Democracy Now! Daily Digest - A Daily Independent Global News Hour with Amy Goodman & Juan González for Monday, March 10, 2014

Democracy Now! Daily Digest - A Daily Independent Global News Hour with Amy Goodman & Juan González for Monday, March 10, 2014
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War Workers: Vulnerable Foreign Laborers Swindled & Exploited to Toil on U.S. Bases in Afghanistan
A new investigation by Al Jazeera America looks at the human trafficking system that brings tens of thousands of foreign laborers to work on U.S. military bases in Afghanistan. "America’s War Workers" examines how these laborers regularly end up deceived and indebted, victims of local recruiters who charge thousands of dollars and offer false promises of high-paying jobs. They are easy prey for labor traffickers who profit from military contracts. We are joined by Al Jazeera America correspondent Anjali Kamat and producer Sam Black, whose investigation spanned five months and several countries.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. America’s War Workers. That’s the name of a new investigation by Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines examining an underreported aspect of America’s longest war: the system that brings foreign laborers to work on U.S. military bases in Afghanistan. Today there are approximately 40,000 foreign contract workers on bases in the U.S. military’s Central Command. These workers leave their homes in countries such as India and Nepal to enter a war zone, serving U.S. troops as cooks, cleaners, doing laundry, working as construction workers. However, Fault Lines discovered these laborers regularly end up deceived and indebted, victims of local recruiters who charge thousands of dollars and offer false promises of high-paying jobs. They’re easy prey for labor traffickers who profit from military contracts. In this clip from the new Fault Lines investigation, America’s War Workers, Al Jazeera correspondent Anjali Kamat speaks to a worker who goes by the name "Ravi."
ANJALI KAMAT: Ravi told us he was tricked into working in Afghanistan for a salary that was less than half of what he was promised. It started when a friend back home introduced Ravi to a recruiting agent, who told him that for a hefty fee he could get a job in Afghanistan working for DynCorp. He would fly to Dubai, where he would connect with DynCorp and then travel to the base.
RAVI: And he said that he’s going to send me for the DynCorp, and I will get basically $1,200 USD per month.
ANJALI KAMAT: But there was a catch: The job at DynCorp didn’t actually exist. Instead, the agent housed Ravi in a work camp in Dubai. After three weeks, the agent told him that, for an additional fee, he could get Ravi a job with a subcontractor, Ecolog.
RAVI: When I got to Ecolog to get my contract and I saw my contract, there was only $500.
ANJALI KAMAT: So you were promised a job at DynCorp.
RAVI: Yeah, he—
ANJALI KAMAT: Twelve hundred dollars.
RAVI: Yeah.
ANJALI KAMAT: And then you got a job at Ecolog—
RAVI: Yeah.
ANJALI KAMAT: —for $500.
RAVI: Yeah, and I told that agent—I called him, and I said that I want to come back. I don’t want to go for $500, because it’s not enough for me. They said, "I don’t want to give you back." So I did not have another choice. So at least $500 is better than nothing. So that’s why I came.
ANJALI KAMAT: How much money did you pay the agent?
RAVI: I paid totally $4,000, U.S. dollar, and when I came first, I got $500. You can calculate how much I need to work to get that money back. It’s at least eight months, and the interest, so it’s like one year.
ANJALI KAMAT: Ravi had been recruited under fraudulent terms that compelled him to work for a year simply to pay off his debt. According to the U.S. State Department and the United Nations, this is human trafficking.
AMY GOODMAN: That was a clip from the new Al Jazeera Fault Lines investigation, America’s War Workers, about migrant laborers on U.S. military bases.
For more, we’re joined by the two journalists who did the investigation. Samuel Black is a producer at Al Jazeera, and Anjali Kamat is a correspondent. They also co-wrote an article that accompanies the film, called "After 12 Years of War, Labor Abuses Still Rampant on U.S. Bases in Afghanistan."
Welcome, Sam. Welcome, Anjali. And great to be with you again, Anjali, former Democracy Now! producer. Anjali, talk about this investigation that you did.
ANJALI KAMAT: So, we did a five-month investigation. I mean, I think one thing to realize is that this isn’t new. For over the past 10 years, the U.S. military has been systematically privatizing more and more of its functions, particularly logistics. And we’ve seen this in Iraq and in Afghanistan. But what’s interesting is there has been a realization and a recognition at the highest levels that workers are being trafficked. The lowest-wage jobs on these bases have been filled by so-called third-country nationals. They’re usually workers from Asia and Africa, different countries, both in Iraq and Afghanistan. And there was a recognition in September 2012. President Obama signed an executive order banning the use of fees on military contracts. Congress also passed a law banning the use of unreasonably high fees.
So we wanted to look into this issue and see if this was continuing. So, my colleague Sam and other colleagues at Al Jazeera, we basically contacted a lot of workers, current and former workers in Afghanistan, to see what their experiences were. And then we traveled to the bases in Afghanistan and to India to get a sense of what their experiences were. And we spoke to 75 workers. And of the 75 workers we spoke to, 90 percent of them had paid fees. And we’re talking fees in the range of $1,000 to $5,000. And these are workers, in the case of Afghanistan today, they’re primarily coming from India and Nepal. And they’re coming from jobs, previous jobs, that had paid something like $100 or $200 a month maximum. So they’ve all had to take out enormous loans to pay these fees, predatory loans at interest rates of 35 to 40 percent sometimes. So they’re indebted. And, you know, what you see in the film is a story of how there’s—they move through multiple layers of being deceived.
AMY GOODMAN: And so, Sam, they go, let’s say, from southern India, where you also went, to—they’re taken to Dubai? And explain what happens next.
SAM BLACK: That’s right, exactly. Well, in India, these are mostly men who often have no income or very low income, and so they’re desperately looking for work overseas. And there’s a history of men from India and Nepal and the Philippines being—going to work on U.S. military bases. In some cases, their father or their uncle has done this, their brother. And the reason why they end up going through Dubai is because that’s the stopping-off point where the recruiters send them, where they’re supposed to meet the representatives from the subcontractor, who is really their employer.
