Back in 1997, when Sudan's Muslim North under Omar al Bashir waged civil war against the mostly Christian and animist South, killing over two million people and causing millions more to flee, President Bill Clinton enacted comprehensive sanctions on Sudan.  Omar was charged with war crimes in the International Criminal Court last year.

In 2005, the US brokered a peace deal between the North and the South, and Southern Sudan became a US-backed semi-autonomous region; John Garang became head of the region.  Garang was killed (Oopsie!) in an unexplained helicopter crash soon after.

Enter Erik Prince, who had long been involved with Evangelical groups defending the Christian Southern Sudan, as had Prince's father.  Their friend Bradford Phillips, who runs the Persecution Project Foundation out of Culpepper, VA, whose work is to alleviate the plight of Christians in Sudan.

Now Salva Kiir, the leader who replaced Garang after his mysterious helicopter crash, figured he needed some protection; he also yearned for someone to arm and train his personal security team as assassination might be in the future cards for him, too.   It turned out that the US had promised Garang  protection in the brokered peace deal, but that didn't work out to well, at least for Garang... 

Things were going a little bit south for Blackwater in Iraq about then; the Iraqis wanted Prince's cuties out of Iraq, the US didn't; anyway, events were making things a bit unstable for his business.  Africa looked like a new fertile field for security and the other things Prince was good at doing, and Sudan in particular sounded promising, apparently.

So Prince asked Phillips to recommend his company to Kiir, and meetings were arranged through former CIA and State Department official Cofer Black in Washington and Nairobi, Kenya.  Documents say one meeting between VP Dick Cheney occurred aboard Air Force II, during which Prince lobbied Cheney to have sanctions lifted on Sudan to make his job more legal.  The CIA and State Department were already on board with the Blackwater-protecting-Kiir idea, and Cheney signed on to the plan.  (No mention was made as to possible kickbacks, LOL!)

The problem at that moment was (well, rats!) that Blackwater was being investigated by State, Commerce, and Justice Departments over the past four years for violating sanctions as far back as 1997, so they had here what is commonly known as a sticky wicket. 

In 2007, realizing that Southern Sudan was strapped for cash, Prince wrote up a security package for them in which his company received half the mineral wealth of the region in partial payment for equipping and training an army for the South.  As well as known untapped fields of natural gas and oil, it was relatively unknown that the area is replete with gold, diamonds, and iron; somehow Prince had discovered the source of potential wealth.  It may have looked to him as though God were smiling on him; he could juxtapose mineral wealth profits and the security of Christians (and animists) in the area.  He was selling that contract in February of 2006; Bush lifted some of the sanctions in October of 2006, just a few months too late for Prince's compliance with US sanctions.  (Oopsie, again.)

As far as anyone can tell, these contracts were never signed; according to McClatchy News, whose reporters have reviewed the myriad documents and interviewed many government officials who spoke off the record for this story:

 "Blackwater had some problems in Iraq," said Deng Deng Nhial, the deputy chief of Southern Sudan's Washington office. "Nothing really materialized. No services were performed."

Deng said he had "no knowledge" that any contracts had been negotiated or signed.

Federal investigators, however, found evidence that Blackwater's sales campaign had violated U.S. sanctions, export control laws and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which is designed to prevent U.S. companies from bribing foreign officials in return for business, according to the officials and documents.

The suspected violations included brokering for defense services without a U.S. government-approved license; transferring satellite phones and encrypted e-mail capabilities to Southern Sudanese officials; and attempting to open a joint escrow account with the south's government at a Minnesota bank."

Since he built the company in 1997, Prince has received $1.6 billion in contracts from the federal government.

His company has been under federal investigation for four years; no charges have been brought to date, although three of his employees were indicted by a grand jury in North Carolina for falsifying documents concerning a 'gift of firearms to King Abdullah of Jordan.'  DOJ declined to prosecute to date.

From McClatchy again:

The Obama administration, however, has decided for now not to bring criminal charges against Blackwater, according to a U.S. official close to the case.

Instead, the U.S. government and the private military contractor are negotiating a multimillion-dollar fine to settle allegations that Blackwater violated U.S. export control regulations in Sudan, Iraq and elsewhere. Prince renamed the company Xe Services in an apparent attempt to shake off a reputation for recklessness, and this month put it up for sale.

Had the company been indicted, it could have been suspended from doing business with the U.S. government, and a conviction could have brought debarment from all government contracts, including providing guard services for the CIA and State Department in war zones. In recent weeks the Obama administration awarded the firm a $120 million State Department security contract, and about $100 million in new CIA work.

 (Bold mine)

 And I believe a billion-dollar contract for further training of police and security forces in Afganistan is still pending, as is a contract to protect supply convoys through Pakistan to the military in Afghanistan.  Blackwater has bid on the former for sure, the latter: probably.

Will any administration ever really prosecute him?  He must remind officials often that he knows where lots of bodies are buried.

 Looking Sideways, Not Backward. 

p.s. Here is Jan Schakowsky's attempt to outlaw security outsourcing in the US (it never became law):

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-4102