yet another blog

Apparently, according to their website, “The GEO Group UK Ltd., is a wholly owned subsidiary of The GEO Group, Inc.” which, according to Sourcewatch, was set up as a division of The Wackenhut Corporation.
And that, again according to Sourcewatch, is a subsidiary of the UK-based G4S (formerly Group 4 Securicor).
Now G4S was in turn formed from a merger of Securicor and Group 4 A/S (er… here we go again… that was formerly Group 4 Falck).

Of all these Wackenhut is an especially interesting entity. According to an article by John Connolly writing in “Spy” magazine in September 1992 the Wackenhut Corporation has been involved in all sorts of dirty doings. As retired FBI agent William Hinshaw has said “It is known throughout the industry that if you want a dirty job done, call Wackenhut.”

These dirty doings apparently embraced such things as maintaining files on antiwar protesters and civil rights demonstrators. In 1966 it claimed to have “the largest privately held file on suspected dissidents in America”, with details on more than four million names.
And a very dubious relationship with the CIA with suggestions that Wackenhut would undertake covert and sometimes illegal overseas operations when the CIA needed some sort of “cover”. Operations like the illegal shipments of nuclear and chemical weapons-making supplies to Iraq, in which Wackenhut is rumoured to have been involved.
(The supply of which being of course one of the less-publicised reasons why the warmongers were so certain Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Hell, they supplied the bloody means for making them in the first place! But that’s another story entirely.)

With a heritage such as this, what of the integrity of GEO itself then?
Not so good seemingly.
According to the Dallas Morning News of 25th October 2008:

Jail firm indicted in inmate’s slaying

McALLEN, Texas – A Florida private prison company has been indicted in South Texas on a murder charge in the death of a prisoner days before his release.

The indictment alleges the GEO Group allowed inmates to beat Gregorio de la Rosa Jr. to death with padlocks in socks in 2001 at the Raymondville facility. Calls to the GEO Group and the Willacy County district attorney’s office were not immediately returned Friday. In 2006, a jury ordered the firm to pay Mr. de la Rosa’s family $47.5 million in a civil judgment.

Hmm.

So what’s with all this sudden interest I appear to have acquired in what’s clearly a very dodgy (and heavily American-influenced… yucch!) “security” firm?

All down to good old Indymedia again, in which I read that:

However on 29 June Harmonsworth Removals Center [sic] became a lot more like Guantanamo Bay. Management of the facility was taken over by the private prison and concentration camp corporation GEO; the evil people who run Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

What?

Or, perhaps more aptly, WTF?!!!

Just excuse me a moment whilst I take a break to indulge some choice expletives that are far too rich to repeat in this ‘ere blog.

******* @@@@@@ xxxxxxx *****

Ahh… that’s better. Now, where was I?

Oh yes, GEO taking over the running of one of our “Removals Centres”. The sort of facility that has, so I believe, been the target of the “NoBorders” campaign for quite some time now.

I have to confess its not a campaign that has particularly attracted my interest very much in the past. A lack of interest born, I suspect, of ignorance on my part.
Ignorance of the issues involved and, until very recently, of the abuses that seem to occur within the walls of these so-called “detention” and “removals” centres.

Which is all a bit strange really (my former lack of interest, that is) given that there’s one of these “immigration removal centres” (Yarl’s Wood to be precise) little more than a stone’s throw from my own locality.

Now I have to confess, even in light of my recently-acquired knowledge, that I’m still a bit ambivalent about the political (or perhaps “philosophical” is a more accurate term?) issues involved in the “immigration debate”. But about one thing I’m absolutely clear… that the mistreatment and abuse of people detained in these centres  is a total no-no… regardless of whether such detention be considered just or not.
That alone would probably be sufficient to stir me into taking a rather more active interest in the whole matter.

But learning that our supposedly State-run facilities are in the hands of a bunch of thugs ultimately under the influence of a bloody American corporation with such a disturbing track record is pretty much guaranteed to arouse my ire.

And if that did somehow manage not to do the trick, learning that this is the same corporation (or an offshoot thereof) that’s involved with Guantanamo Bay certainly would.

Bastards!

And just what the hell is our Government thinking of, having dealings with such a dodgy outfit? An outfit that’s clearly driven by nothing other than the profit motive, with no conscience or morality at all and little concern for legalities. Sub-contracting out to this bunch of hired muscle can hardly be described as an ethical choice, now can it?

Shit! Its so unbelievable I almost wish I’d remained in ignorance.

It all just reinforces the sentiments I expressed a few weeks back.

Share this...

Hide Sites

My, hasn’t it been a busy few weeks in the State’s campaign of “keeping the People down”.

Most of it, admittedly, sparked off by the death of Ian Tomlinson during the G20 protests at the beginning of this month. And the revelations about the Met’s attempts to cover up the real facts (with, it has to be said, a little help from the IPCC, the supposedly “independent” Police Complaints Commission) after the style of the de Menezes cover-up.
The initial lies about police attempts to “help him” being thwarted by protesters. And the lies about the cause of death (resulting from a really hasty post-mortem examination conducted by a right dodgy-seeming pathologist). Ok. Conceivably, just conceivably, those “lies” could be (if we’re really charitable) attributed to a desire on the part of the cops to keep the public informed in a timely fashion. And undoubtedly that’s the spin they’ll eventually put on it. But I think not somehow. Speaks to me much more of a panicked response of attempting to hide their own wrongdoings.

