Mercenaries

The Latin American antimilitarist network have written a declaration as part of today's Global Day of Action on Military Spending: No queremos más armas para Latinoamérica and read here (in Spanish with English info here) about an action in The Canaries. If you want to show your support for the day of action on social media, use #movethemoney and find out events are happening near you here.

Read No queremos más armas para Latinoamérica

Declaración de la Red Latinoamericana Antimilitarista por el día mundial de acción contra el gasto militar

La Red Latinoamericana Antimilitarista, red definida como una coordinación que promueve a través de diversas acciones el antimilitarismo en la sociedad, cuestionando la estructura militar y las prácticas de dominación en la región; hace un llamamiento a celebrar el día mundial contra el gasto militar diciendo: No queremos más armas para Latinoamérica.

WRI affiliate Organization for Nonviolence and Development are one of the signatories to the recent joint civil society declaration on 'Civil Society Engagement in the IGAD-Led Peace Prcoess for Sustainable Peace and Development', signed in Addis Ababa, March 17.

G4S plc (formerly Group 4 Securicor) is a British multinational security services company headquartered in Crawley, United Kingdom. It is the world's largest security company measured by revenues and has operations in around 125 countries. G4S was founded in 2004 by the merger of the UK-based Securicor plc with the Denmark-based Group 4 Falck.

During the first weekend of October the international seminar "War Profiteering and Peace Movement Responses" took place in the sunny city of Barcelona. The seminar was hosted by Justícia i Pau (Centre Delàs) and Fundació per la Pau and organised together with War Resisters' International (WRI) and the European Network Against Arms Trade (ENAAT).

There are several new profitable developments in the defence business. This theme group will be addressing three of them: The privatisation of war, armed and unarmed drones and the growing market for “homeland security”.

Privatisation

Increasingly, governments are outsourcing military tasks that used to be done by the state. In Afghanistan coalition troops have deployed the largest mercenary army in the history of mankind. Even intelligence is privatised. Not only are western companies hired, but also locals. And not only local cooks but also armed personnel.

Erik Prince, founder of mercenaries firm Blackwater, has helped set up a mercenary army of foreign troops for the UAE through the company Reflex Responses. The force, largely composed of Americans, was described by the New York Times as "a volatile element in an already combustible region". It is not clear whether the project has official US support. Reflex Responses is developing a giant complex in the UAE desert to train troops for other governments as well.

New York Times, 14/5/11

Theme groups New developments in war profiteering: (Coordinator: Wendela de Vries, Campagne tege Wapenhandel, the Netherlands)
How do we respond to new developments such as Privatisation of war, (the growing use of commercial companies instead of national armed forces.) the use of Drones (you don’t go to war, you just take your joystick) and homeland security as a new profitable branch, used for crowd control, catching refugees and spying on opposition. How do we develop arguments, can we make new strategic connections with other campaigns?

by Qasim Lutfi

The American Arab Chamber of Commerce (AACC) recently hosted an event to discuss “investment opportunities” with the Iraqi government. That is, the sectarian, illegitimate, puppet Iraqi government that was installed in the wake of the illegal US invasion of Iraq.

L-3 has grown from a motley collection of businesses spun off from Lockheed Martin in 1997 to a $14 billion company that is one of the largest military contractors. It provides a wide range of high-tech electronics and communications services not only to the Pentagon but also to U.S. intelligence agencies. Not all its services are high-tech: the company’s MPRI subsidiary, acquired in 2000, is among the providers of controversial private security services in places such as Iraq.

Despite an effort to appear otherwise, the countries of South America do not represent an exception to the military - industrial complex (the relationship between governments and the arms industry that favours the latter and underlies an endless arms race). Although the military – industrial complex does not manifest as brutally in South America as in the United States, the pressure of the war industry on politics is unquestionable.

from World War 4 Report

Private security firm Blackwater violated US arms trafficking regulations when training Colombian military personnel in 2005, a State Department report indicates. The controversial firm, renamed Xe Services LLC in 2009, is to pay $42 million for violating US law, including the unauthorized military training of Colombian soldiers—evidently for private service in Iraq and Afghanistan—in April and May 2005.