Chilean mercenaries guarding Australian embassy (Baghdad)

[maddezmom]

Chilean mercenaries guarding Australian embassy
By Jessicah Mendes and Scott Mitchell

Updated 4 hours 51 minutes ago

The Defence Department plans to fully privatise security at Australia's Baghdad embassy by the end of the year, after quietly outsourcing most of the guard duties to Chilean paramilitary and army veterans, the ABC can reveal.

Senior army sources say 60 Chilean contractors work 12-hour shifts at the embassy - almost twice as long as the Australian Defence Force (ADF) allows its personnel to be on duty for in summer months.

The men are paid $2,200 a month, the equivalent of Australia's minimum wage, to guard the front gate and man machine gun nests, security cameras and alarm systems.

The Chilean contractors are overseen by a former Australian serviceman and employed by Australian private contractor Unity Resources Group (URG).

more:http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/15/3012139.htm?section=justin

[Hannah Bell]

1. interesting.

Unity Resources Group is an Australian-owned<2> private military company headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, founded in 2000, which describes itself as having a "diverse client base, spanning government, non-government and multi-national business sectors."<3> The company is mainly staffed by Australian nationals<4> and is a member of the Private Security Company Association of Iraq (PSCAI) and the International Peace Operations Association (IPOA).<5>

On October 9, 2007, employees of the company shot at an approaching car in Baghdad. Two civilian women, both in the front seat, were killed: Marou Awanis, 48, a mother of three, and Genevia Askander, 30. The shooting has provoked strong outrage in Iraq, since it follows closely on the Blackwater Baghdad shootings of September 16, 2007 that led to the Iraqi government's attempt to ban Blackwater from Iraq.<6> Both women have been identified as Armenian Christians.<7><8>

The company defends the actions of its employees who fired over nineteen rounds of ammunition before speeding away from the scene.<9><10> URG is the security provider for USAID contractor RTI International. RTI was however not the client under protection when the shooting occurred.<11> The passengers in the back seat, including one child, survived the incident.<6>

In March 2006, a URG employee was blamed in the shooting of a 72-year-old Australian at a checkpoint in Baghdad.<11>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_Resources_Group


look: corporate porn: "see how culturally sensitive we are, happy black people love us!"

http://www.unityresourcesgroup.com/about-us.html

all the pictures of black people are because one of their three focuses = africa: the ongoing continental war for resources.

http://www.unityresourcesgroup.com/unity-red-orange.html

afghanistan & "the energy sector" = their other focuses.