U.S. Arranges 'Pre-Deployment' Training for Haiti-Bound Private Police

The U.S. State Dept. is reaching out to independent contractors to train other private contractors who will be deployed as “civilian police” -- hired guns for so-called peacekeeping missions taking place in Haiti and other geopolitical hotspots. The senior adviser selected for the task “must oversee pre-deployment training currently being conducted” by Dyncorp International, Civilian Police International and Pacific Architects and Engineers/Homeland Security Corporation, according a recently released procurement document. The three companies currently work under the supervision of State’s Office of Civilian Police and Rule of Law (CIVPOL office) and the Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL). The INL CIVPOL contractors already have a presence in several “post-conflict locations throughout the world,” according to the document. However, Haiti appears to be a priority, evidenced by a prominently displayed notice on the PAE/HSC website currently announcing that the company is “soliciting applications specific to CIVPOL Officers fluent in French interested in a UN deployment to Haiti.”

The senior advisor also will be responsible for “establishing a ready roster of rapidly deployable CIVPOL as well as building foreign capacity” to provide such contractor services, it says. Programs are currently underway “in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Haiti, Liberia, East Timor, Serbia & Montenegro and Sudan,” but the “number and location of programs are subject to change.”

State facilitates the creation and deployment of these privately hired “police officers and law enforcement and criminal justice experts” because “the U.S. does not have a national police force from which to draw personnel.” An additional justification, according to the State document, is the CIVPOL office’s existing relationship with the above-mentioned private contractors, an arrangement which provides the U.S. government with ability to swiftly "recruit, select, train, equip, deploy and support the officers and experts” needed for such missions

This latest endeavor requires the provision of “10-day pre-deployment training” courses for CIVPOL candidates, involving subjects such as physical fitness, agility, firearms, and driving tests; psychological testing and evaluation; “history and culture of the deployment region”; defensive tactics; human rights; trafficking in persons; and “expatriate taxation issues.”

The senior advisor will be based in Washington, D.C. Training sites are located in Fredericksburg, Va. and in Leesburg, Va.