[NYTr] Namibia Deports US Security Employees

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

AP via USADaily - Oct 14, 2007
http://www.usadaily.com/article.cfm?articleID=123856

Namibia Deports US Security Employees

By RODRICK MUKUMBIRA
Associated Press Writer

Authorities have ordered the deportation of two Americans working for a
security firm that was trying to recruit Namibians to work as guards at
U.S. facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, a government minister said.

The Namibian Cabinet also recommended the closure of the local branch
of the Nevada-based security firm, Special Operations
Consulting-Security Management Group (SOC-SMG), which was set up
earlier this month, Information Minister Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah said
Friday.

Nandi-Ndaitwah said two American employees of the firm _ Paul Grimes,
the firm's country representative and Fredric Piry, the chief of
operations _ were to be 'immediately removed' from the country. They
had been given 24 hours to leave Namibia, she said Friday.

It was not clear Sunday whether Grimes and Piry, who were staying at a
five-star hotel in the capital Windhoek, had left the country. Calls to
their mobile phones were not answered.

The U.S. Embassy in Windhoek and the State Department did not comment
on the situation Sunday. Calls to the security firm's headquarters in
Minden, Nev., were not immediately returned.

Private security firms operating in Iraq and Afghanistan have come
under increasing scrutiny. The Iraqi government has ordered Blackwater
USA expelled from the country within six months following the shootings
of 17 Iraqi civilians last month. Officials are also investigating the
shootings of two Iraqi women by guards working for an Australian-owned
firm on Tuesday.

Some U.S. lawmakers have said the government relies too heavily on
private contractors who fall outside the military courts martial
system. Many of the contractors working in Iraq are also third-country
nationals. Triple Canopy, a security company that has State Department
contracts, has scores of Peruvian guards working checkpoints in the
Green Zone.

According to SOC-SMG's Web site, the firm's clients include the U.S.
departments of defense, state and energy, as well as the U.S. Army, Air
Force, Marines and Naval special forces.

The company had aimed to recruit at least 3,000 Namibians to work in
Iraq and Afghanistan through a local employment agency, with promised
salaries of $1,000 a month, local newspapers reported. It is not clear
whether anyone had been recruited yet.

Local media quoted Grimes as saying the company had the blessing of the
country's labor and safety and security ministries. 'We are looking for
noncombatant security guards to guard dining facilities, gyms, military
base hospitals in Iraq,' Grimes was quoted as saying in one newspaper.

Under Namibian law, however, it is illegal for citizens to participate
in security or military activities in foreign countries without the
written permission of the Defense Ministry. Last week, Nandi-Ndaitwah
warned citizens that they risked prosecution if they were recruited by
the company.

The firm had been targeting Namibians over the age of 25 as well as
veterans of Namibia's lengthy war with South Africa for independence.
The company is reported to have held meetings with some increasingly
disaffected war veterans, who have been campaigning for hefty pensions
and gratuities from the state for their roles in the guerrilla war.

A sparsely populated desert country, Namibia presents an easy option
for companies hoping to operate under the legal radar. The country also
presents an alternative to neighboring South Africa, where
controversial anti-mercenary legislation has been introduced which will
clamp down on citizens wanting to work in security and military sectors
abroad.

An estimated 2,000 to 4,000 South Africans worked in Iraq last year,
helping guard oil installations, hotels and foreign residents.
Thousands more are in other countries like Nigeria and Afghanistan.
Many of them are white former members of the apartheid-era armed forces.