Marketing the New 'Dogs of War' The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have been fighting one of the world�s longest and bloodiest terrorist wars, but July 24, 2001, marked their most devastating attack in 18 years of fighting against the Sri Lankan government. In virtually destroying Bandaranaike International Airport in the capital of Colombo, the Tamil Tigers cut the country�s only link to the outside world.
Half of the civilian fleet of Sri Lankan Airlines, the national carrier, was destroyed. The Sri Lankan Air Force lost almost a third of its assets � Russian transport helicopters and fighters, Israeli interceptors, and Chinese trainers. The cost of the attack was estimated to exceed $500 million. Tourism vanished overnight, trade collapsed, and Sri Lanka�s economy slumped. The long-term impact of the Tigers� attack was magnified by the conduct of the City of London, the financial nerve center of the United Kingdom. Brokers at the Lloyd�s of London insurance market imposed massive war risk surcharges on shipping to Sri Lanka. The shipping-dependent nation suddenly faced the loss of trade and even essential food imports. With insurance surcharges rising to a multiple of freight rates, costlier air transport replaced surface ships. At a stroke, the country faced rampant hyperinflation and economic collapse. The terrorist Tigers had struck the blow, but it was the London financiers whose conduct now threatened national survival. Sri Lanka�s High Commissioner in London, Mangala Moonasinghe, was instructed to open negotiations, not with the Tamil Tigers, but with the City�s brokers. Eight Sri Lankan government negotiators flew to London on Aug. 17, 2001, to meet with Lloyd�s underwriters and their War Risks Committee. After three days of talks, the Lloyds team set up a �London Market Sri Lankan War Facility.� The rates for ships sailing to Sri Lanka would still be high, despite the Sri Lankans agreement to pay, within seven days, a bond of $50 million against any claims that might be lodged for damage to vessels heading for or in Sri Lankan waters. The Sri Lankan government was also required to commission a full security review of its airport and seaports and to implement any recommendations. The London brokers recommended Tim Spicer (Reuters) that the Sri Lankan government hire a British-based company, Trident Maritime, to carry out the security survey, in conjunction with another security consultancy, Rubicon. In Trident, the Sri Lankans had hired Tim Spicer, a man simultaneously at the center of a number of scandals provoked by his global mercenary activities and of an effort to legitimize the status and sanitize the image of the country�s �dogs of war� � soldiers of fortune who have mounted coups, guarded British, U.S. and Arabian dignitaries and ambassadors, engaged in civil wars, and run sabotage and terror activities from behind hostile lines. From the Contra campaign in Nicaragua to organizing and training Afghan or Kosovar insurgents, British mercenary operators have been employed by the CIA, the Drug Enforcement Agency and the U.S. State Department, as well as by Britain�s own Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). � See Sidebar, �Cozy, Clubby and Covert� After decades of controversial intervention in the developing world, these private military enterprises are seeking legal recognition and standing. They wish for re-branding as peacekeepers and conflict resolvers. Politicians in the West seem quickly to have accepted a convenient if illusory dichotomy just as it has been handed to them � contrasting the old-style (and bad) �dogs of war� with the new-style (and good) private military companies, or PMCs, of the 1990s and beyond. � Coming Nov. 4: Insider banking information provides a glimpse into how money from multinational oil companies helps fuel corruption and war in an oil-rich African state. New 'Dogs of War': Page 1 of 13 [ PDF Version]
