Company accused of abducting Filipinos to build U.S. Embassy in Iraq

[Christa]

MANILA: The Filipinos thought they were flying to Dubai. One of them told a fellow passenger how excited he was about his new job as a telephone repairman at a hotel in the emirate.

It was only after liftoff from Kuwait, when the captain made an announcement, that they learned their destination was, in fact, Baghdad.

"All you-know-what broke loose on that airplane. People started shouting," said Rory Mayberry, an American passenger on the flight who had been hired to work in the Iraqi capital.

The Filipinos settled down only after a security guard from the company that had hired them waved a submachine gun, according to Mayberry. "They realized they had no other choice but to go to Baghdad," he said.

Mayberry recounted this incident, which he said took place in March 2006, during a congressional hearing in Washington on July 26 that looked into allegations of "waste, fraud and abuse" in the construction of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Held by the House of Representatives' Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the hearing yielded startling testimony about victimization of workers from the Philippines and other poor countries.

More:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/03/news/phils.php

I have disgust fatigue.

[UKProPeace]

1. My God! Now they're so desparate they're abducting foreign nationals...

then threatening them with machine guns when they speak out....how much lower will these criminals go? Can they go much lower I wonder?

[Christa]

3. My question is

why don't we see it on MSNBC or CNN?

[UKProPeace]

6. Oh, they're much more interested in Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and so on eom

[Bonobo]

11. B, but they are a "private organization"! They can do whatever they want!

[annabanana]

2. kidnapped, shanghaid. . on OUR dime!

Whatever happened to those laws about slave labor?

[Meldread]

4. Utterly evil.

There is no other way of putting it.

[eppur_se_muova]

5. Don't forget the Nepalis who were executed ...

Desperate Nepal Workers in the U.S. Warzone: Lied To, Ripped Off, and Worked Like Slaves in Iraq

Revolution #024, November 27, 2005, posted at revcom.us

19-year-old Ramesh Khadka's family took out a loan of more than $2,000 in the belief that his son would become a cook in Jordan. But instead, Ramesh became one of 12 Nepalese workers who were executed by Islamic fundamentalists in Iraq on August 31, 2004. The Morning Star Company, a Jordan-based services firm, had contracted Ramesh and the others for jobs. The grisly murder of the men, shown on videotape, led to investigations that revealed a whole illicit pipeline of cheap foreign labor that is part of the U.S. war in Iraq.

Private military companies (PMCs) contribute as much as 20 percent of the total U.S.-led occupation force, and at least 35 PMCs have contracts in Iraq--employing at least 5,000 heavily armed foreign mercenaries and over 20,000 Iraqis. Another 10,000 to 15,000 people, hired from all over the world, provide military logistical support such as driving, maintenance, training, communications, and intelligence-gathering. The largest contractor is... you guessed it, Halliburton.

The US government outsources to Halliburton's KBR, which outsources to 200 subcontractors, which recruit thousands of workers from impoverished countries. This multi-layered system cuts costs and creates walls of deniability for the US government and Halliburton. US law calls for sanctions against countries that engage in human trafficking but in September 2005, Bush, citing Kuwait's and Saudi Arabia's efforts in the "Global War on Terror," waived the sanctions against them

The pay for such workers ranges from $65 to $112 weekly. In Nepal the per capita (average per person) annual income is about $270! The Nepalese government relies on an estimated $1 billion sent home each year by citizens working overseas.

A recent two-part investigative series in the Chicago Tribune (Cam Simpson and Aamer Madhani, October 9-10, 2005) explained how a village agent recruited twelve Nepalese men and turned them over to a broker who sent them to Amman, Jordan. It was only then that some of them learned they were really destined for Iraq. While being transported to an American air base northwest of Baghdad in an unprotected van, they were kidnapped and killed.
***
more: http://www.rwor.org/a/024/nepal-us-human-shields-iraq.htm

[UKProPeace]

7. Thanks for posting this epur

With the level of criminality involved, it is sometimes unfortunate that some very serious criminal acts are overlooked.

[Vinca]

8. Disgust fatique. An excellent description. nt

[Reader Rabbit]

9. Has anyone sent this to Olbermann?

If he does a story on Countdown, maybe the rest of the MSM will get off their asses.

[Douglas Carpenter]

10. living in the Philippines part of the year, I'm afraid I can imagine this all to well

Scams with overseas contract workers are extremely common.

Overseas remittances are the largest source of hard currency in the Philippines and plays a major role in keeping the economy afloat. Given that many Filipinos are desperate for income --And it is virtually impossible to live anywhere near what westerners would consider a minimally acceptable lifestyle on a Filipino salary. (An example; a registered nurse with a four-year university B.S. degree rarely makes more than $200.00 a month and most make less -- if they can find work).

This makes them ripe for exploitation by con artist recruiters.