Democracy Now! Daily Digest ~ A Daily Independent Global News Hour with Amy Goodman & Juan González ~ Wednesday, 23 October 2013
STORIES:
We look at a major new investigation into how Youth Services International, a private prison company that runs juvenile detention centers, is rapidly expanding its services, despite a record of abuse and neglect over the past 25 years. Despite allegations that include the neglect and abuse of young prisoners and the bribing of public officials to win contracts, Youth Services International has expanded its contracts to operate juvenile prisons in several states. More than 40,000 boys and girls in 16 states have gone through these facilities in the past two decades. This comes as nearly 40 percent of all detained juveniles are now committed to private facilities, and in Florida, it is 100 percent. We are joined by Chris Kirkham, business reporter at The Huffington Post, where he has just published his new two-part investigative series, "Prisoners of Profit: Private Prison Empire Rises Despite Startling Record of Juvenile Abuse." Kirkham explains: "When oversight is not as strong as it can be, companies are only going to be incentivized to do what the government that’s paying them makes them do. And so in these cases if the oversight is lacking, if there is not constant monitoring, I think there is an incentive to cut costs and services."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to a major new investigation into how a private prison company that runs juvenile detention centers is rapidly expanding despite a record of abuse and neglect over the past 25 years. Part two of the series will be published today by The Huffington Post, and the company in question is Youth Services International.
This is how reporter Chris Kirkham begins the series: quote, "From a glance at his background, one might assume that James F. Slattery would have a difficult time convincing any state in America to entrust him with the supervision of its lawbreaking youth.
"Over the past quarter century, Slattery’s for-profit prison enterprises have run afoul of the Justice Department and authorities in New York, Florida, Maryland, Nevada and Texas for alleged offenses ranging from condoning abuse of inmates to plying politicians with undisclosed gifts while seeking to secure state contracts."
Kirkham goes on to write, quote, "In 2001, an 18-year-old committed to a Texas boot camp operated by one of Slattery’s previous companies, Correctional Services Corp., came down with pneumonia and pleaded to see a doctor as he struggled to breathe. Guards accused the teen of faking it and forced him to do pushups in his own vomit, according to Texas law enforcement reports. After nine days of medical neglect, he died.
"That same year, auditors in Maryland found that staff at one of Slattery’s juvenile facilities coaxed inmates to fight on Saturday mornings as a way to settle disputes from earlier in the week. In recent years, the company has failed to report riots, assaults and claims of sexual abuse at its juvenile prisons in Florida, according to a review of state records and accounts from former employees and inmates."
AMY GOODMAN: Those are the opening lines of a new investigation by reporter Chris Kirkham. Despite that history, The Huffington Post reports, Slattery’s company, Youth Services International, has expanded its contracts to operate juvenile prisons in several states. More than 40,000 boys and girls in 16 states have gone through his facilities in the past two decades. This comes as nearly 40 percent of all detained juveniles are now committed to private facilities, and in Florida, it’s 100 percent.
For more, we’re joined by Chris Kirkham, business reporter at The Huffington Post, where he’s just published his new two-part investigative series, "Prisoners of Profit: Private Prison Empire Rises Despite Startling Record of Juvenile Abuse."
Welcome to Democracy Now! Talk about what you found.
CHRIS KIRKHAM: So, I mean, I think the point you made about Florida sort of having this 100 percent privatized system, this was kind of the first thing that got me interested, was sort of the idea of this state essentially handing over this pretty crucial function, I think, of sort of the goal of rehabilitating youth, I think, preventing them from becoming criminals, to private companies—in a lot of cases, for-profit companies. And so, I was kind of curious who the major players were out there and started looking around.
Then I realized that this company, Youth Services International, has sort of existed in various—under various different names for the last 25 years, but basically the pattern of behavior has been pretty consistent, that it’s sort of a lot of contract violations, a lot of allegations of abuse. And typically, whenever there have been problems through the years, the company will sort of—in some cases, it’s pulled out of contracts as the state was sort of starting to amass evidence that there were some really serious problems, or, you know, the contracts will end, and the state will say, "Oh, we’re not going to renew this anymore."
So, it’s been interesting that there really hasn’t been a lot of—there haven’t been a lot of cases where the state has actually terminated their contract, and then that kind of goes on your record, you know, and when you’re applying for new contracts, then that comes up in sort of your history. So it’s been interesting to see sort of how a company like this, despite the problems that, you know, I brought up and that you just noted now, a lot of these things don’t often come up in the contract review process or when they’re applying to get new contracts. And so, this was kind of really what interested me about the story.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about James Slattery’s role in running Youth Services International? How did he start?
CHRIS KIRKHAM: So, yeah, he has a pretty interesting history. He initially was actually in the hotel business in New York City, and he was a—you know, ran—worked in the Sheraton Hotel corporation, ran some hotels around New York City. And at the time, he got involved with a few other business partners, and they were sort of—they had owned and managed a few hotels around the city. And at this time, this was kind of in the ’80s in New York City. Crime was extremely high. Property values were going down. And a lot of property owners realized that they could get a lot more money from sort of housing essentially homeless people, welfare. They could get a lot of—a lot more welfare money from the government than they could actual market rates.
AMY GOODMAN: At these places called "welfare hotels."
CHRIS KIRKHAM: Welfare hotels, exactly. And so, what ended up happening was this really kind of destroyed a lot of neighborhoods, because a lot of sort of investors came in, they sort of flooded—they flooded these buildings with people who probably should have been in treatments, but instead they were just kind of warehoused in these facilities. So, this was kind of the first way in in terms of kind of building a business off of government money. And from—the city started shutting these down, because they realized that, you know, there were tons of code violations. In one of these hotels, some children died in a fire after they were just sort of left alone. So, pretty bad conditions in these hotels.
