Do they really care about rape?

[Hannah Bell]

David Isenberg wrote in the Huffington Post that in 1999 DynCorp fired Kathryn Bolkovac, a whistleblower who accused DynCorp employees of "rape and the buying and selling of girls as young as 12.

DynCorp, hired to perform police duties for the UN and aircraft maintenance for the U.S. Army, were implicated in prostituting the children, whereas the company's Bosnia site supervisor filmed himself raping two women. A number of employees were transferred out of the country, but with no legal consequences for them."

Another whistleblower, Ben Johnston was fired after alleging that these girls were kidnapped by DynCorp and trafficked to Bosnia from various countries across Eastern Europe.

Similarly, Isenberg describes a case in 2004 where DynCorp employees in Colombia "distributed a video in which they could be observed sexually violating underage girls from the town of Melgar."

One of the girls shown in the video committed suicide in the aftermath of the video's release.

Despite repeated evidence of DynCorp's engagement in sex trafficking and child prostitution and sex slavery, they have received contracts from the U.S. government continuously since 1951, about $2 billion annually in recent years.

If the Swedish, British and U.S. governments took sex crimes seriously no matter who the perpetrator, we would expect coordinated international efforts to investigate, expose and prosecute DynCorp for these allegations of engaging in the trafficking of minors for sex slavery on multiple continents.

And U.S. diplomats would be pushing for the U.S. to stop giving DynCorp lucrative multibillion-dollar contracts, rather than being exposed by WikiLeaks for helping to cover up these crimes.

But for the U.S. government and other powers, imperial might is a goal that trumps women's rights any and every day, as evidenced by the crisis levels of rape and sexual assault against women in the U.S. military, routinely covered up.

http://socialistworker.org/2010/12/14/do-they-really-care-about-rape

[dkf]

1. This makes the charges against Assange even more sick.

This is all backwards.

[noise]

2. Another double standard

I'm not even sure the government is truly outraged about the leak of some diplomatic cables. AFAIK that is a show for the public to pave the way for some more police state legislation. After all, what are some embarrassing diplomatic cables to the crowd who bullshitted the country into an invasion/occupation of Iraq?

[leftstreet]

3. Anyone remember when McKinney went after Rumsfeld about DynCorp?

On March 11th 2005, McKinney grilled Secretary Rumsfeld and General Myers on the Dyncorp scandal.


“Mr. Secretary, I watched President Bush deliver a moving speech at the United Nations in September 2003, in which he mentioned the crisis of the sex trade. The President called for the punishment of those involved in this horrible business. But at the very moment of that speech, DynCorp was exposed for having been involved in the buying and selling of young women and children. While all of this was going on, DynCorp kept the Pentagon contract to administer the smallpox and anthrax vaccines, and is now working on a plague vaccine through the Joint Vaccine Acquisition Program. Mr. Secretary, is it policy of the U.S. Government to reward companies that traffic in women and little girls?”



The response and McKinney’s comeback was as follows.

Rumsfeld: “Thank you, Representative. First, the answer to your first question is, is, no, absolutely not, the policy of the United States Government is clear, unambiguous, and opposed to the activities that you described. The second question.”

McKinney: “Well how do you explain the fact that DynCorp and its successor companies have received and continue to receive government contracts?”

Rumsfeld: “I would have to go and find the facts, but there are laws and rules and regulations with respect to government contracts, and there are times that corporations do things they should not do, in which case they tend to be suspended for some period; there are times then that the – under the laws and the rules and regulations for the – passed by the Congress and implemented by the Executive branch – that corporations can get off of – out of the penalty box if you will, and be permitted to engage in contracts with the government. They’re generally not barred in perpetuity.”

McKinney: “This contract – this company – was never in the penalty box.”

Rumsfeld: “I’m advised by DR. Chu that it was not the corporation that was engaged in the activities you characterized but I’m told it was an employee of the corporation, and it was some years ago in the Balkans that that took place.”

http://www.mystrangemind.com/2007/05/dyncorp-haliburton-sex-slave-trade.html

And this was five fucking years ago!!

:grr:

[Tunkamerica]

7. Did he really say it wasn't the corporation but an employee of the corporation?

It's never the corporation. It's always an employee. Yet another case where corporations have more rights/abilities than real people.

"I didn't beat that guy up. It was my hands!"

"I didn't shoot that guy. My trigger finger and the gun did."

[Hannah Bell]

9. corporations are people when they want to be, but not when they don't want to be.

their choice.

[EFerrari]

4. Iirc, the State Department's response to the cablegate leak

was to say it was inappropriate but that no one had touched the children.

They don't care about rape.

[Warren DeMontague]

5. And I'm sure Interpol will be pursuing everyone who has helped child abusers escape prosecution, too

Yeah, any second now.

[NuclearDem]

6. If the US was serious about going after criminals at all

We'd prosecute members of nearly every contractor in Iraq and Afghanistan, Xewater and DynCorp first.

Put all those sick bastards and murderers behind bars for good.

[snot]

8. See this :

"I'd been wondering how energetically Sweden usually pursues alleged sexual miscreants. A quick search today indicates that (notwithstanding the title of a recent NYT article proclaiming, "{i}n Sweden, sex assault gets little tolerance"), although the laws are indeed stricter and women may report sexual misconduct more often, when it comes to prosecution of sex crimes – not so much. On the contrary, in a 2009 article, The Local reported Sweden's National Council of Crime Prevention had found that "less than 13 percent of the 3,535 rape crimes reported in 2007 resulted in a decision to start legal proceedings . . . . {and} Amnesty {International} slam{med} the Swedish judicial system and the prevalence of attrition {i.e., the phenomenon of alleged offenses never reaching court} within it, concluding that, 'in practice, many perpetrators enjoy impunity.'" (Emphasis supplied.) Dave Lindorff says Swedish authorities have submitted only one other request in 2010 for Interpol's assistance in capturing the suspect of a sex crime, and in that case, the suspect was wanted on multiple charges including sex crimes against children (he unfortunately cites no source)."

(Links at c-cyte dot blogspot dot com.)