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Hired guards at U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan abused by supervisors, group reports.
WASHINGTON — Guards hired by the State Department to protect diplomats and staff at the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan live and work in a “Lord of the Flies” environment in which they are subjected to hazing and other inappropriate behavior by supervisors, a government oversight group charged Tuesday.
In a 10-page letter to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Project on Government Oversight in Washington contended the situation has led to a breakdown in morale and leadership that compromises security at the embassy in Kabul where nearly 1,000 U.S. diplomats, staff and Afghan nationals work.
The independent nonprofit group is urging Clinton to launch an investigation of the contract with ArmorGroup North America. It also recommends that she ask the Pentagon to provide “immediate military supervision” of the private security force at the embassy.
The oversight group’s findings are based on interviews with ArmorGroup guards, documents, photographs and e-mails that it says depict “Lord of the Flies” conditions. The reference is to the 1954 novel by William Golding about a group of British schoolboys who are stranded on a desert island and try, but fail, to govern themselves in a chaotic setting.
One e-mail from a guard describes lurid conditions at Camp Sullivan, the guards’ quarters a few miles from the embassy. The message described scenes of abuse including guards and supervisors urinating on people and “threats and intimidation from those leaders participating in this activity.”
Photographs show guards and supervisors in various stages of nudity at parties that took place from the housing of other supervisors.
Multiple guards say these conditions have created a “climate of fear and coercion.”
ArmorGroup’s management is aware of the conditions but has not stopped it or disciplined those responsible, the letter says.
Wackenhut Services, ArmorGroup North America’s parent company, had no immediate comment on the allegations.