So, next, they sort of had these properties, and at this time it was kind of—Reagan was pushing a lot in terms of privatization of a lot of government services, and so federal prisons became kind of the next concept for privatization. And so, a lot of these hotels, there was a possibility of using them for halfway houses, so basically federal prisoners getting out, that this would be sort of transitional housing for them. And so, that was—that was kind of how he first got into the federal contracting game.
And from there, you know, what’s been interesting is that, I sort of discovered, once you get into this business, it’s really hard to get out. There’s not a lot of—there’s not a lot of barriers to entry, seemingly, but a lot of companies don’t want to get into this business, so it’s kind of the same few actors that sort of handle a lot of these private prison contracts. And so, in this case, they were able to get the federal halfway house contracts. There were a lot of problems with those early on, some really, really poor conditions that were found in these buildings. I think one of the inspection reports I saw claimed that there was only enough food for, you know, maybe half of the inmates, so whoever got there first got fed, and then the rest were sort of left—left to their own devices.
So, despite this, you know, the INS, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, at that time, they were starting to look to privatize some of their facilities for detainees. So, really he just started getting contract after contract. And kind of the rest is history. Since then, he sort of moved into the juvenile business. He started doing a lot of adult prisons around the country. And then, in 2005, he sold off a lot of his assets to another big private prison company called the GEO Group, which is still in existence today. But he—
AMY GOODMAN: Formerly Wackenhut.
CHRIS KIRKHAM: Exactly, formerly Wackenhut. And then he bought back the youth division for his own company. So now he’s been sort of mostly in the juvenile private corrections business.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: One of the arguments in favor of privatization, which you also mention in your report, is that private prisons or detention facilities are able to provide better services at lower cost. What is it that you found? And how do these conditions, for example, what you just said, that there was food often only for half the inmates—so how do these private facilities compare with public facilities of a comparable kind?
CHRIS KIRKHAM: Well, I think that’s really the difficult question. I mean, I think the claim, of course, by the industry is that they can offer these services at a much, much lower cost. But really, there have been no studies that have not been financed by the industry that have proven that. So, it’s a difficult claim, because it—you’re sort of having to say, you know, what is the exact same service that’s being provided by the public—you know, the public corrections department or the public juvenile justice department and this private operator? Are they the exact same kind of inmates? Do they have the exact same sort of needs in terms of services for health or for therapy? And so, it’s difficult to make those comparisons. And then, in these cases, I think—I think when there’s—when oversight is not as strong as it can be, I think, you know, companies—companies are only going to be incentivized to do what the government that’s paying them makes them do. And so, you know, in these cases, if the oversight is lacking, if there’s not constant monitoring, I think there is an incentive to sort of cut costs and services.
AMY GOODMAN: So tell us what you found in Florida: 100 percent of the juvenile facilities are for-profit.
CHRIS KIRKHAM: Yeah, 100 percent are privatized. There’s a mix of nonprofit and for-profit providers in Florida.
AMY GOODMAN: And so, what did you find in these facilities? What was happening to the kids?
CHRIS KIRKHAM: Right. So, basically, I mean, there was sort of consistent accounts of physical abuse from guards. So this was basically—I mean, you had a lot of guards who were getting paid very little.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: What’s the age range of the children in these facilities?
CHRIS KIRKHAM: It’s about—it’s like 13 to 18 or so. So we’re talking about teenagers, essentially, boys and girls in these facilities—not mixed. I mean, there’s different facilities for each. So, you know, the guards often resorted to violence as sort of the first means of just dealing with a situation. And these are—these are obviously troubled kids. There’s no—that’s the reason they’re in these facilities in the first place. But a lot of times you sort of discover that the guards were often the same—knew the kids from the neighborhood, perhaps had gotten in trouble with the kids before. They already had relationships with the kids. The guards—this is not the highest caliber of staff. So, a lot of times you had sort of gang affiliations, rivalries between guards and youth within the facilities, which caused a lot of problems. You know, in one case in a facility in Broward County, Florida, which is just north of Miami, there was a boy who claimed that he had been forced to perform oral sex on one of the guards. He told the authorities this three times, and only the third time, 10 months later, did they finally report it to the police. So, the other thing was that a lot of—a lot of incidents that were documented, there was evidence and a lot of former employees told me that there was—that was only a fraction of what was actually happening.
AMY GOODMAN: In the piece that came out today in The Huffington Post, you go back to an example in 2004, when Youth Services International was confronted with a potentially expensive situation. They were three months into a $10 million contract to run Thompson Academy, a juvenile prison in the state of Florida, and already the facility had become a scene of documented violence and neglect. What happened next?
CHRIS KIRKHAM: So, in this case—this is the story that will publish today—there was a contract monitor from the state. So, generally the way these private businesses work is that you—you know, you run the facility, but someone’s coming in to inspect you every once in a while. So this was the inspector coming in and basically documenting a lot of problems: a complete breakdown in organization; a lot of staff were getting fired for essentially breaking youths’ arms, for slamming them to the floor; there were escapes. So, in this case, the monitor was really coming down hard on the company and, you know, was saying, "We need to do a lot more reviews. We need to"—basically threatening them to reduce the number of kids that could come to the facility, potentially reducing the amount of money in their contract.
And at one point the monitor actually sent an email—this guy’s name was Jerry Blanton—he sent an email to his bosses saying, "I recommend that this facility be closed." And at that same time, the company went back to the state and basically went around the monitor and said, "This guy is out of control. He’s out of line. He’s coming in here doing unannounced inspections. You know, we have some serious—we have some serious issues with this guy." And then, two months later, the state fired that monitor.
