Private Military and Security Labour Migration: The Case of Fiji
| Author | Gyozo Molnar,Yoko Kanemasu |
| Date | 01 August 2017 |
| Published date | 01 August 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12321 |
Private Military and Security Labour
Migration: The Case of Fiji
Yoko Kanemasu* and Gyozo Molnar**
ABSTRACT
Private military and security companies (PMSCs) are a fast-growing global industry. While the
rise of PMSCs and their activities have attracted much media coverage and growing scholarly
attention, little is known about their sourcing of masses of military labour from the global
South. This exploratory study examines the case of Fiji, whose thousands of ex/current disci-
plinary force personnel and unemployed men have been contracted by PMSCs to provide
security work in Iraq and other high-conflict areas. The article shows this to be an instance of
unequal core-periphery military labour trade, outlining its scale, processes and impacts on the
migrants. It also illuminates how the migrants’collective agency is demonstrated even under
powerful structural constraints.
INTRODUCTION
While mercenaries have existed for centuries, today’s private military and security companies
(PMSCs)
1
emerged in the early 1990s, “driven by three dynamics: the end of the Cold War, trans-
formations in the nature of warfare that blurred the lines between soldiers and civilians, and a gen-
eral trend toward privatisation and outsourcing of government functions”(Singer, 2005). PMSCs,
although presented as civilian security providers, have not only taken over support functions such
as transport, logistics and maintenance from militaries, but also provided armed protection to indi-
viduals and sites, and undertaken armed security operations akin to those conducted by military
forces (Bjork and Jones, 2005).
PMSC combat operations in Angola and Sierra Leone drew much attention in the 1990s, fol-
lowed by a surge in the use of PMSCs by the US and coalition governments in Afghanistan and
Iraq in the wake of the US-led invasions. 30,000 and 24,000 armed contractors were in Iraq and
Afghanistan respectively in 2010 (Krahmann, 2012). Today, with the American/coalition forces
withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan, the security vacuum is being filled by PMSCs, who con-
tinue to find extensive demand especially for private-sector protection (Sen, 2015). Del Prado
(2008) estimates the industry’s annual yield at US$100–120billion.
There has been considerable journalistic coverage and civilian protest concerning PMSC activi-
ties, especially incidents of abuse and other transgression. This is paralleled by growing scholarly
literature investigating the growth of PMSCs as a manifestation of Western state-corporate expan-
sionism (Whyte, 2003), their impact on peacebuilding/peacekeeping (Bjork and Jones, 2005; Bray-
ton, 2002), their ambiguous legality and regulatory frameworks (Krahmann, 2012) and the
accountability of their conduct (Peters, 2006; Francis, 1999). Recently, Fraser (2013) shed new
* University of the South Pacific, Fiji
** University of Worcester
doi: 10.1111/imig.12321
©2017 The Authors
International Migration ©2017 IOM
International Migration Vol. 55 (4) 2017
ISS N 00 20- 7985 Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
light on the industry by highlighting PMSC personnel’s vulnerability to the companies’“coercive
offers”. The industry has been, however, discussed predominantly as a Western corporate phe-
nomenon, with limited attention to its workers from the global South. We argue that a reality-con-
gruent understanding of PMSCs requires greater attention to the extensive involvement of military
labour from the “periphery”recruited by transnational companies headquartered in the “core”.
Pioneering studies by Chisholm (2014a, b), Stachowitsch and Chisholm (2016) and others
(e.g. Eichler, 2015) provide critical analyses of the gendered and racialised hierarchies repro-
duced by PMSCs’global recruitment practices from feminist, masculinities studies and postcolo-
nial perspectives. Of particular relevance is Chisholm’s (2014a, b) work which illuminates,
among others, PMSC treatment of Gurkhas as second class to Western personnel emanating
from their marginalized labour market position and colonially-constructed status as racially
underdeveloped subjects. We aim to contribute to this emerging literature by exploring the
voices and experiences of Fijians contracted by PMSCs for deployment in conflict zones. Simi-
lar to the Gurkhas, Fijians are amongst those categorised as a “martial race”, which makes Fiji
a key PMSC labour supplier along with Nepal, Uganda and Kenya (Stachowitsch and
Chisholm, 2016). Furthermore, like the Gurkhas, Fijians experience highly exploitative and
physically and psychologically consequential relations with PMSCs, which has received scant
research attention. By focusing on Fijian experience, we provide further empirical knowledge of
the industry’s recruitment of and effects on global South military/security labour as well as
draw some theoretical insights from this knowledge.
Fiji is a Pacific island nation that has undergone multiple economic challenges due mainly to
political instability (coups d’etat in 1987, 2000, and 2006) and external shocks. The average annual
GDP growth dropped from 5.5 per cent in the 1970s to 0.8 per cent in the 2000s (Prasad, 2012).
Only 40 per cent of the labour force is in the formal sector, and of this, only 36 per cent is in con-
tinuous paid employment (ADB, 2012). Forty-five per cent of the population lives in poverty (Nar-
sey, 2014). In this context, migration to metropolitan countries, beginning around the 1970s, has
become an important source of employment and remittances (Mohanty, 2006; Connell, 2006;
Voigt-Graf, 2008, Kaitani, et al., 2011). Earlier migration was mostly permanent and dominated by
Fijians of Indian descent, especially following the 1987 and 2000 ethno-nationalist coups. Since
the 1990s, an increasing number of indigenous Fijians have been migrating, often temporarily, for
remittance-generating purposes. These include Fijians recruited by the British Army (BA), Republic
of Fiji Military Forces (RFMF) soldiers on United Nations (UN) and other peacekeeping missions,
nurses, other health workers, rugby players, and PMSC personnel.
Researchers have studied the characteristics and impacts of Indo-Fijian emigration (e.g. Pangerl,
2007; Voigt-Graf, 2005) and temporary migration of skilled workers such as nurses and teachers
(e.g. Reddy et al., 2004; Voigt-Graf et al., 2007). Extensive attention has also been given to the
impact of remittances on social protection and migration intentions (Jimenez and Brown, 2013;
Leeves, 2009; Kaitani, et al., 2011), political instability as a migration determinant (Narayan and
Smyth, 2003) and human capital loss as an emigration cost (Reddy et al, 2004; Chandra, 2004). In
other words, the existing literature centres around the patterns, intentions, benefits and costs of
(skilled) migrations, with an emphasis on their development impacts. PMSC personnel movement
has received limited discussion, despite some researchers noting it as one of the largest contempo-
rary indigenous Fijian migrations (Voigt-Graf, 2008; Connell, 2006). The only detailed investiga-
tion is presented in Maclellan’s (2006) journalistic study on a rising number of Fijian military
migrants in the mid-2000s. Most of the existing documentation is in the Fijian mass media, espe-
cially two national newspapers, which in the early 2000s gave prominent coverage to PMSC per-
sonnel deaths, injuries and recruitment disputes.
In this article, we present an exploratory study to outline the scale, processes, and impacts of
Fijian PMSC personnel migration to conflict zones through the eyes of the migrants. Our discus-
sion is guided by the following research questions:
Private military labour migration: Fiji 155
©2017 The Authors. International Migration ©2017 IOM
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