Venezuela Mayor Is Accused of U.S.-Backed Coup Plot

[JonLP24]

76. A lot of what Blackwater does is subcontracted or operating under different names

Last edited Mon Feb 23, 2015, 09:29 AM - Edit history (5)

Academi is an American private military company, founded in 1997 by Erik Prince.[2][3] Formerly known as Blackwater,[4] the company was renamed Xe Services in 2009, and "Academi" in 2011.[5] The company was purchased in late 2010 by a group of private investors who changed the name to Academi and instituted a board of directors and new senior management. Prince retained the rights to the name Blackwater and has no affiliation with Academi. The company received widespread publicity in 2007, when a group of its employees killed 17 Iraqi civilians and injured 20 in Nisour Square, Baghdad.[6][7]

Academi continues to provide security services to the United States federal government on a contractual basis. The Obama administration contracted the group to provide services for the CIA for $250 million.[8] In 2013, Academi subsidiary International Development Solutions received an approximately $92 million contract for State Department security guards.[9]

In 2014, the company became a division of Constellis Holdings along with Triple Canopy and other security companies that were part of the Constellis Group as the result of an acquisition.[10][11]

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Board of directors

Red McCombs (chairman)[56]
John Ashcroft[56]
Dean Bosacki[56]
Jason DeYonker[56]
Bobby Ray Inman[56]
Jack Quinn[56]
Russ Robinson[56]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academi#Board_of_directors

Halliburton & KBR are responsible for numerous human slavery & trafficking violations

Long-running debates over military privatization overlook one important fact: The U.S.
military’s post-2001 contractor workforce is composed largely of migrants imported
from impoverished countries. This Article argues that these Third Country National
(TCN) workers—so called because they are neither American nor local—are bereft of
the effective protections of American law, local regimes, or their home governments;
moreover, their vulnerability is a feature, not a flaw, in how the U.S. projects global
power today. TCN workers are an offshore captive labor force whose use allows the
government to keep politically sensitive troop numbers and casualty figures artificially
low while reducing dependence on local populations with suspect loyalties. Legislation
to combat human trafficking has done little to remedy exploitation and abuse of TCN
workers because of jurisdictional hurdles and the lack of robust labor rights protections.
Substantive reform efforts should address the deeper issue at stake, namely that the
government uses TCN workers to carry out a core state function—namely, the use of
force—without a clear relationship of responsibility to them. Unlike with soldiers, the
labor of TCN workers is not valorized as sacrifice and unlike mercenaries selling their
services to the highest bidder, they are frequently indebted to the point of indenture.

http://www.uclalawreview.org/pdf/62-1-3.pdf

(After reading the A B C on part 1 of 3 I 100x recommend reading the entire study)

Most I have personally talked to came from India, Nepal, countries in Africa (I can't remember which specific ones), Phillipines.

Corp Watch & Al-Jazeera have the best reporting I've found regarding this

Blood, Sweat & Tears:
Asia’s Poor Build U.S. Bases in Iraq

But Soliman wouldn’t be making anything near the salaries starting at $80,000 a year and often topping more than $100,000 paid to truck drivers, construction workers, office workers and other laborers recruited in the United States by Halliburton’s subsidiary, KBR. Instead, the 35-year-old father of two looked forward to earning $615 a month – including overtime. For a 40-hour work week, that’s just over $3 an hour, but Soliman made even less. He says the standard work week was 12-hour days, seven days a week, so he was actually earning $1.56 an hour.

For a year’s work, Soliman would receive $7,380. He planned to send most of his paychecks home to his family, where the combined unemployment rate tops 28 percent and the average annual income in Manila is $4,384. Nearly half of the nation's 84 million people live on less than $2 a day, according to the World Bank.

Invisible and Indispensable Army of Low-Paid Workers

This mostly invisible, but indispensable army of low-paid workers has helped set new records for the largest civilian workforce ever hired in support of a U.S. war. They may be the most significant factor to the Pentagon’s argument that privatizing military support services is far more cost-efficient for the U.S. taxpayer than using its own troops to maintain camps and feed its ranks.

But American contractors returning home frequently share horrible tales of the working and living conditions that these TCNs endure on a daily basis.

TCNs frequently sleep in crowded trailers, wait outside in line in 100 degree heat to eat “slop,” lack adequate medical care and work almost every waking hour seven days a week for little or no overtime pay. Frequently, the workers lack proper safety equipment for hard labor

And when insurgents fire incoming mortars and rockets at the sprawling military camps, American contractors slip on helmets and bulletproof vests, but TCNs are frequently shielded by only the shirts on their backs and the flimsy trailers they sleep in.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12675

IRAQ: Indian Contract Workers in Iraq Complain of Exploitation

For an $1,800 fee, the recruiter promised to get the two young south Indian men jobs as butchers on a military base in Kuwait for two years, they said. With salaries of $385 a month, a small fortune by Indian standards, they would join more than three million Indians already working in the Persian Gulf and enriching their families back home.

