Erinys International

Erinys International was founded in 2002 by apartheid-era South African military intelligence officer Sean Cleary and Jonathan Garratt a former British army officer. The firm’s management includes Major-General John Holmes, the former director of UK Special Forces and head of the SAS.

To exploit crucial contacts in the new Iraqi Governing Council, the firm entered into a joint venture with Nour USA, a company founded by a friend of Ahmed Chalabi which bankrolled the new enterprise. Erinys won an $80 million contract in 2003 to guard Iraq oil installations and according to Newsday “an industry source familiar with some of the internal affairs…said Chalabi received a $2-million fee for helping arrange the contract�. Further alarms were raised when the company started recruiting many of Chalabi's former militiamen from the Iraqi Free Forces raising concerns that he was creating a private army.

By February 2004, U.S. authorities in Iraq had awarded the company more than $400 million in contracts including a $327 million deal to supply equipment for the Iraqi Armed Forces.

The firm runs the second largest training scheme in the country to create a private army guarding the oil pipelines and refineries. In addition to its thousands of British and South African employees, Erinys hired and trained about 14,000 Iraqis, nearly 95 percent of them Kurds since the occupation authorities don't trust Arabs. The top wage for the Kurds is $120 per month, whereas their South African supervisors earn $5,000 at an average.

After the death of one of its employees in a bombing on January 28 it was discovered that the victim, Francois Strydom, was a former member of Koevoet, the apartheid-era paramilitary police unit, notorious for acts of violence, torture and murder. This “counter-insurgency� unit also waged a dirty war against Namibian rebels “that left few prisoners�. Deon Gouws, another employee injured in the bombing was a former member of the South African Security Branch and the notorious Vlakplaas death squad. In 1996, Gouws had received an amnesty from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission after admitting to acts of petrol bombings, arson, car bombings and murder. There are many other former South African convicts on the company’s payroll.

The firm also drew criticism from Amnesty International after The Observer reported obtaining photos that showed Erinys employees restraining a 16-year-old Iraqi “with six car tyres around his body�. The boy – accused of stealing a length of cable – had been left immobile and without food or water for more than 24 hours. The company also keeps holding cells for suspects in Kirkuk. The company’s practices were also condemned by Amnesty International.

Credits

--Idrees 17:06, 17 Nov 2005 (GMT)