[Peace-discuss] Fwd: FW: Pentagon Recruiting Murderers & Torturers as Mercenaries in Iraq

[Alfred Kagan]

>Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2004 21:57:21 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Irfan Ahmad <irfanfromcimic at yahoo.com>
>Subject: Fwd: FW: Pentagon Recruiting Murderers & Torturers as 
>Mercenaries in Iraq
>To: akagan at uiuc.edu, sgdavis at uiuc.edu
>
>
>
>"DR. Mujahid Alfayadh" <dralfayadh at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>From: "DR. Mujahid Alfayadh"
>To:
>Subject: FW: Pentagon Recruiting Murderers & Torturers as Mercenaries in Iraq
>Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2004 22:03:07 -0500
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Salam Radio [mailto:SalamRadio at wideopenwest.com]
>Sent: Saturday, June 19, 2004 2:44 PM
>To: Undisclosed-Recipient:;
>Subject: Pentagon Recruiting Murderers & Torturers as Mercenaries in Iraq
>
>The Namibian
>
>Friday, June 18, 2004
>
>For Iraq Security US Turns South
>
>Louis E V Nevaer
>
>WHEN corporate America turns to Latin America to "outsource" protection
>services by tapping former military men from Chile and Argentina, they're
>picking up murderers and torturers from the region's "dirty war" past.
>
>MIAMI--If Jose Miguel Pizarro has his way, he will recruit 30,000 Chileans
>as mercenaries to protect American companies under Pentagon contract to
>rebuild Iraq.
>
>And undoubtedly, within those ranks will be former members of death squads
>that tortured and murdered civilians when dictatorships ruled in Latin
>America.
>
>"There is no comparison with what they can earn in the active military or
>working in civilian jobs, and what we offer," Jose Miguel Pizarro, Chile's
>leading recruiter for international security firms, says.
>
>"This is an opportunity that few in Chile can afford to pass up."
>
>Pizarro's firm, Servicios Integrales, was contracted by Blackwater USA to
>recruit the first batch of Chileans in November 2003.
>
>By May 2004 he had placed 5 200 men who, after one week of training in
>Santiago, head to North Carolina for orientation with Blackwater, the
>private security firm that made headlines when four of its employees where
>killed in Falluja, their bodies mutilated and hung from a bridge.
>After training, Blackwater flies the men to Kuwait City to await their
>assignments in Iraq.
>
>As democratic governments were voted into office throughout Latin America in
>the 1990s, Latin militaries were downsized.
>
>Thousands of military officers lost their jobs.
>
>"This is a way of continuing our military careers," Carlos Wamgnet, 30,
>explained in a phone interview from Kuwait while awaiting his assignment in
>Iraq.
>
>"In civilian life in Chile I was making $1 800 a month.
>
>Here I can earn a year's pay in six weeks.
>
>It's worth the risks."
>
>At 30, Wamgnet is too young to have participated in any crime of the
>Pinochet regime.
>
>But not all the Chileans in Iraq are guiltless.
>
>Newspapers in Chile have estimated that approximately 37 Chileans in Iraq
>are seasoned veterans of the Pinochet era.
>
>Government officials in Santiago are alarmed that men who enjoy amnesty in
>Chile -- provided they remain in "retire! ment" from their past military
>activities -- are now in Iraq.
>
>In an interview with the Santiago-based daily newspaper La Tercera, Chilean
>Defense Michelle Bachelet stated that Chilean "mercenaries for American
>firms doing business in Iraq" may be subject to "arrest or detention in
>third countries," a reference to recent arrests in Spain and Mexico of South
>Americans with war-crimes pasts.
>
>South American media report that Chileans have requested travel from Chile
>to the United States and then directly to the Middle East, to bypass Mexico
>and the European Union.
>
>The thousands of Chileans in Iraq have been nicknamed "the penguins" by
>American and South African soldiers for hire, a reference both to Chile's
>proximity to the South Pole and the fact that many Chilean mercenaries are
>of mixed race.
>
>Not everyone in Chile is opposed to the presence in Iraq of former Chilean
>army members.