That we have the mainstream Guardian to thank for most of these revelations sticks in my craw a little bit. But hey, if one of the mainstream platforms hadn’t picked it up in truth its unlikely to have received the widespread attention it so rightly deserves. Or that “attention” would have painted a wholly different picture.

Anyway, that whole sorry mess led on to some serious questions being asked about the ubiquitous police tactic of “kettling”, whereby a whole bunch of folk are herded into a confined area for a number of hours and, not being allowed to leave, are periodically subjected to various forms of cop nastiness.

Then, just to keep things interesting, another cop gets suspended for assaulting a woman simply because (so it would appear at the moment) she didn’t immediately “obey his order” to move back, and was a bit mouthy in protesting against the violence of the… er… cops.
Well, excuse me whilst I indulge a momentary apoplectic episode.

If we really did live in an ideal society where the cops policed “by public consent” as they so often claim, then perhaps there’d be a reasonable expectation for members of the public to “obey police orders”… not immediately perhaps (after all, the public aren’t exactly highly disciplined and trained to react instantly to a command), but in a reasonably prompt fashion. If we lived in an ideal society. But we don’t. And we certainly don’t live in one where policing is by public consent. Not where that policing so frequently goes so far over the top that the legality of police actions has to be called into question.
So, obey police orders instantly? You’ve gotta be joking. And your reward for not doing so? Your punishment for not being submissive, obedient, responding to the cops with Pavlovian automaticity? A back-handed slap across the face! What does that say about 21st century British policing techniques then?
To my mind it speaks volumes about the systemic police attitude of arrogance and disdain exhibited toward the public at large… the public whose “consent” they invoke whenever it serves their purposes. ‘Scuse me, but someone should point out to them that “consent” elicited by violence isn’t actually consent at all!

Sticking with the G20 protests for the mo’, we then stumble across the much less reported story of the police raids on two convergence centres in London, one of which being rampART (the squatted creative centre and social space). And, surprise surprise! More tales of police brutality and unprovoked violence.

Hard on the heels of all this excitement there’s then that bizarre “pre-emptive” police raid in Nottingham where 114 people are arrested for… er… having a meeting! And a school gets unnecessarily trashed in the process. Local MP Alan Simpson had a few choice words to say on the matter (quite right too) but so far it appears that few connections have been made (not in the mainstream media at least) between this and the previously quoted examples of repressive policing.
Connections that, if made, could well point to the serving of a political agenda rather than a straightfoward “law & order” one. Hmm.

As I said, a busy few weeks. Shame that the real message of the G20 protests appears to have become lost somewhere in the furore though.

And in the midst of it all I happen to spot another (entirely unrelated… probably) interesting little article. One that really deserves far more attention than its likely to receive. About Barack Obama releasing “four top secret memos that allowed the CIA under the Bush administration to torture al-Qaida and other suspects held at Guantánamo and secret detention centres round the world”.
The most interesting thing about it is the revelation that he (Obama) doesn’t intend to pursue prosecutions of those involved, claiming its a “time for reflection, not retribution”. Well well well. So despite all the promise that a glittery new American administration held forth, the reality is its just more of the same old bullshit. And with it bang go their attempts to try to “reclaim” (as if they ever had any) their “moral authority”.

Interesting times we live in.

Share this...

Hide Sites

The deadliest terrorists
The real trade of the CIA and Mossad

By Paul J. Balles*

Paul J. Balles argues that intelligence agencies, like the CIA in America and Mossad in Israel, “should have been prize winners as terrorists” because “in dozens of situations around the world, they have indulged their love of instilling fear in innocent people”.

The USA and Israel both have bad habits of labelling anyone they don’t like as terrorists, when the governments of both countries are the greatest terrorists on the planet.

If the bombing, invasion and occupation of Iraq weren’t terrorism at its worst, it’s only because the deaths of 4098 Americans is a more important statistic than the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians…

The designation of resistance groups in occupied Iraq as terrorists and then calling a murder campaign a surge for the good of Iraq is nothing more than continuing acts of terrorism…

Intelligence agencies, like the CIA in America and Mossad in Israel, should have been prize winners as terrorists. In dozens of situations around the world, they have indulged their love of instilling fear in innocent people, especially if those people have little support or know too much…

Let’s get this straight: resistance to occupation or bullying is not terrorism. It’s resistance. Resistance doesn’t become terrorism because the real terrorists continue their brutal attacks and propaganda campaigns against the resistance. Resistance is resistance. Thank God that some people have the courage to resist.

Read the full article here

It has to be said that the UK’s not far behind either!

Share this...

Hide Sites

9/11 suspect confesses UK targets – Yahoo News UK

The September 11 attacks, the Bali bombing and plots against British targets were among the confessions of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed during a military hearing at Guantanamo Bay.According to a transcript released by the Pentagon, Mohammed said in a statement read during the session: “I was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z,”

This report by the Press Association, read on Yahoo News UK, goes on to say…

Mohammed also claimed he was tortured by the CIA after his capture in 2003 in Pakistan, according to an exchange he had with the military colonel who heads the three-member panel that heard his case.

