Oil Companies and Mercenaries - Two Flavors That Go Well Together

The head of security for the oil transport company Enbridge built his résumé managing Exxon Mobil’s response to community protests in Nigeria and helping oversee Amazon’s Global Security Operations Center, a division that has monitored environmental groups and union organizers. Now, at Enbridge, Troy Kirby oversees efforts to combat a protest movement aimed at stopping construction of the company’s Line 3 pipeline in Minnesota. Enbridge’s security operation has drawn criticism for its efforts to influence the police response to the Indigenous-led movement, whose members are known as water protectors.

“These are the people that specialize in the dark arts. Maybe it’s a bit more banal than we might imagine, but these are the spooks.” Enbridge’s response to the water protectors is part of a pattern of megacorporations working to quell resistance to their environmentally harmful activities. Enbridge’s close cooperation with police, including payments and intelligence sharing, has been deemed by academics and water protector critics as emblematic of corporate counterinsurgency — a suite of tactics, ranging from public relations campaigns to surveillance and support for armed force, designed to win over communities to controversial profit-making projects.