Skip to main content

Helping Haiti, for a Price -- In These Times

Helping Haiti, for a Price -- In These Times: "Within hours of the earthquake that caused the deaths of an estimated 200,000 Haitians on January 12, U.S.-based private security firms sprang into action.

On January 13, as stories of looting and lawlessness in Port-au-Prince began appearing in news reports, the private security industry member organization the International Peace Operations Association (IPOA) created a new page on its website listing companies “prepared to provide a wide variety of critical relief services to the earthquake’s victims.” Listed firms include Triple Canopy, which last year took over Blackwater Worldwide’s (now called XE) contract to protect U.S. diplomats in Iraq."

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Evidence of torture used in Iraq | Special Reports | Guardian Unlimited Politics

Evidence of torture used in Iraq | Special Reports | Guardian Unlimited Politics : "The Foreign Office says the 'government, including its intelligence and security agencies, never use torture for any purpose' ( MI5 and MI6 to be sued for first time over torture, September 12). The evidence in the public domain from the court martial into the death of Baha Mousa and the serious abuse of 10 other Iraqi civilians is clear in establishing this is not true. UK armed forces went into Iraq with a written policy that allowed hooding, and with a policy of training interrogators to use hooding, stressing and sleep deprivation to gain intelligence. Iraqi civilians were routinely hooded in up to three sandbags - and even old plastic cement bags. When Baha Mousa died in September 2003, partly as a result of abuse while hooded, common sense dictates that at least at that point those in positions of responsibility within the civil service and military would have acted to change the poli...