James Bond Now Protects Megacorporations

by Pratap Chatterjee

A decade before, Golacinski and Golovatov would have been bitter, and probably deadly, rivals. Golacinksi was White House Security Adviser, a position he assumed after 20 years in the State department. Golovatov spent a similar period of time in the former Soviet Union with the KGB's crack commando unit, known then as Alpha.

Today, Golacinski is president of U.S. Defense Systems, a private company that provides security for U.S. embassies, especially in African countries. Golovatov is the director of a Moscow company known as Alpha-A, which provides security for businesses transporting goods across the former Soviet Union.

Golacinski and Golovatov both have the same bosses -- Richard Bethell and Sir Alistair Morrison -- two former British Special Air Service (SAS) commandos, who run their company, Defense Systems Limited (DSL), in offices near Buckingham Palace in London.

Who are the companies clients?

"Petrochemical companies, mining or mineral extraction companies and their subsidiaries, multinationals, banks, embassies, non- governmental organizations, national and international organizations -- those people who operate in a very dodgy, hostile type of environment," says Major-General Stephen Carr-Smith of DSL.

Bethell and Golacinski have plenty of experience for their new jobs. Bethell worked for the SAS during Britain's war against Argentina over the Falkland islands while Golacinski ran the security at the U.S. Embassy in Teheran during the final days of the Shah of Iran.

Although Golovatov's personal history is not public, the Alpha KGB unit in which worked for 20 years, was well known in its day for spearheading the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and crushing pro-independence protests in Lithuania.

Today the Cold War experiences of the two men have been transformed into similar services for the interests of multinational corporations who wish to guard against local communities protesting against the environmental and social devastation associated with their operations.

For example DSL has provided counterinsurgency training for security forces in Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea, and Mozambique. Bethell, who is nicknamed 'Tarzan' because of his long blond locks organized a training mission of the Colombian police's elite force in 1990.

The company's ability to provide one-stop shopping options for clients in search of a private army expanded recently. In early 1997, Defense Systems and Gorandel were bought up by Armor Holdings in Jacksonville, Florida, manufacturers of riot control equipment.

Defense Technology literature offers prospective buyers pepper gas generators as well as a variety of grenades for use by police or prison wardens.

The company offers 'flameless expulsion' grenades that can be used to fill a 12 by 20 foot room with a chemical agent in four to five seconds to control unruly crowds. It supplies 'rubber ball' teargas grenades, which are hard to throw back, unlike conventional teargas dispensers. And it provides 'Stinger Combo CS' grenades, which contain an explosive charge allowing blast dispersion of rubber pellets that contain teargas, in a circular pattern over a distance of 50 feet.

Defense Technology also offers grenade launchers, gas pistols and masks, riot shields, billy clubs, nickel-plated handcuffs, leg irons, special devices for breaking down doors or barricades and projectiles that explode with a loud report and a brilliant flash to distract attention.

One of DSL's biggest contracts is with Mark Heathcote, a former MI6 (British intelligence) officer who ran operations in Argentina during the Falklands War, and who is now the chief of security for British Petroleum (BP).

Heathcote hired DSL to provide protection from Marxist rebels, who have repeatedly dynamited Colombia's oil pipelines. In 1996 DSL sent a group of British instructors to train Colombian police on BP rigs in lethal-weapons handling, sniper fire and close- quarter combat, according to the British TV documentary team "World in Action."

Consequences of the training are coming to light. For example in El Morro, a community at the heart of BP's newest oil field has been harassed because it formed a community group to complain about damage to their road and natural water supply.

Gabriel Narvaez, president and adviser to the El Morro association, explained: "In Colombia, to speak against the large state programmes, or those of the multinationals, is an act of suicide. It is almost like condemning oneself to death."

"World in Action" named Carlos Arregui and Gabriel Ascencio as two of six members of the El Morro association who were murdered after the group started campaigning over damage to their road.

The rise of these ultra-tough security services recalls the arguments of warfare theoretician Martin Van Creveld, in his 1991 book: 'The Transformation of War'.

"As used to be the case until at least 1648, military and economic functions will be reunited," he wrote, .".. much of the day-to-day burden of defending society against the threat of low- intensity conflict will be transferred to the booming security business, and indeed the time may come when the organizations that comprise that business will ... take over the state."

In the future, said Van Creveld, armed conflicts around the world will resemble the old. "War-making entities," he said, will look a lot like they did in the feudal past -- tribes, city- states, religious associations, private mercenary bands, and commercial organizations such as the East India Company in the time of the British empire.