And despite this guy getting fired and sort of blowing the whistle, the state came back a few months later and in its annual audit of the facility essentially confirmed—confirmed all of the findings that this monitor had. But from then—from then on, you know, I mean, there were a number of—the facility had a number of problems in future audits, but they managed to continue to retain this contract until just last year, when the state—state didn’t actually cancel it, they just said, "We’re reducing the size of our facilities, and so we’re not going to renew this one." But then they handed them three new contracts this year.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, I want to turn to a statement from Youth Services International. This is Senior Vice President Jesse Williams, who said, quote, "We are the best operators in the state of Florida, and that is why we continue to have contracts awarded to us. ... While there have been occasional issues, we are inspected regularly and overwhelmingly receive positive reports." He also said the company has introduced, quote, "independent, third-party reviews" of some of its programs. Chris, your response to that?
CHRIS KIRKHAM: Sure. I mean, in this case, he is saying—he is saying the truth in that they are inspected. I think the question in all of these cases is: What is the point of the inspection, and what kind of questions are being asked in the inspection? And what I noticed as I sort of dug into the state’s kind of review process for these private juvenile prisons was that, really, there’s a lot more focus on kind of technical contract compliance as opposed to really getting inside the facility and talking to the staff and talking to the kids and just kind of understanding: "How are you doing? You know, are you being treated well? Are you eating?" This wasn’t really the focus. A lot more of it was kind of: "Is the right paperwork in the right drawers? You know, do the nurses have the proper credentials? Is the medication properly secured?" It was a lot more of this kind of technical stuff than actually kind of really trying to understand what’s going on.
AMY GOODMAN: About a decade ago, a Florida judge criticized Correctional Services Corporation, the former company of James Slattery, during a hearing about widespread complaints of violence at one of its facilities near Miami. Juvenile Judge Ron Alvarez was so horrified at the Pahokee Youth Development Center that he compared it to, quote, "a Third World country that is controlled by ... some type of evil power," unquote. In a more recent interview, the same judge expressed amazement that Slattery still runs facilities. He said, quote, "I don’t know how the hell they still have business with the state." Can you, finally, in this last response, talk about what is happening? Is there any kind of investigation besides yours? Is this company continuing to get contracts?
CHRIS KIRKHAM: It is, yeah. I mean, this year it just won three new contracts. So, you know, I think what that judge—I think what he’s expressing there is, I think, the feeling of a lot of advocates and sort of people who have been following juvenile justice in Florida for a long time, which is that, you know, I think there’s kind of this inertia that when the—the state, you know, really about 20 years ago kind of decided that it was getting out of the business of handling these juvenile inmates, this tough population. But I think what still needs to happen and what really hasn’t happened yet and what this history shows is that, really, you know, there is a need—there is a need to really hold your private providers of this service accountable. And I think when you outsource something like this and essentially throw away the key, I think that’s what frustrates a lot of people.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Chris Kirkham, I want to thank you for being with us, business reporter at The Huffington Post, where he has just published this new two-part investigative series, "Prisoners of Profit: Private Prison Empire Rises Despite Startling Record of Juvenile Abuse." We will link to both stories at democracynow.org.
When we come back, "kids for cash." We’re going to look back in Pennsylvania at the remarkable scandal that has unfolded over the last few years of judges being bribed to put thousands of kids in local for-profit prisons—and what happened now, a settlement. Stay with us.
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We turn to the latest news in the so-called "kids-for-cash" scandal in Pennsylvania, in which judges took money in exchange for sending juvenile offenders to for-profit youth jails. In 2011, former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella was convicted of accepting bribes for putting juveniles into detention centers operated by the companies PA Child Care and a sister company, Western Pennsylvania Child Care. Ciavarella and another judge, Michael Conahan, are said to have received $2.6 million for their efforts. Now the private juvenile-detention companies at the heart of the kids-for-cash scandal in Pennsylvania have settled a civil lawsuit for $2.5 million. The state has also passed much-needed reforms aimed at improving its juvenile justice system and ensuring such abuses are not repeated. We are joined in Philadelphia by Marsha Levick, chief counsel of the Juvenile Law Center, which helped expose the corrupt judges and represented the families’ class action suit.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to the latest news on the so-called "kids for cash" scandal in Pennsylvania, in which judges took money in exchange for sending thousands of juvenile offenders to for-profit youth jails. In 2011, former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella was convicted of accepting bribes for putting juveniles into detention centers operated by the companies PA Child Care and a sister company, Western Pennsylvania Child Care. Ciavarella and another judge, Michael Conahan, are said to have received $2.6 million for their efforts.
Some of the young people sentenced under their watch were jailed over the objections of their probation officers. In 2009, Democracy Now! spoke with one of the young people who spent almost a year in one of the juvenile detention centers after being sentenced by Judge Ciavarella as a first-time offender. This is Jamie Quinn.
JAMIE QUINN: I was about 14 years old, and I got into an argument with one of my friends. And all that happened was just a basic fight. She slapped me in the face, and I did the same thing back. There was no marks, no witnesses, nothing. It was just her word against my word. My only charges were simple assault and harassment. And I didn’t even know that charges were pressed against me until I had to go down to the intake and probation and fill out a whole bunch of paperwork.
AMY GOODMAN: I asked Jamie Quinn in 2009 about the action Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella took in her case after taking bribes to do so. This was her response.
JAMIE QUINN: It just makes me really question other authority figures and people that we’re supposed to look up to and trust. I mean, Ciavarella has been a judge for a long time, from what I know, and a well-respected one, is what I thought. And obviously not. It just really makes me question and not trust other people. I mean, if someone like Judge Ciavarella could do this, then it makes me believe that anyone can betray the law and—I don’t know.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, now the private juvenile detention companies at the heart of the kids-for-cash scandal in Pennsylvania have settled a civil lawsuit for $2.5 million. The state has also passed much-needed reforms aimed at improving its juvenile justice system and ensuring that such abuses aren’t repeated.
