The assassins next door: Blackwater in Colombia

By Eva Golinger

The disclosure in Ecuador about the role of Washington in the illegal invasion of Ecuadorean territory on March 1, 2008, comes as no surprise. From the start there had been suspicions about the participation of U.S. servicemen and intelligence agents, then deployed at the Manta military base, in the operation that wiped out a FARC camp.

Now, an official report issued by Ecuador confirms this fact. It also reaffirms that wherever there are military bases utilized by the United States there will be military action directed from Washington – regardless of the rules, laws and standards of the host country.

The controversial military accord between Colombia and the United States, signed on Oct. 30, represents the largest military expansion conducted by Washington in Latin America in all of history. The accord permits the presence of private contractors who can supply the needs of Washington agencies on Colombian territory while enjoying the same immunity granted to U.S. functionaries and servicemen.

This is not new. As part of Plan Colombia, for the past 10 years Washington has used more than 30 contracting firms to carry out military, intelligence and espionage tasks in Colombia. Some of the contractors are the most powerful companies in the military-industrial complex, such as DynCorp, Bechtel, Lockheed Martin, the Rendon Group, and Raytheon.

According to the new military accord, the number of contractors – or war mercenaries – will increase. The privatization of war and the use of private enterprises to carry out security, defense and intelligence acts is Washington’s modus operandi today. The most controversial company, without a doubt, is Blackwater, now known as Xe Services.

In the past eight years, Blackwater has earned more than $1.4 billion in contracts from the State Department and the Pentagon. Since 2005, Blackwater also has entered into semi-secret contracts with the Department of Homeland Security in the United States to carry out security and defense operations inside the country. Such operations have been seen as the start of the creation of a privatized police state to repress and control a population that finds itself in an increasingly desperate economic situation.

Early in 2008, the U.S. Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command granted contracts totaling $15 billion to a group of private contractors that included Blackwater. The contract, which includes intelligence, espionage and reconnaissance operations, among other tasks, is aimed at two countries in Latin America: Mexico and Colombia.

The contract specifically details an “air training provision” for the Colombian armed forces and “strategic support in public relations” for the Colombian government (read “psychological operations.”) In the case of Mexico, Blackwater has been assigned to support missions against drug trafficking.

Some days ago, it was revealed that Blackwater was hired by the CIA to assassinate alleged insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. Blackwater mercenaries participated in some of the most sensitive and clandestine activities of the CIA, including the transportation of detainees to the CIA’s secret prisons. Former Blackwater mercenaries say that their role in those clandestine operations was so routine that the boundaries between the CIA, the Pentagon and Blackwater did not exist.

Now this company – a front for the CIA and the Pentagon – is operating freely in Colombia. In the United States, dozens of lawsuits and legal cases have been filed against Blackwater for breaking laws, committing arbitrary assassinations and violating human rights. However, the government of Álvaro Uribe has opened the door to the presence of this dangerous enterprise in South America, an act that constitutes a major threat to the region’s peace and security.

The nations of ALBA and members of the UNASUR should collectively forbid the presence of war contractors – mercenaries – in Latin America. Otherwise, more death, conflicts, violations of sovereignty and war will await us.

Eva Golinger, winner of the International Journalism Award in Mexico (2009), is a Venezuelan-American attorney from New York who has lived in Caracas, Venezuela, since 2005.