They mortgaged a relative's house and land, paid the fee and flew to Kuwait in August with two of their friends. What they say they encountered when they got there landed on the front pages of Indian newspapers this week, with one headline declaring "Indians Abused in Iraq" in "U.S. Slave Camps."

Within days, the brothers said, they and their friends found themselves on an American military base in northern Iraq working for a Saudi subcontractor of Kellogg, Brown & Root, or KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton. They said their supervisor, who had taken their passports in Kuwait, told them they were obligated to work on the base for six months and could not leave.

Working alongside 200 other laborers, from India, the Philippines and Sri Lanka, they first cleaned American latrines and then washed American dishes, the brothers said. Their pay was roughly $150 a month, they said, less than half of what the recruiter had promised.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12675

I post that article to post this was one, 12 years after the start of the Iraq war.

South Asian workers are at the bottom of the social hierarchy on U.S. bases. They earn far less than American or European contractors, work 12-hour days with little or no time off and, on some bases, aren’t allowed to use cellphones or speak to military personnel. On the base we visited, Camp Marmal, most were surprised and nervous when we approached them, concerned that talking to journalists could get them in trouble. One young man’s face contorted in terror when asked whether he had paid a recruiting fee. He shook his head no, fearful of any reprisals. “To come here, you have to use an agent,” another worker told us. “There is no other way. So we pay money to come.”

An agent is a person from a recruitment agency hired to find laborers for a company — in this case, the subcontractor. Sindhu Kavinamannil, a certified fraud examiner who has investigated labor networks between India and the Middle East, says there are tens of thousands of recruitment agencies in India and Nepal, the majority of them unregistered. They might be headquartered in large cities, she adds, but they each have hundreds of agents and subagents spread out across small towns and villages.

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Why would a company outsource hiring when it receives direct applications? “Employees at the subcontractor are taking kickbacks from these agents,” the former manager told us. “They tell the workers to apply through the agent, and the agent gets money from (the workers). The agent splits some of that fee with the people in human resources.”

In other words, because taking fees from applicants is illegal, subcontractors outsource hiring to recruiters who are willing to pass a portion of their fees up the chain. As a result, applicants who pay recruiting fees are often indirectly paying their employer — the subcontractor — simply for the opportunity to work.

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/3/7/after-12-years-ofwarlaborabusesrampantonusbasesinafghanistan.html

The reason why it is illegal because of this executive order but the "zero tolerance" claims in it are laughable.

(i) using misleading or fraudulent recruitment practices during the recruitment of employees, such as failing to disclose basic information or making material misrepresentations regarding the key terms and conditions of employment, including wages and fringe benefits, the location of work, living conditions and housing (if employer provided or arranged), any significant costs to be charged to the employee, and, if applicable, the hazardous nature of the work;

(ii) charging employees recruitment fees;

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/09/25/executive-order-strengthening-protections-against-trafficking-persons-fe

Al-Jazeera has reports on that, usually there is a "screening question" but if a TCN answers the did they pay recruitment fee honestly the contractor terminates them so many lie because they need that year's salary to make back what they paid to "bait & switch" recruiters.

On edit -- The "butcher" listing is obviously false given that dining facilities have a short order line & main course, that varies. For some reason Lobster is served once a week. CSC Scania had "Fajita Tuesdays", most of the food is stored/heated. TCNs I had the pleasure of "supervising" (Military was tasked keeping tabs on the cooking temperatures but we actually only used the gauge maybe once every 10 (Dinner - Midnight - Breakfast --worked the night shift here though I hear lunch is notoriously difficult) in the Zone 2 DFAC in Camp Arif Jan, Kuwait. TCNs prepared & ate curry during the down times. I tried it once, incredibly spicy. They did all the cleaning, refiling & mixing of beverage dispensers all without ever being directed or ordered too, got along with them great which is far more than I can say about Civilian contractors & enforcing DFAC rules which were very strict (couldn't allow people take ice cream outside with them during the summer time--likely an explanation in how it relates to germs is the logical explanation given that we had to watch people coming in & order those to return to the hand washing station to those who skipped it. I'll never forget the "GS-7" I told to wash his hands. No one took offense over my regulations enforcement nearly as much as he did and that includes a WO 3 who gave me props for having the courage to tell him he is taking far too many Gatorade packets.

Out of curiousity I decided to look up his "GS-7 is the equivalent of Colonel" claims

The GS-1 through GS-7 range generally marks entry-level positions

Given that Colonels in the US Army routinely outrank Battalion Commanders I wonder a little more about him who asked my NCOIC "what if a Colonel walked in here?" "He would tell the Colonel to go back & wash his hands" These DFAC rules applied to everyone though no one fucked with the 3 Star Marine General who left his soft cap on the table at breakfast every morning.