“Is any statement that you made, was it because of this treatment, to use your word, you claim torture,” the colonel asked. “Do you make any statements because of that?”

Portions of Mohammed’s response were deleted from the transcript, and his immediate answer was unclear. He later said his confession read at the hearing to the long list of attacks was given without any pressure, threats or duress.

Oh come on… how naive can you be! And the media certainly aren’t naive. Cynical, yes. Profit-driven, yes. But naive – no! And, against the background of Mr Mohammed’s earlier remarks concerning torture, the censored parts of his statement, and in the context of the documented abuses at Guantanamo Bay (and indeed the present American regime’s stance on torture) no reasonable person can be left in any doubt that this case is built on very shaky ground.

How then justify the attention-grabbing headline adopted by Yahoo?

Share this...

Hide Sites

I am not a state secret – Los Angeles Times
Having just lost in court, a CIA kidnap victim asks why the U.S. wont admit its error.
By Khaled El-Masri, a German citizen born in Lebanon.
March 3, 2007

ON NEW YEAR’S EVE in 2003, I was seized at the border of Serbia and Macedonia by Macedonian police who mistakenly believed that I was traveling on a false German passport. I was detained incommunicado for more than three weeks. Then I was handed over to the American Central Intelligence Agency and was stripped, severely beaten, shackled, dressed in a diaper, injected with drugs, chained to the floor of a plane and flown to Afghanistan, where I was imprisoned in a foul dungeon for more than four months.

Long after the American government realized that I was an entirely innocent man, I was blindfolded, put back on a plane, flown to Europe and left on a hilltop in Albania — without any explanation or apology for the nightmare that I had endured.

more…

Being somewhat dispassionate I suppose one could observe that Mr el-Masri was fortunate to escape with his life; his captors could so easily have just “finished him off”. After all, its not as though they’re answerable or accountable to anyone, is it? The question almost begs to be asked: why in fact didn’t they do that? For at the very least it would have protected them from adverse exposure. Or is their failure to take the obvious course a deliberate act? A very obvious “thumbing of the nose” at the international community? Or a reminder to the world at large of what they can do, and get away with?

For this is just one more tragic and disheartening story in a very long list.

Without doubt America has long ago forfeited any claim to being a civilised nation, observant of human rights and the Rule of Law.

I despair that they continue to exhibit military and economic supremacy, and wait impatiently for the day that some other country will attain a position whereby the excesses of this rogue nation, clearly intent on world domination, may be checked.

Theoretically of course the United Nations should properly fulfill its role and act as a restraining influence, but in reality who can doubt that were it to attempt to do so then America would be as blithely ignoring of its exhortations as it is of the wellbeing, cultures and interests of all other peoples.

Thus (shameful though the admission may be) I now look with eager anticipation to the likes of China, India, or maybe even a renewed and reinvigorated Russia – not that any of them can be held up as a paragon of human rights and the Rule of Law, but at least they’re viable candidates to redress the balance somewhat; it certainly doesn’t seem that the European Union will ever gets its act together sufficiently to aspire to the role of a second “superpower”.

For clearly having just one “superpower” in the world is a state rather less than desirable.

This, perhaps more than anything else, is the most compelling argument there can be for scrapping all idealistic notions of maintaining a nuclear non-proliferation treaty: every nation really should rush to equip itself with a nuclear capability, if for no other reason than to protect itself against this marauding beast. (The sub-text here of course is that America has yet to take on any nation even half-way capable of mounting a credible defence. Its only skirmish with competent opposing military force was World War II – an involvement it sought to avoid, be it noted. Absent that, like the playground bully, its always picked on what it perceived as weak, defenceless or under-equipped opponents. And we all know of course that the playground bully, despite all the brash bravado and swagger, is at heart a coward. The amazing thing is that in most of these conflicts, despite the perceived “weakness” of the opposition, America’s managed to get its arse kicked. What does that tell us, I wonder – aside from the fact that America is clearly unable to learn from its fiascos?)

But maybe there’s hope, even at this late stage. Read this, from the New York Times…

The Must-Do List
Published: March 4, 2007

The Bush administration’s assault on some of the founding principles of American democracy marches onward despite the Democratic victory in the 2006 elections. The new Democratic majorities in Congress can block the sort of noxious measures that the Republican majority rubber-stamped. But preventing new assaults on civil liberties is not nearly enough.

Five years of presidential overreaching and Congressional collaboration continue to exact a high toll in human lives, America’s global reputation and the architecture of democracy. Brutality toward prisoners, and the denial of their human rights, have been institutionalized; unlawful spying on Americans continues; and the courts are being closed to legal challenges of these practices.

It will require forceful steps by this Congress to undo the damage. A few lawmakers are offering bills intended to do just that, but they are only a start. Taking on this task is a moral imperative that will show the world the United States can be tough on terrorism without sacrificing its humanity and the rule of law.

more…

Share this...

Hide Sites