For more, let’s go to Philadelphia to Marsha Levick, chief counsel of the Juvenile Law Center, which helped expose the corrupt judges and represented the families’ class action suit.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Marsha. Just lay out this latest settlement, which follows an earlier one a few years ago, and just the horror of this. These two judges who were found guilty of bribing are in prison now?
MARSHA LEVICK: The two judges are in prison. The latest settlement is a fairly straightforward settlement, as you described it: $2.5 million that will provide further compensation to the juveniles. I really think that this is an opportunity, obviously, to close another chapter on what happened in Luzerne County.
And I would add, I think, really listening to the story leading up to this about the private for-profit centers elsewhere, it’s really important, I think, for us as a country, I think, for your listeners, to know that while we can talk about what happens in private centers, some of which, frankly, are not-for-profit, the same kinds of abuses can occur in state-run facilities, as well.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: What do you see, Marsha Levick, as the wider implications of the settlement that was reached?
MARSHA LEVICK: I think that the wider implications are for us to continue to shine a spotlight on how we, as a country, treat children who are convicted of crimes. We treat them harshly. We—I think that this notion of whether or not private centers are providing the same services as public centers, we need to ask ourselves: What kind of services do we want to be providing for children?
In Pennsylvania, I think that by exposing what happened with the judges scandal, we’ve also had an opportunity to achieve great reforms. We have really changed statutory policies in Pennsylvania with respect to children’s right to counsel, with their ability to obtain appointed counsel on their own, presuming that they in fact don’t have financial resources to do that. We have eliminated, for the most part, shackling in Pennsylvania courtrooms. We have provided and required that judges give a statement of reasons. So when judges in Pennsylvania commit children to public or private-run centers, they need to have an explanation for why they’re doing that. And I think the kinds of stories that we’re hearing about what might be happening in Florida or California, for example, we don’t have the same kinds of protections. We don’t have the same kind of transparency in place.
AMY GOODMAN: In 2011, Sandy Fonzo confronted former Judge Ciavarella outside the courtroom after his sentencing. Fonzo’s son, Edward Kenzakoski, was sentenced by Ciavarella to a youth jail and then a four-month boot camp. Edward committed suicide in June of 2010. Confronting Ciavarella, Sandy Fonzo blamed the judge for her son’s death.
SANDY FONZO: My kid’s not here! He’s dead, because of him! He ruined my [bleep] life! I’d like him to go to hell and rot there forever!
SECURITY GUARD: Ma’am, come on.
SANDY FONZO: No! You know what he told everybody in court? They need to be held accountable for their actions. You need to be! Do you remember me? Do you remember me? Do you remember my son? An all-star wrestler? He’s gone! He shot himself in the heart! You scumbag!
AMY GOODMAN: That was Sandy Fonzo, whose son committed suicide after being put away by Judge Mark Ciavarella. She was yelling at him right outside the courtroom after he was convicted. Marsha Levick, we just have a minute. Do you feel that justice has been done in this case?
MARSHA LEVICK: Oh, I think we’re still in process. There are a couple of defendants whom we are still litigating against. I think that we have achieved remarkable progress. I think that the settlements, I think that the convictions of the two judges and their current incarceration are all putting pieces of the puzzle together. But I think—again, I think as the story leading up to our conversation this morning illustrates, there’s much more to be done across the country. This is a national story. It’s still a national problem. And I think that these conversations, hopefully, are wake-up calls about the kinds of reforms that we need to continue to be thinking about for our kids.
AMY GOODMAN: What’s happened to those prisons for kids in Pennsylvania, the ones that were involved with bribing the judges who are now in jail?
MARSHA LEVICK: They continue to operate. And they—the litigation was not about conditions within these facilities. They continue to bribe—to provide services. This was really about—really, primarily, the action of the judges, their behavior in the courtroom, and how they were so willing to remove children from their homes with really very little due process and very little regard for their rights or interests.
AMY GOODMAN: Marsha Levick, we want to thank you very much for being with us, co-founder, chief counsel of the Juvenile Law Center based in Philadelphia. The Juvenile Law Center helped expose the corrupt judges, is now involved in the families’ class action suit.
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Amnesty International has released a major new report on how U.S. drone strikes kill civilians in Pakistan, where it says some deaths may amount to war crimes. The group reviewed 45 drone strikes that have occurred in North Waziristan since January 2012. It found at least 19 civilians were killed in just two of those strikes, despite claims by the Obama administration it is accurately targeting militants. In a separate report, Human Rights Watch criticized U.S. drone strikes in Yemen that have killed civilians. We are joined by Mustafa Qadri, Pakistan researcher at Amnesty International and author of the report, "'Will I be Next?' U.S. Drone Strikes in Pakistan." Qadri asks: "How do they justify killing a grandmother if these weapons are so precise, if their standards and their policies for using them are very rigorous?" He also clarifies, "It’s not enough that a person is a militant to say that it’s OK to kill them. They have to be taking active part in hostilities to be lawfully targeted, and some other requirements as well."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: President Obama is scheduled to meet his Pakistani counterpart later today amidst rising tension around U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan. The meeting between Obama and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif comes as Amnesty International has released a major new report on how U.S. drone strikes kill civilians in Pakistan, where it says some drone killings may amount to war crimes. The group reviewed 45 drone strikes that have occurred in North Warizistan since January 2012. It found at least 19 civilians were killed in just two of those strikes, despite claims by the Obama administration it is accurately targeting militants.
In a separate report, Human Rights Watch criticized U.S. drone strikes in Yemen that have killed civilians.
On Tuesday, White House spokesperson Jay Carney defended the legality of the U.S. drone program.
