http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\02\27\story_27-2-2007_pg4_11
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Mercenary recruitment by western firms worrying
GENEVA: Methods used by private western security companies to recruit
mercenaries in poor countries and send them into dangerous areas like
Iraq are deeply worrying, according to a UN report to be presented next
month.
Private security guards employed by western companies make up the second
highest number of armed forces currently posted in Iraq, after the US
military but ahead of the British troops, according to Jose Luis Gomez
del Prado, the head of a United Nations workgroup on the use of mercenaries.
“At least 160 companies are operating in Iraq. They probably employ
35,000 to 40,000 people,” Gomez del Prado said on the sidelines of a
second workgroup session in Geneva last week.
More than 400 of these private employees have died in Iraq since 2003,
putting their casualties below the number suffered by US armed forces
but ahead of British military deaths, he said. “And a lot more have been
injured.”
The workgroup is scheduled to deliver a report to the UN Commission for
Human Rights next month emphasising concerns over mercenary recruitment
methods used by US companies like Triple Canopy and Blackwater.
Many of the recruits stem from former police and military forces in the
Philippines, Peru and Equador, according to the workgroup, which
recently conducted missions to the latter two countries.
“They are trained quickly but not prepared for armed conflict
situations,” Gomez del Prado said.
“They are sent there, they receive M16 (assault riffles) and are placed
in very dangerous areas like the Green Zone (in Baghdad), convoys and
embassies,” he added.
While the recruits sometimes carry out important and honourable tasks
like protecting humanitarian organisation convoys, they are also “in a
situation where they can violate human rights because they are armed,”
according to the UN expert.
And while Americans and Europeans working in war zones for private
security companies often make as much as 10,000 dollars (7,600 euros) a
month, Peruvians doing the same job seldom make more than 1,000 dollars,
and their working rights are often violated, Gomez del Prado said.
“The contracts they sign often hide things that aren’t clear. The
original is in English, which most of them do not speak,” he said.
The number of private security companies working in war zones like Iraq
has exploded in recent years, with one private security employee for
every four US soldiers currently stationed in Iraq.
That number is up from one private security guard for every 50 US
soldiers who took part in the first Gulf war in 1990/91, Gomez del Prado
said. afp
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