Earlier this week, a number of news organizations (Reuters, Boston Globe & WaPo) carried the story about the arrest of 32 private security employees, charged with an attempted coup on the government of the Congo, which, in its terrifically dismal history, will be holding elections in July. All accounts carry the the counter-accusation that this is a political ploy, as most of the arrested work for a South African Security firm, that has been hired in a consulting capacity by one of the 32 presidential candidates, Oscar Kashala, who are challenging the incumbent.
This first account I read mentioned that in addition to the South Africans, working for a company called Omega Security Solutions, there were Americans and Nigerians arrested. Other accounts mentioned an American firm, AQMI Strategy Corporation. When I started researching the latter firm, there was maddeningly little info on the web; today it comes up in Google with many other stories referencing the Congo situation.It has been described both as a security firm and as an "electioneering company."
Omega Security Solutions, is however, incredibly open about their operations; try this mission statement on for size:
"To be the benchmark in Africa and the Middle East in the provision of intelligent integrated security solutions."
When your "clients" pretty much encompass the most unstable and resource rich regions on the planet, that's quite an ambition. When you operate in Iraq, and indeed are accused of coming straight from Iraq, where 2 of your workforce died in 2004, and you are mixed with American "electioneering consultants", you might raise a few eyebrows.
It is a no-brainer for most who visit this site, that US firms like Blackwater, are heavily involved in some of the worst episodes of the Iraq war (and are gouging our government for their Katrina "relief") The death of Blackwater employees bought us Fallujah. (I & II), and since 2004, there have been many who have questioned the the slippery slope of using private security in Iraq.
"The rate of growth in the security industry is phenomenal," said Deborah Avant, a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. "If you had asked a year ago whether there would be 15,000 private security in Iraq, everyone would have said you're nuts. It has moved very quickly over the past decade, but Iraq has escalated it dramatically."
The boom in Iraq is just the tip of the iceberg for the $100 billion-a- year industry, which experts say has been the fastest-growing sector of the global economy during the past decade. From oil companies in the African hinterland to heads of state in Haiti and Afghanistan to international aid agencies in hotspots around the world, the difference between life and death is decided by private guns for hire.
In Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states, national armed forces are almost completely operated and overseen by private firms such as MPRI, an Alexandria, Va., subsidiary of giant L-3 Communications, and Vinnell Corp., a subsidiary of defense contractor Northrop Grumman.
The trend is highly controversial. Some critics point out that security firms are largely unaccountable to governments, the courts or the public, and say that sets a dangerous precedent for covert foreign policy.
But other experts, including a growing number of humanitarian agency officials, are becoming reluctant allies of the private security industry, saying it offers the only way to provide safety in places such as central Africa, where leading nations like the United States are unwilling to send their own troops as peacekeepers.
Events in the past month alone show how the issue has come to the fore:
-- The U.S.-led occupation authority in Iraq said it plans to spend as much as $100 million over the next 14 months to hire private security forces to protect the Green Zone, the 4-square-mile headquarters area in Baghdad, which is currently guarded primarily by U.S. troops. The move appears part of the Bush administration's plans to make its military presence less visible when nominal sovereignty is transferred to a new Iraqi government after June 30.
-- A bizarre plot attempt has unfolded in Equatorial Guinea after 67 foreign mercenaries were arrested in transit in Zimbabwe prior to what may have been an attempt to overthrow the dictator of the oil-rich nation on the Atlantic Coast of central Africa.
-- The Steele Foundation, which provided the security detail for former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was briefly embroiled in controversy when Aristide accused it of withdrawing its agents under orders of the U.S. government when he was overthrown in February. Kenneth Kurtz, the CEO of the Steele Foundation, declined to comment to The Chronicle about the allegations."
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"Avant, of George Washington University, said the availability of private security firms "has allowed the United States to carry out its unilateral policy, from Clinton to Bush. ... This is not simply a Republican issue." She pointed to the extensive use of private security firms by the Clinton administration and European nations in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s."
By calling on firms that have entire fleets of giant Russian cargo planes and hundreds of soldiers of fortune ready to parachute anywhere, leaders in Washington and other Western capitals now have the freedom to intervene abroad and pay little domestic political price, Avant added. "
Aw, C'mon, is that really how things operate?
"The international community hasn't lived up to the promise of "never again." In Bosnia, Rwanda and now Darfur, hundreds of thousands of people have been slaughtered while the world largely watched. The United States calls the killing in Darfur "genocide."
"Enter Blackwater, a private military company that says it can help keep peace in Darfur. Doug Brooks runs an association of private military firms, which includes Blackwater. He says his members can help where governments have failed.
"What we've seen is the West has largely abrogated any responsibility to put their own people on the ground in places they don't care about," says Brooks. "It's willing to authorize these missions, but it's not willing to put boots on the ground. The private sector can step in. It can fill that gap."
"The United Nations, which hopes to deploy in Darfur this fall, opposes the outsourcing of force.
The peacekeeping pitch sounds great, but has all kinds of problems, says Peter Singer, a scholar at the Brookings Institution and author of Corporate Warriors.
For one thing, he says, there's little accountability. If contractors misbehave -- as they did at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison -- they rarely face charges. Singer says private military firms are focusing on peacekeeping, in part, to improve their image."
"It's a wonderful way to put a very nice face onto an industry that faces a pretty big question of legitimacy," says Singer. "Because, at the end of the day, it's the corporate evolution of the mercenary trade"
But that wouldn't concern you and I, who do not live in crisis situations, right?
"The private military industry took off at the end of the Cold War as armies downsized, but conflicts flared in regions like the Balkans. The industry now makes billions of dollars each year. Firms provide everything from fighter jets to bodyguards in more than 50 countries."
"Singer, the military analyst, says the security companies are looking to peacekeeping because they expect work in Iraq will begin to dry up when the United States pulls back.
"There are a lot of crises in the world," says Singer, "so if they can get their foot in the door, it potentially opens up an entire new business sector."
"Deborah Avant, a professor at George Washington University and author of The Market for Force, says she thinks that someday, somewhere, private firms will be hired to defend civilians."
Of course the question is "which civilians?"
Owing to my halfassed home computer, I am unable to clip the nuggets from Omega's website, but you are welcome to peruse it yourself. Please look at the Media section and the pro- and con arguments of operating in Africa, the snazzy rose-themed uniforms, and the Law and Ethics section, with its attached disclaimer. The entire site is like a wet dream of Milo Mindbender, and I am afraid this sort of thing is the accomplishment of the bush administration. Governments that outsource governing to corporations.And take over the Middle East and African resource-heavy countries.
http://www.omegasol.com/
