Colombian Gunmen Hired by US Company to Fight in Iraq

A very strange story came over the wire this weekend,
involving an American hiring Colombians in Ecuador to work in Iraq:

Quito/EFE
– El ministro ecuatoriano de Gobierno, Mauricio Gendara, dijo que se
investigara
a
EPI Security
and
Investigation,
empresa
que tiene una oficina en el oeste de Ecuador y que recluta a colombianos
para tareas de seguridad en Irak.

La empresa funciona en Manta, a 390 kilometros al suroeste de Quito,
en la misma ciudad donde desde 1999 se encuentra un centro de operaciones
de Estados Unidos (FOL, por su sigla en inges) para luchar contra el
narcotrofico
en la region.

El propietario de la empresa es el estadounidense Jeffrey Shippy, un
ex bombero a quien "los 4.200 dolares que le pagaban en la FOL por su
trabajo
no le alcanzaban y por eso decidi instalar esta compa?a para enviar a
colombianos a Irak’, dijo su esposa, la ecuatoriana Martha Cararte.(translation
below)

The Ecuadorian Minister of Government, Mauricio Gendara,
said that an investigation is underway of EPI Security and Investigation,
a company with an office in Western Ecuador and which is recruiting Colombians
for security work in Iraq.

The company is based in Manta, about 250 miles southeast
of Quito, in the same city which since 1999 has been the center of operations
of the United States fight against drug trafficking in the region.

The owner of the business is an American, Jeffery
Shippy, an ex-fireman for whom "the $4,200 dollars that he was paid
in the FOL
wasn’t enough to live on, so he decided to start a company to send Colombians
to Iraq", said his wife, Ecuadorian Martha Cararte.

from El Diario La Prensa
in Spanish, translated here by the Dowbrigade

This is exceedingly strange.  Manta,
as regular readers will note, is the picturesque Ecuadorian vacation
hideaway and
fishing port where the Dowbrigade is carefully feathering a nest for
our approaching retirement.  For the last six years, since the Panamanians
gave the boot to the Southern Command, it has been the eyes and ears
of the US intelligence community in Latin America. It is also the fastest
growing city in Ecuador, the best deepwater port on the Pacific Coast
of South America and home to 200,000 happy souls.

But who is Jeffery Shippy, and what is he up to in Manta
that $4,200 a month can’t provide? One of the many ways in which Manta
is a paradise is the comparative value of the local currency, which happens
to be US Dollars; a good hotel costs $15, a good bottle of wine can be
had for $3.00 and a dozen roses go for $1.49. The
Mayor only
makes $3,000 a month.

And what, Jeffery woke up one morning and decided it
was time to grow up, quit pretending to be a "fireman" and start recruiting
Colombians go work security in Iraq?

The "fireman" line is kind of an “in” joke around Manta.  The
number of spooks at the base is, of course, classified, but there must
be hundreds of them.  You see them all over town; young strapping
farm boys horsing around, drinking the cheap, good beer, enjoying the
duty, but careful, polite and always in control.  The mid-range
officers, trim, pale, serious cowboys and southern gentlemen in their
30’s and 40’s talk sports and watch everything without seeming to be
too interested.

There are obvious gearheads, human archetypes recognizable
in any uniform or casual dress, geekily squinting from behind glasses,
and hotshot pilots bombing around town on motorcycles and nice cars,
and muscular marine security types. The only thing they all have in common
is that if you ask them what they do at the base, they invariably say,
"Fireman." It’s clear everybody got the memo.

The brass are rarely seen
in public.  They hang out at the base, a prickly forest of antennae,
comfortable barracks, long low buildings of indeterminate use, windowless
hangers and immaculately maintained runways, built over an old Ecuadorian
Air Force base acquired on a 99-year lease, or at an isolated private
club or one of a number of local walled estates which are worlds unto
themselves.

But why hire Colombians?  And why do it in Manta
rather than in Colombia? And why send them to Iraq as security?  Good
questions all.  Let’s take them one at a time.

Sociologists, Latin American scholars and politicians
still argue about whether Colombians are
by nature more violent than other Latin Americans.  What is certain
is that their modern history is bloodier and far more violent than their neighbors.  The recent
tradition of Colombian violence is ironicized by the fact that during the
pre-Colombian
period the Indians of the area were less violent than, and often dominated
by, their blood-thirsty brethren to the south.

Nowadays, everybody in Colombia is armed at all times. Even babies have miniature machetes to slice off the fingers of clumsy kidnappers. People are
continually on the lookout for kidnappers, assassins, hidden bombs, automatic weapons,
knives up sleeves, suspicious packages, improvised explosive devices, organized groups of
people pretending they don’t know each other, irregular traffic patterns,
quiet ticking sounds, unnatural silence, etc.  In short, they were born to security
work.  And, as unskilled workers from an underdeveloped country,
they come cheap.

This operation is probably based in Manta due to it’s
proximity to spook central, and because despite "Plan
Colombia" that country is
still a dicier place to run a business, especially if you are fronting
for the US military.  The government in Ecuador really likes the
US, which is why the base is where it is. Shippy