The key thing to remember here is that it’s a supply chain. And it starts with the Department of Defense, which is the entity, of course, that’s operating these bases in Afghanistan and Iraq for the last 10 years, and elsewhere in Central Command. The Department of Defense then has contracted the—has asked companies, private companies—in Afghanistan, it’s two companies, Fluor Corporation and DynCorp International—to manage the bases in Afghanistan. But those companies, in turn, then turn around and subcontract typically 75 percent of the labor on those bases to subcontractors, which are mostly based in the Persian Gulf and the United Arab Emirates, Dubai.
AMY GOODMAN: In this clip from America’s War Workers, Anjali, you speak with Sam McMahon—McCahon, who is a former Army Judge Advocate General officer who’s pushing for reforming the military contracting system.
ANJALI KAMAT: Prime contractors like Fluor could hire workers directly for less. But the way the system is set up, they actually have an incentive to use subcontractors that overcharge. That’s because the government has agreed to reimburse prime contractors for all of their costs and then pay them a percentage of that total as a fixed profit.
SAM McCAHON: So the economic advantage is to incur as many costs as you can legitimately do so. The prime contractors make millions of dollars in additional profits by subcontracting it out.
ANJALI KAMAT: So the U.S. government is subsidizing human trafficking?
SAM McCAHON: No, we’re paying for it directly. This is the only form of human trafficking where the taxpayer directly pays the human trafficker.
AMY GOODMAN: So talk about, Anjali, what he is saying here. He’s a former JAG officer.
ANJALI KAMAT: Yeah, and Sam McCahon is someone who’s been looking at this issue, tracking it quite carefully for the past six, seven years. And, you know, what he talks about is how this is the only form of human trafficking that’s directly subsidized by U.S. taxpayers. And we’re talking $53.6 billion since 2001. That’s how much taxpayer money has gone into this contracting system. We don’t know how much of it has been wasted, how much of it has gone in different places.
Sam, Sam Black, my colleague, was just explaining the way the supply chain works. And when you look at it, you see that every single person in the supply chain makes money except for the worker. So what we found in the film is that, you know, workers pay these huge fees, enormous fees, to their recruiting agents. And recruiting agents are a key part of this system. And it’s not something the U.S. military invented, but they bought into a system, an existing system that’s prevalent in the Persian Gulf countries, to bring labor from South Asia, cheap labor.
AMY GOODMAN: So if you have one of these workers that pays $5,000, and he’s told, "Well, you know, you’ll make it back quickly—
ANJALI KAMAT: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: —"because you’ll have a very high-paying job," but then he gets to Afghanistan, and he’s told $500—
ANJALI KAMAT: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: —he will get a month, that in order to raise that, he’s going to have to be working for a year, because then he has to pay back this interest rate of like 25 or 30 percent.
ANJALI KAMAT: And that’s if he gets to Afghanistan. I mean, we met so many workers who were warehoused in Dubai for months. And so, while they are being warehoused, they’re just waiting in these very squalid labor camps that—we visited one of these labor camps in Dubai. It’s called Sonapur, which means "City of Gold," which is also what Dubai is known as, but this is—in Hindi, it’s called Sonapur, and it’s this city of 300,000 South Asian workers—who are building the Gulf economies, right? And this is where these workers are also warehoused. They’re kept there, sometimes for months on end, waiting to be sent to work, to Afghanistan or, previously, to Iraq. And they’re not getting paid. They’re staying in small rooms, sometimes with 10 to 40 other people in the room, getting very little food. And while they’re not getting paid, they’re not able to send money back home, so that the interest on that loan is just getting higher and higher. And then the pressure to take a job, even if it’s much lower-paying than what they were originally promised, is that much higher.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to another clip from your piece, America’s War Workers. This is an agent who recruits workers for Ecolog and Supreme Group, two contractors in Afghanistan.
ANJALI KAMAT: I asked him about his contract with Ecolog, and he told me something incredible: Ecolog does not pay him any money directly. The money he makes comes entirely from the fees paid by job candidates. And, he explained, subcontractors take a cut from those fees.
RECRUITER: There are some of the companies, like Ecolog and others there, we have only an agreement with them—
ANJALI KAMAT: OK.
RECRUITER: —that they will pay us $300 per person.
ANJALI KAMAT: OK.
RECRUITER: But in fact they are not paying anything for us. That is just to show for the main contractor.
ANJALI KAMAT: Yeah, so it would be a no-fee contract.
RECRUITER: Yeah, yeah, yeah, because they are not allowed to charge any money for the worker. So, there are some companies which they are charging $100, $200, also from the agencies.
ANJALI KAMAT: Yeah.
This agent even offered to pay me money if we hired workers from his camp, $100 to $200 for each worker we could find a job for in Afghanistan.
AMY GOODMAN: Anjali, explain where you met with him. You’ve got this shaky camera work, because you secretly recorded this conversation.
ANJALI KAMAT: Yeah. So, Sam and I posed as representatives of a fictitious subcontracting company based in the U.S., and we said that we wanted to expand our business in military contracting overseas. So we set up a meeting with him. We got his contact from one of the workers we had met in Afghanistan. He had recruited him. And we, you know, just asked him what this business model is like and just asked very simple questions. You know, "If you provide workers to Ecolog and Supreme, you know, where do you house these workers?" And he said, "Oh, in Sonapur, in a labor camp outside of Dubai."
And we said, "OK, you know, how much—how much is it going to cost? If we’re going to hire you to bring workers for us, how much do we have to pay you?" And he basically said, "Nothing. You know, on paper, I say that you pay me $300, but really, I’ll pay you," because the way it works is that each recruiting agent wants the subcontractor to hire workers from his pool of workers that they’ve trafficked from India or Nepal. They want those workers to be hired, because they’ve gotten all their money from the recruitment fees that the workers give them. So they don’t need any additional money from the subcontractor. In fact, they give bribes to representatives of subcontracting companies to hire their workers.