>
>"It is true that the majority [of ! Chilean recruits] see this as an
>opportunity to earn money," La Tercera columnist Mauricio Aguirre wrote."But
>it is also an opportunity for our soldiers to prove themselves on the
>ground, and to put to use the skills for which they trained in the Armed
>Forces over the years."
>
>"Blackwater USA has sent recruiters to Chile, Peru, Argentina, Colombia and
>Guatemala for one specific reason alone," said an intelligence officer in
>Kuwait who requested anonymity.
>
>"All these countries experienced dirty wars, and they have military men
>well-trained in dealing with internal subversives.
>
>They are well-versed in extracting confessions from prisoners."
>
>As the security situation in Iraq deteriorated in the spring of 2004, more
>"dedicated recruiting" began.
>
>Though Chile is in vigorous debate about the role of military servicemen
>becoming hired guns in Iraq, in Argentina there is virtual silence.
>
>Several Argentine mercenaries have ! made their way to the United States to
>meet with American security firms before heading to Iraq.
>
>"No one wants to discuss what is becoming clear," says Mario Podesta, 51, an
>independent Argentine journalist.
>
>"I know of seven military officers responsible for disappearing opponents of
>the dictatorship" who are now in Iraq.
>
>During Argentina's "Dirty Wars," opponents of the military regime were
>"disappeared" (abducted), tortured and then killed.
>
>Podesta spoke to this reporter in early April.
>
>He was in Jordan preparing to travel by road to Baghdad, along with Mariana
>Ver?nica Cabrera, 28, an Argentine camera woman.
>
>"I want to find these men," he said of the Argentine Dirty War criminals he
>had identified as being mercenaries in Iraq.
>
>It was not to be.
>
>Podesta and Cabrera were killed, along with their Iraqi driver, in an
>automobile accident before reaching Baghdad.
>
>PNS contributor Louis Nevaer (nevaer1 at hotmail.com) is an author and
>economist whose most recent book, "NAFTA'S Second Decade" (South-Western
>Educational Publishing, 2004), examines the political economy of
>international development and trade.
>
>Copyright The Free Press Of Namibia
>
>http://www.namibian.com.na/2004/June/columns/044C3F48B3.html
>
>======================================================
>
>NCM Online
>
>Pacific News Service
>
>Jun 18, 2004
>
>Mercenaries from India? Ex-Servicemen Find a Second Career in Iraq
>
>Siliconeer, News Report,
>Siddharth Srivastava, Jun 18, 2004
>
>The first reports about the incident appeared in the month of January 2004.
>Now, it is a phenomenon that has spread across the country, involving
>possibly thousands of people. In a very discreet operation, U.S. and British
>security sub-contractors are seeking out Indian ex-servicemen known for
>their professionalism and discipline for deployment in Iraq.
>
>! The coalition forces' attempt to outsource security is a result of the
>alarming increase in casualties with indications of the war in Iraq dragging
>on for some time. Furthermore, there is a lesser likelihood of an attack on
>an Indian, who mingles easily with the general population, and is considered
>friendly by Iraqis. For the retired lowly paid retired Indian soldier the
>money being doled out is quite attractive and difficult to refuse.
>
>Indian personnel are working under the direct command of the U.S. and
>British forces. Most have been deployed to perform security duties
>responsible to guard key installations such as oil wells, refineries, food
>convoys, ports as well as normal day-to-day duties around military camps.
>Though there is no involvement in direct combat, the situation in Iraq is
>fraught with risk, with recent reports indicate that a few Indians might
>have been injured.
>
>It may be recalled that the Indian government had t! urned down a U.S. request
>to send an Indian peace-keeping force to Iraq. In a statement released in
>June last year, the Ministry of External Affairs said: "The government of
>India has given careful thought to the question of sending troops to Iraq.
>Were there to be an explicit UN mandate, the government would consider the
>deployment of troops to Iraq." The stand of the Indian government has
>remained the same since having resisted all pressure from the U.S. to deploy
>Indian troops.
