Filipino Mercenaries In Iraq

(manilamaildc.net) - Filipino ex-cops and soldiers are among the growing number of "mercenaries" recruited to provide security in Iraq, a UN report said. The UN report, which will be presented next month, warned that methods used by private western security companies do not prepare recruits for the conflict. The strain, the report warned, could place recruits "in a situation where they can violate human rights because they are armed."

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 UN workgroup on the use of mercenaries.

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 rifles] 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 honorable tasks like protecting humanitarian organization convoys, they are also "in a situation where they can violate human rights because they are armed," according to the UN expert.

"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 emphasizing concerns over mercenary recruitment methods used by US companies like Triple Canopy and Blackwater.

While Americans and Europeans working in war zones for private security companies often make as much as $10,000 (7,600 euros) a month, Peruvians doing the same job seldom make more than $1,000, 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 recruits are entitled to the labor rights applied in the country where the company hiring them is headquartered, but the UN expert pointed out that it is hard to imagine "a poor Peruvian filing suit in an American court."

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.

He is alarmed at the legal vacuum in which these companies operate, pointing out that their activities are not actually covered by the strict definition of mercenaries given in the 1989 International Convention against the Use, Recruitment, Financing and Training of Mercenaries, signed by 28 countries.