21.Jan.2011 Who Is Saracen International? What Is It Doing In Somalia?
“Saracen” is what the Crusaders used to call the Muslims, back in the day.
“Saracen International” is a trade name shared, coincidentally or not, by a number of private security companies across Africa, Europe, the Middle East and North America. These companies deny or downplay any financial or managerial relationships between them. A few, however, reportedly derive from the infamous (and pioneering) South African mercenary firm, Executive Outcomes.
Yesterday, both The New York Times and the Associated Press carried a truly mind-bending story on Saracen International, based on a “confidential” African Union report that had apparently been leaked to both news organizations.
The report claims that none other than Blackwater founder Erik Prince has been financing a “counter-piracy” mercenary squad in Somalia, through Saracen.
Somalia, a chaotic demi-state, was the scene of an iconic American military defeat 18 years ago, not to mention a one-time home base for Osama Bin Laden.
It appears that Prince, an evangelical American mercenary with longstanding ties to the Pentagon and the CIA, has partnered with a group of equally notorious South African guns-for-hire for a paramilitary mission in an Islamic nation, under a corporate banner harking back to the Crusades. But what does all that mean?
Mercenaries don’t work for free
Is this an American war by proxy? Notably, this Somali “counter-piracy” mission is advised by a former White House lawyer and by a former CIA official. However, it is also bankrolled in large part by someone in the government of Prince’s new home, the United Arab Emirates.
Reading between the lines of yesterday’s news stories, the report connecting Prince and Saracen was most likely leaked by someone who felt, understandably, that the presence of mercenaries in Somalia undermines the African Union effort there, and persists on account of official corruption.
Uganda is supplying troops to the uniformed African Union force in Somalia. And, according to AP reports, Saracen is “associated with” the younger brother of Uganda’s president, Salim Saleh. That curious phrasing suggests a mutually beneficial financial relationship. Other African media sources say Salim Saleh is an “investor” or “major shareholder” in Saracen (Uganda).
Salim Saleh’s apparent conflict of interest highlights the key take-away from this incredibly complex story: The lines that separate government security officials and the leaders of private armies have become so fuzzy that you can never really be sure as to the motivations of any individual player. As mercenary forces become more and more prominent in armed conflicts around the world, the profit motive becomes difficult to separate from other casus belli.
In other words, it’s almost impossible to know the real reasons driving any conflict in which mercenaries play a leading role.
Government connections
The Saracen-in-Somalia story started gaining notice after a Washington Times story revealed the role of a former George W. Bush administration official in coordinating Saracen’s contract with the Somali government.
The former official, Pierre R. Prosper, is pictured here in a 2003 photo from his a former gig as an ambassador for “war crimes issues.”
Prosper and Michael Shanklin, a former CIA officer stationed in Mogadishu, previously told the AP they were being paid “paid by a Muslim nation [they] declined to identify” to advise the Somali government on “legal” and “security” matters. That unnamed “Muslim nation,” it now appears, is the UAE.
Late last year, the Washington Times and the AP reported that Prosper met with United Nations monitors over their concerns that Saracen may have violated a long-running (but ineffectual) arms embargo on Somalia. (Mogadishu, a city that has roughly the population of Houston, Texas, averaged 534 “weapon-related casualties” per month last autumn, according to the UN.)
Prosper told the Times “that so far, no arms were shipped to the training camp, to the best of his knowledge.” He told the AP that “Saracen is doing the military training” in Somalia. Yet the same story quotes Saracen (Uganda) chief executive Bill Pelser as disclaiming the company’s training role in Somalia.
Pelser denied being involved in the training program in Puntland…saying he merely made introductions for another company called Saracen Lebanon.
Sure. Got it.
Lebanese authorities have no record of a company called Saracen. Pelser did not respond to requests for contact information for Saracen Lebanon.
Yesterday’s AP story features quotes from Saracen (Lebanon) executive Lafras Luitingh—evidently a distinct entity from the Ugandan company of the same name that is also led by former employees of Executive Outcomes.
Also, it’s supposed to be completely irrelevant that Saracen (Uganda) goes around “ma[king] introductions” for Saracen (Lebanon).
In the AP story, Luitingh says “the company had sought to keep the project secret to surprise the pirates.” (Because the pirates don’t know they might be attacked?) He “declined to say whether [Blackwater founder Erik] Prince was involved in the project and said [Prince] was not part of Saracen.”
Is your head spinning yet? If not, it will be soon. Keep reading.