AMY GOODMAN: It sounds like, Sam, there is a lot of deniability here on the part of the Pentagon. But they have to know these workers come from somewhere.
SAM BLACK: Yeah, I mean, there’s—the Pentagon, but not just the Pentagon, the prime contractors, Fluor and DynCorp, are insulated from this behavior. And it’s set up purposely to insulate them from this behavior. The U.S. Department of Defense depends on, and over the last 10 years has depended on, thousands, hundreds of thousands of these low-paid workers, and—but with the system they’ve set up, they’re insulated. And, you know, what’s important here is that the money is going the opposite way that you expect: It’s going up the supply chain. The people are paying to work, and the people who are recruiting are paying to recruit. It’s just kind of bizarre. And the people that are making the most profit are essentially rent seeking on the fact that they have the opportunity to offer the job. And it’s because they’re essentially hooked up to the hose of government money that they can do that.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, explain that, and explain what President Obama said would change, Anjali.
ANJALI KAMAT: So, in the executive order of September 2012, President Obama basically bans outright recruitment fees on military contracts.
AMY GOODMAN: Because?
ANJALI KAMAT: Because there is an understanding that this fits into the definition of human trafficking, which is illegal under U.S. law and international law. And there’s been, you know, a lot of journalistic work and investigations within the military that have looked into this since 2006, and there’s been an acknowledgment that this is happening. It’s not something new. But what’s astounding is that even though this executive order happened, Congress also passed a law banning—you know, acknowledging that this was happening—they didn’t ban recruitment fees outright, but banned what they called unreasonable recruitment fees. And that’s obviously open to interpretation.
And what we heard from a lot of workers is that, increasingly, they are being asked by military personnel on the bases if they paid a recruitment fee. But what’s interesting is that they’re just being asked by someone, "Did you pay a recruitment fee?" Now, remember, these workers have paid so much money, they’re taking out this enormous loan, they’re terrified that if they tell them, "Yes, I paid a recruitment fee"—they’ve finally gotten to Afghanistan, they finally have the chance to make a little bit of money, and if they say, "Yes, we did pay," they’re terrified they’re just going to be sent back home.
AMY GOODMAN: Tell us about Arun Pandian.
ANJALI KAMAT: So, Arun Pandian was a young man we met. We went to two villages in southern India, in Tamil Nadu, the southern Indian state, in an area that’s a very rich agricultural area, but where farming incomes have dropped very dramatically in the past decade, which is why a lot of people from there have sought to leave India or leave that area looking for work. So these two villages that we went to, Govindnagaram and Odaipatti, have sent—people there claim that they’ve sent very large numbers of people to both Iraq and Afghanistan. So, Arun Pandian was a young boy. He grew up hearing stories from his uncle and his friends and everyone in the village, you know, of how they had all gone and worked with the U.S. military. And for a teenage boy, this sounded very exciting.
So, when he was 20, he was offered a job by an agent, a recruitment agent, who said, you know, "If you pay us a little bit of money, we can get you a job with a subcontractor called Supreme in Afghanistan." So he took out a loan for $2,500, paid the agent $2,500. And this is in South India. He was told to travel to the Delhi, which is the capital, in northern India, and kept there for several weeks, told that, "Yes, you’ll be sent. You’ll be sent. You’ll be sent to Dubai. You’ll be sent to Afghanistan very soon. Just wait." He’s kept in an apartment with about 15 other men who are all in the same position. And ultimately, he’s told, "No, there’s no job. Just go back."
He doesn’t get his money back. He’s still in debt. He’s still trying to pay his debts back. And what’s interesting is that the recruitment agent in this case actually gave him a receipt, you know, because within India there are also laws about, you know, using only registered agents. But what’s interesting is there’s only about, you know, less than 2,000 agents that are actually registered, whereas when you look at the actual number of agents and sub-agents across the country, it runs into the tens of thousands, and most of them are unlicensed. So he got a receipt, but only for a very small portion of what he actually paid.
AMY GOODMAN: And what about Rajesh Kumar?
ANJALI KAMAT: Rajesh was another man we met in Govindnagaram, and he was interesting because he had actually gone—he ended up going to Afghanistan, and he had come back. He worked for—also for Supreme with DynCorp. DynCorp is the prime contractor in this case. He was shuttled through five different agents. He was sent to three different cities in India and then to Dubai. In Dubai, he was made to wait for three months in a small room with 40 other people, given very little food. And they kept saying, "We’re going to get you a job. We’re going to get you a job. Just wait." But nothing happened. So, finally, he went to his agent. He heard that the agents were sending people back to India, saying, "Oh, you know what? It’s not working out. Just go back." And he couldn’t afford to do that. He had put his house up. He had taken out a loan. He was on the verge of losing everything. So he threatened his agent. He said, "I’m going to commit suicide or call the police. You know, I can’t take it. You have to send me." So, finally, they sent him to Afghanistan for a much, much lower pay than he had asked for originally.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to one last clip in America’s War Workers where we meet a former cook with the U.S. military named Ganesan Subbaiah. He sold his father’s farmland and his mother’s jewelry to pay an agent for a job on a U.S. military base in Afghanistan. But after he arrived, he was told in Dubai he would be going to an American base in Djibouti for a much lower salary. The film ends with his final thoughts on his ordeal.
GANESAN SUBBAIAH: [translated] There’s no chance of me going back, because I’ve already been cheated by these agents, and they don’t pay what they promised. I couldn’t stand it there. I put up with it for nine months. When I left there, I cursed the place.
o be honest, I wished the camp would burn to the ground.
AMY GOODMAN: Samuel Black, the Pentagon’s response?
