Note: As of December 12, 2002 TRW has been acquired by Northrop Grumman.

06/27/2002 - As originally published in the Daily Texan

UTIMCO investments raise questions

When in the Krajina region of Serbia some 170,000 people were forced to leave their homes, several hundreds of innocent civilians were killed and entire villages ransacked and burned, most of the world considered it to be one of the worst periods of fighting during the Balkan war.

Few people, especially U.S. citizens, are aware that one of the most instrumental tools the Croatian army utilized during its reign of terror was Military Professional Resources, Inc. MPRI turned a weak, untrained Croatian army into a cunning killing machine with the skills and knowledge passed through its contract. The official name attached to such entities that train foreign forces is "private military corporation," although most know such groups as mercenaries.

In recent years, such PMCs have become more predominant in shaping U.S. foreign policy goals globally. What is convenient for the U.S. government is the complete lack of accountability tied to such corporations. Congress has no oversight power to review the operations of PMCs, and all that is required by law is permission by the State Department for any military or logistics training abroad, something the Department has been more than willing to sign off on with very little discretion.

The Department of State did not hesitate to license a contract between MPRI and the military of Angola, a contract worth millions of dollars, and include the implementation of a complete training program of both army and police. These military forces in Angola included the notorious Rapid Intervention Police, known locally as "ninjas," who have subsequently committed serious documented human rights abuses on the Angolan people such as murders and kidnappings.

Other corporations with similar dealings out of the United States include Armor Holdings, Inc., Halliburton, Sandline Internation-al, DynCorp, and TRW-Vinnell. The Vinnell Corporation, which landed a $77 million contract with the Saudi National Guard, should be of particular concern for UT students.

Through the $14.4 billion portfolio of the University of Texas Investment Management Company, the University holds $205,000 worth of asset shares of TRW-Vinnell, which openly admits to its reliance on such investments by universities and other companies. The result is that the University profits off of the growing privatization of war and peacemaking, which should raise serious questions about complicity of the University in the actions taken by mercenary groups. The Saudi National Guard has been implicated in everything from repressive excursions against dissenting Saudi citizens to connections to al-Qaida to the use of torture for political gain.

The larger foreign policy goal of securing the Saudi elite should be obvious. In 2000, Saudi Arabia provided the United States with about 1.5 million barrels of oil per day, and American corporations invested some $4.1 billion. The role Vinnell plays in securing these interests cannot be understated. Without the protection and training provided to keep the Saudi royal family firmly in power, the entire Washington-Riyadh relationship would be jeopardized. In the Vietnam War, Vinnell was instrumental to the U.S. military, performing a number of covert operations that were not possible for the armed forces to implement. The importance of Vinnell in Vietnam led to the U.S. military reference to the company as "our own private little mercenary."

Investment in mercenary corporations that actively enable serious human rights abuses is nothing short of intolerable for a public university that prides itself on the fostering of democratic principles. TRW-Vinnell is just the tip of a gigantic iceberg that links the University with war-making profits, including huge defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin, that make it their business to destabilize the world through arms sales.

The relationship between ethics and investment must be raised to hold the University accountable to the deeds of those from which it profits. Students must demand that their universities refuse to do business with organizations that have no democratic accountability and only add to a climate that ensures tragic events such as Sept. 11 are inevitable.

-by Loren Dent