A REPORTER AT LARGE THE INVISIBLE ARMY

For foreign workers on U.S. bases in and Afghanistan, war can be hell. BY SARAH STILLMAN

t was lunchtime in Suva, Fiji, a slow paid ridiculous fees for trendy cut-and- could see herself working in one of the day at the end of the tourist season in color jobs? great cosmopolitan capitals. The offer ISeptember of 2007, when four men ap- “I’ll talk it over with my husband,” she seemed like her big break, the chance to peared in the doorway of the Rever replied, coolly, but her pulse was racing. send her teen-age daughter to hospitality Beauty Salon, where Vinnie Tuivaga Vinnie, who was forty-five, had never college and to pay her youngest son’s fees worked as a hair stylist. The men wore worked abroad, but she often dreamed of for secondary school. polished shoes and bright Hawaiian it while hearing missionaries’ lectures at Later that week, at a salon around the shirts, and they told Vinnie about a job her local church. Nearly six feet tall and corner, Lydia Qeraniu, thirty-two, heard that sounded, she recalls, like “the fruits two hundred and thirty pounds, Vinnie a similar offer. A quick-witted woman of my submission to the Lord all these moved with an arthritic gait. But she with a coquettish smile and a figure that years.” How would she like to make five took care with her appearance. She wore prompted Fijian men to call out “uro, times her current salary at a luxury hotel shiny slacks, with a gold pageboy cap on uro!”—slang for “yummy”—Lydia was in Dubai, a place known as the City of her perfectly coiffed frosted black hair, thrilled by the prospect of a career in Gold? How would she like to have and carried a bright-red faux-leather Dubai. So were many other women in wealthy Arab customers, women who purse, stuffed with silver eyeshadow. She beauty shops and beachside hotels across MAGNUM

More than seventy thousand “third-country nationals” work for the American military in war zones; many report being held in conditions

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TNY—2011_06_06—PAGE 56—133SC.—LIVE ART—R 20960—EXTREMELY CRITICAL PHOTOGRAPH TO BE WATCHED THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE PRESS RUN—#3: SPACING CHANGE Fiji. A Korean Air flight to Dubai would the beauticians boarded their flight to the steaks and inflatable tents, Bosnians re- be leaving from Nadi International Air- Emirates. They carried duffelbags full of pair electrical grids, and Indians provide port in a few days. The women just had cosmetics, family photographs, Bibles, iced mocha lattes. The Army and Air to deliver their résumés, hand over their floral sarongs, and chambas, traditional Force Exchange Service (AAFES) is be- passports, submit to medical tests, and silky Fijian tops worn with patterned hind most of the commercial “tastes of pay a commission of five hundred dollars skirts. More than half of the women left home” that can be found on major U.S. to a local recruitment firm called Merid- husbands and children behind. In the bases, which include jewelry stores, sou- ian Services Agency. rush to depart, none of them examined venir shops filled with carved camels and Soon, more than fifty women were the fine print on their travel documents: Taliban chess sets, beauty salons where lined up outside Meridian’s office to their visas to the Emirates weren’t em- soldiers can receive massages and pedi- compete for positions that would pay as ployment permits but thirty-day travel cures, and fast-food courts featuring Taco much as thirty-eight hundred dollars a passes that forbade all work, “paid or un- Bell, , , and . month—more than ten times Fiji’s an- paid”; their occupations were listed as (AAFES’s motto: “We go where you go.”) nual per-capita income. Ten women were “Sales Coördinator.” And Dubai was just The expansion of private-security chosen, Vinnie and Lydia among them. a stopping-off point. They were bound contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan is Vinnie lifted her arms in the air and sang for U.S. military bases in Iraq. well known. But armed security person- her favorite gospel song: “We’re gonna Lydia and Vinnie were unwitting re- nel account for only about sixteen per make it, we’re gonna make it. With Jesus cruits for the Pentagon’s invisible army: cent of the over-all contracting force. The on our side, things will work out fine.” more than seventy thousand cooks, clean- vast majority—more than sixty per cent Lydia raced home to tell her husband and ers, construction workers, fast-food of the total in Iraq—aren’t hired guns but explain things to her five-year-old son. clerks, electricians, and beauticians from hired hands. These workers, primarily “Mommy’s going to be O.K.,” she recalls the world’s poorest countries who service from South Asia and Africa, often live in telling him. “Dubai, it’s a rich country. U.S. military logistics contracts in Iraq barbed-wire compounds on U.S. bases, Only good things can happen.” and Afghanistan. Filipinos launder sol- eat at meagre chow halls, and host dance On the morning of October 10, 2007, diers’ uniforms, Kenyans truck frozen parties featuring Nepalese romance bal- resembling indentured servitude by subcontractors who operate outside the law. Photographs by Peter Van Agtmael.

