By John Stephen Katende

28^th May 2012:

Gen. Salim Saleh: Guilty or Not Guilty?

Hundreds upon hundreds of Ugandans recruited to work as security guards as well as to provide other support services to US marines in Iraq are being treated like slaves, a report in Le Monde diplomatique has claimed.

According to the report, private security firms that won lucrative contracts to supply support staff and security guards to back up US forces in Iraq took advantage of desperate and unemployed Uganda, and, “pushed them to the limit, on low pay and no benefits”.

The experience of one Ugandan highlights the problems faced immigrant workers most vividly.  “I realised immediately that I’d just made the worst mistake in my life. But it was too late. I’d signed up for a year. I had to take it like a man,” said “Bernard”, a young Ugandan whose true identity was withheld to protect him.

Bernard worked for an American private military company (PMC) operating in Iraq. He was part of the “invisible army” recruited by the US to support its war effort. Bernard returned to Uganda last year. He is ill, but has been denied the welfare and healthcare benefits promised in his contract.

Is Racism to Blame?

However, in what may suggest that racism played a part Bernard’s poor treatment, the report said “white recruits from the US, Israel, South Africa, the UK, France and Serbia [who were] hired by PMCs…have received substantial pay, often more than $10,000 a month”.

On the other hand, other workers whom the report describes as “third country nationals” (TCNs) like Bernard have been “treated badly and their rights as employees have been abused. Some, sent home after being wounded, get no help from their former employers”, the Le Monde diplomatique report reads in part.

In June 2008, when the US began its withdrawal from Iraq, there were 70,167 TCNs to 153,300 regular US military personnel.  In late 2010, there were still 40,776 TCNs to 47,305 regulars. TCNs (men and women) were recruited in the countries of the South to work on the 25 US military bases in Iraq, including Camp Liberty, an “American small town” built near Baghdad, which at its peak had a population of over 100,000.

TCNs made up 59% of the “basic needs” workforce, handling catering, cleaning, electrical and building maintenance, fast food, and even beauty services for female military personnel.  Some, especially African recruits, were assigned to security duties, paired up with regular troops.

The Low-cost Ugandans

Up to 15% of the static security personnel (guarding base entrances and perimeters) hired by the PMCs on behalf of the Pentagon were Sub-Saharans.  Among these low-cost guards, Ugandans were a majority, numbering maybe 20,000. They were sometimes used to keep their colleagues in line: in May 2010 they quelled a riot at Camp Liberty by a thousand TCNs from the Indian subcontinent.

The Ugandan government is a key ally of the US in central Africa, and was one of the few governments to support the Bush administration when the Iraq war began in 2003. American and Ugandan armed forces have collaborated since the mid-1980s.

According to Ugandan journalist and blogger Angelo Izama, who was quoted in the report, the US needed more paramilitary security.  “They [US] were looking for reliable labour from English-speaking countries, veteran labour” and they turned to Uganda for that, said Izama.

Salim Saleh’s Idle Veterans?

According DP President General Norbert Mao, who was also quoted in the report, there was another motive for sending Ugandans to Iraq.  “When veterans … are idle, they can be a source of problems. So Iraq was a way of exporting idle veterans. The government saw it as a way of mopping up.” Mao said.

Consequently, companies founded by former US military personnel linked up with others founded by former high-ranking officers of the UPDF.  According to the allegations contained in the Le Monde diplomatique report, a certain Kellen Kayonga, who is said to be General Salim Saleh’s sister-in-law, founded Askar Security Services.

Since 2005, Askar has allegedly recruited manpower on behalf of Special Operations Consulting (SOC, now renamed SOC-SMG), a Nevada-based company founded by two former US officers.  Askar’s main competition in Uganda — the Pakistani company Dreshak International — opened a branch in Kampala the same year and began working for another US-based PMC operating in Iraq, EODT.

Conflict Entrepreneurs

Since 2006, a dozen more “conflict entrepreneurs” have set up operations in Uganda.  In poorer areas of Kampala, Iraq was seen as the new frontier for kyeyos (migrant workers). A former combatant who signed up with these firms could earn up to $1,300 a month, well above the average in Kampala’s flourishing security and civilian protection sector.

Over the next few years, competition from Kenya and Sierra Leone caused wages paid to Ugandan “slaves” in Iraq to drop dramatically, but Uganda’s labour ministry failed to intervene. In 2009, average pay fell below $700 while the security companies were getting $1,700 from the US government for every Ugandan guard recruited.

Askar was paid $420,000 dollars for sending 264 guards to Iraq for Beowulf International, another PMC.  The Ugandan press uncovered the first cases of exploitation of kyeyos in 2008, but the government merely strengthened the position of the more powerful companies — and those closest to Museveni — by a limited clean-up operation.

“Going to Iraq is like a drowning man grasping at a crocodile. He thinks it will save him from drowning,” said Mao. In autumn 2011, kyeyo pay in Iraq fell to $400 a month for a 12-hour day and a six-day week.  Click here to read the full Le Monde diplomatique report.

Our efforts to get a comment from General Salim Saleh, or Askar Security Services were futile.  Uganda Correspondent however welcomes a rebuttal of this story from those concerned.  END.  Please login to www.ugandacorrespondent.com every Monday to read our top stories and anytime mid-week for our news updates.