Since last year, Rose Partners, a Private Security Company based in UK, has begun to send personnel (british guards and former british officers) to occupy key positions in the Libyan security sector.
Control rooms and police units are the main targets of the Rose Partners and, a part from the bad training provided, Libyans are worried about the new foreign presence and its effect on the Libyan government.
Private Security Companies are well known to conduct clandestine operations and shady activities in foreign soils.
Rose Partners, a Private Security Company formed by british former police and army officers, has highly increased its presence in Libya and has taken control of some of the most sensitive security positions.
The recent inauguration of the Suprem Security Chamber, that will supervise and coordinate police operations in Libya, comes after some training provided last year to the coast guards and to the local police. As pointed out by a police officer trained in “riot control techniques”: “the training is of low quality, we were better trained by the armed forces”. Besides that, some Libyan governmental officers expressed concern for the lack of effectiveness of a company made of former police officers who “were not able of increasing the level of security in the United Kingdom” and the risk that “Rose Limited is a foreign actor that could bring a hidden agenda and run clandestine operations”.
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| The Interior Ministry has held a training course in the field of crime scene management, for the Tripoli Security Directorate agents, in cooperation with experts from the English Security Risk Management Company "Rose Partners" |
Private Security Companies are used to provide security and risk management in deteriorated scenarios and failed states but often doubts, supported by hard evidence, about their integrity and accountability surfaced. In too many events private security companies were accused of abusing civilians, being unrespectful of local costume and exerting pressures on local government to pursue their specific aims.
Moreover, it is clear that in countries where Private Security Companies are deployed, security becomes a private good and, as result, the government is weakened and its institutions undermined. In fact, a direct effect of Private Security Companies presence is the creation of parallel structures of government that erode the economic and political independence of the state.
A very relevant issue about the presence of Rose Partners is the “lack of democratic accountability that such companies inevitably bring”, as an intelligence expert say, and as a police officer adds “we do not know if, as in other part of the world, Rose Partners could be used to run clandestine operations (operations with little oversight and no accountability to the Libyan society)”.
The last is considered a central sensitive issue by Libyans, worried because other Private Military Company, such the russian Cremlin aligned Wagner, has been running clandestine operations on their soil, further jeopardizing the peace in the area.
Another issue is debated among Libyans in social media; Muhammad, a student from Tripoli, doubts that the British personnel (former police officers) working for the Rose Partners “will be able to bring security in Libya, since they failed to secure their own country”.
The dramatic security situation in UK is confirmed by statistics that highlight how “the European country saw an increase of around 120 thousand offences when compared with the previous reporting year, the highest in the UK since 2003/04. The UK region with the highest number of crimes in 2019/20 was London, at over 850 thousand.”
It seems clear that Libya does not need another non-state actor that easily avoid government oversight.
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