public action to call such companies to account. This report also examines who these corporations are, what they do, how they rose so quickly to prominence, and most importantly, how democratic societies should deal with this new element of warfare.
The campaign complements War on Want's longstanding support for our partners in conflict zones: some of the world's bravest men and women, on the front line in the struggle for human rights. |
