09/09/2008 Political Affairs and Democracy
Strasbourg, 09.09.2008 - The Political Affairs Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) is organising a hearing on “Private military and security firms and the erosion of the state monopoly on the use of force” in Paris on 10 September 2008 with the participation of parliamentarians from its 47 member states, experts and a representative of a private security firm.
According to German parliamentarian Wolfgang Wodarg (SOC), who is due to prepare a report for PACE on this issue, over one million mercenaries are currently operating around the globe, for more than a thousand companies, creating an annual turnover of approximately 200 billion US dollars.
“The major clients of these operators are governments, followed by multinational industrial corporations, predominantly operating in the exploration of natural resources. As a result of privatisation, the market for private military and security firms (PMF) boomed during the last decade […]. The dependence of regular military forces on PMF services increases among both western and third world countries […].
A particularly severe problem from the perspective of PACE is the weakening of parliamentary control and the erosion of the state monopoly on the use of force due to the increasing number of non-governmental actors with military means at their disposal,” Mr Wodarg declares in his motion for a resolution.
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