Saracen International, Not To Be Confused With Saracen International
The AP turned up
at least three Saracens — the one registered in Lebanon, and two run by Luitingh’s business partner and based in Uganda, where government office employees told the AP the registration papers have disappeared. An AP reporter in Beirut could not find the address Luitingh’s company provided in the Somali contract. Lebanese authorities had no address listed for Saracen in Lebanon and said it is based in the United Arab Emirates.
Saracen (Uganda)’s website says the company has branches in South Africa, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Hong Kong, Angola, Zambia, Sudan and Botswana.
My own research turned up two more “Saracen Internationals,” not counting a Spanish real-estate firm with that name.
One, Saracen International Ltd, is based in Manchester, UK.
The corporate address of record is at the Towers Business Park in Manchester. The website registration, however, returns both that address and another, one shared with a café in the southern suburb of Stockport.
An email to the Yahoo account of the listed website registrant, Sira Yaqub, bounced back undelivered. The woman who answered the phone at the UK Saracen in Manchester office suggested calling back on Monday.
The other Saracen International I found is a limited-liability company based in Phoenix, Arizona.
This Saracen International is registered to William G. Lawrence and Tjaart Andre Van Der Walt, both of Phoenix. Lawrence returned a call placed to the company’s listed phone number.
“I have no relationship to the UK company of the same name. I don’t operate in Southern Africa,” he says of Saracen (Arizona).
Van Der Walt, Lawrence says, is a “friend” who has “never been part of the corporation,” although records show the LLC is registered at Van Der Walt’s home address. Lawrence says Van Der Walt, whose first name is also spelled in public records as “Thaart,” emigrated from South Africa 16 years ago and is now an American citizen.
I asked if Van Der Walt ever worked for Executive Outcomes. Lawrence says he doesn’t know, and hadn’t heard of that company.
He has, however, heard of the other Saracens. “I got a call from Somalia asking them to train their coast guard to fight the piracy threat. Only then I became aware that there was another Saracen International,” Lawrence says.
Doesn’t it seem strange, I suggested, that all these private security companies with an international client base—Lawrence’s company has operations in Jordan and the UAE—seem content to share a business name, and aren’t suing one another for copyright infringement? “I can’t account for that except…[the name] has positive connotations in the Arabic world,” Lawrence says.
Positive because, after all, they fought the Crusaders.
Lawrence says his company sells a Chevrolet Suburban outfitted with a concealed six-barrel gatling gun that can pop out of the hood and fire 50 rounds a second in every direction. The car, called the Raptor, costs upward of $300,000.
The Raptor is not something that you’d ever want to cut off in heavy traffic. You can watch its gunner blow up a hatchback on YouTube.
Is this the next must-have vehicle for Arizona’s soccer moms?
“The people we do business with are national leaders. They are always subject to threats of one kind or another. King Abdullah [of Saudi Arabia] has had four assassination attempts on him,” Lawrence says. “He doesn’t ride in our car…but we’re in his entourage.”
(Unlike the other companies that share its name, Saracen (Arizona) does not have an up-and-running website of its own. However, the marketing video for the Raptor contains a plug for saracen.org. That domain is currently listed as for sale.)
Muddied (Black)waters
Yesterday’s AP story on Prince’s ties to Saracen (Uganda) connects another company to the dubiously funded “anti-piracy” mission there.
Afloat Leasing, which owns two ships that have been working with Saracen, said it was Liberian-registered, but an AP reporter didn’t find it at the address given or in Liberian records.
I found an “Afloat Leasing Ltd” registered in South Africa. Records show this company owns a ship called the 
Seafarer, which departed Durban, South Africa roughly one month ago and was due to call last week in the UAE, a course that would take it past the pirate-plagued Horn of Africa.
This may or may not be the same “Afloat Leasing” named by the AP.
And as long as we’re in the caveats department, it should be noted that Prince, who recently abandoned his “redneck mansion” for the UAE, has denied, through a spokesperson, having any “financial role of any kind in this matter” with Saracen.
It should also be noted that Prince has ostensibly cut his ties with Blackwater, the company he built from nothing, although he’s tight with the new owners, whoever they are.
Did I say Blackwater? Of course, I meant Xe. Or whatever it is now. It’s hard to keep all these companies straight, sometimes. Odd, isn’t it? Most companies try so hard to come up with a memorable name. But with these companies and their constantly changing, generic-sounding brands—not to mention the roving headquarters and opaque registration—it’s almost as though they’re trying to confuse people. Like they don’t want people to remember who they are, or something.
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