"These Guys Are Like Vultures": Profit-Driven Private Contractors Flocking to Haiti

VANCOUVER, Canada, Feb 19, 2010 (IPS) -- Critics are concerned that private military contractors are positioning themselves at the center of an emerging "shock doctrine" for earthquake-ravaged Haiti.

Next month, a prominent umbrella organization for private military and logistic corporations, the International Peace Operations Association (IPOA), is co-organizing a "Haiti summit" which aims to bring together "leading officials" for "private consultations with attending contractors and investors" in Miami, Florida.

Dubbed the "mercenary trade association" by journalist Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: the Rise of the World' Most Powerful Mercenary Army, the IPOA wasted no time setting up a "Haiti Earthquake Support" page on its website following the Jan. 12 earthquake that devastated the Caribbean country.

IPOA's director Doug Brooks says, "The first contacts we got were journalists looking for security when they went in." The website of IPOA member company, Hart Security, says they are currently in Haiti "supporting clients from the fields of media, consultancy and medical in their disaster recovery efforts." Several other IPOA members have either bid on or received contracts for work in Haiti.

Likewise, the private military contractor, Raidon Tactics, has at least 30 former U.S. Special Operations soldiers on the ground, where they have been guarding aid convoys and providing security for "news agencies," according to a Raidon employee who told IPS his company received over 1,000 phone calls in response to an ad posting "for open positions for Static Security Positions and Mobile Security Positions" in Haiti.

Just over a week following the earthquake, the IPOA teamed up with Global Investment Summits (GIS), a UK-based private company that specializes in bringing private contractors and government officials from "emerging post-conflict countries" together, to host an "Afghanistan Reconstruction Summit," in Istanbul, Turkey. It was there, says IPOA's director Doug Brooks, that the idea for the Haiti summit was hatched "over beers."

GIS's CEO, Kevin Lumb, told IPS that the key feature of the Haiti summit will be "what we call roundtables, [where] we put the ministers and their procurement people, and arrange appointments with contractors." Lumb added that his company "specialize[s] in putting governments together [with private contractors]."

IPOA was "so pleased" with the Afghanistan summit, says Lumb, they asked GIS to do "all the organizing, all the selling" for the Haiti summit. Lumb pointed out that all of the profits from the event will be donated to the Clinton-Bush Haiti relief fund.

While acknowledging that there will be a "a commercial angle" to the event and that "major companies, major players in the world" have committed to attend, Lumb declined to name most of the participants.

One of the companies Lumb did mention is DACC Associates, a private contractor that specializes in management and security consulting with contracts providing "advice and counsel" to governments in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

DACC President Douglas Melvin, a former Special Forces commander, State Department official and director of Security and Administrative Services for President George W. Bush, acknowledged that "from a revenue perspective, yes there's wonderful opportunities at these events."

Melvin added that he believes most attendees will be "coming together for the right reasons," a genuine concern for Haiti, are "not coming to exploit" the dire situation there, and does not expect his company to profit off of their potential contracts there.