SAM BLACK: We’ve received no response from the Pentagon as of yet. I mean, I think what’s remarkable is that over the last 10 years, there hasn’t been a single contractor or subcontractor that’s been suspended from one of these contracts, been terminated. There’s been no prosecutions, not even a civil action directed at one of these companies. And as Anjali said, in 2006—this has been reported since 2006. And, you know, we had limited resources. We were able to go to a base. We were able to communicate with people in India. And it wasn’t that hard for us to find 90 percent of the people we talked to had paid fees.
AMY GOODMAN: DynCorp and Fluor—
SAM BLACK: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: —are the two multinational corporations, who get how much?
ANJALI KAMAT: So, they get—because of the type of contract they have, they get whatever the subcontractors are charging them, plus—
AMY GOODMAN: But they’ve been paid over billions.
ANJALI KAMAT: —$53.6 billion, overall, not just DynCorp and Fluor.
SAM BLACK: That also includes KBR. KBR is actually the prime contractor that was—managed the Iraq War and is still in Bahrain. It’s just not in Afghanistan. So, actually, it’s the biggest player of them all.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you both. Really a remarkable piece. Samuel Black, producer at Al Jazeera, and Anjali Kamat, correspondent. They have worked on this piece for five months for Fault Lines. It’s called America’s War Workers, about migrant laborers on U.S. military bases. When we come back, the latest from the elections in El Salvador, still too close to call. Stay with us. 
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Ukraine's Longtime Divisions & NATO's Eastern Expansion to Russian Border Lay Ground for Crimea Vote
Tens of thousands took part in rival pro-unity and pro-Russian rallies in Ukraine on Sunday ahead of a planned secession referendum in Russian-occupied Crimea. Crimean residents are set to vote this Sunday on whether to break off from Ukraine and join Russia following the ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych last month. In a show of support for Ukraine’s new government, the White House has announced President Obama will host newly installed Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk at the White House this week. We are joined from Crimea by freelance journalist Nicholas Clayton, who has covered the South Caucasus since 2009.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: As tensions remain high in Ukraine, the White House has announced President Obama will meet with newly installed Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk at the White House Wednesday, just days before a referendum on secession by Crimea. Yatsenyuk became prime minister after Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted from power. The United States and members of the European Union have rejected the proposed referendum in Crimea, saying it’s a violation of Ukraine’s constitution.
On Sunday, tens of thousands of people in Ukraine took part in rival pro-unity and pro-Russian rallies. Speaking at a rally in Kiev, the prime minister, Yatsenyuk, pledged not to give a "single centimeter" of Ukrainian land to the Kremlin.
PRIME MINISTER ARSENIY YATSENYUK: [translated] We will defeat them, and we will win. Against Ukraine, against our peoples, against our families, against our European future, our neighboring country has launched a military aggression. Our answer to the Russian Federation is the only one: unity, confidence, dedication and the belief that we are going in the right direction. This is our land. Our parents and grandparents spilled their blood for this land. We will not give up a single centimeter of Ukrainian land. Let Russia and the Russian president know this.
AMY GOODMAN: Russian President Vladimir Putin has defended the vote in Crimea, saying it’s based on international law and aimed at guaranteeing the legitimate interests of the peninsula’s population. Crimea is a former Russian territory that’s home to Russia’s Black Sea fleet and has an ethnic Russian majority. The vote comes as the Russian military has tightened its control of the Crimean Peninsula. According to Ukraine’s border service, Russian forces now control 13 border bases as well as a key ferry connecting Crimea to Russia. Gunmen also reportedly fired warning shots on Saturday at observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, blocking them from entering Crimea.
We go now to the Crimea, to the city of Sevastopol, where we’re joined by freelance journalist Nicholas Clayton. He recently wrote a piece for Global Post called "Crimea’s Referendum Plans Are Dividing the Population." He has covered the South Caucasus since 2009.
Welcome to Democracy Now! Why don’t you start off by just describing to us Crimea today? I think most people in the United States hardly know it exists.
NICHOLAS CLAYTON: Well, Crimea today is—you know, it was a part of Russia and the Russian Empire since the 18th century. And the city of Sevastopol was founded by Catherine the Great to be the site of the Russian Black Sea fleet. And so, therefore, that’s always been a part of Crimea’s history. And, in fact, here in Sevastopol, where it’s possibly probably the highest density of Russians in Ukraine, that military history is very much tied in with their identity.
However, Crimea has also long been the home of the Tatar ethnic group, which are a Turkic group. And, however, they were all forcibly removed during the Soviet Union, and some have come back and returned. But since the peninsula was gifted to Ukraine in 1954, when both Ukraine and Russia were Soviet republics, by Ukrainian-born Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, since then, the population has mixed quite a bit more, and there is—about 10 to 15 percent of the population is Ukrainian.
AMY GOODMAN: And talk about the significance of this vote next weekend, Nicholas.
NICHOLAS CLAYTON: Well, the vote is clearly what everybody is waiting for. There have been rising tensions, but, in many ways, everyone is waiting until the referendum to see what will really happen. The fact is that the referendum leaves basically no possibility for Crimea to remain a part of Ukraine. The two questions on the referendum are, one, "Do you support Crimea becoming a part of the Russian Federation?" and two, "Do support the restoration of the 1992 Crimean constitution?" And the last form of that constitution, which was later abandoned after negotiations with Kiev, but in that last—in its last form, it described Crimea as an independent country, and so, therefore, if that constitution were to be restored, it’s likely that the Crimean government would interpret that as meaning that Crimea would then be an independent country, one that might then later be absorbed by Russia, or it could become a—some sort of semi-independent protectorate, similar to what has occurred with Georgia’s breakaway territories, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, that continue on recognized as independent by Russia and only a few of Russia’s allies, but are basically dependent upon Russian aid and support.
AMY GOODMAN: On Saturday, Ukraine’s acting foreign minister in the upcoming—said that the upcoming referendum in Crimea is illegitimate.
