disrupter
09-20-2007, 01:45 AM
August 01, 2007
Philippines Investigates Claims of Workers in Iraq
The Philippine government launched a full-throttle investigation this week into claims of labor trafficking and smuggling made against the Kuwait contractor building the $592-million US embassy project in Baghdad. The move comes in despite of repeated statements by Bush administration officials and the contractor that the allegations are unfounded.http://www.davidphinney.com/pages/2007/08/congressional_h.php
One of the planes carried 51 Filipino workers who believed in March 2006 that they were headed to Dubai for jobs in hotels, according Rory Mayberry, an emergency medical technician under contract to First Kuwaiti. Mayberry said the workers had no idea that they were being flown directly flown to Baghdad until after the plane left Kuwait
John Owens, an American labor foreman for the embassy project who boarded a different First Kuwaiti flight, related a story similar to Mayberry’s during his own testimony:
When flying from Kuwait to Baghdad, I saw a bunch of workers with tickets to Dubai. Mine was the only one that said Baghdad. When I asked the First Kuwaiti manager, he said -- “Shhh, don’t say anything. If Kuwaiti customs knows they’re going to Iraq, they won’t let them on the plane.” When we landed, these workers were taken away in busses.
During the July 26 congressional hearing, the State Department's inspector general, Howard J. Krongard, said he visited the Baghdad embassy site last September after hearing allegations of worker abuse and possibly trafficking.
Krongard told US lawmakers that he gave the First Kuwaiti advance warning. During his September 15 visit, Krongard said he interviewed six workers selected by the contractor to gather information about the allegations but reported that :Nothing came to our attention" to substantiate the claims.
Other former workers at the embassy site told IraqSlogger in May that if Krongard visited earlier than last September and unannounced, he may have witnessed something very different.
"Most of the allegations (from the Americans) were true before he arrived," claimed Juvencio Lopez, a high-level project manager under the US State Department over the course of 2 years. During a telephone interview.... 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 recalled a First Kuwaiti security guard unholstering his 9mm handgun and walking among the squatting protestors telling them to get back to work.
Krongard herd about human trafficking & labor complaints at the US embassy building.
Instead of sending an impartial State department employee, he oddly, flew there himself & conducted the investigation. He gave the alleged criminal company advanced notice that he was coming, allowing them time to clean up their act or at least put on a good show.
He only interviewed people that the contractor chose for him to interview.
Krongard is complicit in covering up human trafficking.
He belongs in prison.
Philippines Investigates Claims of Workers in Iraq
The Philippine government launched a full-throttle investigation this week into claims of labor trafficking and smuggling made against the Kuwait contractor building the $592-million US embassy project in Baghdad. The move comes in despite of repeated statements by Bush administration officials and the contractor that the allegations are unfounded.http://www.davidphinney.com/pages/2007/08/congressional_h.php
One of the planes carried 51 Filipino workers who believed in March 2006 that they were headed to Dubai for jobs in hotels, according Rory Mayberry, an emergency medical technician under contract to First Kuwaiti. Mayberry said the workers had no idea that they were being flown directly flown to Baghdad until after the plane left Kuwait
John Owens, an American labor foreman for the embassy project who boarded a different First Kuwaiti flight, related a story similar to Mayberry’s during his own testimony:
When flying from Kuwait to Baghdad, I saw a bunch of workers with tickets to Dubai. Mine was the only one that said Baghdad. When I asked the First Kuwaiti manager, he said -- “Shhh, don’t say anything. If Kuwaiti customs knows they’re going to Iraq, they won’t let them on the plane.” When we landed, these workers were taken away in busses.
During the July 26 congressional hearing, the State Department's inspector general, Howard J. Krongard, said he visited the Baghdad embassy site last September after hearing allegations of worker abuse and possibly trafficking.
Krongard told US lawmakers that he gave the First Kuwaiti advance warning. During his September 15 visit, Krongard said he interviewed six workers selected by the contractor to gather information about the allegations but reported that :Nothing came to our attention" to substantiate the claims.
Other former workers at the embassy site told IraqSlogger in May that if Krongard visited earlier than last September and unannounced, he may have witnessed something very different.
"Most of the allegations (from the Americans) were true before he arrived," claimed Juvencio Lopez, a high-level project manager under the US State Department over the course of 2 years. During a telephone interview.... 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 recalled a First Kuwaiti security guard unholstering his 9mm handgun and walking among the squatting protestors telling them to get back to work.
Krongard herd about human trafficking & labor complaints at the US embassy building.
Instead of sending an impartial State department employee, he oddly, flew there himself & conducted the investigation. He gave the alleged criminal company advanced notice that he was coming, allowing them time to clean up their act or at least put on a good show.
He only interviewed people that the contractor chose for him to interview.
Krongard is complicit in covering up human trafficking.
He belongs in prison.