Indian Ocean Newsletter
May 31, 2008
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President Abdullahi Yusuf, during his visit in France |
According to TTU, a Paris based newsletter specialising in the defence industry, the French company Secopex CSA has initialled a contract with President Abdullahi Yusuf, concerning support for maritime security in Somalia, the creation of a coastal intelligence unit and the training of the Somalian presidential guard. According to additional information obtained by The Indian Ocean Newsletter, the document initialled by the Somalian President and the representatives of Secopex CSA is in fact a “cooperation agreement” giving the French company an “exclusive mandate” for 36 months to carry out its project.
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One aspect of this agreement concerns strengthening the Somalian customs and the maritime police through the creation of a coastguard unit to monitor and tax fishing boats operating in the Somalian territorial waters and to offer boats passing through a security service in return for payment. It also raised the possibility of creating two training centres, one in South Somalia and the other in the North, to respond to a certain ethnic equilibrium. However, this agreement is not a binding contract whose terms would oblige the Somalian government to pay for Secopex’s services. The French company now has to persuade international donors (European Union, International Maritime Organisation and the International Monetary Fund - IMF) to cough up for this ambitious project to bear fruit. That is where the shoe pinches. Secopex’s services are estimated to cost in a range of €50 to €100 million a year, for three years. Such a sum would be very difficult to find. Moreover, Secopex will have to send an audit mission to Somalia to cost the project more precisely.
A private military services company founded in 2003 by former servicemen based in Carcassonne, where the 3d regiment of navy infantry parachutists (3e RPIMa) is based, Secopex is currently run by former parachutist Pierre Marziali and General Jean-Pierre Perez . The latter is a former Africa advisor to the French armies chief of staff and has also been a military advisor to the President of the Central African Republic François Bozize . It was through the privileged contacts with certain members of the delegation accompanying Yusuf to Paris that Secopex was able to sign this agreement.
Source: Indian Ocean Newsletter, May 31, 2008