So who the hell are GEO anyway?
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.