PRESS SECRETARY JAY CARNEY: To the extent these reports claim that the U.S. has acted contrary to international law, we would strongly disagree. The administration has repeatedly emphasized the extraordinary care that we take to make sure counterterrorism actions are in accordance with all applicable law.
AMY GOODMAN: On the eve of his meeting with President Obama, Prime Minister Sharif said the drone strikes violate international law and Pakistan’s, quote, "territorial integrity."
PRIME MINISTER NAWAZ SHARIF: There is, however, the matter of drone strikes, which have deeply disturbed and agitated our people. In my first statement to the Parliament, I had reiterated our strong commitment to ensuring an end to the drone attacks. More recently, our political parties in a national conference had declared that the use of drones is not only a continued violation of our territorial integrity, but also detrimental to our resolve and efforts at eliminating terrorism from our country. This issue has become a major irritant in our bilateral relationship, as well. I would therefore stress the need for an end to drone attacks.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif speaking Tuesday in Washington. While Sharif has criticized the U.S. drone strikes, former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf admitted earlier this year his government secretly signed off on U.S. drone strikes.
In its report, Amnesty documented the case of a 68-year-old grandmother, Mamana Bibi, who was killed in a strike that appeared to be aimed directly at her. She was picking okra while surrounded by her grandchildren when she was blasted to pieces. Her son and granddaughter described the attack.
RAFIQ UR-REHMAN: [translated] The children were also with her. She was hit in the first attack, and her body parts were lying scattered.
NABEELA: [translated] First it whistled. Then I heard a "dhummm." The first hit us, and the second, my cousin. There was an explosion. We were scared, and I ran home. It was dark in front of our house. They brought me to the doctor in the village who gave me first aid. I was not scared before, but now, when the drone is flying, I am scared of it.
AMY GOODMAN: A clip from Amnesty International’s report on drone strikes in Pakistan.
Well, to find out more, we go to Washington, D.C., to talk with Mustafa Qadri, the author of the Amnesty International report, "'Will I be Next?' US Drone Strikes in Pakistan." He is Pakistan researcher at Amnesty International.
Welcome to Democracy Now! You talk about these drone strikes in Pakistan as possible war crimes that the U.S. is engaged in. Lay out your case, Mustafa.
MUSTAFA QADRI: Yes, so we’re not saying that the entire program constitutes war crimes. What we’re saying is that particularly rescuer attacks may constitute war crimes. We’re talking here, for example, some laborers in a very impoverished village near the Afghanistan border, they get targeted, eight die instantly in a tent; those who come to rescue or to look for survivors are themselves targeted. In great detail, eyewitnesses, victims who survive tell us about, you know, the terror, the panic, as drones hovered overhead. There are other cases, as well, in the report where we talk about people who have been targeted for coming to be—to rescue people also killed. Those cases may constitute war crimes.
Now, that’s a very big claim. There’s a very high threshold for proving that. With the secrecy surrounding the program, the remoteness of this area, we can only get the truth once the U.S., as a start, comes clean and explains what is the justification for these killings.
But, you know, I should be really clear: We’re not just talking about these cases of war crimes; we’re talking about, as you mentioned before, you know, Mamana Bibi, a grandmother, killed in front of her grandchildren. You know, the U.S. has to explain these kind of killings. We think they’re unlawful, too. You know, how does it explain making the U.S. safer by killing these sorts of people?
AMY GOODMAN: Can you just explain more about what happened to this grandmother?
MUSTAFA QADRI: So, basically, it’s in the middle of the afternoon, quite a clear day in the sky. It’s about 2:45. She’s in the family fields in North Waziristan, a village near one of the main cities. She’s picking okra. The next day is Eid al-Adha, so the holiest day in the year for Muslims. Her kids are doing their work in the field, as well. They noticed drones overhead. They were sort of used to that, because drones are ubiquitous in the skies over there. And then, literally, quite suddenly, she’s attacked. There’s a—she seems to be targeted deliberately. We can’t tell, obviously, without more information. But a missile hits her directly, and she dies instantly.
Her kids, some of them, are injured in that initial strike from shrapnel. Their house is damaged from the reverberation of the strike. As some of them venture to see what has happened to their grandmother, a few minutes later another strike happens about nine feet away from where the grandmother was killed, and that injures more of her grandchildren. After that, there’s incredible panic, you know, as we saw in the video clip. And up ’til this—today, the family has not received even an acknowledgment from the U.S. authorities that she was killed by a drone.
You know, I should be very clear here that we researched this case, you know, very thoroughly. We even actually analyzed missile fragments from experts who said that this appears to be a Hellfire missile. You know, we fact-checked everything. You can see it in the report. We really just have a very simple message to the U.S.: How do you justify killing a grandmother? How does that make anyone safer?
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Mustafa Qadri, could you talk about what people in Waziristan told you? The report suggests that people there expressed equal fear of the Taliban and of the U.S.?
MUSTAFA QADRI: Yeah, this is a really important point to make. We’re not saying that drones should stop. We’re not saying drones as a weapon are unlawful. What we’re saying is this program the U.S. has, the U.S. has not provided a satisfactory legal basis, and these cases may be unlawful.
What we’re also saying is that people living there face the threats from the Taliban, al-Qaeda. The Pakistani military often threatens and intimates people. When the Pakistan army gets attacked by the Taliban itself in that area, they will unleash indiscriminate bombings by mortar shells or helicopters. So people already there live a really harrowing life. It’s a very undeveloped area. The indicators are very low in terms of literacy, maternal mortality, women’s rights. For women, it’s a very difficult environment to live. Girls’ access to education is very low. So, the drones really are adding insult to the already many injuries that people face living there. What we’re saying is that this has to be a key part of that step towards bringing law and order and protecting the rights of people living there.
