BLACKWATER FOUNDER ACCUSED OF MURDER

By Miriam Raftery

Photo, left: Erik Prince, Blackwater founder

September 1, 2017 (San Diego’s East County) -- Blackwater founder Erik Prince has been “implicated in murder,” the Nation reports. The article, written by journalist and author Jeremy Scahill, indicates that sworn statements filed in Federal Court on August 3rd allege that the private military company’s founder, Erik Prince launched a “crusade” to eliminate Muslims and Islam.Many East County residents will recall meeting Scahill, who visited Potrero and San Diego back in 2007.  Scahill came to warn local residents about serious ethical issues involving Blackwater, which was aiming to build a paramilitary training camp in a valley in Potrero. 

The Nation article reports that a former Blackwater employee and an ex-Marine who worked as a security operative for Blackwater both made explosive allegations in sworn statements claiming that Prince may have murdered or facilitated the murder of people who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. Their identities are being kept secret for their own protection.

They also allege that Prince seems to eliminate Muslims worldwide and further, that Prince’s companies including Blackwater “encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life.”

Prince declined repeated requests for comment from the Nation.

In 2014, four former Blackwater guards were found guilty of charges including murder and manslaughter for their roles in the Nissour Square massacre in Iraq, the New York Times reported.

Photo, right: Jeremy Scahill

During his visit to Potrero in 2007, Scahill called Blackwater’s record “disturbing.”  He also told local residents, “This is a very powerful company engaged in a private war…Tomorrow it could be any other community in any other state.”  He praised local citizens for an “uprising” that he believed caught Blackwater by surprise.

East County Magazine founder Miriam Raftery covered Blackwater’s efforts to establish a paramilitary training camp in Potrero for multiple publications a decade ago.

Many local officials spoke out to voice grave concerns about Blackwater at that time.

Then-Congressman Bob Filner, in an interview on Democracy Now! aired nationally, said of Blackwater, ““Their mercenaries in Iraq are unaccountable to any law there, and they have taken people out who have been accused of murder,” he said.  “They have not been upfront with relatives of some of the contractors who were killed.  So, this is not a company you want in your backyard.”

Former Congressman Lionel Van Deerlin agreed.  In a strongly worded editorial in the San Diego Union-Tribune, he wrote, “… the operation Blackwater intends would be like taking ‘Evangeline's’ forest primeval and turning it over to a Hitler panzer corps. The din of gunfire alone – from eight rifle and three pistol ranges – would reverberate like Coney Island's target concessions on a Sunday afternoon.”

Scahill also spoke of Prince’s wealthy family ties, including his sister, Betsy DeVos, Amway heiress and now Secretary of Education under President Donald Trump.

The uprising by residents of Potrero, a sleepy rural town of only around 800 residents, ultimately led to a recall election against all five Potrero Community Planning Group members who had voted for the Blackwater project.  Jan Hedlun, newly elected planning group member who led efforts to oust Blackwater, was the only one not facing recall.

During a San Diego County Planning Commission meeting, one planner didn’t show up and resigned the next day, after revealing that a car bomb had been placed beneath his wife’s car but fortunately no one was injured. Who planted the bomb was never determined.

Not even the 2007 Harris Fire, which destroyed much of Potrero, could dissuade residents from casting their votes to successfully recall all of the pro-Blackwater community planning group members.

Town members followed ballot boxes down to the County Registrar of Voters to observe the vote count and held a joyful celebration as results were read off paper ballots, since the County’s voting machines had been decertified by the State’s Registrar and new ones had not yet arrived for that special election.

Residents and the Sierra Club also held press conferences and led a march through the Hauser federal wilderness area adjacent to the site, drawing national and international media to East County including CNN, the New York Times and Al Jazeera.

Although planning group votes are only advisory and Supervisors could have over-ridden the decision, Blackwater opted to pull out, claiming it was too expensive to meet noise requirements though those had not changed since the project’s inception.

Residents held a town-wide celebration with a live band and dancing in the Potrero County Park for defeating Blackwater, or what Scahill’s book called “the world’s most powerful mercenary army.”

Given the recent allegations against Blackwater’s founder, Eric Prince, those local residents today are no doubt relieved that their efforts were successful--and that they don’t have Blackwater as their neighbor here in San Diego’s East County.

Photo: Carl Meyer, a farmer who launched the effort to recall Potrero planners, was later elected Planning Group Chair.