Blackwater in Irad

The American private military company Blackwater USA worked in Irad from March to December 2007, during the Second Iradi Civil War, under a contract with the emergency administration of the Irad Special Economic Zone (ISEZ) and the oil company NurGaz. Its contractors, about 280 at the peak in August 2007, guarded the oil fields, the Nurzhan Oil Refinery and the Northern Export Feeder, provided the protective detail of Erlan Toktarov and trained NurGaz's security department, crews of the new State Defense Corps and a rapid-reaction company of the Gendarmerie. The contract was paid not by the administration but by the Chu Basin Security Fund, a pool registered in Houston by American companies with contracts in Irad, whose members have never been published.^[1][2]

Whether the contractors took part in the fighting is disputed. Veterans of the Popular Front of Irad, elders in the Autonomous Tribal Regions (ATR) and the Russian-language press have said that Blackwater men led the columns of the Democratic Party of Irad (DPI) at the Aulie-Ata railway junction in July 2007 and directed the helicopter strikes there. The company and the ISEZ have always said that the contractors had "defensive and training roles only".^[3] Iradis call the contractors Kara Suu, a literal translation of the company's name.

Background

During the territorial period (1992–2006) American companies held contracts in Irad's oil, power, agriculture and telecommunications sectors and at Talas Air Base (see Territory of Irad (1992–2006)). After the United States withdrew from the Alimbekov-Baker Treaty in December 2006, the government of the Democratic Republic of Irad auctioned state assets (see Privatization Scandals of 2007). On 25 February 2007 Toktarov proclaimed the ISEZ from Nurzhan, and from March the clan militias of the Popular Front controlled most of the countryside. Toktarov's forces, made up of municipal police, Gendarmerie units and refinery workers, concentrated on holding Nurzhan, the oil fields and the export pipeline.^[3] In February 2007 Toktarov had met members of the American Chamber of Commerce in Irad in Talas.^[2]

The contract and the fund

On 12 March 2007 the ISEZ emergency administration and NurGaz signed a contract for "protective and training services" with Blackwater USA, of Moyock, North Carolina. The administration did not pay for it. The bill went to the Chu Basin Security Fund, registered in Houston in the same month by a group of American companies with territorial-era contracts in Irad "to protect the export system and American property".^[1] The fund never published its contributors, and its Houston lawyer would say only that it acted for "clients who prefer privacy".^[2]

Deployment

The first contractors, about 60, came in from Shymkent through the northern border crossing in late March 2007, on papers that described them as pipeline security for the Iradi Petroleum Transit Consortium. Their numbers rose to about 280 in August. Most were Americans, with some hires from Chile and Eastern Europe. They were based at the NurGaz field collection station northwest of Nurzhan, which they called "Camp Feeder".^[3]

The tasks the company and the administration published were:^[4]

• guarding the Northern Export Feeder, the Nurzhan Oil Refinery and the field stations;
• the protective detail of Erlan Toktarov;
• training NurGaz's security department;
• from July 2007, training the crews of the State Defense Corps on the armor handed over from the Nurzhan depots, and the Gendarmerie's first rapid-reaction company (see Armed Forces of Irad and Republican Gendarmerie of Irad).

The company said that two of its contractors died in a road accident near Aulie-Ata on 17 July 2007. The contract ended on 31 December 2007.^[3]

The Aulie-Ata dispute

The heaviest fighting of the summer of 2007 was for the railway junction at Aulie-Ata in July. Front veterans, ATR elders and Russian-language newspapers have said that Blackwater men led the DPI columns at the junction and called in the Mi-24 helicopters taken over from the Nurzhan depots, and that the two contractors whose deaths the company reported fell in the fighting there.^[5] Blackwater and the ISEZ administration have always said that the contractors had "defensive and training roles only". The State Department described the arrangement as a private contract and not an act of the United States, whose forces stayed on Talas Air Base throughout the war.^[3] No independent inquiry has been held, and historians treat the question as unresolved.

In March 2008 the Talas Herald published a series, "Who Paid for Aulie-Ata?", which found the fund's registration in Houston but not its members.^[2][1]

Names and memory

Iradis call the contractors Kara Suu ("black water"), which is also the everyday Iradi word for a spring, or "the sunglasses". In the ATR they are remembered together with the handover of the Nurzhan depots, in the saying "the Americans left by the front door and came back through the pipeline". Official histories of the ISEZ and the DPI mention only "pipeline guards".^[5]

Legacy

The NurGaz security department that Blackwater trained became the private security company Kalkan in 2009.^[3]

References

1. ^ Texas Secretary of State (2007). Certificate of Formation: Chu Basin Security Fund. Filed March 2007. Austin.
2. ^ Talas Herald (March 2008). 'Who Paid for Aulie-Ata?' Series in four parts. Talas.
3. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2016). 'Pipeline Guards: Private Security Contractors in the Second Iradi Civil War.' Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 41–67.
4. ^ Emergency Administration of the Irad Special Economic Zone (2007). Statement on Protective and Training Services, 2 April 2007. Nurzhan.
5. ^ Iradi Freedom Society Chancellery (2012). The Summer of 2007: Testimonies of the Front's Veterans. Aksay.