>
>The first indication of transfer of Indian personnel to Iraq was from the
>south Indian state of Kerala, which is the hub of Indians heading for the
>Middle East as engineers, construction workers and other skilled jobs. The
>reports said that around 500 ex-servicemen, who had served in various
>fighting units of the Indian Army (artillery, infantry armored core), had
>been recruited from the central districts of Kerala for deployment in Iraq.
>The contingent was ! termed as the first ever "Indian regiment" to work as a
>mercenary force for the U.S. with the recruitment done by a Kuwaiti company
>working for the US Army. The entire process was done without the knowledge
>of the central government and bodies responsible for the welfare of
>ex-servicemen.
>
>Reports have since emerged that similar recruitment attempts have been
>conducted in the north Indian states of Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana where
>the maximum number of retired soldiers reside. These ex-servicemen are
>approached by Indian private security agencies that front for the
>sub-contractors appointed by the U.S. and British forces in Iraq. The money
>by Indian standards is very good due to which many ex-soldiers, who have to
>make do with low pensions, are willing to take the risk. A sepoy is being
>offered as much as $750 a month, captain $1250, major/ lieutenant colonel
>$1,750, colonel $2500 and brigadier $3500. This can be a substantial amount
>in! Indian rupees where a serving brigadier earns much less than $1000 a
>month. Most of the ex-servicemen chosen are below the age of 55 and
>medically fit. Preference is being given to those who have been involved in
>counter-insurgency operations, fighting guerrilla attacks in northeast India
>or experience of war.
>
>However, as everyone knows, life is not all that easy in Iraq. In an
>interview that has appeared in the weekly Outlook magazine, Col. T. Kapoor,
>among the first to serve in Iraq, spoke about his experience. Kapoor
>returned to India recently after being injured in a guerilla attack. "It's
>good money but it's not all hunky dory. You never know what you may
>encounter because it's a very volatile situation. Besides, the guerrillas
>have superior weapons like rifle-fired grenades, while security-personnel
>like us are given inadequate weapons like AK-47 rifles. Ordinary Iraqis are
>generally nice to Indians, but when you are working with the occupying
>forces, you get targeted by the resistance fighters,'' says Kapoor.
>
>However, unlike illegal trafficking of humans, the transfer of ex-Army
>personnel is an organized process with care taken to ensure that interests
>are well protected. Executives (mostly former Army men) of some of the
>security agencies such as Mumbai-based Trig Guardforce and New Delhi-based
>Gemini Veteran Global Placements have spoken to the media detailing the
>organization. The sub-contractors pass on the Indian resumes to the U.S.
>general office for screening and selection. Insurance cover ranges from
>$10,000 to $50,000, while the valid visas-holders are usually routed through
>Kuwait into U.S. bases in Iraq.
>
>The Indian government has gotten wind of these developments but there has
>been no overt clampdown as yet. There have been murmurs of protest within
>the Indian Army establishment with some serving officers feeling that it is
>wrong to indulge in mercenary activities when the Indian government has
>taken a strong stand against sending troops to Iraq. Others have voiced
>concern about ex-serviceman being privy to sensitive information related to
>national security.
>
>But there are others within the Army who are not averse to the idea and see
>it as an opportunity for ex-servicemen to find employment.
>
>More importantly, the Sainik (soldier) Welfare Boards that are quite active
>in the north Indian states have come out in support of the deployment given
>the abysmal state of the retired Indian soldier who has to struggle to make
>two ends meet.
>
>Retired officers, too, are not averse. The Indian armed forces follow a
>steep hierarchical structure resulting in premature retirement of several
>officers. Though young, the best years are behind them, and the experience
>and training of these officers are often underutilized and they find
>employment in relatively lower skilled jobs inv! olving personnel management.
>Heading to Iraq is harking back to the earlier days when life was a risk in
>any case as well as another chance to utilize their skills as well as make
>money.
>
>As the war in Iraq turns bloodier by the day, there are going to be winners
>and losers, as economic compulsions may override other risks. But a life
>lost, whether American, Iraqi or Indian, will always be a tragedy.
>
>NCM Online is sponsored by Pacific News Service
>
>Copyright C Pacific News Service
>
>http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=0966d6d48f0e457e
>b544d8eb67764077
>
>======================================================
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-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu
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