Shackled: the diamond dog of war

[seemslikeadream]

Murderous world of cash, guns and private jets in the diamond lands of Angola
author/source:Times (UK)
published:Tue 27-Apr-2004
posted on this site:Tue 27-Apr-2004
By Mattthew Hart

Old Etonian mercenary Simon Mann is the leader of 70 foreign soldiers accused in Zimbabwe of plotting to topple an African tyrant. Our correspondent describes his last encounter with the former SAS man amid the murderous world of cash, guns and private jets in the diamond lands of Angola.

I met Simon Mann on a blustery night in Johannesburg seven years ago, a night with enormous piles of dark cloud toppling across the Rand. We were staying at the Hilton and I sat on a terrace adding cigarette smoke to the humid air and gazing at the turmoil of the sky. Mann came out and leaned on a low wall, not exactly joining me. He was of medium height, tight and trim, with a short-sleeved military-style shirt and chinos with a knife-edge crease. He had a perfect poker face. I never saw anything register on it but surmise. I thought of this when I saw Mann’s picture in The Times last month, shackled and handcuffed to another prisoner as he and 70 other mercenaries shuffled through the yard at Chikurubi prison in Harare. They had been caught in a trap after Mann had apparently tried to buy weapons. Zimbabwean troops snatched them from their Boeing jet and imprisoned them for a supposed “dogs of war” plot to overthrow the tyrant of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea.



That night at the Hilton we talked about the little diamond company that he and his friends were promoting. DiamondWorks was then a small Vancouver firm with some mining rights in northeastern Angola, then the great dream-cake of the diamond world, gushing some $600 million a year in diamonds from its rivers. Most of it flowed from the insurgent Unita army. The diamonds were run out of Angola in hair-raising operations on Ilyushin cargo jets that landed on dirt strips in the middle of the night. Off came Russian tanks and on went the goods. The warring parties in the interminable civil war were in a fragile truce, and Mann’s job was to convince a group of stock-market analysts that if they invested in DiamondWorks, of which he was then Operations Officer in Africa, they would get diamonds, and not ruin. (Mann has not had any involvement with DiamondWorks since 1997.) The following morning, Mann and I were going in to have a look. “Bit of a risk for an investor,” I said to Mann. “That area? Pacified,” he replied.

more
http://www.zwnews.com/issuefull.cfm?ArticleID=9174

[seemslikeadream]

1. Apartheid assassins meet match in Iraq

By Gavin du Venage in Cape Town

April 27, 2004

SOME of the worst human rights violators of the apartheid era, including a man who helped kill 14 civilians while they slept, have been employed as security contractors in Iraq.

A South African killed in Iraq two weeks ago once worked for a secret apartheid death squad known as the Civil Co-operation Bureau. The CCB specialised in assassinating civilians who sympathised with black liberation movements.

Gray Branfield, 55, was the latest South African casualty with a record of human rights abuse to have obtained lucrative employment with one of the many private security companies operating in Iraq. His decapitated and mutilated body was found after a gunfight between Shi'ite radicals and Ukrainian forces in Kut, 185km southeast of Baghdad.


Branfield is not the first apartheid enforcer to become a casualty in Iraq. Earlier this year a bomb attack on the Shaheen hotel killed Francois Strijdom, who had been a member of the police special forces unit Koevoet (Crowbar). Another CCB assassin, Deon Gouws, was injured.

According to the United Nations, South Africa is a favoured recruiting ground, after the US and Britain, for the private security firms. At least 1500 of the estimated 10,000 private contractors operating in Iraq are South African.

"Most of these guys have spent 15 to 20 years fighting and know nothing else," Stiff says. "After apartheid ended, the former soldiers found themselves unemployed after their units were disbanded. Many became mercenaries.

more
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=814

[seemslikeadream]

2. Former special ops find Iraq lucrative, dangerous

April 26,2004
JOANNE KIMBERLIN
The Virginian Pilot

NORFOLK, Va. - Private contractors. Commandos. Mercenaries. Civilians. Thugs. The tough guys hired as guards in Iraq are being called all that and more. None of those names fits.

In the lingo of international security, the men with the guns are known as "operators" - a throwback to their overwhelmingly military pasts. As SEALs, Rangers or Green Berets, most spent years submerged in the covert world of "special ops." Now, they're making headlines in Iraq.

As many as 15,000 operators have flooded into the country, hired by two dozen or so security companies under contract to the U.S. government. They protect bodies, convoys and supplies, filling the gaps left by troops stretched too thin.

Operators are supposed to avoid the action, but rising tensions in Iraq have increasingly drawn them into the battle. The March 31 murder and mutilation of four men from Moyock-based Blackwater USA, a security-consulting firm, ignited some of the worst fighting since the war officially ended. Less than a week later, eight others held out for hours against hundreds of heavily armed Shiite militia trying to overrun the new government's headquarters in Najaf.

more
http://www.jdnews.com/SiteProcessor.cfm?Template=/GlobalTemplates/Details.cfm&StoryID=22109&Section=Liberty

[seemslikeadream]

3. Custer Battles Iraqis in Alamo

"Reconstruction": There has been endless talk about "reconstructing" Iraq. It's what we're there for, aren't we? But what exactly is this "reconstruction." Here's one thing we now know: perhaps 20-25% of all reconstruction monies going into corporate hands are being spent on "security" -- think "insecurity" -- in Iraq (Los Angeles Times, 4/9/04).



