08/23/2006
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The story of a Serbian mercenary in Iraq
“I can’t say the word pleasure is the one that best describes my job, but it
is certainly the one that get closest to what I feel during an action. Sure, the
money is important and it’s plenty, too, but it’s more or less what I could earn
doing another job”.
The profession of war. The person speaking, in an interview given to the serbian daily Blic, is Gabrijel. It’s not his real name, but his battle name. His name as a mercenary.
This is Gabrijel’s profession, an ex-soldier of the Jugoslav special forces born
in Sarajevo. In the last 4 years of his life he worked in Iraq, as a contractor
for some of the many firms that obtained contracts in the tormented arab country
after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime. A year ago, together with another Serbian
who shared with him the period between the Tigris and Eufrates, he opened a training
field in Obrevnac for mercenaries, o for contractors, o for private security guards,
as they wish to be called, almost all of them veterans of the Balcan conflict
of the Nineties. Serbia doesn’t have a precise legislation in this field, and
this allows Gabrijel’s firm to coin gold. “The monthly earnings in a country like
Iraq is about 4 thousand Usa dollars for those who escort convoys”, Gabrijel explains,
“but it can reach 30 thousand dollars a month for people who act as bodyguards
to firm executives. You can reach Iraq in legal or illegal ways. Once I arrived
in Baghdad with a credit letter from the firm I worked for which guaranteed a
one-month entry visa, but the time after that I entered illegaly from the Turkish
frontier, since I knew I only had to reach Baghdad and then I would find a job
there. Which is what happened. The most important thing, if you want to go and
work in Iraq, is to have stronger motivations than just money”. Gabrijel explained
that he had met “many people from ex-Jugoslavia: Kosovars, Bosnians, Serbians,
Macedonians. Most of them worked for Hulliburton, because we are renowned for
being good mechanics. But in logistics the real business is done by Filippines,
Sinhalese and Indians. In the end, we prefer security.”
War businesses. So war in Iraq is a good business deal. Both for those who like Gabrijel go
there to feel the “pleasure” their job gives them, and for those who only go because
finding a job in Serbia is an illusion. The same can be said for the contractors
coming from all over the world. But how many contractors are there in Iraq? At
the time of the kidnapping of the 4 Italians much was said about this new profession
of private fighter, for whom the same definition is used as for the civil clerks
attached to troops. How many are the real fighters, those who deal with security,
in Iraq? It is impossible to give a precise estimate, since these are private
negotiations, but in 2002 the professor Gabriella Pagliani in her essay The profession of war calculated that the value of the contracts concerning private contractor societies
with stable relation with the Usa administration had reached 170 million dollars,
about a third of the gross domestic product of the whole African continent. About
a year ago a litigation broke out between Ouster Battles, one of the first private security firms – theirs the contract for Baghdad airport
- and the Usa administration. The employees and the regular troops shot at each
other. And this is not an isolated episode, since there have been many face-to-face
encounters between regular soldiers and mercenaries: according to the regular
soldiers, the private soldiers end up by complicating their life. According to
the mercenaries, the regular soldiers envy their pay. Whatever the reason, the
war in Iraq will also be remembered for the contractors, for having brought among
the Iraqis people like Gabrijel, looking for the pleasure their job gives them.
The profession of war. The person speaking, in an interview given to the serbian daily Blic, is Gabrijel. It’s not his real name, but his battle name. His name as a mercenary.
This is Gabrijel’s profession, an ex-soldier of the Jugoslav special forces born
in Sarajevo. In the last 4 years of his life he worked in Iraq, as a contractor
for some of the many firms that obtained contracts in the tormented arab country
after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime. A year ago, together with another Serbian
who shared with him the period between the Tigris and Eufrates, he opened a training
field in Obrevnac for mercenaries, o for contractors, o for private security guards,
as they wish to be called, almost all of them veterans of the Balcan conflict
of the Nineties. Serbia doesn’t have a precise legislation in this field, and
this allows Gabrijel’s firm to coin gold. “The monthly earnings in a country like
Iraq is about 4 thousand Usa dollars for those who escort convoys”, Gabrijel explains,
“but it can reach 30 thousand dollars a month for people who act as bodyguards
to firm executives. You can reach Iraq in legal or illegal ways. Once I arrived
in Baghdad with a credit letter from the firm I worked for which guaranteed a
one-month entry visa, but the time after that I entered illegaly from the Turkish
frontier, since I knew I only had to reach Baghdad and then I would find a job
there. Which is what happened. The most important thing, if you want to go and
work in Iraq, is to have stronger motivations than just money”. Gabrijel explained
that he had met “many people from ex-Jugoslavia: Kosovars, Bosnians, Serbians,
Macedonians. Most of them worked for Hulliburton, because we are renowned for
being good mechanics. But in logistics the real business is done by Filippines,
Sinhalese and Indians. In the end, we prefer security.”War businesses. So war in Iraq is a good business deal. Both for those who like Gabrijel go
there to feel the “pleasure” their job gives them, and for those who only go because
finding a job in Serbia is an illusion. The same can be said for the contractors
coming from all over the world. But how many contractors are there in Iraq? At
the time of the kidnapping of the 4 Italians much was said about this new profession
of private fighter, for whom the same definition is used as for the civil clerks
attached to troops. How many are the real fighters, those who deal with security,
in Iraq? It is impossible to give a precise estimate, since these are private
negotiations, but in 2002 the professor Gabriella Pagliani in her essay The profession of war calculated that the value of the contracts concerning private contractor societies
with stable relation with the Usa administration had reached 170 million dollars,
about a third of the gross domestic product of the whole African continent. About
a year ago a litigation broke out between Ouster Battles, one of the first private security firms – theirs the contract for Baghdad airport
- and the Usa administration. The employees and the regular troops shot at each
other. And this is not an isolated episode, since there have been many face-to-face
encounters between regular soldiers and mercenaries: according to the regular
soldiers, the private soldiers end up by complicating their life. According to
the mercenaries, the regular soldiers envy their pay. Whatever the reason, the
war in Iraq will also be remembered for the contractors, for having brought among
the Iraqis people like Gabrijel, looking for the pleasure their job gives them.Christian Elia
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