AMY GOODMAN: In the case of Mamana Bibi, the grandmother, they may not have—the U.S.—acknowledged to the family, but what about to Amnesty International?
MUSTAFA QADRI: Yeah, so, the—
AMY GOODMAN: When you gathered all of this evidence?
MUSTAFA QADRI: Yeah, no, it’s a good point. I mean, so, the only kind of acknowledgment we received was a letter from the CIA saying, you know, speak to the White House and look at the—you know, the policy guidelines released when President Obama made his speech in May this year about counterterrorism and the drone policy. So, in short, we have not received any information, really, from the U.S. authorities about this case.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: I want to play another clip from the Amnesty report. This man describes what happened on July 6, 2012, in a village in North Waziristan when 18 male laborers, including at least one boy, were killed in a series of drone strikes. His identity has been concealed for his safety.
NORTH WAZIRISTAN VILLAGER: [translated] Would it not hurt you if they kill your brother for no reason? The drone struck in our area. It hit the chromite extractors who were gathered in a tent slaughtering a sheep for feast. All of them were killed. When the villagers arrived to rescue them, missiles were fired again. They were also killed. What other could it have been? Some of the corpses had been badly burned and were beyond recognition. We could only identify them because we knew who had come there to work and we knew their names and the names of their tribes. They were laborers extracting chromite in the mountains.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was another clip from the Amnesty report. Mustafa Qadri, could you talk about the significance of these so-called double strikes or second strikes?
MUSTAFA QADRI: Yeah, I mean, so there is a very significant legal ramification for this, but on the human side we’re talking about targeting people who have come to assist, you know, victims of a strike. Now, no matter who those people might be, the human instinct to try to help someone is—you know, everyone has that. It’s a universal thing. So the idea that those who are coming to assist injured people, it’s really quite shocking. You know, we’ve documented cases where militants have been killed. We document a case where Abu Yahya al-Libi, the at the time number two of al-Qaeda, was killed. And in that episode, rescuers, people who had nothing, as far as we can tell, to do with al-Qaeda or the Taliban, or at the very least did not pose an imminent threat, an immediate threat, to the U.S. or its allies, were killed in a rescue attack.
When you look at people living there, already facing so many threats, curfew, living a very difficult life, the idea that in the skies, the skies are no longer safe, and then when these strikes happen—you know, it could be very close to you, could be your neighbors, could be your loved ones involved—obviously you want to help them, and now people are so scared even to do that, it’s really quite shocking.
In terms of the law, that—we see that as unlawful. We can’t see a justification for that. We really call on the U.S., as we saw with Jay Carney claiming this is a legal program—well, fine, show us the legal justification for it and ensure those justifications and the facts are given to a genuinely independent, impartial investigator. That’s the key thing. We are saying now to the U.S. government: Come clean, show us what is your evidence in law and fact for justifying rescuer attacks and the other unlawful killings we’ve documented in the report.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go back to Jay Carney, the White House spokesperson, who was asked a question about the Amnesty report and reiterated the precision of U.S. drone strikes.
PRESS SECRETARY JAY CARNEY: By narrowly targeting our action against those who want to kill us, and not the people they hide among, we are choosing the course of action least likely to result in the loss of innocent life. U.S. counterterrorism operations are precise, they are lawful, and they are effective. And the United States does not take lethal strikes when we or our partners have the ability to capture individual terrorist—terrorists. Our preference is always to detain, interrogate and prosecute. We take extraordinary care to make sure that our counterterrorism actions are in accordance with all applicable domestic and international law and that they are consistent with U.S. values and U.S. policy. Of particular note, before we take any counterterrorism strike outside areas of active hostilities, there must be near certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured. And that is the highest standard we can set.
AMY GOODMAN: That was the White House spokesperson, Jay Carney. Mustafa Qadri, your response?
MUSTAFA QADRI: Yeah, look, I mean, if that is the case, how do they justify killing a grandmother? If these weapons are so precise, if their standards and their policies for using them are very rigorous and they use a high standard, as he has mentioned, you know, explain that to the family of Mamana Bibi. How and why was she killed? Was this a mistake? Was she mistaken for a militant? Was she deliberately targeted? This clearly shows that it’s not correct. And, you know, the actual legal policy justifications given to us thus far have not been sufficient.
And let’s be very clear about this. You know, most of the information we have received, all of us collectively, is through leaks to the media. It’s through anonymous official sources talking to the media. It’s not been directly from the government. At the moment, they’re basically telling us, "Look, trust us. You know, we know what we’re doing. We are very reliable, professional people." And, you know, the reality is, because these killings are happening in lawless areas like Pakistan’s tribal areas, like remote Yemen or Somalia, the U.S. knows it, you know, can get away with murder, because it’s very hard for people to verify claims. Now, how long will this administration merely just say, "Look, we do things lawfully"? We need to see the facts. We need to at least, at the very minimum, have an explanation for how you can justify killing a grandmother.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Mustafa Qadri, you’ve also said that only some of the strikes could constitute war crimes. How is it that U.S. drone strikes could be brought under international law? In other words, how could drone strikes in a sovereign country be made legal?
MUSTAFA QADRI: Yeah, so there’s two rough ways this could happen. The law is quite technical. But basically, it could be because of a spillover of the conflict in Afghanistan, so that, for example, if you have a military commander of the Afghan Taliban, he’s in hot pursuit from Afghanistan, he slips into the border into North Waziristan, in the right conditions—there’s a whole range of requirements—that might be lawful. Alternatively, Pakistan is itself fighting a non-international armed conflict in its own borders against the local insurgency; the U.S. has killed members of that insurgency, very senior members of that. Now, that might be lawful. But again, there are very strict requirements that have to be satisfied. One of the requirements is not that a person who is a militant is lawfully—can be lawfully killed. It’s not enough that a person is militant to say that it’s OK to kill them. They have to be taking active part in hostilities to be lawfully targeted. There’s some other requirements, as well.
