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U.S. Contractors in Colombia
Report:
In April 2003, the State Department released a required
report to Congress listing the sixteen different companies
hired to carry out counter-narcotics activities in Colombia, the
roles they play and the amounts of their 2002 contracts.
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Compiled
by CIP Colombia Program Intern Sara Vins, November 2001
In addition to roughly
150 to 300 U.S. military personnel, hundreds of civilians working for
private U.S. corporations work with Colombia's security forces in many
aspects of the counternarcotics program. Contractors work in Colombia
as spray-plane and helicopter pilots, search-and-rescue personnel, mechanics,
logistics personnel, radar-site operators, and instructors, among other
duties. Their jobs are often risky, requiring operations in territory
with a large presence of illegal armed groups.
Public information
about the contractors and their operations is limited - neither the
government nor the companies release much information about their outsourcing.
Basic information, such as the names of all companies hired for State
Department, Defense Department and intelligence-agency contract work,
is unavailable. Due to a lack of primary sources, our research on
contractors depends heavily on journalistic reports.
In May 2001, the
State Department released a Fact
Sheet outlining the role of U.S. civilian contractors in Colombia.
Contractors vs.
military personnel
The "outsourcing"
policy has been quite controversial. Many critics question its necessity,
and ask why contractors -- and not U.S. military personnel -- have been
employed, particularly for the more dangerous jobs.
The contractors
are not the least expensive option, as the Associated Press noted in
May 2001:
A State
Department internal audit last year noted that it is much more expensive
to rely on contractors instead of Colombians. It said a Dyncorp pilot
receives $119,305 a year, compared with $45,000 for contractors hired
by Colombian National Police. The State Department also must pay higher
costs for housing and security. Dyncorp has a $200 million, five-year
contract with the department, company spokeswoman Janet Wineriter
said. [Associated
Press, May 7, 2001 - link to article at Media Awareness Project]
Officials claim,
however, that using contractors brings clear benefits, as the New
York Times reported in May 2001.
R. Rand
Beers, assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and
law enforcement affairs, said finding qualified personnel in Colombia
is not always easy. And going to the American military is not the
catch-all answer, since United States forces do not employ pilots
for crop-spraying or the mechanics and logistics experts needed for
defoliation programs. Hiring private contractors, Mr. Beers said,
is often the best option, giving the government flexibility to hire
for short-term jobs while choosing from a pool of experienced companies
that offer a range of services tailor made for places like Colombia.
[New
York Times, May 18, 2001]
Other possible motivations,
of course, include avoiding a public relations problem if anything were
to happen to the personnel involved.
It's
very handy to have an outfit not part of the U.S. armed forces, obviously.
If somebody gets killed or whatever, you can say it's not a member
of the armed forces," former U.S. Ambassador to Colombia, Myles
Frechette told reporters. [St.
Petersburg Times,
December 3, 2000]
As civilians,
their work and fate comes under less scrutiny. [Miami
Herald,
Feb. 26, 2001 - link to article text at corpwatch.org]
Using
contractors will "reduce the potential fallout when mistakes
happen or Americans are caught in harm's way," said Tim Reiser,
an aide to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), an opponent of U.S. military
aid to Colombia. [Associated
Press, Feb. 26, 2001 - link to article at Media Awareness Project]
Counternarcotics
or counterinsurgency?
The lack of conditions
or transperency over contractors' military activities gives rise to
concerns about their congruence with U.S. policy. U.S. officials like
Ambassador Anne Patterson reassure that "the political stomach
for going into the counter-insurgency business is zero. It is not going
to happen." [Article
text from Colombian Defense Ministry] Nonetheless, some observers
worry that contractors on counternarcotics missions may be getting too
close to Colombia's larger conflict.
Trying
to avoid a direct involvement in Colombia's decades-old war, the Pentagon
has forbidden the estimated 200 U.S. military trainers here from entering
combat areas or joining police or military operations that could result
in clashes with guerrillas or paramilitaries. But no such restrictions
apply to the American civilians working for DynCorp or another Virginia
firm, Military Professional Resources Inc., known as MPRI, both under
contract to help Colombian security forces. [Miami
Herald, Feb. 22, 2001 - link to article text at Yahoo Groups]
"There
have been U.S. media reports that some [DynCorp and MPRI] missions
extend beyond drug-fighting and into the Colombian military's war
against some 23,000 leftist rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia, known as FARC, and National Liberation Army, known as
ELN." [Miami
Herald,
Feb. 26, 2001 - link to article text at corpwatch.org]
The "cap"
Due to concerns
over proximity to the conflict, a provision in the 2000 "Plan Colombia"
aid package law (section 3204(b) of Public Law 106-246) prohibits the
presence in Colombia of more than 300 U.S. contract personnel. The same
provision sets a maximum of 500 uniformed U.S. military personnel.