TNY—2011_06_06—PAGE 57—133SC.—LIVE ART—R 20961—EXTREMELY CRITICAL PHOTOGRAPH TO BE WATCHED THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE PRESS RUN—-PLEASE PULL PROOF KODAK FOR PRESS GUIDANCE “prime venders” then shop out the bulk of their contracts to hundreds of global sub- contractors, many based in Middle East- ern countries that are on the U.S. State Department’s human-trafficking non- compliance list. Finally, these firms call upon thousands of Third World “man- power agencies”—small recruiting opera- tions like Meridian Services. A common recruiting story involves a tempting ad for Middle East “Salad Men” torn out of a newspaper, or an on- line job posting that promises “openings for cooks/chefs/master chefs for one of the best . . . middle east jobs.” Given the desperate circumstances of many appli- cants, few questions are asked, and some subcontractors sneak workers to U.S. bases without security clearances, seeking to bypass basic wage and welfare regula- “Great stupid haircut!” tions. “No one plays straight here,” a for- eign concession manager with six years of experience in Iraq told me. He intro- •• duced me to three young Nepali and Bangladeshi workers in a nearby Popeye’s lads and Ugandan church songs. A large American military objectives. Others and Cinnabon, each of whom had paid a number are employed by fly-by-night worry that mistreatment of foreign work- smuggler between three hundred and subcontractors who are financed by the ers has become, as the former U.S. Repre- four hundred dollars to bring them onto American taxpayer but who often oper- sentative Christopher Shays, who co-chairs the base with a fake letter of authoriza- ate outside the law. the bipartisan Commission on Wartime tion. That’s in addition to the money— The wars’ foreign workers are known, Contracting, describes it, “a human-rights an average of three thousand dollars— in military parlance, as “third-country na- abuse that cannot be tolerated.” they had paid a recruiter in their home tionals,” or T.C.N.s. Many of them re- country to get the job. count having been robbed of wages, in- he extensive outsourcing of wartime Such sums are hardly unusual. A typ- jured without compensation, subjected to logistics—first put to the test during ical manpower agency charges applicants sexual assault, and held in conditions re- theT Clinton Administration, in Somalia between two thousand and four thousand sembling indentured servitude by their and the Balkans—was designed to reduce dollars, a small fortune in the countries subcontractor bosses. Previously unre- costs while allowing military personnel to where subcontractors recruit. To raise the leased contractor memos, hundreds of in- focus on combat. In practice, though, money, workers may pawn heirlooms, terviews, and government documents I ob- military privatization has produced con- sell their wedding rings or land or live- tained during a yearlong investigation voluted chains of foreign subcontracts stock, and take out high-interest loans. confirm many of these claims and reveal that often lead to cost overruns and fraud. U.S. military guidelines prohibit such other grounds for concern. Widespread The Commission on Wartime Contract- “excessive” fees. But, in hundreds of inter- mistreatment even led to a series of food ing recently warned of the dangers asso- views with T.C.N.s, I seldom met a riots in Pentagon subcontractor camps, ciated with “poorly conceived, poorly worker who had paid less than a thousand some involving more than a thousand structured, poorly conducted, and poorly dollars for his or her job, and I never workers. monitored subcontracting,” particularly learned of a case in which anyone was pe- Amid the slow withdrawal of U.S. noting the military’s “heavy reliance on nalized for charging these fees. forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, T.C.N.s foreign subcontractors who may not be It’s equally uncommon to meet a have become an integral part of the Obama accountable to any American govern- worker who receives the salary he or she Administration’s long-term strategy, as a mental authority.” was promised. A twenty-five-year-old way of replacing American boots on the The process of outsourcing begins at employee on a major U.S. base ground. But top U.S. military officials are major government entities, notably the in Iraq told me that he had paid a recruit- seeing the drawbacks to this outsourcing Pentagon, which awarded its most recent ing agency in Nepal four thousand dol- bonanza. Some argue, as retired General prime logistics contract (worth as much as lars. “You’ll make the money back so Stanley McChrystal did before his ouster fifteen billion dollars a year) to three U.S.- quick in Iraq!” he was assured. When he from Afghanistan, last summer, that the based private military behemoths: K.B.R. arrived in , in May, 2009, he was unregulated rise of the Pentagon’s Third (the former Halliburton subsidiary), Dyn- housed in a shipping container behind World logistics army is undermining Corp International, and Fluor. These the U.S. Embassy, in the Green Zone,

