Committee: DISEC
Topic Area B: Private Military Contractors
Country: Senegal
Delegate: Milan Colzani
School: Fishers High School
Private military contractors (PMC’s) have had a large presence within African countries such as Senegal since their conception. Their use within Senegal continues to increase, despite decreasing crime rates and increased political stability as time goes on. This is due to the continuously expanding trade that Senegal benefits from because of its reputation as being the country in Western Africa that has the largest amount of political stability. The expansion of free trade between other nations and Senegal has led to more business opportunities within Senegal, which requires higher levels of security. Senegal has used not only PMC’s to help protect our businesses in the past, but we have also used PSC’s (Private Security Companies).
The delegation of Senegal strongly agrees with the use of PMC’s as an alternative to public officers as they have been proven to be safer when utilized to protect businesses within the region. However, public officers are still the largest utilized type of law enforcement in terms of protecting civilians. As business expansion continues to grow in Senegal, the use of PMC’s and PSC’s will continue to grow as well. While Senegal understands that PMC’s in many countries haven’t been successful in the past within other nations in terms of corruption and other violations, Senegal will continue to use them.
Understanding this, Senegal will continue its use of PMC’s and PSC’s, however, we have solutions on to how to make their use less corrupt in other nations. These include imposing further regulations on PMC’s to make sure that they remain accountable in the region that they’re serving in, as well as providing more oversight to them in general. Additionally, it’s important to create a uniform set of standards that each PMC has to abide by, which allows for them to be uniform in nature, and makes sure that they abide by Democratic values. Sources:
O’Brien, Cyrus. “The Dynamics of Private Security in Senegal.” Review of African Political Economy,
vol. 35, no. 118, 2008, pp. 655–659. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20406563.
“PMSCs: Risks and Misconduct.” PMSCs: Risks and Misconduct, Global Policy
- Milan Colzani
