film> the whistleblower: Bosnia sex trafficing UN/contractors/others

[revelarts]

no words for this...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/world_news_today/9383788.stm

When Kathryn Bolkovac went to work for the UN peacekeeping mission in post-war Bosnia in the late 1990s, she was horrified to discover a thriving sex-trafficking trade.

But what was even more shocking was that some of her colleagues were involved.
When she tried to expose the abuse, she was fired by her employer, the private military contractor Dyncorp. She eventually won a case against them.
Now her story has been made into a major Hollywood film, The Whistleblower. She's also just written a book about her experience. Kathy Harcombe went to meet her.

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[revelarts]

http://www.examiner.com/article/wikileaks-reveals-texas-contractor-pimped-little-boys-to-afghan-cops


Wikileaks (http://www.examiner.com/topic/wikileaks) has achieved international attention with its recent release of thousands of classified diplomatic cables leaked by Private First Class Bradley Manning.
Many on the left and right, even in the State Department, are clamoring to have Wikileaks declared a terrorist organization, with little regard to the actual definition of terrorism (http://www.examiner.com/muslim-in-san-francisco/my-political-agnosticism-iii-condemning-terrorism). They claim that the released information endanger the lives of some of the people named in the cables. Of course the real reason, as we’ll see, is that cockroaches can’t stand the light of day. To the extent that revealing secret corruption endangers the lives of the corrupt the onus of responsibility falls on the secret keeper not the whistle blower. Wikileaks is a “threat” because it challenges the secrecy on which authoritarian hegemony depends.
Here’s an example.
A revealing cable (http://213.251.145.96/cable/2009/06/09KABUL1651.html) from Kabul describes a meeting between US Assistant Ambassador Joseph Mussomeli and Afghan Minister Hanif Atmar on June 23. During the meeting Atmar expresses concern that publicity over what he calls the “Kunduz DynCorp Problem” could “endanger lives.” Sound familiar? He asks Mussomeli to “quash any news articles on the incident or circulation of a video connected with it.”
So what is the Kunduz DynCorp Problem? What super secret that must be kept to protect lives?
DynCorp is the US corporation contracted by the US government to train the Afghan Police force. Reportedly 95% of its $2 billion annual revenue comes from taxpayers. Well, some of that money was flowing into a child prostitution (http://www.examiner.com/topic/child-prostitution) ring. On April 11 DynCorp apparently threw a party at the Kunduz Regional Training Center where prepubescent boys were dressed in women's clothing and made to dance seductively as they were sold as sex slaves to the highest bidder.
It’s called Bacha Bazi (literally “playing with children” in Persian.), a pre-Islamic Afghan tradition that was banned by the Taliban.
They took some “remedial disciplinary actions” against DynCorp leaders in Afghanistan. They arrested two Afghan National Police charged with “purchasing a service from a child.” And although the Afghan government proposed that a military officer be stationed to oversea DynCorp’s facility... that would violate the current DynCorp contract. Who thought giving sociopaths near limitless revenue in a lawless region with no accountability was a good idea?
Of course their primary concern was a widely anticipated newspaper article on the scandal. When the article appeared in the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/26/AR2009072602358.html) it said that DynCorp workers, “hired a teenage boy to perform a tribal dance at a company farewell party.”
If anything this is precisely why organizations like Wikileaks are necessary. If an Afghan Minister can leverage influence with a US diplomat to persuade a mainstream news outlet to report child prostitution as “a tribal dance” how can the American people trust anything that’s being reported to them?
The fact is this is not DynCorps first child sex scandal.
In 1999 Kathryn Bolkovac (http://www.contractormisconduct.org/index.cfm/1,73,222,html?CaseID=688) was fired from DynCorp after blowing the whistle on a sex-slave ring on a US Army base in Bosnia. DynCorp employees were accused of raping and peddling girls from Ukraine, Moldova and Romania, and forging documents to facilitate sex trafficking into Bosnia. In that case, DynCorps Bosnia site supervisor filmed himself raping two girls.
In a move reminiscent of Catholic child sex scandals, the offending employees were transferred to other bases, but no legal action was taken. Kathryn’s book (http://www.amazon.com/Whistleblower-Trafficking-Military-Contractors-Justice/dp/0230108024/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1291604474&sr=8-1) on the scandal is scheduled for release next month.
In 2002 Ben Johnston (http://www.contractormisconduct.org/index.cfm/1,73,222,html?CaseID=690), a DynCorp helicopter mechanic also in Bosnia, reported that other mechanics were boasting about sex slaves they had purchased from a local brothel. One DynCorp employee reportedly boasted, “My girl’s not a day over 12.” Like Kathryn, Ben was fired, and no legal action was taken.
In 2004, in Colombia (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-isenberg/its-dj-vu-for-dyncorp-all_b_792394.html), DynCorp employees distributed a video in which they raped and molested underage girls from the town of Melgar. The video was even distributed and sold to the general public, and one of the girls committed suicide after the publication. No criminal investigation occurred.
DynCorp insists that it can’t be held responsible for the acts of its employees saying, "No company can guarantee that their employees will behave perfectly at all times.” But they can be held responsible for what their lobbyists do. As reported in the Chicago Tribune (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0512270176dec27,0,1632557.story?page=1), In 2006 DynCorp and Halliburton lobbyists worked together with the Pentagon to block legislation specifically banning sex trafficking by U.S. contractors. The pentagon is yet to ban the practice.
There is an obvious conflict of interest when military contractors can lobby to stall legislation regulating their own behavior, but worse, it sure looks like these multi billion dollar military contractors actually condone child sex slavery (http://www.examiner.com/topic/sex-slavery) and spend tax dollars on it. Oh but, Julian Assange is the terrorist for exposing it, not DynCorp for defending it.

[jimnyc]

Is this a movie or more like a documentary? One of those films where the viewer needs to do some serious fact checking afterwards to make sure writers and producers didn't take liberties to get their political POV across? I might actually watch this one and find out as the trailer did reel me in. Then again, "Green Zone" with Matt Damon was politically lopsided and took liberties, but was still an awesome flick if you go into it realizing it's just a movie.

I'll give my review of this one after watching it! Did you just read about this one, Rev, or did you see it already?

[revelarts]

I saw the film, it's real movie. I believe it recounts mostly real events of the story of the women interviews in the link below the trailer.