Saturday 13 June 2009

Shell’s Private Army?


At approximately 4.00am on 16 April this year the Hotel Las Americas in Santa Cruz in eastern Bolivia shook with the sound of machinegun fire. Bolivian armed police stormed five adjoining rooms and shot dead three of the occupants while arresting two others. The Bolivian government subsequently announced that they had foiled a cell of right-wing mercenaries who were plotting to assassinate Bolivia’s Socialist President Evo Morales.

In room 457 lay the slain body of Irishman Michael Dwyer, a 24 year old from Balinderry, Tipperary. According to reports, Dwyer was fascinated by guns, computer war games and was an Airsoft enthusiast; a form of mock combat with replica guns. Several photographs of him brandishing guns in Bolivia have since been published. He was also employed by an Irish company, Integrated Risk Management Security, who are based in Naas, Kildare. I-RMS is owned by former Irish Army Rangers James Farrell and Terry Downes. They confirmed that Dwyer worked for them up until October 2008, and was based guarding the Corrib site in Glengad, County Mayo where Shell are attempting to construct their controversial gas pipeline.

At the end of 2007 I-RMS ‘security operatives’ replaced the majority of security guards employed by Shell. A substantial number of these ‘operatives’ have military backgrounds and dubious far-right political links. I-RMS have faced numerous complaints from protestors, having been accused of assault, heavy handedness and failure to wear or present their Private Security Authority licences. They have also routinely filmed protestors and indeed Dwyer himself was involved in this gathering of intelligence for Shell. On their website, offline and ‘under construction’ in the wake of Dwyer’s death, I-RMS had advertised their services, specialising in “international armed and unarmed security”, “customised security solutions” and “special services”, unquestionably all euphemisms for mercenary work. I-RMS have also been used by Fianna Fáil at their last few ardfheiseanna. So not only does I-RMS protect the nefarious multinational Shell in their robbery of Irish gas, they also defend the politicians who facilitated this grand theft. Who said three’s a crowd? Maura Harrington, the courageous veteran Shell to Sea campaigner, castigated I-RMS as “Shell’s private army in North Mayo”. This hired muscle for capitalism has been doing the state’s dirty work, while Gardaí turn a blind eye. They are no more than a hired gang of thugs and fascists.

Dwyer originally left Ireland in November 2008 on the pretext of doing a three month security course in Bolivia, a course that never was. He originally travelled with two Hungarians and a Pole. It is thought that he met Eduardo Rósza Flores, the leader of the mercenary cell who was also shot dead, through their mutual friend Tibor Révész, who is believed to be still resident in Ireland. Révész is the leader of the Szekler Legion, a Hungarian organisation that openly promotes neo-nazism and race hate. The other members of the Bolivian mercenary cell were Árpád Magyarosi, who was shot dead, and Elod Tóásó, who was arrested. Both were members of Révész’s Legion. On its website it sells patches emblazoned with a skull surrounded by a Celtic design associated with defending the Corrib project relating to Operation Solitaire Shield. The Solitaire is the name of the ship used for pipe-laying at sea. It has also advertised I-RMS courses. I-RMS have refused to comment on whether they had or are employing international right-wing fascists as security guards for Shell. Over a third of the 22,037 people licensed as private security guards have not undergone any form of Garda background checks and Sinn Féin’s Spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Aengus Ó Snodaigh, has already demanded “an urgent investigation into what these extremists have been doing in Mayo and whether proper security checks have been followed”.

While the general Irish media have portrayed Dwyer as innocent, naïve and non-political, sinister details have been emerging ever since. While the 24 year old was in Glengad he met and befriended eastern Europeans with fascist links. Eventually he met up with Eduardo Rósza Flores in Santa Cruz. 49 year old Flores had a chequered past to say the least. He fought in the Balkan conflict in the 1990s with Croatian paramilitary troops as part of the notorious Zenga unit that took part in the ethnic cleansing of Serbs. He was a fascist mercenary, anti-communist (although he was a former leader of the Hungarian Communist Party’s youth wing), anti-semitic (though part-Jewish), a recent convert to Islam, who mixed left-wing ideals with racial and cultural separation. He seemed as politically indecisive as Senator Eoin Harris. Flores, born in Bolivia but grew up in Hungary, returned to Santa Cruz, (the eastern region in Bolivia rich in natural resources) illegally, in his own words to “organise the defence of the city and province”, and to do it not by marching with flags, but to “do it with arms”. According to Bolivian Vice-President Álvaro García Linera “Rózsa was in the country to recruit and train paramilitaries to destabilise the country”.

Bolivia’s Socialist President Evo Morales has nationalised his country’s abundant natural gas resources much to the consternation of Shell. While the multinational will face imminent court hearings in the US over the deaths of nine Nigerian activists in 1995, their mercenaries and state forces continue to be mired in deep controversy throughout the world. Is Shell’s insatiable avarice to pilfer natural resources at whatever cost the common denominator here?

1 comment:

  1. http://politube.org/show/1736

    jumping from one blog page to another and came across a link to yours. more than 8 degrees of seperation so the theory's wrong any way hope you like the video.

    seamus ó mordha

    ReplyDelete