PERU-IRAQ: A Year in Hell for 1,000 Dollars a Month
LIMA, Nov 6 (IPS) - Former Peruvian noncommissioned army officer Norman Alfonso Solano is happy because he has once again been recruited to work as a private security guard in one of the most dangerous places in the world: Iraq.
Although he saw fellow security guards killed by the Iraqi resistance when he was working in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, Solano clenched his teeth and told himself, "I need the money." This time he is heading to Baghdad.
The robust 46-year-old 1.80-metre tall Solano forms part of a new contingent of former members of the Peruvian armed forces and police who will guard U.S. installations in Iraq for a year in exchange for a hefty paycheck, by Peruvian standards: 1,000 dollars a month.
"I earn 200 dollars a month here, and that’s when I manage to find work," said Solano, a veteran of the 1980-2000 counterinsurgency war against the Maoist Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrillas.
"I have four kids. I’m an expert in weapons and am trained for war. That’s why I have to go where there is war," he told IPS.
The U.S. private military company Triple Canopy, which has drawn criticism for taking advantage of the high unemployment and low wages in Peru to recruit workers, has been hiring former members of Peru’s security forces to work in Iraq for the past several years. It also hires workers from Chile, Colombia and El Salvador.
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