Erinys is an international Security Services
Erinys is an international Security Services and Risk consultancy. We provide clients with a range of services and capabilities to reduce the impact of operating in volatile, uncertain or complex environments such as sub-saharan Africa and the Middle East.
Formed in 2001 by senior managers and executives of the security & risk management industry our combination of skills and experience has enabled Erinys to rapidly establish a pre-eminent reputation in its field. A reputation exemplified by a client list representative of some of the world's largest and most important corporations.
Apartheid Enforcers Guard Iraq For the U.S.
By Marc Perelman
02/21/04: (The Forward) In its effort to relieve overstretched U.S. troops in Iraq, the Bush administration has hired a private security company staffed with former henchmen of South Africa’s apartheid regime.
The reliance on apartheid enforcers was highlighted by an attack in Iraq last month that killed one South African security officer and wounded another who worked for the subsidiary of a firm called Erinys International. Both men once served in South African paramilitary units dedicated to the violent repression of apartheid opponents.
François Strydom, who was killed in the January 28 bombing of a hotel in Baghdad, was a former member of the Koevoet, a notoriously brutal counterinsurgency arm of the South African military that operated in Namibia during the neighboring state’s fight for independence in the 1980s. His colleague Deon Gouws, who was injured in the attack, is a former officer of the Vlakplaas, a secret police unit in South Africa.
“It is just a horrible thought that such people are working for the Americans in Iraq,” said Richard Goldstone, a recently retired justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and former chief prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
The Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and the Pentagon did not return requests for comment.
In Iraq, the U.S. government has tapped into the ever-growing pool of private security companies to provide a variety of defense services, including protecting oil sites and training Iraqi forces. Observers worry that a reliance on these companies and the resulting lack of accountability is a recipe for further problems in a volatile region.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5723.htm Guarding a Vital Asset
Are Iraqis ready to protect their valuable, vulnerable oil?By Joe Cochrane
Newsweek InternationalFeb. 16 issue - It might be a stretch to call Ali and Muhammad the guardians of Iraq's future. Pulling guard duty recently in the rain-soaked northern town of Kirkuk, home of one of the world's largest oilfields, the two men sport mismatched uniforms and clutch rusty AK-47s. But looks are deceiving. Faced with continuing attacks by anti-U.S. insurgents and, according to some, insufficient ground troops to stop them, the U.S. military is counting on Ali and Muhammad (not their real names) and thousands of other private guards to protect Iraq's vast oil infrastructure. The task is daunting: dozens of oilfields, refineries and pumping stations, along with thousands of kilometers of pipeline that crisscross Iraq, are prime targets for insurgents bent on denying the U.S.-led occupying force money for long-term reconstruction. They also hope to exacerbate ongoing fuel shortages in hopes of further enraging a population already angered by long queues for petrol and kerosene. "Production at the refineries is already down 40 to 50 percent," says Asim Jihad, a spokesman for Iraq's Oil Ministry, "so any attacks seriously affect the flow of oil for export and our ability to provide things for the people."
The vast majority of the attacks around the country each day are directed at U.S. troops and the Iraqis who support them, including the Feb. 1 bombing in Arbil that killed 100 Kurds and wounded 247 more. Similar strikes at targets like the Kirkuk fields or Daura oil refinery in Baghdad could seriously disrupt production and oil exports, and have major implications for Iraq's recovery. "One attack could be catastrophic to the oil industry," says Col. Tom O'Donnell, commander of Task Force Shield, which oversees the security of Iraq's oil infrastructure. Anti-U.S. fighters have launched at least 100 attacks against the oil infrastructure since Baghdad fell, including two last fall on a northern pipeline route that halted crude-oil exports to Turkey. The Coalition has been forced to buy oil products from neighboring countries to meet domestic needs.
U.S. war planners gave high priority to seizing Iraq's northern and southern oilfields before Saddam Hussein could sabotage them. But after major combat operations ended, manpower was shifted elsewhere, leaving the oil industry dangerously exposed. To protect its infrastructure, last September the Pentagon awarded a $40 million contract to Erinys International, a private, Britain-based security firm. In only four months Erinys has trained, armed and deployed more than 9,000 Iraqi guards across the country, and plans to expand its force to nearly 15,000 in the coming months. The U.S. military also struck deals with tribal leaders to provide an additional 5,000 guards in their areas.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4208603 /
South African mercenary question in Iraq
Is Iraq a zone of conflict? A war zone? Or is it a peace-building situation? On the answer to these questions rests the fate of more than 1,500 South Africans now working in Iraq.
Among them are some of the known assassins and torturers from the apartheid era. Most have been recruited as bodyguards, security consultants or security guards at salaries ranging up to $10,000 a month.
The issue came to a head after the bombing of the Shaheen hotel in Baghdad earlier this month, which South African Frans Strydom died and another South African, Deon Gouws, was seriously injured.
Gouws, a former policeman, was linked to the notorious South African Vlakplaas death squad.
The murderous activities of Vlakplaas were exposed when its commander, Colonel
Eugene de Kock, gave full details of the unit. Gouws and others associated with it were exposed and applied for amnesty to South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).
The TRC granted amnesty to Gouws for at least 15 murders and the petrol bombings of the homes of between 40 and 60 anti-apartheid activists. He was discharged from the police force in 1996 as medically unfit and apparently had difficulty finding or settling down to another job.
Strydom was a former warrant officer in the Koevoet (‘Crowbar’) counterinsurgency unit that achieved notoriety for being paid bounties for the bodies of ‘terrorists’ in Namibia. They conducted a reign of terror in the northern parts of that country in the years before independence.
The backgrounds of these men are not yet widely known in Iraq, let alone the wider region. But those officials who have become aware expressed shock and anger that such ‘mercenaries’ could have been recruited.
As this information spreads and undoubtedly becomes embellished, there is likely to be a backlash against private security companies operating in Iraq.
http://www.muslimnews.co.uk/paper/index.php?article=1497 Johannesburg - Francois Strydom learnt about killing in the Koevoet, the apartheid-era paramilitary police unit, notorious for violence, torture and murder.
In Iraq, Strydom found his skills were in demand.
Employed by US-based firm SAS International, Strydom was one of a number of South Africans in Iraq working as private "security experts" before a January 28 bomb outside the Shaheen Hotel prematurely terminated his contract.
The aftermath of the blast sent shockwaves through the media, as Strydom"s death revealed an embarrassing situation. It was estimated that 1 500 former soldiers and policemen were operating in Iraq, in defiance of stringent legislation forbidding the practice.
It emerged that the men make up along with US and British personnel the largest contingent of commercial "military service providers" on the ground in Iraq.
Most are said to be members of former elite units, disbanded following the end of apartheid, their members suddenly finding themselves unemployed, their skills no longer required.
http://www.africancrisis.org/ZZZ/ZZZ_News_2085.ASP 
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