Title: Message
IRAQ:
Balkans Soldiers Find Fortune in Baghdad
Vesna
Peric Zimonjic
Fighting gets into your veins, said men who fought in
former Yugoslavia. And so now that peace has come to their homeland, many have
moved to Iraq.
BELGRADE, May 12 (IPS) - Fighting gets
into your veins, said men who fought in former Yugoslavia. And so now that peace
has come to their homeland, many have moved to Iraq.
"There is no doubt
that there is a growing demand for mercenaries or soldiers of fortune in Iraq,"
military analyst Slobodan Kljakic told IPS. "Within the community close to those
circles, a number of between 500 and 1,000 Serbs is mentioned. They have already
obtained contracts to work as security staff or bodyguards in Iraq."
U.S. corporate giants engaged in oil exploitation and reconstruction of
Iraq such as Halliburton or the San Francisco-based Bechtel have turned to
private security companies like Blackwater Security Consulting or Kellogg, Brown
and Root (KBR), Kljakic says.
U.S. and British sources place the number
of privately contracted security personnel in Iraq between 10,000 and 15,000.
"It's up to them (security companies) to try to find and subcontract the
workforce for Iraq," Kljakic said. "After that it's easy for people from here to
enter Iraq." Under decades-old regulation, Serbs do not need visas for Iraq.
Besides the mercenaries who are rarely mentioned publicly, Serbs are
getting other business offers. Some of the largest international media outlets
are relying on Serb crews, given their experience in war coverage and because
they can easily enter the country.
The role of civilians contracted to
work in Iraq came under the spotlight after four U.S. security contractors met
grisly deaths in Fallujah in March.
In the Balkans, where interest in
Iraq is low, this event attracted particular attention. One of those killed was
a Croat, Jerry Zovko, who changed his first name when he became a naturalised
U.S. citizen.
"It's a public secret that people engaged in this line of
work can earn between 100,000 and 200,000 dollars a year," says Croatian
journalist Marina Seric. Her research in the Zovko case attracted wide attention
in Croatia.
"One cannot establish the exact number of Croats who have
been contracted to work as security personnel in Iraq," she told IPS. "But the
bottom line is that they all used to be professional soldiers. They are aged
between 30-45. Depending on their experience they do different jobs -- simple
protection, logistics, training."
Serb youth seems to have found a new
hero. The Belgrade press has carried interviews with Misha Misic, a security
specialist who earns 500 dollars a day in Baghdad protecting oilfields. He
claims to have gone to Iraq as an adventurer to earn money.
"With more
and more countries withdrawing their troops from Iraq, as Spain did, the U.S.
will break new ground in modern warfare," says foreign policy analyst Predrag
Simic. "More and more mercenaries will take the place of regular troops. It
might look as a kind of relief for the public in those countries that sent
troops to Iraq, as the bodies of mercenaries are shipped home in coffins without
national flags or fanfare."
Stories of mercenaries going to Iraq abound
in Serbia, but it is hard to trace the channels that lead them there. >From time
to time, small ads appear in Serbian papers announcing "the need for security
personnel with experience". The phones in the ads are not local. Similar ads are
appearing in newspapers in neighbouring Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Serbia has
some 3,000 security firms. Most employ some 30,000 former policemen or war
veterans. These companies put up a wall of silence every time Iraq is mentioned.
Owners of the two most prominent security firms, Fitep and Protecta,
decline to speak about mercenaries, and say people are free to do individually
whatever they want.
"There is no licensing or official registration of
those agencies," Marko Nicovic, vice-president of the International Bodyguard
and Security Services Association told IPS. "Many are closely linked both to
criminals and police. There is absolutely no control, there is a complete
chaos."
Nicovic says mercenaries could be finding their way to Iraq
through sub- contracting companies that advertise on the Internet. "It's easier,
safer for them," he says.
Nicovic points to a recent statement by
Richard Goldstone, former chief prosecutor of the United Nations-founded
International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY). The South African
jurist said former hit men from South Africa together with Serb mercenaries and
war criminals are finding gainful employment in Iraq.
"It is just a
horrible thought that such people are working for the Americans," Goldstone
said. (END)
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