OUTRAGE: 900 SLAVES building new US embassy in Iraq

Slaving away for Uncle Sam

ASIA TIMES, WASHINGTON - In the past few years there have been numerous stories about unscrupulous contractors hiring people from low-wage Asian countries such as the Philippines, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Pakistan for work in Iraq and then exploiting them with low pay, unsafe conditions, seized passports, cramped housing, and poor food, medical care and safety gear. But generally these were stories about people hired by private contractors working for other private corporations.

But new accusations are changing that. Disturbing reports have surfaced about the nearly 900 laborers being used to build the new multimillion-dollar US Embassy in Baghdad and the conditions under which they work.

The accusations are rather ironic for the administration of US President George W Bush, as the they charge that workers are being treated as virtual slave laborers, a human-rights issue the administration has previously claimed it is dedicated to combating.

The specific allegations are that the new US Embassy compound is being built by trafficked workers from Asia and Africa who were beaten and subjected to squalid living conditions. Former employees of First Kuwaiti General Trading and Contracting Co (FKTC), the contractor building the nearly 42-hectare, US$600 million embassy complex on the Tigris River scheduled for completion next month, are making some of the charges....

With the advantage of hindsight, this scandal was inevitable. Articles about First Kuwaiti's problems with workers it has hired are not new. Such groups as Corpwatch, based in California, have been reporting on its problems for years.

In fact, many observers wonder how FKTC got the $592-million contract in the first place. It was awarded to it by the US State Department in the summer of 2005. Many of its competitors, such as Framaco, Parsons, Fluor and the Sandi Group, which have established track records for building secure embassies or large-scale construction projects, were viewed as possessing far stronger experience. Many contractors believe that a high-level decision was made to favor a Kuwait-based firm in appreciation for that country's support of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. MORE>>>>>>>


http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IH02Ak01.html

Everyday I keep realizing how much more evil these people truly are.

Every time they get caught, it's always the same response: It was an oversight... a few mid to low level people get busted... and they just do it again.

Too tired to search, but may tomorrow. As I recall there were several slaves that escaped and reported the crimes. Held against their wills, abused...

Sadly, this isn't a new development; it's an expansion of an older practice there by the US contractors.

>begin rant<
Damn, I just feel prouder and prouder to be an American with each new atro, er, day that unfolds.

What hurts the most is hearing my 73 yo mother saying it. She taught me America meant goodness and fairness and freedom; now she is worried that I'll be taken away in the night and that *'s War will take her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

>end of rant<

the down spot and start going up. I just can not understand this place they are building in Iraq. No reason I can see but maybe it will be used as a center of our power in the Middle East. That is turning out to be a very big joke. maybe some one just needed to clean up on a big profit so building anything came into play.Paying little for out sider to do work seems to be a 'thing' in the Middle East.

"The Justice Department has also launched a preliminary inquiry into these allegations, just to see if they warrant any further investigation." :eyes:

That's all we could muster? We're such slackers. :sarcasm:

Apparently stories like this aren't a priority here at DU, with so many other issues that need attention.

"same anemic repsonse" a couple of weeks back.

It was triggered by Pelosi posting the issue as a YouTube link to her website as if it was news. The only thing that was new was that it was acually discussed
after all this time : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evRPwwyno_c

I emailed her on the link on her site and got a message back saying that unless I was in her district to email whatever at the WH and got no response.

The links to the hearings are here : http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=NancyPelosi&p=r&page=3

From 6 months ago there's this : http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13258

Now go back to Oct. '06 and read this : http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/65/23418

etc, etc,.......................

Now check this which I'll post in videos too : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC1L03CFlrw Doncha just hate cheap unorganised labor.

The repubs have come full circle.

They are just getting in shape to do the same thing at home.

The days of sweatshops run rampant are going to return with a vengeance.

Test bed for the New World Order.


Coming to your neighborhood soon.

and doing it with slave labor is a criminal.

Nothing good will ever come of it. It already enrages Iraqis who live in squalor and under the most unsafe conditions since the occupation. It's a reminder what they've been reduced to. :grr:

been had for the cost of that place. Hell, we could armor vest the whole country and go to war with the world. :crazy:

This has been an announcement from the ministry of peace. your new newspeak is in the mail, now get back to work Prol! All hail big brother! we have always been at war with eurasia!

Robert Parry reported this is his book "Fooling America". One of their kids brought his slave over to the US and their guide, an American named Robert Sensi had to tell the nasty little prick to quit beating his slave which would cause a PR prob. :eyes:

Come on, is anyone -- ANYONE? -- truly surprized that the Bush misadministration would use slave labor to build its fortress of fascism in Iraq?

This is merely a precursor to what Bush and his thugs and cronies would like to do to the American labor force.

Some days I just want to scream.

KBR, the Kuwaitis, the Bush family, the Saudis, and Darth Cheney.

it comes down once again to the ethnicticity of who the laborer is. God this is so sad.