Replies to post #28779 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[F6]

(COMTEX) B: 8 Nations Added to Human Trafficking List ( AP Online )

WASHINGTON, Jun 03, 2005 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- Four U.S. allies in the
Middle East are among countries added to a State Department list of nations that
are not doing enough to stop international human trafficking, a practice the
department described as modern-day slavery.

The State Department on Friday said 14 countries could be subject to sanctions
because they are not cracking down on trafficking. Eight countries were new to
the list: Bolivia, Cambodia, Jamaica, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Togo and the
United Arab Emirates.

"Trafficking in human beings is nothing less than a modern form of slavery,"
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said as she released the report.

Saudi Arabia is a key U.S. ally whose de facto leader, Crown Prince Abdullah,
visited President Bush at his Texas ranch in April. Kuwait, Qatar and the United
Arab Emirates also are allies, and the United States maintains an important
military base in Qatar.

An estimated 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked across international
borders annually, the report said. Eighty percent are female and 50 percent are
children.

Human trafficking is driven by poverty, corruption, poor education and other
factors on the supply side, the report said. Trafficking serves demands for
cheap or forced labor, soldiers, prostitutes and the child sex trade, the report
said.

"The child sold by his parents to the owner of a brick kiln on the outskirts of
his rural Indian village is a trafficking victim," the report said. "So is the
Mexican man who legally or illegally migrates to the United States only to be
beaten by his agricultural crew leader to keep him from leaving the job."

The annual "Trafficking in Persons" report examines trafficking problems in 150
countries. It is aimed at raising public awareness of the global trafficking
problem and encouraging governments to combat it.

Countries that were previously on the list and remain there this year are
Myanmar, Cuba, Ecuador, North Korea, Sudan and Venezuela.

Countries that fail to do enough to eliminate human trafficking can be subject
to a variety of punishments, including the withholding of some kinds of U.S.
foreign aid. The United States will not cut off trade and humanitarian aid, the
report said.

Countries that receive no such assistance can be declared ineligible to taker
part in cultural and educational exchange programs.

Countries that were on the list in 2004 and have been removed from this year's
list are Bangladesh, Equatorial Guinea, Guyana and Sierra Leone.

Congress began requiring the annual reports in 2000. This is the fifth report.

The United States spends $96 million to help other countries combat trafficking,
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wrote in a forward to the report.

By ANNE GEARAN
AP Diplomatic Writer

Copyright 2005 Associated Press, All rights reserved

-0-

*** end of story ***

[F6 comment -- hmmm -- somehow or other, they forgot to add the U.S.
to that list (see the post to which this post is a reply . . .)]

[StephanieVanbryce]

. . that is one of your posts that I kept .. with a note. my note simply said OMG. It's interesting now, isn't it ?

Schroen said Afghan warlords like Gen. Rashid Dostum were among those who
received bundles of notes. "It may be that we were giving rewards to people like
Dostum because his guys were capturing a lot of Taliban and al-Qaida," he said. [ http://www.rewardsforjustice.net ]

I'm going to REpost here your UPDATE on "General Dostum" from 2009.

Obama Reopens Massacre Investigation Obstructed By Bush



Laura Dean | HuffPost Reporting
First Posted: 08-24-09 10:41 AM | Updated: 08-24-09 11:05 AM

For eight years, the Bush administration obstructed investigations into a massacre carried out in the name of Americans in Dasht-e-Leili, Afghanistan.

Earlier this month, a representative from Physicians for Human Rights, the group that originally brought the incident to the attention of the Bush White House, met with officials from the new administration, which has reopened the investigation into the incident.

The massacre dates back to 2001. Two months after the September 11th attacks, in a rural corner of Northern Afghanistan, thousands of alleged Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters surrendered to a coalition of United States Special Forces and Afghan forces led by the notoriously brutal warlord, General Abdul Rashid Dostum. They were told they would not be harmed. Soon after, they were stacked into metal shipping containers to be transported to a nearby prison. As numerous reports since 2002 have made clear, in increasingly gruesome detail, hundreds of prisoners never made it to the prison; they suffocated in the airless containers beneath the bodies of fellow prisoners -- and were interred in an unmarked mass grave.

The Bush White House thwarted inquiry into the incident on three separate occasions and terminated a Department of Justice investigation that involved survivors of the incident interned at Guantanamo Bay. By contrast, the inquiry President Obama has commissioned could result in war crimes charges.

Meanwhile, General Dostum, the warlord who by all accounts oversaw the massacre, returned to Afghanistan from an 18-month exile in Turkey last weekend, just four days before the Afghan elections took place. His return and reinstatement in the Karzai government sends a worrisome message given that any investigation into the Dasht-e-Leili incident must be authorized by the Afghan government.

"The only course of action, is to let the FBI finish the investigation they tried to begin at Guantanamo in 2002," said Nathanial Raymond, Director of PHR's Campaign Against Torture. Such an undertaking will require cooperation at many levels both in Washington and on the ground in Afghanistan.

Though the incident occurred at the beginning of the war, it is by no means ancient history. In 2002, the Guardian confirmed reports [ http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/nov/18/afghanistan.unitednations ] that witnesses to the events at Dasht-e-Leili were being systematically threatened, murdered and disappeared. Since then, neither the United States nor the Afghan government have intervened to protect witnesses and their families who remain in significant danger, according to PHR.

In 2006, PHR requested certain documents related to the Dasht-e-Leili case under the Freedom of Information Act. Within a month of this request, after almost five years of lying untouched, satellite imaging revealed that the site had been tampered with.

"All [we] know is that the satellite imagery shows what appears to be a hydraulic excavator and a dump truck. We don't know who was driving it we don't know what they took and we don't know where they took it."

"Dasht-e-Leili is a microcosm of the larger challenge facing the Obama administration [and the question] facing the US, are we serious about abiding by our international and domestic obligations to the rule of law?" Raymond said. "Dasht-e-Leili presents a moment for the Obama administration to demonstrate to the rest of the world that we will ensure that the law applies to everyone.".

Copyright © 2009 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/24/obama-restarts-massacre-i_n_265455.html [with comments]

YOU posted this here
[ http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=40868973 ]