Intervento neo-mercenario o peacekeeping regionale? Un confronto tra Private Military Companies ed ECOMOG in Sierra Leone.

The market-oriented Private Military Companies (PMC) are said to be a new tool for post-Cold War-peacekeeping in war-torn environments: actually, private security is strongly embedded in the so called "new wars", and derives from the retrenchment of the state in response to the globalisation. The study compares two different kinds of peacekeeping strategies: private security and regional peacekeeping are analysed in the context of Sierra Leone, an African country shocked by a savage civil war in the 90's. The first case describes the intervention of Executive Outcomes (EO) - a former and controversial South African PMC - in Sierra Leone (1995): EO provided only a short-lived frame of security which was instrumental to business interest of major international mining corporations. The second case is multilateral peacekeeping on a regional basis: ECOWAS Cease-fire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) intervention in Sierra Leone (1997-2000) was the first case of sub-regional peacekeeping in Africa: despite its difficulties due to political ambiguity, financial capacity and logistical obstacles, this intervention put in place a more legitimate peacekeeping strategy. A full understanding of modern privatised security shows its inadequacy for successful peaceful conflict transformations. Additionally, regional-based peacekeeping strategies, albeit more legitimate than private security, needs to be deeply refined in terms of training, funding and political will, in order to be successful.