Mark Ron: Mercenary Activities (Prohibition) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Mark Ron: Mercenary Activities (Prohibition) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:618;Page:14246] 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 First I want to give a bouquet to the Minister in the chair Judith Tizard because she has taken a call and attempted to answer some of the questions put to her which is a little unusual in the Committee of the whole House and I appreciate that. 
I have again gone through article 1 of the Convention against the Recruitment Use Financing and Training of Mercenaries on which the definition is based. I can deal with this blow-by-blow. Article 1.1(a) provides that a mercenary is a person who: “Is specially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict;”— 
Hon Judith Tizard 
: And read on. 
RON MARK 
: I will come to each one in turn. I note with interest that countries that have signed up to this convention such as Qatar Saudi Arabia Italy and Libya are countries that have employed and still do employ mercenaries. 
A good friend of mine was second in command of a Baluchistani mercenary battalion on the border of Oman and opposing him across that border were Pakistani mercenaries—in Saudi Arabia. So straight away I would question the commitment of one of the signatories to the convention—a convention that New Zealand has signed up to. As for Qatar and Libya well everybody knows that Libya not only employs mercenaries but also dispatches them. It is an absolute nonsense. 
How does one get around this provision that refers to people who are “specially recruited locally in order to fight in an armed conflict”? It is by getting recruited into a command appointment where one does not have to physically personally fight; rather one commands a battalion and simply issues the orders and instructions. In a court of law I could argue that I was not there fighting; I was simply administering resources. That is my argument. 
When I was in the Middle East one of my jobs was to go to India and Pakistan to specifically recruit former defence force personnel from those countries to take them back to the Middle East. I was looking for people with specific trades and technical skills but alongside me were my colleagues who were going to recruit people like Gurkhas. We needed Gurkhas in our unit to provide specialist security tasks that were mainly oriented towards looking after us just in case things got very awkward with our local Arab friends. That was one of the things one had to do. 
Those people were employed on a normal day-to-day basis. They did base security and personal security and they never ever had to engage in combat. But they were there to do so should they be called upon. 
Sitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. 
RON MARK 
: Before we lifted for lunch I was referring to the definition of “mercenary” which is based on article 1 of the convention and particularly article 1.1(a). 
I now move to article 1.1(b) which provides that a mercenary: “Is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and in fact is promised by or on behalf of a party to the conflict material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar rank and functions in the armed forces of that party;”. The reality is that even an Indian soldier recruited to serve in the Omani army would be paid more than many of the people alongside him. 
Stephen Franks 
: Especially if they are conscripts. 
RON MARK 
: Yes especially if they are conscripts. The idea and notion that a professional officer of the New Zealand Army or Air Force or the British army or air force would go all the way over to Saudi Arabia Oman or Iraq to help rebuild a nation and do it for nothing or for the same wages that the locals would be paid is a nonsense. The very reason that person would be asked to accept a contract to go over there to work for those armies is that person has professional skills of a very high standard that those armies want and they know that they have to pay to get the skills. The men or women are setting themselves up to leave their homes families and children back here in New Zealand and they will not do that for peanuts. To make them mercenaries by this definition is wrong and it is not helpful. At the end of the day other ways exist to deal with those unsavoury characters of the ilk that the Government is quite legitimately trying to deal with. The ways around this also exist. 
I go to article 1.1(c) which provides that a mercenary: “Is neither a national of a party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a party to the conflict;”. Can anyone answer me this question? Of all those expatriates who went into Afghanistan to fight the Soviets and help the mujahideen—because it was a sensible thing to do in those days—none of them were nationals of parties to the conflict but they did us a service.