ANDRIY DESHCHYTSYA: We consider this referendum and the decision illegal, and there is no other way how to protest but to say to the international community that the results will be not valid. And it’s a part of the democratic principles, if the elections—or referendum, at this moment—is not fair, free and fair, then not only Ukraine, but the international community will not recognize it.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Nicholas, if you could describe the views of the people in Crimea around this referendum, and also the presence of the Soviet—of the Russian bases?
NICHOLAS CLAYTON: Well, the breadth of opinion here is actually much wider than I think has been discussed in most media. Although Crimea is majority ethnic Russian, that’s not necessarily a 100 percent indicator of where their loyalties lie. Although the pro-Russian crowd has made its voice the loudest in Crimea, and there’s been several rallies supporting the unity with Russia, I’ve also spoken with several ethnic Russians that feel that—either they feel like that they are a part of Ukraine and that their ethnicity and the fact that they speak Russian, not Ukrainian, doesn’t necessarily invalidate their Ukrainian identity, and also many others that said that really the root causes of the discontent, overall, with Kiev come from the fact that they’ve largely been dictated to from Kiev, from a faraway government that operates in a different language from them, and they said that, you know, "Basically, our problem is that we’re a small territory that’s a part of a bigger country. If we become, you know, part of Russia, we’ll be a small part of an even bigger country." And so, there really is a range of opinions.
The Tatar minority, which represent about 25 percent of the population of Crimea, they have been very worried. They’ve organized their own self-defense groups, and their autonomous Parliament has called on Crimean residents to boycott the referendum. And given their history of being deported forcibly by the Soviet Union, they are very suspicious of Moscow’s motives, and also they’re very fearful of what might happen to their rights should the Crimea once again become a Russian territory.
AMY GOODMAN: On Saturday, Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov talked about the crisis in Ukraine.
SERGEY LAVROV: [translated] They are trying to represent us as a conflicting side, which we are not. This conflict is of an inner Ukrainian nature, inspired from outside and not from our side. The temporary government, as you’ve called it, is not independent. Unfortunately, it depends on radical nationalists who took power in an armed coup.
AMY GOODMAN: Nicholas Clayton, if you could respond to Lavrov and also talk about the presence of the Russian bases?
NICHOLAS CLAYTON: Well, that has been the line that’s come out of the Russian media for a long time here, and it’s had its desired effect. Many people here believe that there is a new fascist government in Kiev that is coming to exterminate ethnic Russians in Crimea. And that has very much been—it’s what we continue to hear here in Crimea as to why they support the referendum, why they need Russian support, why they want to separate from Kiev.
And in terms of the troops in these standoffs, there’s been an ongoing war of nerves very much between these unmarked military units—and there’s building evidence that they are indeed Russian, there’s little doubt that they are Russian forces here—and Ukrainian troops that continue to be surrounded in various bases around the country. For the most part, after initial standoffs, there were agreements that were made between the Ukrainian and Russian sides, in that Russians would sometimes take certain strategic parts of the base and that would be their zone of interest, while the Ukrainians would remain in their parts. There were ultimatums that had been made trying to get the Ukrainians to surrender, and so far none have, at least not in significant numbers. And—but, however, there was an attack on Friday wherein a mix of Russian regular soldiers, it appears, and these volunteer self-defense forces attacked a Ukrainian base south of Sevastopol and, again, broke through the gates and tried to force the Ukrainians to surrender, and they did not do so. And they eventually—and the pro-Russian forces eventually withdrew. However, I spoke with some Ukrainian soldiers over the weekend, and they say now, basically, since that particular event, they believe that the Russians could violate the agreements and come storming in at any moment. And so, the situation remains very tense.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about NATO and the Russians’ attitude toward NATO? The U.S. support, for example, for the independence of Kosovo, but then saying that Crimea is unconstitutional according to the Ukraine constitution.
NICHOLAS CLAYTON: Well, this whole episode has very much revived the debate between self-determination versus state sovereignty. And very much, there are, as you mentioned, links going back—in terms of Russia’s view of this—going back to 1999. You know, in the '90s, there was a bit of a détente between NATO and Russia under Yeltsin and Clinton; however, that opinion has changed in the Russian political elite, particularly during the ’90s, as they saw what they interpreted as increasingly aggressive behavior on NATO's side. NATO agreed not to expand beyond a certain point into Eastern Europe, and they continued moving. And particularly around the Kosovo incident, Russia felt like it deserved, you know, a seat at the table in negotiations over what the international response was going to be and how there would be reconciliation in the end, and it felt like it was—its assurances and its promises from the West were not respected there.
And since then, there’s been a lot of analysts saying that they feel that these moves by the Kremlin are irrational and somehow that Putin has gone crazy. But in fact, Putin has always been a very calculated and opportunistic person, not—I’m not vouching necessarily for any of his policies, but in Crimea, he has acted in a way that really represents the way he sees the world order, in which many Russians feel that the actual—that the international organizations, international institutions, like the U.N., like the OSCE, that purport to build these processes by which the—you know, these types of disputes can be resolved, all of them are slanted towards Western interests. And Putin, therefore, sees that not only is it unlikely to get a favorable result by going through the official, normal international channels, but also that it—you know, that Putin believes very much that the West is being hypocritical itself, that when the West wants to attack a country or get militarily involved in the affairs of another country, they oftentimes do that action without consulting the U.N., without going through any of those structures, as well. And so, this very much is a part of Putin’s worldview, that going through the normal processes and the international community insisting that Russia go through the normal processes is a way of sidelining it, a way of keeping Russia from getting what it wants. And so, therefore, Putin is content to do things his way.
AMY GOODMAN: And the significance of the new Ukrainian prime minister, Yatsenyuk, coming to meet with President Obama on Wednesday, which is a few days before the referendum in Crimea?
