THE HANDSTAND | JUNE 2007 |
NEWS FROM IRAQ JUNE 6th2007 ZNet Commentary MAY 30th 2007: The four kidnapped security guards were working for Canadian-owned security firm Gardaworld. The company is one of the biggest suppliers of private security in Iraq, and is mainly staffed by Britons. The computer expert was working for Bearingpoint, a US management consultancy which has worked on development projects in Iraq since 2003. BBC World News ***************************************************
Some eyewitnesses reported that the explosion was very huge and caused four cars to fall into the Tigris witch were passing over the bridge. The river-police were trying to rescue people from those cars. Our correspondent spoke with a policemen who confirmed that 12 people get killed and 30 injuries as well as sounds of the explosion were reported as being heard across Baghdad. The Al-Sarrafya Bridge, located in the heart of Baghdad, is one of the oldest and most famous bridges in the capital. This bridge makes easy to reach to Baghdad University, Al-Mistensirya University, medical city, and Al-Karkh republican hospital as it connects the Al-aatefya region and Al-Sarrafya. Coincidence or American connection? Another eyewitness reported says as follows: I distressed today in the early morning as every Iraqi nobleman were distressed with this criminal accident, this time the target was (Al-Sarrafya bridge) this, leads to collapse a big part of the bridge, and to say nothing about the human damage left behind among killed, wounded, and shocked. Im not here to tell a story as what press news were reporting it with passion but I would like to mention on some points leaving the comment on this subject to you:
By HOW THE BAGHDAD
EMBASSY WAS BUILT In the months following September 2005, complaints began coming in to the US State Department that all was not well with its most ambitious project ever: a sprawling new embassy project on the banks of the ancient Tigris River. The largest, most heavily-fortified embassy in the world with over 20 buildings, it spans 104 acres-- comparable in size to the Vatican. Soon after the State Department awarded $592-million building contract to First Kuwaiti General Trading and Contracting in July 2005, thousands of low-paid migrant workers recruited from South Asia, the Philippines and other nations poured into Baghdad, beginning work to build the gargantuan complex within two years time. But sources involved in the embassy project tell Slogger that during First Kuwaiti's rush to the finish the project by this summer on schedule, American managers and specialists involved with the project began protesting about the living and working conditions of lower-paid workers sequestered and largely unseen behind security walls bordering the embassy project inside the US-controlled Green Zone. The Americans protested that construction crews lived in crowded quarters; ate sub-standard food; and had little medical care. When drinking water was scarce in the blistering heat, coolers were filled on the banks of the Tigris, a river rife with waterborne disease, sewage and sometimes floating bodies, they said. Others questioned why First Kuwaiti held the passports of workers. Was it to keep them from escaping? Some laborers had turned up "missing" with little investigation. Another American said laborers told him they were been misled in their job location. When recruited, they were unaware they were heading for war-torn Iraq. After hearing similar allegations during much of 2006, Howard J. Krongard, the State Department's inspector general, flew to Baghdad for what he describes as a "brief" review on Sept. 15. He now reports that the complaints had no substance. "Nothing came to our attention," he wrote in a nine-page memorandum posted recently on the State Department's Web site. More importantly, after interviewing an unstated number of workers from the Philippines, India, Nepal and Pakistan, Krongard said no evidence was found of labor smuggling, trafficking or other abuses. Krongard makes no mention of an ongoing investigation by the US Justice Department of First Kuwaiti and others for such alleged practices and other matters. One former labor foreman at the embassy site who recently read Krongard's review called it "bull shit." Another former First Kuwaiti employee viewed it as "a whitewash." Meanwhile, Justice Department trial attorneys Andrew Kline and Michael J. Frank with the civil rights division have been contacting former First Kuwaiti employees and others for interviews and documents, but declined to comment on the investigation other than to say they are looking into allegations of labor trafficking. WORKERS DIVERTED
TO IRAQ First Kuwaiti general manager Wadih al Absi flatly dismisses the accusations as unfounded and false. "I am telling you that First Kuwaiti has never violated any visa violations or forced people to work," he said during a telephone interview last January. "In the coming months you will see that First Kuwaiti is the best company working in the Middle East." Since landing the Baghdad project, the State Department has given First Kuwait some $200 million more in embassy work in Africa, India and Indonesia. The company is now said to be competing for another large US embassy in Lebanon. Had Krongard visited earlier than last September and unannounced, he may have witnessed something very different then what his memorandum relates. A half-dozen Americans who worked on the embassy project now say the inspector general saw nothing inappropriate because the problems had been cleaned up in anticipation of his Sept. 15 inspection and because of complaints and inquiries from the news media.
