UN: Mercenary Recruiting Booming

UN: Mercenary Recruiting Booming
Submitted by davidswanson on Thu, 2007-10-18 15:31. Media

By Associated Press

Geneva - The use of private security guards like those involved in the shooting deaths of Iraqi civilians is part of a growing new form of mercenary activity - the recruitment of people around the globe to peform military jobs in other nations, a U.N. report says.

Independent human rights experts who wrote the report, which was obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, say the reported killing of civilians in Iraq last month by guards recruited by the security firm Blackwater USA underscores the risks of using such contractors.

The U.N. Security Council and General Assembly have opposed the use of mercenaries, but the hiring of foreign soldiers by one country for use in another is barred only for the 30 nations that ratified a 1989 treaty against the practice. The U.S. and Iraq are among the many states that didn't sign.

A five-member U.N. panel has been studying the use of contractor guards for two years, said Jose Luis Gomez del Prado, the Spanish expert who heads panel. Its report is to be presented to the U.N. General Assembly next month.

"The trend toward outsourcing and privatizing various military functions by a number of member states in the past 10 years has resulted in the mushrooming of private military and security companies," the report says.

A "tremendous increase" in the number of such companies, including those working for the U.S. State and Defense departments, has occurred because of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the report said.

Officials at the U.S. Mission to the U.N. offices in Geneva declined to comment on the report.

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http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/27821

at the very least, what they do should be the responsibility of the gov't that hired them.

Great. Terrorism the American way. We PAY people to kill civilians.