The point is that, you know, we’re not talking about the whole program is impossible for it to be lawful. There is the capacity with the U.S. You know, the—administration officials have assured us there’s a whole range of infrastructure experts, people involved in this program. So, really, the U.S.—it’s obligation on them to make sure the program abides by international law.
I think the other thing that’s really key—and again, Jay Carney sort of hit on this, as well—is this idea of trying to arrest or incapacitate people wherever possible. Well, the U.S. has to work with its Pakistani counterparts to improve that capacity. It has to ensure that Pakistan does its job in actually trying to bring these perpetrators to justice before a court in a fair trial. You know, we’ve documented that, you know, the Pakistani authorities have a very poor record of bringing these perpetrators to justice in fair trials. The legal setup in these tribal areas is incredibly poor. Pakistan still applies these anachronistic laws from the British era, which allows it to collectively punish tribes that are considered, you know, pro-Taliban. That has to change. Now, these are big problems, but there are solutions. And we really say, again, to the U.S. that it needs to make sure its drones are lawful, rather than retrospectively, after doing a strike, saying, firstly, "We’ll check to see if any civilians are killed," and, secondarily, when information comes out, just assuring us, "Look, don’t worry, it’s all legal; everything is fine. You can all go home now."
AMY GOODMAN: Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl shot in the head by Taliban gunmen, recently criticized U.S. drone strikes during a meeting with President Obama. The Obamas—President Obama, first lady Michelle Obama and, as well, their daughter Malia—invited Malala to the White House earlier this month in order to honor her work on behalf of girls’ education. But the White House statement did not mention another topic raised at the meeting. In her own statement, Malala wrote, quote, "I also expressed my concerns that drone attacks are fueling terrorism. Innocent victims are killed in these acts, and they lead to resentment among the Pakistani people. If we refocus efforts on education it will make a big impact." Your response to that, Mustafa Qadri?
MUSTAFA QADRI: Yeah, look, I mean, I largely reiterate what Malala has said, that, you know—and it’s really disappointing that President Obama’s official statement did not mention what she said, because that’s a really important point. But I can tell you also, from the Pakistan side, that another key part of trying to promote education is trying to basically prevent the Taliban from targeting girls like Malala. And that is a key part of it.
You know, one of the problems of the drone debate up 'til now is that because it's been so polarized and because the issues are so complicated, there’s been a tendency to sort of reduce things down to either drones are good or bad. What we’re saying is that, you know, have to look at the local context. The current secrecy and the potential unlawfulness of the U.S. program, firstly, incenses Pakistanis, is used as a political football amongst those hard-liners in Pakistan who want to hide the abuses by the Taliban and other groups. And what Pakistan really needs to do is to move on. It needs to address the fact that even within Pakistan there’s a huge problem with intolerance. There’s a huge problem of a lack of quality education for most people. I mean, 2 percent, or less than that, of the GDP is spent on education. Women’s access to education, you know, it’s not universally bad, but it’s very bad in the northwest, where Malala is from, where the Taliban are based. You know, these issues need to be addressed.
The fact that the U.S. carries out drones so secretively, it—you know, yes, it sparks anti-American sentiments, but also it creates all sorts of ideas about, you know, secret plots and this and that. What has to happen is more honesty in the discussion about, firstly, what is the problems in that region and the relation between the U.S. and Pakistan. When the U.S. government basically is secretive in the way that the Taliban is secretive or that al-Qaeda is secretive, when its drones are used in a way that causes fear in the hearts of people the way Taliban and al-Qaeda causes fear in people’s hearts, that shows you what a big, serious problem we’re dealing with.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we want to thank you very much for much for being with us, Mustafa Qadri, author of the Amnesty International report. We will link to that report called "'Will I be Next?' US Drone Strikes in Pakistan." Mustafa Qadri is the Pakistan researcher at Amnesty International. On Friday, we’ll be joined by Ben Emmerson, the U.N. special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights. The U.N. has also put out a report on drones, as has Human Rights Watch. This is Democracy Now! We’ll be back in a minute.
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HEADLINES:
Obama Meets with Pakistani PM as Reports Fault U.S. on Drones
President Obama is meeting with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif today amidst rising tensions around U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan. The meeting comes as Amnesty International has released a major new report on how U.S. drone strikes kill civilians in Pakistan, where it says some drone killings may amount to war crimes. In a separate report, Human Rights Watch criticized U.S. drone strikes in Yemen that have killed civilians. On the eve of his meeting with President Obama, Prime Minister Sharif said the drone strikes violate international law and Pakistan’s "territorial integrity."
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif: "The use of drones is not only a continued violation of our territorial integrity, but also detrimental to our resolve and efforts at eliminating terrorism from our country. This issue has become a major irritant in our bilateral relationship, as well. I would therefore stress the need for an end to drone attacks."
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Syrian Opposition Unsure on Geneva Peace Conference
Secretary of State John Kerry met with foreign counterparts in London on Tuesday ahead of a planned Syria peace conference next month in Geneva. Syria’s main political opposition has yet to agree on whether it plans to attend. Speaking to reporters, Kerry renewed calls for a negotiated solution to the Syrian conflict.
Secretary of State John Kerry: "The people who suffer the most are the Syrian people themselves, who are being driven from their homes and killed in the most wanton violence and who are having an increasingly profound impact on surrounding countries that are seeing their lives affected as a consequence of the outflow of refugees. This war will not come to an end on the battlefield. I believe, and I think most people believe, it will come to an end through a negotiated settlement."