NICHOLAS CLAYTON: Well, it will be very important—well, two things will be very important here. I think many people have forgotten that much of what spurred this crisis, going back before the protests even in Kiev, was the fact that Ukraine is very much on the verge of bankruptcy. And its economic situation has only worsened after the protests. Ukraine seriously needs significant financial support in order to stay afloat. Not only that, but if Russia either cuts gas through Ukraine or increases its prices, that will have a serious detrimental effect on the Ukrainian economy and the ability of this new government to remain stable throughout this crisis.
But I think also, similarly important is the guidance that Western partners can give to Ukraine. Another part of the trigger of all of this, and this political crisis that has erupted now between the east and west, is very much a part of a continuing political crisis that has existed within Ukraine for—basically since independence. If you look at political maps of how the national elections have gone, they’re very—there are historic political divides between the east and west. And no government, basically, since independence, has been able to really rule through consensus. In 2004, you had the Orange Revolution, which brought about a pro-Western, Ukrainian-speaking, ethnic Ukrainian government that pushed the country towards NATO, even though the majority of the country was not enthusiastic about joining NATO, but it also imposed Ukrainian as the national language for all administrative purposes, which is something that has really antagonized the Russian-speaking east. And meanwhile—and this is something that has also come up recently, that there—when Yanukovych, from the Russian-speaking east, took power in 2010, he then made Russian an official language alongside Ukrainian, and that law was—the new Parliament voted to annul that law, giving Russian the official status, shortly after the new government took place—took power. And that is something that many Russians talk about here in the east as being a very provocative measure. Although the new Ukrainian president vetoed the law, it still was a sign that the new government really needs to be encouraged to take steps to build a policy that does build consensus with both sides, bringing in politicians from the east into the government so that these eastern regions feel that they are adequately represented in the government and there is not this—there’s no longer this sense of, you know, one side takes power and strips rights from the other side, and vice versa.
AMY GOODMAN: Nicholas Clayton, I want to thank you for being with us, freelance journalist, speaking to us from Crimea. We will link to your piece at Global Post called "Crimea’s Referendum Plans Are Dividing the Population." This is Democracy Now! When we come back, America’s War Workers. Stay with us.
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Leftist Ex-Rebel Holds Narrow Lead in El Salvador After Entering Race as Heavy Favorite
Both candidates have claimed victory in El Salvador’s presidential election after a preliminary count showed the vote was too close to call. The race pitted the governing party’s Salvador Sánchez Cerén against the right-wing candidate Norman Quijano. Sánchez Cerén, a former rebel commander, was running to replace Mauricio Funes, marking the first time an FMLN candidate succeeds another after decades of right-wing governments. Sánchez Cerén was seen as the favorite coming in, but the latest results show him ahead less than 1 percent. We go to El Salvador to speak with Laura Embree-Lowry of CISPES, the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, as we end today’s show on El Salvador, where both candidates have claimed victory in Sunday’s presidential election after a preliminary count showed the vote too close to call. The race pitted the governing party’s Salvador Sánchez Cerén against the right-wing candidate, Norman Quijano. Sánchez Cerén, a former rebel commander, was running to replace Mauricio Funes, marking the first time an FMLN candidate succeeds another after decades of right-wing governments. Sánchez Cerén was seen as the favorite coming in, but the latest results show him ahead less than 1 percent.
We go now to San Salvador, where we’re joined by Laura Embree-Lowry, the program director of CISPES, the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador. She’s been based in San Salvador for the last five years.
Welcome to Democracy Now! What is the latest news on this election, Laura?
LAURA EMBREE-LOWRY: Thank you, Amy, and good morning.
So, as you mentioned, it’s a very, very close race. The preliminary results are showing 50.11 percent for the FMLN and 49.89 percent for the right-wing ARENA party. That’s with over 99.9 percent of the tables reporting at this point. So the electoral authority, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, has said that because of the closeness of the race, they won’t be declaring an official winner until they’ve actually done the final count of the—you know, the original results from each table. But what we’re seeing right now is, in the preliminary results, that the FMLN, the leftist party, is ahead by over 6,300 votes.
What’s really concerning is the right-wing party having declared victory extremely early, when less than 70 percent of the voting tables were reporting. And it seems to go along with the trends that we saw before the election of them setting up the stage to discredit the election results after they had been announced. And last night, when Norman Quijano, the right-wing ARENA candidate was declaring victory, he was already calling fraud and saying that the TSC’s refusal to give a definitive result right now is a sign of fraud. He was also—called on the armed forces to protect democracy and to defend El Salvador’s democracy against the fraud that was being committed. So this is very concerning, especially because all of the observer missions have noted the transparency of the process, the tranquility with which it developed. The OAS, Organization of American States, observer mission has said that El Salvador’s electoral system is cutting-edge for the Central American region. So, also, the ARENA candidate, Norman Quijano, also said that his party was ready for war—
AMY GOODMAN: He’s the mayor of San Salvador.
LAURA EMBREE-LOWRY: —in terms of defending democracy [inaudible] fraud. I’m sorry?
AMY GOODMAN: He’s the mayor of San Salvador?
LAURA EMBREE-LOWRY: Yes, he’s the mayor of San Salvador and the candidate for the right-wing ARENA party.
AMY GOODMAN: Right. And then talk about the significance of Sánchez Cerén, also from the FMLN, as the current president, Mauricio Funes, is.
LAURA EMBREE-LOWRY: Well, Sánchez Cerén is a former guerrilla commander from when the FMLN was a rebel group during the civil war. The FMLN was, of course, incorporated into the electoral system after the peace accords were signed in 1992, and Sánchez Cerén has served as vice president in Mauricio Funes’s administration, as well as minister of education, in which he launched some really cutting—I guess some really amazing social programs, including free uniforms, free school lunches for school children, a literacy program to eradicate illiteracy in the country. And so he’s really a very popular candidate because of how those programs have touched so many lives of the poor majority in El Salvador.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, of course, we’ll continue to cover these results. Again, they have not been announced yet, the election for president in El Salvador. Laura Embree-Lowry, speaking to us from San Salvador, program director at CISPES, the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador.