The U.S. government
claims that while the troop "cap" has never come close to
being exceeded, the 300-person contractor cap is an obstacle, especially
as helicopters begin delivery to Colombia in late 2001. In August 2001,
the Los Angeles Times reported that DynCorp, likely the largest
contractor in Colombia, was maintaining 335 civilians in the country
-- but since only one-third were U.S. citizens, the "cap"
did not apply. [Los
Angeles Times, August 18, 2001 - link to article text at Detroit
News]
The Contractors
At least six contractors
work or have worked with counternarcotics operations in Colombia. Names
that have surfaced in official and press reports include DynCorp, Military
Professional Resources, Inc. (MPRI), Northrop Grumman, Eagle Aviation
Services and Technology (EAST), Inc., and the manufacturers of helicopters
given to the Colombian security forces (Sikorsky and Bell Textron).
The name of another
company, Aviation Development Corporation based at Maxwell Air Force
base in Montgomery, Alabama, surfaced amid news of its employees' involvement
in the accidental shootdown of a planeload of U.S. missionaries over
Peru in April 2001. The name of this company, which was working on a
CIA contract in Peru, has not appeared in any reporting on Colombia.
[See
May 28, 2001 issue of In These Times.]
Lawsuit
against DynCorp from International Labor Rights Fund
By far
the largest firm operating in Colombia is DynCorp, hired by the U.S.
State Department's International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Bureau
six years ago under a reported $600 million contract to support coca
eradication programs in Colombia as well as Peru and Bolivia. [Miami
Herald,
Feb. 26, 2001 - link to article text at corpwatch.org]
Members
of Search and Rescue (SAR) teams are believe to have engaged in about
15 rescues during the past six years, about half of them "hot
extractions" from combat areas where team members have been at
risk, a source in Bogota said. ...The teams are under orders from
DynCorp and U.S. officials to avoid journalists. [Miami
Herald, Feb. 22, 2001 - link to article text at Yahoo Groups]
After
the pilot of one of the police helicopters was shot and forced to
set down, the five other helicopters - three of them piloted by DynCorp
employees - moved in and began shooting at rebel positions, said [Capt.
Luis Fernando] Aristizabal, a Colombian co-pilot of one of the Dyncorp-piloted
helicopters. He said the door gunners were all Colombians and that
Americans did not fire weapons during the mission. [Associated
Press, Feb. 21, 2001 - link to article text at Yahoo Groups]
MPRI,
hired by the U.S. Defense Department, [had] a team of about 10 retired
U.S. military officers in Bogotá to advise the military on strategic
and logistical issues. The company has steadfastly declined to comment
on their exact number or work. [Miami
Herald, Feb. 22, 2001 - link to article text at Yahoo Groups]
The [MPRI]
report blurs the lines between the drug war and the civil war: its
operational guidelines would have all Colombian infantry units switching
back and forth between counter-drug and counter-guerrilla operations.
[Associated
Press, May 21, 2001 - link to article text at commondreams.org]
U.S.
military sources say the Pentagon has no plans to replace MPRI in
Colombia. Any future collaboration with the Colombian military reform
effort likely will be left to the Southern Command, the Miami-based
military force responsible for Latin America. [St.
Petersburg Times,
May 13, 2001]
Northrop
Grumman of Los Angeles provides an unknown number of U.S. citizens
that operate and maintain five radar stations in eastern and southern
Colombia that track suspected drug smuggling flights. [Miami
Herald,
Feb. 26, 2001 - link to article text at corpwatch.org]
(Subcontrator of
DynCorp)
U.S.
drug eradication flights in Colombia are being flown by the same private
company that Oliver North used to secretly run guns to Nicaraguan
rebels during the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal. Eagle Aviation Services
and Technology Inc. has flown State Department planes on dangerous
missions in Colombia for 10 years. Three of its pilots have been killed
in two crashes. EAST doesn't work directly for the State Department.
It is a subcontractor of Dyncorp Aerospace Technology, the military
company hired by State to fly and maintain aircraft for counterdrug
missions in Colombia. [Associated
Press, June 5, 2001 - link from commondreams.org]