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Head of U.N.-OPCW Reports Progress in Syria Mission
In Syria, the head of the U.N. team tasked with destroying Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile says the mission is continuing on schedule. Sigrid Kaag of the U.N.-OPCW spoke to reporters in Damascus.
Sigrid Kaag: "We’ve had very good meetings with the Syrian government at most senior level. There is continuous strong cooperation, which the secretary-general and the director-general of OPCW have also confirmed in recent statements. And we build on this because we have one shared goal, which is elimination of the program, which is of benefit to all, and particularly the Syrian people."
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Suicide, Gun Attacks Kill Scores in Iraq
A wave of suicide and gun attacks in Iraq’s Anbar province has killed around 25 state forces and three civilians. Escalating violence in Iraq has killed more than 520 people this month and more than 5,200 since January.
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Thousands Ordered to Evacuate Australia Bushfires; PM Rejects Climate Change Link
In Australia, thousands of people have been ordered to leave their homes outside of Sydney amidst the area’s worst bushfires in decades. More than 200 homes have been destroyed in New South Wales state since last week, and today’s conditions are expected to reach their worst to date. Speaking to CNN this week, the U.N.’s top climate official, Christiana Figueres, said heat waves causing bushfires are linked to global warming.
Christiana Figueres: "Now, the WMO, the World Meteorological Organization, has not established the direct link between this wildfire and climate change yet. But what is absolutely clear is the science is telling us that there are increasing heat waves in Asia, Europe and Australia, that there these will continue, that they will continue in their intensity and in their frequency."
In response, Australia’s new prime minister, Tony Abbott, dismissed Figueres’ comments, saying: "Fire is part of the Australian experience ... these fires are certainly not a function of climate change, they are just a function of life."
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Mexico Says Obama Pledges to Probe NSA Spying Claims
Mexico says it has won a pledge from President Obama to investigate the National Security Agency’s apparent spying on its government. Leaks from Edward Snowden reported by Der Spiegel suggest the NSA hacked the email accounts of then-President Felipe Calderón in 2010 and of current Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto before he was elected. On Tuesday, Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs José Antonio Meade said Obama has promised an investigation and has assured Peña Nieto that he did not authorize the spying.
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White House Admits New Flaws in Health Exchange Rollout
The White House has acknowledged two key components of the new healthcare insurance exchanges will take longer to repair than previously disclosed. On Tuesday, a senior official said the administration is not sure when low-income Americans will be able to enroll in Medicaid online. The White House also acknowledged that online enrollment for Spanish speakers is still inactive. Amidst growing criticism of glitches in the health exchange rollout, the White House said Tuesday it would bring in Jeffrey Zients, a former acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, to oversee the process.
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Appeals Court: GPS Tracking of Vehicles Requires Probable Cause
A federal appeals court has ruled the government must obtain a warrant based on probable cause in order to track vehicles with GPS. It is the first time an appeals court has weighed in on the issue since the Supreme Court ruled that police monitoring through attaching a GPS to a suspect’s vehicle marks a constitutionally protected search. In a statement, the American Civil Liberties Union said the decision "ensures that the police cannot use powerful tracking technology without court supervision and a good reason to believe it will turn up evidence of wrongdoing."
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10 U.S. CEOs Earned Over $100 Million for First Time
A new survey of executive pay shows that for the first time ever, the nation’s 10-highest paid CEOs earned more than $100 million last year. The highest paid was Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, who earned more than $2.2 billion.
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Panel: U.S. Failing to Stop Antibiotic Use in Livestock Feed
An expert panel is warning that regulators and agricultural producers have failed to slow the use of antibiotics in livestock. A landmark study from the Pew Charitable Trust in 2008 called on producers to stop adding antibiotics to livestock feed in order to boost animal growth. But a 14-member panel convened by the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future says an "appalling lack of progress" has been made in the five years since that report. Scientists have warned that the allowance of antibiotics in animals ends up weakening their effectiveness in humans. An estimated 80 percent of antibiotics used in the United States are consumed by farm animals.
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Chicago Palestinian Activist Accused of Immigration Fraud
An Arab-American community activist has been arrested in Chicago on charges of immigration fraud. Rasmieh Odeh is accused of concealing her detention in an Israeli prison 40 years ago on bombing charges. Odeh works as an associate director at the Arab American Action Network, a Chicago-area group that works on behalf of new immigrants and campaigns against anti-Arab discrimination. In a statement, the activist group Committee to Stop FBI Repression said Odeh’s arrest appears linked to the case of 23 antiwar activists subpoenaed by the FBI in 2010.
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Hundreds Rally for Teen Rape Victim in Maryville, Missouri
A crowd of several hundred people rallied in Maryville, Missouri, on Tuesday in support of teenage rape victim Daisy Coleman. Coleman says she was given alcohol and raped during a gathering of high-school athletes last year while another teen filmed the incident on his phone. Despite reported evidence and interviews supporting the case, prosecutors dropped charges against Coleman’s accused rapist, Matthew Barnett. A new prosecutor was appointed to review the case on Monday following a public outcry. On Tuesday, Coleman supporters held daisies as they gathered near the town square. The hacker group Anonymous helped organize the rally after initially calling attention to Coleman’s case.
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Ohio Man Who Challenged Ohio Gay Marriage Ban Dies
An Ohio man who challenged the state’s ban on gay marriage while dealing with a life-threatening illness has died. John Arthur, who had Lou Gehrig’s disease, and his husband James Obergefell tied the knot in Maryland earlier this year in order to ensure they were legally wed before the end of Arthur’s life. A federal judge later ruled that Arthur’s death certificate must show Obergefell as his surviving spouse, ensuring that the two can be buried next to each other on Arthur’s family plot.
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