Now, we have another figure to go with that. According to Tom Regan of the Christian Science Monitor in a piece entitled, "Operation kickback?" (4/23/04):



"Iraq's private companies routinely pay bribes to get reconstruction contracts - often to Iraqi officials but sometimes to employees of US contractors. That's one of the allegations that has been made by a special investigation undertaken by public radio's Marketplace and the Center for Investigative Reporting, and funded by The Economist magazine. The result, according to experts monitoring the situation, is almost 20 percent of the billions of American taxpayers dollars being spent to rebuild Iraq is being lost to corruption."



He adds that "every Iraqi ministry is touched by corruption, the report alleges" and that "the problem is as deeply embedded in Washington as it is in Baghdad... in the past three months, US investigators have disputed more than $1 billion worth of contract fees because of 'inflated charges, incompetence, lack of documentation to support invoices and kickbacks related to subcontract awards.'"



Now, add to the moneys being poured into security and being siphoned off by corruption, the unknown percentage of reconstruction funds that are simply and legally pocketed by large corporations like Bechtel and Halliburton as profits for their work and you have to wonder exactly how much of these Iraqi-bound, congressionally-mandated funds actually make it anywhere near any reasonable group of Iraqis. I mean, we may be talking about one of the great scams of history here, the sort of thing that could make Teapot Dome seem like a sprinkle on a spring day and, given all this, should we still really be talking about "reconstructing" Iraq?


more
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=5397

[seemslikeadream]

4. Iraq's mercenaries: Riches for risks

By Clare Murphy
BBC News Online

The severe lack of security in Iraq has opened up a highly profitable market for private security contractors.


Security guards are hired from around the world
Security guards are hired from around the world
The brutal murders of four American security men in Falluja on Wednesday 31 March is unlikely to deter the many would-be mercenaries willing to accept the risks involved in providing security amid the instability of post-war Iraq, according to one security firm.

The US has so far spent $20bn on reconstruction in Iraq. The companies which have won these contracts currently expect to spend about 10% of their budgets on providing personal security planning and protection for their workers.

Iraq is something of a goldmine at present. The profit margin is incredibly high, way in excess of the risk factor

Duncan Bullivant
Henderson Risk
Hence a highly lucrative market has sprung up.

Industry insiders say the war has proven a godsend for British security firms - which have picked up much of the work. Their revenues are estimated to have risen fivefold, from around $350m before the invasion to nearly $2bn.

more
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3590887.stm

[JAbuchan08]

5. kick it!

[seemslikeadream]

6. Disturbing Reports from Iraq

17 Marines Said Trapped and Killed in Falluja

http://rense.com/general52/17d.htm


Eyewitness Claim Drugged US Troops Laughing in Battle

http://rense.com/general52/tops.htm


Real Pictures Brought Back from Iraq - Warning - Graphic

http://home.wi.rr.com/davef/iraq.htm


http://mathaba.net/x.htm?http://mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=46085

Iraqi Resistance Report for 26 April
Posted: 04/27
From: FAV


Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Monday, 26 April 2004. Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice. http://www.freearabvoice.org

(See below for important documents issued by the Baath Party on the Resistance!)

Monday, 26 April 2004.

Iraqi Resistance crushes US attack as battle resumes in al-Fallujah.

The Iraqi Resistance crushed a powerful American attack mounted against al-Jawlan neighborhood, according to Mafkarat al-Islam’s correspondent in the besieged city. The American assault began after sunrise on Monday and finally met its end as evening set in, the correspondent and eyewitness wrote in a report posted at 00:02 on the morning of Tuesday, 27 April 2004.

The Iraqi Resistance drove the US Marine invaders into a pincer, as it is called, within al-Jawlan. Then the Resistance violently attacked the rear lines of the American forces cutting the advanced forces off from the rest of the attacking force. As a result more than two-thirds of the entire force of Americans were cut off, and many of them were wiped out on the battlefield. The remainder were able to flee into neighboring houses, but the people informed the Resistance fighters about their presence and they were able to hit them there. As a result, the total number of Americans killed exceeded 30.

US Marine invaders attempted to break the ring around their offensive force but the fierce battle that ensued blocked any rescue. The first attack resulted in the destruction of one tank and the killing of all aboard, in addition to the destruction of two vehicles and the death of most of those aboard them when they came under Resistance gunfire.

The second attack cost the American side even graver losses. Three tanks were destroyed with rocket-propelled grenades, killing all aboard the vehicles. In addition an armored vehicle and four Humvees were destroyed, killing most of those inside.

Earlier coverage from al-Fallujah.

The US occupation commander in Iraq admitted that one American aggressor soldier was killed and eight others wounded, some of them seriously, as battle resumed in al-Fallujah between the US aggressor forces that have been besieging the city for 20 days, and Iraqi Resistance fighters defending the city.