Overseas THREATS

Jan 1, 2004 12:00 PM, By MICHAEL FICKES

Security intelligence can avert tragedy. Take the case of a Fortune 100 CEO who planned to meet with a provincial governor in India last November. The CEO was exploring the possibility of establishing an overseas office in the governor's province. The company's security director turned to the Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC), an arm of the U.S. Department of State that provides multi-national corporations with global intelligence assessments. OSAC briefings revealed that the Indian province in question was home to violent Marxist groups that dislike western ideas and westerners. This discovery led the security director to call an OSAC analyst for details. The analyst confirmed the information and added something new: In the past 12 months, Marxist groups had carried out no fewer than seven assassination attempts against the governor of the province. “Be careful,” advised the analyst. The security director informed the CEO, who decided to conduct the meeting by telephone.

To protect employees and facilities in far-flung international operations, corporate security directors must have accurate intelligence about crime, terrorism, political unrest and the business climate in the countries where their companies do business.

Accurate information is not always forthcoming. “You can talk to the government of a foreign country and ask local law enforcement about issues,” says Michael Evanoff, executive director of the Arlington, Va.-based OSAC. “But they will usually say come one, come all. Everything is fine. We want your business. But they won't tell you the real ground truth. We do.”

The Ground Truth In Korea

Using intelligence information provided by OSAC, Nickolas Proctor has developed an ex-patriot evacuation plan to get non-Korean employees of British American Tobacco out of South Korea should tensions between the U.S. and North Korea reach a boiling point. “I was following media reports about nuclear tensions in Korea, and OSAC was on top of this,” says Proctor, director of corporate security for Louisville, Ky.-based Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corp. (B&W) and regional security manager of the Asia-Pacific region for B&W's parent, British American Tobacco (BAT). All told, Proctor is responsible for protecting any of the 85,000 BAT employees who work in or travel to Canada, Japan, Korea and the United States.

“When I see CNN and other media outlets go back to the same story over a period of days, I'll check with OSAC's Web site and analytical staff,” says Proctor, a former State Department official and executive director of OSAC.

Eight analysts staff OSAC's Research and Information Support Center (RISC). They study classified government intelligence reports from the State Department, CIA and NSA. They also keep up with unclassified reporting in the print and broadcast media. Without releasing classified information, they pass along global threat assessments. “I use RISC to temper the spin you see in the news media,” Proctor says.

In the case of Korea, RISC analysts supported media reports about nuclear tensions, and Proctor decided to visit Korea and talk with the CEO of BAT's Korean operations about ex-patriot evacuation planning. Planning involved figuring out how to notify evacuees, arranging for transportation and settling on a trigger — when it would be time to go.

At first, Proctor wanted to base the trigger on what U.S. Forces in Korea did with their non-combatants and dependant personnel. OSAC, however, noted a flaw in that plan: The Americans might not want to signal the Koreans with an early evacuation. Relying completely on American actions might provide a false indicator. “So we also tied our plans to what the British were doing,” Proctor says. “We could do that because BAT is a British company. “In addition, we had good ties with the Korean government and could take some cues from them. In the end, there was no single trigger. We would make our decisions in cooperation with our senior people in London and Korea, OSAC, and the governments involved.”

Established In 1985

OSAC came into being in 1985 following a series of bombings in Beirut, Lebanon, including a lethal attack on a U.S. Marine barracks. “The handwriting was on the wall,” says Evanoff. “U.S. government installations and U.S. businesses had become targets.”

Looking for ways to protect their employees and facilities, the CEOs of several Fortune 100 companies — all with global interests — approached then Secretary of State George Shultz to discuss ways of providing corporations with intelligence about the security and business climate in foreign countries.

In response, Shultz established OSAC. Administered by the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, the law enforcement and security arm of the U.S. Department of State, OSAC has developed into a vital intelligence source for companies, institutions such as the Red Cross, and colleges and universities that are active abroad.

Approximately 2,300 companies and institutions currently subscribe to the free service, an increase of approximately 25 percent since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Every month, the OSAC Web site (www.ds-osac.org) fields 1.8 million hits. Many of them come as a result of daily e-mail news bulletins sent by OSAC to subscribers. The bulletins report events and issues in countries around the world.

According to Evanoff, OSAC has proven so useful to U.S. businesses with overseas facilities and people that the newly created Department of Homeland Security has begun the preliminary work of creating its own council for collecting and distributing information about threats against domestic business and institutional targets.

Where U.S. Media Fails To Tread

Many OSAC reports cover issues and events that national media outlets overlook or ignore. The Dec. 11, 2003, OSAC bulletin, for example, included an article from a Nepalese daily newspaper that reported the Nepal Communist Party has begun to monitor American visitors. The move, according to the report, came as a retaliatory response to a U.S. government request that the international community place the rebels on a terrorist watch list.

Mainstream media provides only occasional reports on Kazakhstan, the former Soviet Socialist Republic. When Avon Products Inc. decided to set up shop in Kazakhstan, vice president of global security Robert Littlejohn, a former co-chair of OSAC, asked OSAC for help investigating the business climate there. RISC analysts advised him to tread carefully, noting that other companies had encountered official corruption, extortion and kidnappings.

Late last year when political unrest led to riots across Bolivia, Mark Cheviron, corporate vice president in charge of corporate security and services for the Archer-Daniels-Midland Company in Decatur, Ill., turned to OSAC for help in timing the evacuation of ex-patriot employees from La Paz. Not long before that, OSAC dispatches about rioting in the Ivory Coast capital of Abidjan led Cheviron, who currently serves as an OSAC co-chair, to move ADM French nationals from company facilities in the city to a nearby French army base.

Two-Way Street

OSAC is also becoming a two-way street that distributes information collected by State Department missions around the world as well as information provided by corporate members. Corporate intelligence flows through OSAC's 30-member council based in the U.S. and through more than 65 country councils made up of representatives of American companies working around the world.

In Algeria, for example, terrorist threats have made it impossible for U.S. embassy personnel to leave the city of Algiers. The embassy is currently receiving regular briefings from an OSAC country council that includes executives from U.S. oil companies based in southern Algeria. The country council then relays its information to RISC analysts in Arlington.

Sometimes, information comes directly from one company. Not long ago, for example, ADM's South American trucking operations encountered a widespread hijacking ring. “They were placing smoke bombs on our trucks and setting them off by remote control,” Cheviron says. “When the noise and smoke caused the drivers to pull over, the gangs would rob them.”

After three hijackings, Cheviron notified OSAC, which put out the word to local police and to U.S. companies with operations in South America.

Soft Targets Beware

OSAC got its start when terrorists struck U.S. businesses located overseas in the 1980s. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks showed that terrorist attacks against soft targets remain a strategic priority. According to Evanoff, intelligence information collected by OSAC along with the targets being struck by terrorists today suggest that soft business targets may be growing more important to terrorist groups.

“Terrorists are shifting targets from official facilities because they are just too difficult to hit,” Evanoff says. “They are looking for soft business targets. Last year, they attacked a British bank in Istanbul, an Israeli airliner and a U.S. hotel in Jakarta. This is a huge trend that will continue. OSAC is an important tool for protecting against these kinds of attacks. We can provide the information corporations need to make vital decisions about overseas business operations.”

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© 2008 Penton Media Inc.

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