And that does it for our broadcast. I’ll be on the road tomorrow on—as we mark the third anniversary of the meltdown at Fukushima, we’ll be playing an interview with the former Japanese prime minister, Naoto Kan. When we were in Tokyo, we interviewed him. Tomorrow night, I’ll be speaking at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, at Bowker Auditorium at 7:00 p.m. On Thursday, in Flagstaff at Northern Arizona University at the Cline Library at 7:00. Friday in Santa Fe, speaking at the Lensic. And on Saturday, I’ll be in Denver, Colorado. All are welcome. Go to our website at democracynow.org.
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Headlines:
Stolen Passports Fuel Hijacking Fears in Search for Missing Malaysian Plane
A multi-country effort is in its third day of searching for a commercial airliner that disappeared en route from Malaysia to China without a trace. Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was carrying 239 people on board. Suspicion of a hijacking has grown after it emerged at least two passengers were traveling on stolen passports. A team of ships and aircraft has been scouring the waters between Malaysia and Vietnam, where the plane last made contact, as well as the Strait of Malacca, on the opposite side of the Malaysian Peninsula. No debris has been found so far. A large oil slick was spotted in the sea south of Vietnam, but its source has yet to be confirmed.
U.S. to Host Ukrainian PM Ahead of Crimea Secession Vote
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Tens of thousands took part in rival pro-unity and pro-Russian rallies in Ukraine on Sunday ahead of a planned secession referendum in Russian-occupied Crimea. Crimea is set to vote this Sunday on whether to break off from Ukraine and join Russia following the ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych last month. In a show of support for the new government, the White House has announced President Obama will host newly installed Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk at the White House this week. We’ll have more from Ukraine after headlines.
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45 Killed in Iraq Suicide Bombing
At least 45 people were killed in Iraq on Sunday when a suicide bomber hit a checkpoint in the southern city of Hilla. More than 100 people were wounded. The attack engulfed several dozen cars in flames, trapping motorists inside. Violence continues to rage in Iraq this year after more than 8,000 deaths in 2013.
Rivals Claim Victory in El Salvador Election
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Both candidates have claimed victory in El Salvador’s presidential election after a preliminary count showed the vote was too close to call. The race pitted the governing party’s Salvador Sánchez Cerén against the right-wing candidate, Norman Quijano. Sánchez Cerén, a former rebel commander, was running to replace Mauricio Funes, marking the first time an FMLN candidate succeeds another after decades of right-wing governments. Sánchez Cerén was seen as the favorite coming in, but the latest results show him ahead by less than 1 percent.
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Syrian Children Dying of Preventable Diseases with Health System’s Collapse
A new report on the Syrian conflict warns children are among the most severely impacted by the virtual collapse of the country’s health system. According to Save the Children, several thousand Syrian kids have died because of a drastic reduction in access to health services, losing their lives to diseases and conditions including cancer, epilepsy, asthma, diabetes, hypertension and kidney failure. Overall, at least 10,000 children have died in violence. Save the Children’s Roger Hearn said the problem is most acute in besieged cities like Aleppo.
Roger Hearn: "What we’ve seen with the report is, basically, there’s been a complete collapse of much of the health system inside Syria. We’re seeing situations, for example, in Aleppo where 36 doctors are looking after around 2.5 million patients across the city. So, a system that’s collapsed, 60 percent of health facilities have been damaged or destroyed, and as a result of that, we’re seeing some really terrible outcomes for children."
Later this week will mark three years since the Syrian conflict began.
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750 on Hunger Strike at Washington State Immigration Prison
Around 750 prisoners at a Washington state immigration jail have launched a hunger strike. The strikers at the Northwest Detention Center are protesting the Obama administration’s record deportations as well as poor conditions that include wages of just one dollar a day for prison labor. Some areas of the prison have been locked down, and around 30 people are reportedly being held in isolation or crowded cells. Speaking on Friday, two prisoners appealed for public support.
Prisoner 1: "So that they give us better food, so that they give us lower prices on what they sell here in the commissary, and so that they stop the deportations."
Prisoner 2: "I’m hoping we can get some support from all the people who are listening, because, don’t believe what you hear, life in here is not very easy. They have us here working for one dollar a day. We work for four hours, five hours sometimes, and for just one dollar."
The prison is run by The GEO Group, a contractor for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. According to The Nation magazine, GEO recently violated a pledge to refrain from lobbying Congress on immigration reform, presumably in favor of for-profit jails.
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Families to Stage Re-entry Protest at U.S.-Mexico Border
Over 100 families are expected to take part in a protest against deportations today on the U.S.-Mexico border. The families, including many undocumented members, say they’ll cross over into Mexico and then seek re-entry in the United States through a humanitarian visa or asylum.
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Border Patrol Limits Shootings by Agents After Spate of Deaths
The U.S. Border Patrol has issued fresh restrictions on when agents can open fire. Under the new rules, customs and border agents are barred from shooting at vehicles whose occupants are trying to flee. They are also prevented from stepping in front of the vehicle or using their body to block it in the case of escape. In cases where migrants are throwing rocks, agents have been told to first seek cover or move way and only open fire in cases of "imminent danger of death or serious injury." A recent report found U.S. border agents have been involved in 20 fatalities since 2010, eight of which involved rock throwing. Agents were also involved in at least 67 shooting incidents in the same period. The new policy reverses a decision last year that ignored an independent panel’s recommendation to use restraint with rock throwers.