"Most of the allegations (from the Americans) were true before he arrived," claims Juvencio Lopez, who says he was a high-level project manager under the US State Department over the course of 2 years. During a telephone interview last weekend, he said the laborers "had their backs to the wall," and had been living 20 to a trailer. Protests over First Kuwaiti's bad food, abusive treatment from managers and unsafe working conditions were routine among many of the 2,700 workers during much of 2005 and 2006 "There were strikes and sit-downs every month," Lopez says. He left Iraq in November 2006 and is now home in San Antonio, Texas. "Sometimes there were almost riots." Lopez vividly recalls a First Kuwaiti security guard unholstering his 9mm handgun and walking among the squatting protestors telling them to get back to work. Had the guard fallen or workers tackled him to the ground, the gun might have gone off. Lopez said he immediately reported the incident to First Kuwaiti. "Someone could gotten killed or injured." On another occasion, a company manager roughed up a Filipino worker, sources say. All of the other Filipinos nearby began loudly protesting as bewildered workers from other countries watched. "The workers were from 36 different countries and they everyone spoke a different language," Lopez says. One of First Kuwaiti's new improvements includes the workers medical clinic, complete with pharmacy, emergency room, x-ray machine, and dental suite, all of which appeared just weeks before the inspector's general visit, according to several witnesses. "Every month the clinic wasn't there, they were saving money...but it got to be an embarrassment," Lopez says. "I was away, but when I returned in November, it was there." That wasn't what former Army emergency medical technician Rory Mayberry found in March 2006. First Kuwaiti had hired Mayberry as a medic under a subcontract with MSDS, a two-person, minority-owned computer consulting company outside Washington, DC. Recommended to First Kuwaiti by contractor Jim Golden who oversees the embassy project for the State Department, MSDS had never before provided medical services or worked in Iraq. Once arriving at the
construction site, Mayberry says he found the most basic
of medical needs missing and that clinics lacked hot
water, disinfectant and hand washing stations. Mayberry
also claims that workers' medical records in total
disarray or nonexistent, beds were dirty and the support
staff was poorly trained. Prescription pain killers were
being handed out "like a candy store ... and then
people were sent back to work," to operate heavy
equipment or climb scaffolding, he adds. More than six months later, the inspector general discovered the clinic clean and well-organized and with several medical staff members. "The medications were neatly arranged and appeared to be labeled in both English and Arabic. Medical staff members we interviewed said they were not aware of any medical unit visits by workers for injuries related to beatings or abuse." Krongard also noted that the food is "quite good" with "six different dining facilities serving Egyptian, Philippine, African, Lebanese, Pakistani and Indian cuisines to meet the different tastes of most of the workers." The Lebanese food was always good, sources say, because all of First Kuwaiti's top managers are Lebanese and they ate there along with the American managers. There was a pecking order based on nationality, race and class, Paul Chapman said. He worked nine months for a subcontractor to First Kuwaiti and is now home in South Carolina. Chapman recalls seeing workers walk a mile to stand in line where rice, stew and flatbread were served from the back of truck. Food was ladled from marmite food containers. "I'd see them eating along side the road or near their trailers." But what bothered Chapman more was the disappearance of seven workers from India, Pakistan and the Philippines who were listed as "missing" on First Kuwaiti rosters. Fearing they may have been killed and dumped into the Tigris, he began pressing embassy officials overseeing the project to investigate. "They told me to forget about it because the workers had probably found other jobs." Since workers were rarely allowed outside the project area, it was a mystery how they would have found other jobs. Even more puzzling was that they may have left without passports. First Kuwaiti keeps most passports locked up in a storage room. In October, workers from Ghana on the embassy site told Chapman that they expected to get jobs in Dubai but were then sent to Iraq. Chapman wanted to report these incidents to the inspector general but says he was discouraged from doing so. 'EVERY US LABOUR
