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The Hon­or­able Hillary Rod­ham Clin­ton
Sec­re­tary of State
U.S. Depart­ment of State
2201 C Street
Wash­ing­ton, D.C. 20520

VIA FACSIMILE

cc: His Excel­lency Ray­mond Joseph, Haiti’s Ambas­sador to the United States
U.S. Under Sec­re­tary for Polit­i­cal Affairs William J. Burns
U.S. Assis­tant Sec­re­tary Arturo Valen­zuela
USAID Admin­is­tra­tor Rajiv Shah
USAID Haiti Task Team Coor­di­na­tor Paul Weisenfeld

Dear Sec­re­tary Clinton:

We write you in advance of the March 31^st United Nations donors con­fer­ence for Haiti to urge that funds pledged by the United States and other mem­bers of the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity, be directed towards rebuild­ing Haiti, not to inter­na­tional pri­vate secu­rity con­trac­tors.  We believe you were right to sup­port a ban on pri­vate secu­rity con­trac­tors as a mem­ber of the U.S. Sen­ate in 2008, stat­ing in a speech at George Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­sity, “Their behav­ior and lack of super­vi­sion and account­abil­ity have often eroded our cred­i­bil­ity.” The same con­cerns apply in the Hait­ian context.

We were there­fore alarmed by the con­fer­ence regard­ing Haiti on March 9–10, 2010 that was orga­nized by the trade asso­ci­a­tion rep­re­sent­ing many pri­vate secu­rity com­pa­nies, the Inter­na­tional Peace Oper­a­tions Asso­ci­a­tion (IPOA).[1] A num­ber of IPOA mem­ber com­pa­nies have trou­bling track records. Some examples:

• In July 2006, two for­mer employ­ees of Triple Canopy filed a law­suit for their wrong­ful ter­mi­na­tion after blow­ing the whis­tle against a shift leader, alleg­ing that he delib­er­ately fired at unarmed civil­ians after stat­ing that it was his last day in Iraq and he was “going to kill some­one today.”[2]

• In 2007, the Depart­ment of State’s Bureau for Inter­na­tional Nar­cotics and Law Enforce­ment Affairs reported that most of $1.2 bil­lion the US gov­ern­ment paid to Dyn­Corp to train Iraqi police was unac­counted for and that the lack of con­tract over­sight had “cre­ated an envi­ron­ment vul­ner­a­ble to waste and fraud.”[3]

• Whistle­blower Ben John­ston tes­ti­fied that Dyn­Corp per­son­nel par­tic­i­pated in the traf­fick­ing of child sex slaves and human traf­fick­ing in forced pros­ti­tu­tion and labor.[4]

• In Sep­tem­ber 2009, the Project on Gov­ern­ment Over­sight sent a let­ter of com­plaint to your office regard­ing Armor­Group that alleged mis­con­duct, engage­ment in deviant haz­ing rit­u­als and other kinds of “humil­i­a­tion.”[5]

• Per­son­nel from Unity Resources Group killed two unarmed women in a vehi­cle in Iraq.[6]

Con­trac­tors’ argu­ments that they should be granted immu­nity or that law­suits brought against them are some­how improper have thwarted var­i­ous efforts to hold con­trac­tors account­able. IPOA often points to its “code of con­duct” to dimin­ish seri­ous con­cerns over con­trac­tor over­sight and account­abil­ity.  How­ever, in all of its years and despite the track record of the com­pa­nies men­tioned above, no com­pany has ever been forced out of the IPOA for human rights abuse or fraud. In fact, all mem­ber com­pa­nies receive an IPOA “seal of approval.”[7]

IPOA mem­bers have rou­tinely been impli­cated in accu­sa­tions of finan­cial mis­man­age­ment. The prob­lem of poor over­sight has directly led to what Congress’s own Com­mis­sion on Wartime Con­tract­ing has called “fis­cal hemorrhaging”

Haiti does not need this poorly-regulated sys­tem of secu­rity con­tract­ing.   Over-militarization of aid has already trau­ma­tized an already suf­fer­ing peo­ple and pre­vented life sav­ing aid from reach­ing earth­quake vic­tims in time.

We respect­fully request that you con­tinue to sup­port “smart” aid that cre­ates jobs for Haitians, pro­vides direct invest­ment in the pub­lic sec­tor, builds local infra­struc­ture and ensures that recon­struc­tion efforts oper­ate with trans­parency and fol­low a rights-based approach. We urge that U.S. or inter­na­tional com­mu­nity funds pledged at the UN donor con­fer­ence be directed at rebuild­ing Haiti, not pri­vate secu­rity con­trac­tors.  Finally, we request that you reit­er­ate your sup­port for the Stop Out­sourc­ing Secu­rity Act that was rein­tro­duced in Feb­ru­ary 2010 by Rep. Jan Schakowsky (IL) in the House and Sen. Bernie Sanders (VT) in the Sen­ate.  The U.S. has only begun to rebuild its image in the world; we should not turn our backs on this progress now.

Sin­cerely,

Amer­i­can Jew­ish World Service

Amer­i­can Friends Ser­vice Committee

Bagay Dwol Haiti Relief Fund

Beyond Bor­ders

Cen­ter for Con­sti­tu­tional Rights

Envi­ron­men­tal Jus­tice Ini­tia­tive for Haiti

For­eign Pol­icy In Focus

Gen­der Action

Glob­al­Hood

Grass­roots International

Insti­tute for Jus­tice and Democ­racy in Haiti

Lambi Fund

Nou­velle Vie Haiti

Other Worlds

Quixote Cen­ter

TransAfrica Forum

Bill Fletcher, Black Commentator

Mark Weis­brot, Cen­ter for Eco­nomic and Pol­icy Research

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[1] Event infor­ma­tion avail­able at http://www.hdpsummit.org/summit/haiti/index.htm.

[2] C.J. Chiev­ers, Contractor’s Boss in Iraq Shot at Civil­ians, Work­ers’ Suit Say, NYTimes, Nov. 16, 2006, avail­able at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/17/world/middleeast/17contractors.html?_r=3.

[3] See Report: Most of $1.2 bil­lion to train Iraqi police unac­counted for, CNN, Octo­ber 23, 2007, avail­able at http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/22/dyncorp.spending/index.html

[4] See US-Iraqi con­tract ‘in dis­ar­ray’, BBC News, Oct. 23, 2007, avail­able at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7057629.stm; by Kelly Patri­cia O’Meara, Insight Mag­a­zine, US Dyn­Corp Dis­grace, Insight Mag­a­zine, Jan. 14, 2002, avail­able at http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11119.

[5] Let­ter avail­able at http://www.pogo.org/pogo-files/letters/contract-oversight/co-gp-20090901.html.

[6] Andrew E. Kramer, 2 Killed in Shoot­ing Mourned Far Beyond Iraq, NYTime, Oct. 10, 2007, avail­able at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/11/world/middleeast/11iraq.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin.

[7] IPOA Mem­ber Com­pa­nies, http://www.ipoaworld.org/eng/ipoamembers.html.