Namibia deports two security contractors

WINDHOEK, NAMIBIA â€”  This African nation has ordered two Americans to leave the country for trying to recruit Namibians to work as security guards in Iraq and Afghanistan, the information minister said Saturday.

Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah said the Namibian Security Council also ordered their company, Special Operations Consulting-Security Management Group, to cease operations on the grounds that its actions violated Namibian laws.

The decision came amid an outcry over the role of foreign security contractors in Iraq after as many as 17 people were killed last month in Baghdad in a shooting by guards from the North Carolina-based security firm Blackwater USA.

Nandi-Ndaitwah said company executives Paul Grimes and Frederic Piry had been declared “prohibited immigrants� Friday and given 24 hours to leave.

Under Namibian law, he said, Namibians were not allowed to be involved in the military or security forces of other countries without the written permission of the government.

U.S. Embassy officials here and representatives of the security company were not immediately available for comment.

It was not clear whether the two men had left the country.

Earlier in the week, Grimes and Piry told local news media that they had obtained Namibian government approval to recruit Namibians to work as noncombatants in Iraq, and said their company had been officially registered here.

Grimes said Namibians were not being hired to fight as soldiers but to serve as security guards at U.S. military bases, guarding dining facilities, gyms and hospitals.