Guns in Business – Lessons from the US

It is said that we humans are students forever. No matter what our status is – we learn until the day we die. Learning is structurally a two dimensional notion. One way is the learning itself. We learn what is right – by absorbing them into our perspective. The other way is the unlearning. We unlearn what is wrong – by driving them away from our inner system. The recent horrifying conduct of some American security officers at a private security outfit - Blackwater USA - while on business deployment in Iraq offers both these realization dimensions in one go. In this episode, there are lessons to learn and also to unlearn for us back here in Sri Lanka as well.

Blackwater USA is a private security company from North Carolina that extends its business operational presence in Iraq as well. It is one of the US private security companies operating in Iraq, while the other two US companies being DynCorp and Triple Canopy. Blackwater is reportedly charging US$ 1222 per day for a protective agent (well over Rs.4 million per month ) which apparently is way beyond the cost of deployment of a soldier from the military for the same protective purpose.

The world was shocked by the conduct of Blackwater USA after the organisation killed at least 13 Iraqi citizens in Baghdad including a family and a child in a car in an unprovoked shooting spray in late September 2007. As expected Blackwater was and still is firing all its cylinders to justify the killing but the bottom line fact is that it was a mass murder of innocents in broad day light. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki called the shooting by employees of a private security company a ‘crime’.

Killing spree
Blackwater has been held responsible for 195 reported shooting incidents since 2005 in Iraq, out of which 56 shootings have been committed in the first nine months of 2007 at an average of 1.5 shootings a week. The latest killings appear to have resulted in some added condemnation and disgust by way of branding this senseless conduct by many as “Hired Gun Fetish – Outsourcing War & Peace - and Privatizing the War etc.”

The New York Times featured an article which highlighted the fact that the Blackwater guards are private security employees who do not answer to military discipline. Not stopping at that, the US Congressional Committee for ‘House Oversight and Government Reform’ released a 15-page critical report claiming that Blackwater USA is an “out of control outfit” which is indifferent to casualties on Iraqi citizens.

The report is also said to have covered areas such as misuse of weapons, alcohol and drug related crimes, violent behaviour and misconduct on the part of Blackwater USA security employees.

In a dramatic turn of events, the US government has deployed the FBI to determine whether Blackwater guards have smuggled and sold their weapons to PKK terrorists as the Turkish authorities have reported that they have seized weapons bearing US specific identities from PKK terrorists. This remains a possibility if a US security guard in Iraq reports a loss of a weapon, which he in fact sold to someone discretely waiting in the gun market. Hiring of weapons on short term basis could be another clue that the FBI is sniffing in.

As an interim measure of control, the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has finally ordered to deploy in-built camera surveillance with archive feature for Blackwater USA security vehicles operating in Iraq.

Sri Lanka must learn
If we connect the relevance of this lesson in the Sri Lankan context - other than the armed forces and the Police – there are a number of organizations, groups and individuals who are in possession of various types of guns and pistols.

The politicians, their private bodyguards, military deserters, terrorists, terrorist break away factions, underworld elements, political extremists, influential social figures, illicit businessmen, so called border villagers, some farmers and loosely affiliated local criminals – it is an endless list of unaccounted gun holders scattered all over the country. “More the guns – More the protection ” seems to be the short term thinking order of the day. Thus we gradually are becoming a gun-loving society in slow motion.

In this back drop, the Sri Lankan private security companies too use guns in their business operation - especially for cash, bullion and other valuable escorts for client business companies.

The debated school of thought is that if the criminal is armed with a latest automatic assault gun, why shouldn’t it apply to the private security officer? Yes !! If we look only at treating of symptoms, the logic sounds alright momentarily, yet it is so - only from a facet perspective. In a future focused holistic perspective and in a true national sense that craves for a safer Sri Lanka - all of us in whichever little way we can - must force ourselves to limit the potentialities for gun usage. And, not to try to escalate it further skyward by filling our hands with more and better guns.

We surely are not as worst as Blackwater USA yet, but they certainly have taught a bitter and alarming lesson worthwhile for every one of us to check our own high end gun pulses very critically – especially in commerce.

As the great Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi said, an eye for eye urge will only leave the whole nation blind. Yet the question is - are we prepared to think and grasp it that far?

Private killing
“We see many private security officers here carrying guns in public, of course issued by the Ministry of Defence. But, can they arbitrarily kill another citizen in the name of security, while being an employee of a private company? This is yet to be seen - how would the judiciary look at the case? The right of private defence might come to the rescue of the security employee, but it’s a very tricky legal protection and absolutely situational. It might even turn out to be a scenario that the security officer was waiting to kill – pre planned with a gun in his hand. Thus it remains very murky at this point in time, ” according to a legal specialist who analysed this issue.

A senior police officer looks at it in another point of view. “Terror and crime are matters for the state, the forces and the police to tackle. It is not for private business companies and individuals holding guns - security or otherwise. We already seem to have messed up our thinking on this discipline. There may be a shortage of state resources and some inefficiency that creates a vacuum, yet it cannot be conveniently substituted by wrong fillers. The security officer may be a trained soldier or a policeman in the past. But, realizing within which legal limitations they operate and accountable for - right now - is of paramount importance for these security companies ”.

Guns in business
Let’s look at corporate business organizations for which the security companies provide services as their principal business component. What the security companies must humbly realize is that they need to provide BUSINESS PROTECTION – and not national defence security models that many of them were exposed to – during their service eras in the military and police. When we focus our thoughts on this fresh line of sight, we begin to realize that corporate protection is more about efficient resource protective strategies - that actually is far from guns and bullets.

Therefore, we have much to learn in corporate protection corridors than trying to wield guns in business ambiences by which we may kill the image of a business long before we kill an offender. It may seem somewhat strange and alien to some. But the ground reality and the professional demand is not for guns – but for brains. It is all about sensible adaptability to seek perfection. As the sgreat Somerset Maugham enlightens us “ Perfection is complete adaptation to the environment. But the environment is constantly changing. So perfection can never be more than transitory!!”.

(The author is Strategic Security Specialist / Pragmatic Trainer & CEO of Strategic Security Solutions. He can be reached at – solutions@sltnet.lk)