LAW BROKEN' Chapman and others also claim that standard safety procedures on the project frequently went unobserved. Many worked without safety harnesses when off the ground and had no hardhats or boots. Work clothes were dirty and tattered. Those that had them had only one set of work clothes so they were rarely washed. They became dirty and tattered, causing rashes and sores. Some worked in sandals, others in bare feet. "They had their toes curled around the rebar like birds," Lopez remembers. "Every US labor law was broken," says an American labor foreman, John Owens, who adds that he never witnessed a safety meeting. Once an Egyptian worker fell and broke his back and was sent home. No one ever heard from him again. "The accident might not have happened if there was a safety program and he had known how to use a safety harness," charges Owen, who left the embassy project last June. Still, Lopez believes that First Kuwaiti is one of the best companies he has ever worked with, adding "I wish I could bring the company here" to the United States. He talks in global terms and explains that many Americans are not accustomed to working on an international stage where workers come from impoverished countries and are eager to work under any conditions. "Just look at where the workers came from," he says. "They were much better off in Baghdad." Own offers a different take on the workers he supervised. After having worked construction on US embassy sites in Armenia, Bulgaria, Angola, Cameroon and Cambodia, nothing compares to the mess he saw in Baghdad. "I've never seen a project more fucked up." David Phinney is a journalist and broadcaster based in Washington, DC, whose work has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, New York Times and on ABC and PBS. He can be contacted at: phinneydavid@yahoo.com. Tigris River becoming a graveyard of bodies Report, IRIN, 10 May 2007
House #1: This house belong to Salih Al-mutlak there was 5 guards in the house 2 of them escaped in the head of Sallams house one of them killed the rest 3 escaped to house Num 4 one of them died by a grenade thrown by the U.S. Forces House Num 1 was completely destroyed it had been attacked by 4 missiles from the choppers + the gun firing from the machine guns. House #2: This house is the Salih Al-mutlak next door the main door and the wall was destroyed and there were no injury. House #3: It is a building on the main street the second floor was a store and it had been burned because of the gun firing. House #4: It is the house where the 3 guards were hiding in its garden the U.S. forces throw a grenade and kill one of the guards. House #5: This house is belong to a poor family through the battle one of them get injured so the rest of the family went outside the house to call for help when they are outside the house and exactly at the main door the U.S. forces shoot the family four of them were killed (the father, his two sons, his daughter) the injured one died after awhile House #6: This house belongs to Christian family the father is aged 80 living with his son (after they destroyed Salih Al-mutlak House the U.S. forces begin the second attack on Guards of Sallama) the tank entered house num 6 by destroying the gate and its wall the 80 aged man was calling them to stop but they didnt listen to him they took out his cloth + his son both remained outside in cold weather and the U.S. forces stole the house (They stole a big mount of money + laptop + camera + some other stuff) House #7: This house was empty but the guards of Sallama were using it U.S. forces entered this house and explode its door and they shoot every room in it. House #8: The house of Sallama She is a V.I.P but she is not at the house she put her guards and blocking the roads thats it (I couldnt get info about this house because of the Guards) House #9: The American destroys the main gate by a bomb and entered in its garden only (The car of this house was destroyed too) House #10: This house was also has a gun firing by the chopper we can see the wholes that made by the choppers on the walls of the house and on the street. (The car was destroyed too).
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