http://www.messenger-inquirer.com/news/usworld/2801183.htm
U.S. civilians taking risks in Colombian drug war
Companies paid for missions military not allowed to perform
26 February 2001
By Juan O. Tamayo
Knight Ridder Newspapers
BOGOTA, Colombia -- Former U.S. Green Beret? Retired CIA? Military helicopter
pilot or mechanic? If Uncle Sam doesn't want you any more, maybe DynCorp
does.As $1.3 billion in mostly military U.S. aid pours into Colombia for an
assault on its narcotics industry, firms like DynCorp are providing security
forces here with everything from coat-and-tie logistics consultants to
helicopter gunship pilots.It's not work for the average retiree.A team that
included several U.S. contract workers landed a helicopter in the middle of a
firefight earlier this month to rescue the crew of a police chopper downed by
leftist guerrilla gunfire in southern Colombia.But with the U.S. military's
manpower plummeting by 40 percent since the late 1980s, Washington has been
increasingly turning to private U.S. firms to carry out quasi-military
missions in foreign trouble spots.U.S. officials call it "outsourcing,"
making it sound as innocuous as contracting a computer adviser. The firms
contracted bill themselves as "consultants" or "service companies" -- not
"mercenaries."If privatization is the trend these days, the argument goes,
why not privatize war, too?As Colombian President Andres Pastrana travels to
Washington to meet with President Bush on Tuesday, worries are mounting about
the danger the U.S. contractors face -- and whether their presence and that
of U.S. troops could lead to deeper involvement in Colombia's decades-old
civil war."Once this juggernaut starts rolling it's extremely difficult to
put a stopping point on it," said Robert E. White, a former U.S. Ambassador
to El Salvador who heads the Center for International Policy, a Washington
think tank."Once there are a few Americans killed, it seems to me that things
begin to unravel," he added. "And then you can find yourself, indeed, fully
involved."Firms such as DynCorp have been around for decades. Founded in 1946
to handle post-World War II airplane surpluses, DynCorp is the biggest, with
sales of $1.2 billion a year -- 95 percent from contracts with the U.S.
government.It runs everything from one of the computer centers that handled
the 2000 Census to the maintenance of the Kuwaiti Air Force, the
administration of a U.S. military air base in the Honduran town of Palmerola
and the sale of military surplus from former U.S. bases in Panama.Other such
firms have trained police in Haiti, armies in the former Yugoslavia and
military logistics officers in El Salvador and handled logistics for the
ill-fated U.S. military involvement in Somalia.But with Washington pumping
huge amounts of money into Colombia, the roles of firms like DynCorp have
come under increasing scrutiny -- and aroused concerns about the safety and
accountability of its employees here.They are not bound by the orders to
avoid combat that apply to the 200 regular U.S. military trainers here, and
it's unclear whether they are covered by U.S. congressional restrictions on
contacts with Colombian security units alleged to have links with right-wing
paramilitary squads.As civilians, their work and fate comes under less
scrutiny. When a DynCorp paramedic died of an apparent heart attack here in
October, the U.S. Embassy handled his case like the death of any American
abroad, declining to release information on his background or next of kin.At
least six U.S. firms now work with Colombian security forces, either hired
directly by the government here or under contracts with the U.S. Departments
of State and Defense, said one knowledgeable U.S. official. Israeli Defense
Industries also has several contracts here, mostly in the communications and
electronics firm.Military Professional Resources Inc. (MPRI), of Alexandria,
Va., has a contract with the Defense Department, expiring March 8, to provide
a dozen advisors, mostly retired U.S. generals, to Colombia's Joint Chiefs of
Staff on mostly administrative and logistics issues.MPRI's Web site touts the
firm, with reported annual revenues of $12 million, as "the greatest
corporate assemblage of military expertise in the world," with 2,000 retired
generals, admirals and other officers on call.Northrop Grumman of Los Angeles
provides an unknown number of U.S. citizens that operate and maintain five
radar stations in eastern and southern Colombia that track suspected drug
smuggling flights.Tracking data is beamed to Key West in Florida, home of the
drug-fighting Joint Interagency Task Force-East, under the 1998 contract
administered by the Defense Department's Air Combat Command in Hampton,
Va.But by far the largest firm operating in Colombia is DynCorp, hired by the
U.S. State Department's International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Bureau
six years ago under a reported $600 million contract to support coca
eradication programs in Colombia as well as Peru and Bolivia.DynCorp provides
American pilots for herbicide fumigation planes and helicopter gunships that
protect the spray missions, aircraft mechanics and search and rescue teams
(SARs) like the one that pulled a downed helicopter crew from the middle of a
firefight Sunday in southern Colombia.Police officials said about 30 American
DynCorp employees are now in Colombia, although the company has also
contracted some 30 Colombian and several Peruvians and Guatemalans to fly and
maintain aircraft.American pilots earn about $90,000 a year while mechanics
earn about $60,000, but they must live on remote military bases, sometimes
working 45 days, then taking 15 days off.DynCorp employees are under strict
orders to avoid journalists, but U.S. congressional aides who have had access
to them say many are hardboiled, hard-drinking veterans of the U.S.
military."Your best introduction to them is a case of beer," said one former
U.S. military advisor here who keeps in touch with the situation in
Colombia.Leftist guerrillas last year kidnapped one American helicopter
mechanic, who stayed in Colombia after his DynCorp contract ended because of
a love affair, but freed him after a few weeks "because he was so crazy," the
former advisor said.DynCorp and MPRI officials said they could not comment on
their operations in Colombia under the terms of their contracts with the U.S.
government.But there have been U.S. media reports that some of their missions
extend beyond drug-fighting and into the Colombian military's war against
some 23,000 leftist rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia,
known as FARC, and National Liberation Army, known as ELN.DynCorp is, after
all, a multifaceted company.Two years ago, it advertised for Spanish-speaking
policemen. Cops who inquired were told the company had no jobs at the time
but was making an "on call" list in case Washington ever needed to hire a
peacekeeping or police-training mission in a post-Castro Cuba.
