by Daniel Franklin
SANTIAGO, 9 March (CNW) The 150 former members of the Chilean military who are working as private security personnel in Iraq are potential targets of the resistance there, as indicated by the gruesome murders of three security contractors a week ago.
The former Chilean commandos are reported to work for the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). They are hired by private military firms that are benefiting from the lucrative contracts for the stabilisation and reconstruction of Iraq financed by the United States at an average monthly cost of four billion dollars.
Last November, a discreet ad was placed in the Chilean newspaper El Mercurio inviting ex-commandos who could speak English, to sign up to provide security services abroad at the tempting pay of 18,000 dollars for just six months’ work.
The ad, placed by LAHC, awakened the interest of at least 400 Marines and ‘Black Berets’ — the Chilean army’s special operations forces who retired early in the past few years.
The recruitment effort in Chile included a pre-selection of 400 men, who then participated in military exercises in San Bernardo, south of Santiago. That annoyed the Defence Ministry, which ordered an investigation into possible violations of Chile’s law on weapons control.
LAHC finally selected 150 men who underwent training in the United States, after which they were sent to Kuwait, and from there to Iraq.
American media outlets have reported that the United States has hired retired members of the Chilean army who served under former dictator Augusto Pinochet (1973-90), as well as former henchmen of South Africa’s apartheid regime to serve as soldiers of fortune in Iraq.
The private military industry is growing around the world, fed by local wars that are providing employment opportunities for former military personnel who found themselves out of a job, especially in Eastern Europe, when the Cold War came to an end. The 15 °Chileans now in Iraq also form part of those displaced from active duty by a plan for the modernisation of the armed forces. Current army chiefs have carried out a discreet but effective purge, forcing into retirement officers and non-commissioned officers who played a role in the dictatorship’s repression, in which some 3,000 people were killed or ‘disappeared’.
At the top of the story was a photograph of three soldiers, standing in front of a battered jeep. They looked as if they were somewhere in a desert, but the location wasn’t specified. Each was smiling while brandishing an automatic weapon that looked like something out of a Terminator movie.
Carlyle studied the photo carefully. None of these men was Matias Gori, but each of them was wearing what looked like a small badge. It was impossible to make it out clearly, but the motif could include a dagger, the same or similar to the one on the pin Matias had worn at the cemetery.
‘I told you!’ Helen punched the air in triumph.
‘What?’
‘He’s off.’ She pointed at the screen.
Carlyle turned back to the television. Fireworks were going off and Luke Osgood, dressed in a T-shirt and shorts, was walking across a swaying bridge and out of his jungle camp, after having been voted off the show.
‘I told you he wouldn’t win,’ Helen grinned, giving him a gentle poke with her foot. ‘Why don’t you go and make me a cup of tea?’
When he returned a few minutes later with a cup of peppermint tea, the celebrity nonsense had ended, giving way to the late-evening news bulletin. Carlyle half-watched the end of a story about an earthquake in the Philippines or somewhere, and was just on his way to bed when an image of Rosanna Snowdon appeared on the screen.
He plonked himself back on the sofa, next to his wife as the newsreader solemnly delivered the commentary: ‘ Simon Lovell, the man accused of murdering television presenter Rosanna Snowdon, was freed today after a preliminary hearing at which the judge ruled that his confession had been obtained under duress. ’
The programme then cut to a clip of one of Lovell’s lawyers, a hard-looking woman called Abigail Slater: ‘ My client is delighted by the decision made at today’s hearing. The police have no evidence putting Mr Lovell at the scene of the alleged crime on the night in question, other than a forced confession which would never stand up at a full trial. All Mr Lovell wants to do now is to resume a normal, quiet life. ’
‘Fat chance,’ Carlyle muttered.
‘Where does that leave the investigation into Rosanna’s death?’ Helen asked.
‘Nowhere, as far as I know,’ Carlyle sighed. ‘They don’t have anything else. Lovell was their only suspect.’
‘So why did they pick on that poor guy?’
‘They didn’t pick on him,’ Carlyle said testily, for some reason feeling the need to play Devil’s Advocate. ‘He confessed. What else were they supposed to do?’
‘Do you think he did it?’
‘No idea.’
‘Will they find the killer?’
Carlyle finally found the strength to push himself off the sofa and head in the direction of his bed. ‘I wouldn’t bet on it,’ he yawned.
‘That poor woman,’ Helen said. ‘She deserved better.’
‘Yes,’ Carlyle agreed. ‘She did.’