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(ABC NEWS AU) Smith tight-lipped on SAS Africa claims

Smith tight-lipped on SAS Africa claims
by Emma Griffiths and Emily Bourke
Updated March 13, 2012 17:13:24

Defence Minister Stephen Smith has denied a secret SAS unit is operating "at the outer reaches" of Australian and international law in Africa. Fairfax newspapers have reported the SAS's 4 Squadron has been operating in the past year in several African countries, doing work normally done by spies.

The report says the secret unit, set up in 2005, has mounted dozens of secret operations over the past year in Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Kenya, gathering intelligence on terrorism and scoping rescue strategies for Australian civilians detained or trapped by civil war.

But the report says Defence insiders fear the troopers could be left without adequate legal protection if they are captured during operations in countries with which Australia is not at war.

Speaking to ABC News 24 this morning, Mr Smith said all SAS operations conducted overseas were authorised by law and the government of the day.

"The suggestion ... that somehow we've got Australian Defence Force personnel or SAS personnel operating at large in Africa, rubbing up against the boundaries of the law is just wrong, it's just wrong," he said.

He would not confirm that SAS troops were in Africa and refused to comment on the details of any operations.

But he rejected the report's assertion that SAS troops were operating "at the outer reaches of Australian and international law".

"Everything which occurs in that general area is done in accordance with our domestic law," he said.

"It's done in accordance with our international legal obligations, whether that's the law of armed conflict, whether that's international humanitarian law, and we make sure our officials, our officers or personnel operating in that space have all the necessary personal protections."

The Fairfax report says the SAS operations include gathering intelligence on terrorism and drawing up rescue plans to be put into action if Australian citizens are kidnapped by local groups.

The minister says the SAS is doing "the necessary work" to make sure Australian interests and Australian individuals overseas are protected.

"Australians would expect that, in terms of protecting our national security interests, protecting the interests of Australians overseas, from time to time you'll have the Australian Defence Force working closely with DFAT (Department of Foreign Affairs), with ASIS (Australian Secret Intelligence Service) on matters such as consular crises, on kidnappings, on counter-terrorism," he said.
'Provocation'

But Professor of International Law at Sydney University Ben Saul has raised concerns this type of intelligence work represents an expanded and dangerous new remit.

"When Australian forces are posted abroad, usually it's because they're on a peacetime deployment with the consent of local government and they're undertaking joint exercises and so on, or they're there as United Nations peacekeepers, or they're there in the hard edge of military conflict as in previously Iraq and now Afghanistan," Professor Saul said.

"The key international law issue here is really whether or not they have the consent of the local government, because without that it would be fairly clear that their deployment here would be illegal under international law.

"The only way you can deploy military forces lawfully is if it's in self defence - and here of course Australia hasn't been attacked - or their is an authorisation by the United Nations Security Council, which again is not the case in places like Kenya, Somalia, and Nigeria."

Professor Saul says the national interest banner does not justify these sorts of secret missions.

"Everybody knows that many, many states send civilian spies to gather intelligence on other countries," he said.

"The difference here is that this is the deployment of military forces, not civilian spies. I mean that's a provocation so far as many countries are concerned."

And he says such work places the troopers themselves in a legally precarious position.

"If they are deployed in an armed conflict and they're captured by enemy forces, then they've got an expectation to be treated as prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions," he said.

"If on the other hand the SAS are there without permission of local government, secretly spying, not in uniform, then upon capture they've got no expectation of any proper treatment whatsoever.

"I mean really they could be put on trial for espionage, they could be subjected to the death penalty and there's really very little that the Australian Government could do for them."

Professor Saul says the rules of engagement should be explained publicly.

"Are they just spying or are they moving more towards the American end of these kind of deployments, which includes in some cases, abductions, hit squads, targeting of drones and so on?" he said.

"I mean these are pretty serious questions that the Australian Government should answer if Australians are to have confidence that their forces are being used appropriately and Australian lives are not being unnecessarily risked."

Labels: ARMED FORCES, AUSTRALIA, NEOCOLONIALISM

posted by MrK @ 8:41 PM