Mathew Theambo
By Umaru Fofana
Labour minister Mathew Theambo has reacted angrily to the recruitment of some 2,500 Sierra Leoneans, among them former child combatants, for work with US troops in Iraq.
He was responding to allegations contained in a documentary to be screened tonight in Denmark that a British private military firm, Aegis Defence Services recruited the Sierra Leoneans to work as security guards on American bases in Iraq.
The film, The Child Soldier's New Job, claims that the firm has been recruiting former child soldiers from the country because they are cheap.
James Ellery, who was a director of the firm from 2005 to 2015, says contractors had a "duty" to recruit from countries such as Sierra Leone because it was cheap to do so and reduced costs for the US presence in Iraq.
He said a better force could have been assembled from elsewhere but they would be more expensive that the Sierra Leoneans who would be paid a daily wage of $16.
A British Labour MP with African roots is quoted by The Guardian as referring to it as inherently racist that guards were paid based on where they were recruited as opposed to the risks they faced.
Minister Theambo said his ministry had no knowledge of the recruitments saying: “We are not aware of any of these activities. It could happen somehow somewhere because the people [recruiters] move around in different ways not even going through the formal procedure”.
He said this was something his government had been working against.
“I cannot recollect of any agency of that type [Aegis Defence Services]…as far as the ministry is concerned, because you cannot rule out what other people are doing out there which requires a lot of manpower and monitoring to try to identify some of the people who may be doing things without the knowledge of the government,” Mr Theambo went on.
Asked whether he was not aware of the recruitment of Sierra Leoneans to go to Iraq, something that is public knowledge, the minister said, “not really”. He said he was “not aware of any such recruitment of Sierra Leoneans going to Iraq to the warfront. However I just arrived here about two years ago…that is not to my knowledge and there is no documentation in this ministry or file that actually indicates such a practice”.
He assured that his government would get to the bottom of the recruitments “to follow up in terms of investigating where this started and how it happened and whether it is still happening”.
When asked as to whether the lack of knowledge by his ministry about the recruitment didn't mean that people could even be recruited to fight for Boko Haram and ISIS without government intelligence having a wind of it, Theambo said: “That’s a great big fear that we all have as government and people of Sierra Leone…that we have to be very much on the alert in terms of this type of practises.
He said they were “setting up modalities in place to monitor and check in terms of security”.
(C) Politico 19/04/16
