Slavery is alive and well in the USA

[Auxin]

‘Kidnapped’ Filipinos build US embassy

An American civilian contractor has described scenes of panic and hysteria last year as Filipino construction workers were told that they were on a plane bound for Baghdad rather than Dubai.

Passengers jumped out of their seats screaming in protest until a gun-toting air steward ordered them to sit down, claimed Rory Mayberry, an emergency medical technician travelling on the same flight.

Mayberry said the men were “kidnapped” to build America’s luxurious new embassy in Baghdad’s green zone. He gave his account to a congressional committee investigating allegations of fraud at what will be America’s largest diplomatic mission.

The £300m fortified embassy - a cluster of 21 high-rise towers occupying 104 acres on the west bank of the River Tigris - will house 3,000 staff. It is regarded as one of the most dangerous building projects in the world.

Mayberry, who worked briefly at the site, testified that he accompanied 51 Filipino workers who thought they were going to construct hotels in Dubai until 10 minutes into their flight.

In March 2006 Mayberry and the Filipinos boarded a plane in Kuwait chartered for First Kuwaiti General Trading and Contracting - the company in charge of the massive project.

Mayberry described the anger that ensued when the men realised they had been tricked and were not bound for Dubai as their boarding passes stated.

“When the plane took off and the captain announced we were headed for Baghdad, all you-know-what broke loose. People started shouting. It wasn’t until a security guy working for First Kuwaiti waved an MP5 [sub-machinegun] in the air that people settled down. They realised they had no choice,” he said.

“Let me spell it out clearly. I were being smuggled past US security forces.”

Mayberry said he remembered one passenger telling him how excited he was about his new job in the United Arab Emir-ates as a telephone repair man. Instead the men found themselves on a construction site in appalling conditions, living in cramped trailers.

His claims were backed by John Owens, an architectural expert with experience on US embassy projects. “When flying from Kuwait to Baghdad, I saw a bunch of workers with tickets to Dubai. Mine was the only one that said Baghdad,” he said.

“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’.”

Owens testified that conditions in the camp were “deplorable, beyond what any man should tolerate”. Workers from Asia and west Africa were paid between £120-£150 a month for working 12 hours a day, seven days a week, he claimed.

Congressman Henry Wax-man, Democratic chairman of the House oversight committee investigating the claims, said: “The project has been beset by allegations that the prime contractor, First Kuwaiti, has used forced labour to build the embassy, violating the laws against human trafficking and sending exactly the wrong message to Iraq and the rest of the world about US respect for human rights.”

First Kuwaiti denied any wrongdoing. A spokesman said: “As demonstrated in the hearing, these claims have been investigated by the inspector-general of the US Department of State and the multinational Force-Iraq, both of whom had verified that First Kuwaiti is not involved in labour trafficking.”

Howard Krongard, the State Department inspector general who visited the site in September, said he found no evidence to back the contractors’ allegations, but admitted his investigation was “limited in scope” and acknowledged the company had three months’ notice of his visit.

An earlier Pentagon investigation into contractors operating in Iraq said it had identified abuses, some of which were “widespread”. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the Philippines president, has ordered a team to go to the Middle East to investigate.

Link

[jasemateau]

slavery is every where. if thats how you want to see it.

its not slavery if they sign up for it.

i've personaly met indains in kuwait working for 70 kuwaiti dinars a month, which equates to something like AUD$50 a week.

these maids will live in the house, in a tiny room with 2 other maids. they would cook clean, polish almost every surface in the house if not daily every second day. but these people were happy to send this money home every month, and eat the familys food, and just meet on the street once a week to talk to other indians..

the population from memory in kuwait is 2 million, yet there is only 800,000 natives, the other 1.2 million residents are either egyptian or indian. i can tell you you can not walk through the SEA of indians on a sunday afternoon. they all meet on the one street and just talk.

i truely incredable site.

slavery is only slavery if it's viewed from our perspective. however these people are the happiest pricks on earth simply because they are putting rice in there families mouths at home. it may not be much but whats a person to do with no education???????

how much rice could you buy with 50 bucks a week? even in oz?

and dont tell me no- one has ever thought dang i wish someone would just do damn the dishes for me. or the damn washing.........

besides the amercans designed the whole slavery issue, where do you nikes come from? for a basic example.

if you want to talk about slavery the people who refuse to get work, just to support there own mouths are slaveing the tax system, and who pays that bill?????

the people who will work. and yet if you work all your life now, the government wont support us any more.

we are all slaves to the frigging tax system.

hence the reason i try to get a work in a tax free environment. but they are soooo hard to find

oh yeah i'm a prick to all those who dont work, but hey i dont like work either somedays, but i still face it.

too sad is'nt it

[Auxin]

I think you mabe have missed the hole kidnapped at gunpoint and forced to work in a war zone bit.

I fully understand that sweatshops are not the worst thing in the world to some people who desperately need money, and yes sweatshops are usually consentual. The definition of slavery though is forced labor for little or no money, as portrayed in the above article.

[jasemateau]

nah they were told at gun point after flight had taken off that they were going to iraq.

means they were aware they had signed a stupid contract for labouring company (with holding information)

they consented to something, may not not have been iraq.

hell for all we know the poor dudes got told they going to build american buildings and thats it...........

just forgot to mention the location of the buildings..

so they could have easily thought oh great were going to america, oh we must get our visa when we arrive.

it could have been worse.....

imagine if they actually worked in say somewhere liker Jersey off the french coast. building somthing over there, and only getting 150 pounds a months, the poor dudes could'nt even rent a room for 50 pounds a week, and eat what? pay the bills with what? talk to you family when?

frezzing thier tits off at work.

well atleast they lived in a beautiful spot tho

it is a crazy issue, but i do think the media has sensationalized it a bit. but hey thats what sells papers right!!!!!!!!

got to sell more papers to get the %70 after tax, then we will have more money to divid up at the end of the year for the damn CEO and all his clowns, then the share holders.

damn tax man!!!!

lol

Edited August 6, 2007 by jasemateau

[Legba]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of...Iraq_since_2003

About 900 civilian deaths and 13 000 civilian injuries since 2003 according to the above site. No one would voluntarily go into that shit-fight for $1 an hour. If these people signed contracts with some company and are being forced to stick to the contract by gunpoint, i'd consider that a breach of their basic rights as humans.

Basic human rights don't seem to be a consideration in this case.