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Ft. Hood Sexual Assault Coordinator Accused of Running Prostitution Ring
Yet another Army official involved in sexual assault prevention has been charged with a related crime. Sgt. 1st Class Gregory McQueen, who runs the sexual assault and harassment prevention wing at Fort Hood, is accused of setting up a prostitution ring of cash-strapped female soldiers. McQueen was charged Friday with 21 counts, including pandering, conspiracy, maltreatment of a subordinate and abusive sexual contact. McQueen’s court-martial comes days after the Army’s top prosecutor for sexual assault cases, Lt. Col. Joseph Morse, was suspended for alleged sexual assault. Morse and McQueen bring to at least five in the last year the number of Army officers involved in sexual assault oversight to be accused of some of the very same offenses they’re tasked with preventing and punishing. Last week the Senate rejected a measure that would have moved oversight of sexual assault in the military outside of the chain of command.
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Accuser: General Forced Sexual Contact, Threatened Murder
Meanwhile, the trial of an Army general accused of sexual assault continues at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. On Friday, the alleged victim in the case, an Army captain, testified Brigadier General Jeffrey Sinclair twice forced her to perform oral sex during their three-year affair in Afghanistan, and threatened to murder her and her family if she revealed the affair. She said Sinclair had forced her head into his lap as she cried. The general’s defense is set to cross-examine her today.
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2 Million Submit Objections as Keystone Comment Period Closes
The final public comment period has closed for weighing in on the Keystone XL oil pipeline. Opponents say they gathered more than two million voices urging the Obama administration to reject the pipeline, which would carry tar sands oil from Alberta to the U.S. Gulf Coast. A group of activists rallied in front of the State Department on Friday, part of a wave of actions across the country. Secretary of State John Kerry could issue his recommendation at any point, leading to a final decision by President Obama. Over 86,000 activists have signed a "Pledge of Resistance" to commit civil disobedience if Kerry recommends the pipeline’s approval.
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Obama Urges GOP to Back Minimum Wage Hike
President Obama used his weekly address on Saturday to continue backing an increase in the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. Obama urged Republicans to drop their opposition in the face of public support for a wage hike.
President Obama: "It’s good for our bottom line. And working Americans have struggled through stagnant wages for far too long. A clear majority of Americans support raising the minimum wage, because we believe that nobody who works full-time should have to live in poverty. About half of all Republicans support raising the minimum wage, too. It’s just too bad they don’t serve in Congress, because the Republicans who do serve in Congress don’t want to vote on the minimum wage at all."
Obama’s comments come as new figures show the economy added 175,000 jobs last month, but the official unemployment rate increased to 6.7 percent.
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Rep. Ryan Admits Anti-School Lunch Story Partially False
Republican Congressmember Paul Ryan has admitted a story he told to slam government food programs was based on a false statement. Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference last week, Ryan recounted the testimony of Eloise Anderson, secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families. Anderson claimed to have spoken to a child from a low-income family who expressed misgivings over receiving a free school lunch.
Rep. Paul Ryan: "What they’re offering people is a full stomach and an empty soul. The American people want more than that. You know, this reminds me of a story I heard from Eloise Anderson. … She once met a young boy from a very poor family. And every day at school, he would get a free lunch from a government program. He told Eloise he didn’t want a free lunch. He wanted his own lunch, one in a brown paper bag, just like the other kids. He wanted one, he said, because he knew a kid with a brown paper bag had someone who cared for him."
It turns out Anderson never spoke to the child in question. The story apparently comes from the 2011 book, "The Invisible Thread," which recounts an exchange from two decades ago with a homeless child who has since gone on to advocate for the government food programs that Ryan denounced. In a statement, Ryan said: "I regret failing to verify the original source of the story."
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International Women’s Day Marked Across the Globe
International Women’s Day was celebrated on Saturday around the world. In New York City, dozens gathered at the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the deadliest workplace accident in New York City’s history. On March 25, 1911, 146 garment workers, mostly young immigrant women, died after a fire broke out at their workplace. Candice Sering of the Filipino women’s group GABRIELA said migrant women are at the forefront of today’s struggles for social justice.
Candice Sering: "Throughout the course of time, you saw the women’s movement sort of changing, and today I would say that migrant workers are at the forefront of what that struggle looks like, for the pure basis of migration being a global issue. There are — human beings are becoming capital, women are commodities of labor, and as they move, the injustices come to the surface. You see how they’re affected, how their families are split apart, how their jobs are insecure, how their wages are stolen. So all of these things are just continuing and just affecting different classes of women and different communities of women. So the fight is still not done."
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Jackson, Mississippi Holds Funeral for Late Mayor Chokwe Lumumba
Hundreds of people gathered in Jackson, Mississippi, on Saturday for the funeral of the city’s late mayor, Chokwe Lumumba. A longtime black nationalist organizer and attorney, Lumumba died last month of heart failure. His election less than a year ago led many to call him "America’s most revolutionary mayor." At a service that ran nearly five hours, with a flood of speakers and musical tributes, Lumumba’s children honored their father’s life.
Rukia Lumumba: "He was a man that loved deeper than we could ever understand the meaning of love, and dedicated his life to that love."
Chokwe Antar Lumumba: "But more importantly, he taught us through his actions. He showed you the type of leader you wanted to be. He showed you the type of father you wanted to be. And for many of us, he showed you true friendship."
Over the past four decades, Lumumba was deeply involved in numerous political and legal campaigns. He helped found the National Black Human Rights Coalition and the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, which he continued to work with after taking office in advocating participatory democracy and the creation of new worker-run cooperatives in Jackson. You can go to our website DemocracyNow.org for our interview with Chokwe Lumumba and our coverage of his life and legacy.
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Snowden to Address SXSW Conference in Austin
And the whistleblower Edward Snowden is set to deliver his first real-time address in the U.S. today with a speech by video feed at the music and technology conference South by Southwest. A crowd of hundreds of people is expected in Austin, Texas, to hear Snowden’s remarks. Ahead of the speech, Republican Congressmember Mike Pompeo of Kansas called on organizers to cancel the event. Snowden is expected to discuss how people can protect themselves from government surveillance
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