Authorities have ordered the deportation of two Americans working for a security firm that was trying to recruit Namibians to work as guards at US facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, a government minister said.
The Namibian Cabinet also recommended the closure of the local branch of the Las Vegas-based security firm, Special Operations Consulting-Security Management Group (SOC-SMG), which was set up earlier this month, Information Minister Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah said on Friday.
Nandi-Ndaitwah said two American employees of the firm -- Paul Grimes, the firm's country representative, and Fredric Piry, the chief of operations -- were to be "immediately removed" from the country. They had been given 24 hours to leave Namibia, she said on Friday.
It was not clear on Sunday whether Grimes and Piry, who were staying at a five-star hotel in the capital, Windhoek, had left the country. Calls to their mobile phones were not answered.
The US embassy in Windhoek and the US State Department did not immediately comment on the situation on Sunday.
Private security firms operating in Iraq and Afghanistan have come under increasing scrutiny. The Iraqi government has ordered Blackwater USA expelled from the country within six months following the shootings of 17 Iraqi civilians last month. Officials are also investigating the shootings of two Iraqi women by guards working for an Australian-owned firm on Tuesday.
Some US lawmakers have said the government relies too heavily on private contractors, who fall outside the military courts martial system. Many of the contractors working in Iraq are also third-country nationals. Triple Canopy, a security company that has State Department contracts, has scores of Peruvian guards working checkpoints in the Green Zone.
According to SOC-SMG's Web site, the firm's clients include the US departments of defense, state and energy, as well as the US army, air force, marines and naval special forces.
The company had aimed to recruit at least 3,000 Namibians to work in Iraq and Afghanistan through a local employment agency, with promised salaries of US$1,000 a month, local newspapers reported. It is not clear whether anyone had been recruited yet.
Local media quoted Grimes as saying the company had the blessing of the country's labor and safety and security ministries.
"We are looking for noncombatant security guards to guard dining facilities, gyms, military base hospitals in Iraq," Grimes was quoted as saying in one newspaper.
Under Namibian law, however, it is illegal for citizens to participate in security or military activities in foreign countries without the written permission of the defense ministry.
Last week, Nandi-Ndaitwah warned citizens that they risked prosecution if they were recruited by the company.
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