image; Professor Peter Phillips
The Orlando mass murderer, Omar Mateen, worked for G4S, one of
the largest private security employers in the world. G4S has some
625,000 employees spanning five continents in more than 120 countries.
As a private security company it provides services for both governments
as well as corporations. Some of its well-known contractors are with the
British Government, the United States, Israel, Australia and many more.
G4S providers a range of services in the areas of corrections,
policing, and security of important facilities. In the corporate sector
it has worked with such well-known companies such as Chrysler, Amtrak,
Apple, and the Bank of America.
A statement from G4S, published by The Independent June 12 says that:
“We are shocked and saddened by the tragic even that occurred at the Orlando nightclub. We can confirm that Omar Mateen had been employed with G4S since Sept 10 2007. We are cooperating fully with all law enforcement authorities, including the FBI, as they conduct their investigation. Our thoughts and prayers are with all of the friends, families, and people affected by this unspeakable tragedy.”
Mateen worked with the
company since 2007. G4S provides security personnel for the Department
of Homeland Security, US Customs and Border Protection at the US-Mexico
border, and helps transport undocumented immigrants from urban areas.
Mass killings like the one in Orlando directly benefit private
security firms like G4S by increasing fears and demands for higher
security services. Estimates are that over $200 billion is spent on
private security globally with higher amounts expected yearly. The
industry currently employs some 15 million people worldwide.
G4S offers security
guards, alarms, management and transportation of cash and valuables,
prison management, and electronic monitoring of offenders in 120
countries worldwide. They are the second largest private employer in the
world. Their annual revenue in 2014 was $10.5 billion. Increasingly G4S
operates in “complex environments” and accepts jobs national armies are
not trained to do like land mine clearance, and military security in
active war zones.
Chevron Oil in Nigeria
contracts with G4S for counter insurgency operations that deploy armed
groups of fast-response mercenaries both on land and on delta water
patrol boats mounted with machine guns. G4S maintains a similar
operation in South Sudan. G4S also provides surveillance equipment to
checkpoints and prisons in Israel.
G4S has been plagued with
problems in the last decade, most noticeably with the botched contract
at the 2012 Olympic Games in London. They failed to provide the 10,000
plus trained employees they had promised under contract. Instead G4S had
roughly 2,000 people properly trained, with many more getting only a
few weeks’ worth of preparation. The result led to the British Military
being called in to provide security with some 13,000 troops alongside
G4S.
In June of 2014, G4S was
accused of violently removing protesters from outside its own offices in
London, a claim the company denies, and a few months after that G4S had
to pay $100,000 for unlawfully restraining youths in a secure training
facility. In 2011, a double amputee was improperly secured in one of
G4S’s ambulance services and died when the unsecured wheelchair tipped
over backwards as he was being transported to the hospital. It was
found that the G4S staff was not sufficiently trained to move patients
safely from their homes to hospitals. And as far back as 2004, a
15-year-old died when three G4S employees at Rainsbrook Secure Training
Center restrained him. None of the officers were charged in that
incident.
G4S is a transnational
security company in direct service to the global corporations and the
transnational capitalist class. G4S protects capital and assets around
the world and is increasingly taking a private military style approach
as needed. As a multi-billion-dollar public company major investors come
from the financial core of the transnational capitalist class
including; Blackrock, UBS, Vanguard, Barclays, State Street, Allianz,
J.P. Morgan Chase, Credit Suisse, and FMR. Even the State of California
and New York have holdings in G4S. Nine of the thirteen largest most
connected money management firms and banks in the world have direct
investments holdings in G4S. Omnicom, the largest public relations and
propaganda firm in the world, handles media for G4S and undoubtedly is
currently in full crisis management mode to protect the company and
minimalize links to Omar Mateen.
G4S is a part of
neoliberal imperialism that is leading to the substitution of and
privatization of state police. Inside G4S’s 625,000 employees are
undoubtedly a number of reactionary individuals with extreme racist,
homophobic, and xenophobic feelings similar to Omar Mateen. These folks
are armed walking time bombs that can individually or collectively
unleash disruption and chaos on humans anywhere in the world. The
resulting chaos and fear will be used to justify even more demands for
private security, including even martial law, all resulting in improved
profits for G4S.
Peter Phillips
is a Professor of Political Sociology as Sonoma State University,
president of Media Freedom Foundation/Project Censored and Research
Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
Fully footnoted research on G4S is available on line at: http://www.projectcensored.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/C16_Ch08_Phillips_21stCenturyFascism.pdf
http://projectcensored.org/private-military-companies-in-service-to-the-transnational-capitalist-class/
The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Peter Phillips, Global Research, 2016
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