This is cool. I got a Facebook friend request from a security company in Spain the other day, and I decided to do a little research on this market. I couldn’t find anything in english, but I did find some stuff in spanish and I thought it would be cool to Google Translate some stuff and post it up here. This is from last year, but still pretty interesting.
The point of this post is that this industry is global and it is massive. There is security contracting news going on all over the world and it is easy to miss. My readership has definitely fed me all sorts of stories from around the globe, and has even helped in translation or with the local vibe of their market. That is information gold to me, and I really enjoy filling the archives of the blog with those stories. Check this one out and let me know what you think.-Matt
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The new mercenaries ‘made in Spain’
Lucas Marco / Valencia
Thursday January 8, 2009.
Private military companies have been cropping up in the Spanish market. Formed by ex-military, they offer all kinds of services to businesses and governments in conflict areas worldwide.
Private military companies have been consolidated as a new actor in the conflict. An example is the massive presence of private contractors in Iraq with U.S. occupation troops. To the Professor of International Law and International Relations, Francisco Javier López Quel, the emergence of these companies “is part of a privatization process started in the early 90s that affects health or the prison system.” This generates “the outsourcing of basic services the state in relation to the defense” that involves “a change in structure of hosts.” The High Commissioner of United Nations Human Rights recognizes that “armed conflicts, terrorism, arms trafficking and covert operations by third Powers, among other things, encourage the demand for mercenaries on the global market.”