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TNY—2011_06_06—PAGE 58—133SC.58—133SC—LIVE ART A15842—VERSION 2 PAGE NEW CARTOON where he slept on soiled mattresses with on TV every day about Iraq—the bombs, tor, to three hundred and fifty. “We were twenty-five other migrants from Nepal, people dying.” That night, the women just all dumbstruck,” Chanel Joy, who India, and Bangladesh. Many learned contemplated running away. But a num- had earned several times as much work- that they were to earn as little as two hun- ber of them had taken out loans to cover ing as a certified beauty therapist at a Fi- dred and seventy-five dollars a month as their recruiting fees, and Meridian had re- jian resort, recalled. “It was ridiculous, re- cooks and servers for U.S. soldiers—a portedly threatened some with more than ally, slave labor, absolutely ridiculous out fraction of what they’d been promised, a thousand dollars in early-termination here in a war zone.” In the contract they and a tiny sliver of what U.S. taxpayers fines if they left. signed in Iraq, their working hours were are billed for their labor. A couple of nights later, a few of the specified as “Twelve (12) hours per day So he paid another agent three hun- women slipped out to a pay phone to call and seven (7) days a week.” Their “vaca- dred dollars to drive him in a taxi to a U.S. their families. “You take a big breath, tion” was a “Return ticket after the com- base in northern Iraq. There, an Indian honey,” Vinnie told her husband, hold- pletion of the service.” Appended to the smuggler charged an additional three ing back tears. “I’m not working here in contract was a legal waiver: “I am will- hundred dollars to help him get a five- Dubai. A bus is going to take us to the ingly and of my own free will have de- hundred-dollar-a-month job making airport, and we’re going to go straight to cided to go and work in Iraq, and I de- burritos. “I am safe now,” he said, tear- Iraq.” After Kie Puafomau, another of clare that no one in Fiji or out of Fiji has fully, from the food-delivery window. the Fijians, reached her husband, he approach me to work in Iraq. . . . I am “That is past, yeah? The Army is my fa- went to the Fijian police, the Ministry of contented with my job. . . . I want to com- ther and my mother.” Labor, and the national press. The Fiji plete my contract, till then, I will not go For those familiar with the service Times ran a story exposing Meridian Ser- back home.” (A lawyer for Kulak Con- economies of the Gulf states, this labor vices Agency’s recruiting fraud. But, even struction denied that the company had pipeline is simply the latest extension of a as the police pledged to investigate, they ever employed any women from Fiji, al- transnational system that for decades has could do little to help the beauticians though the company’s name appears on supplied Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, some nine thousand miles away. the women’s contracts. He added, “Kulak and the United Arab Emirates with low- The next morning, Vinnie, Lydia, and has a good reputation for sixty years.”) wage workers. It’s just that these employ- the other women flew to Iraq and found For nearly two weeks, the ten women ees face mortar fire, rocket attacks, im- themselves on a convoy bound for Balad, refused to do any work. “We decided provised explosive devices, and other risks forty miles north of Baghdad. There, on we had to stick together,” Chanel, a dig- of war—and that they are working, albeit a U.S. base called Camp Anaconda—and nified older woman with a mane of au- through intermediaries, for the United known to soldiers as Mortaritaville, for its burn curls, recounted. “Desert Sisters— States government. constant barrage of incoming mortar that’s what we called each other.” Eventu- fire—they got more bad news. Instead of ally, they agreed to a revised deal offering innie, Lydia, and the other Fijian earning between fifteen hundred and them eight hundred dollars a month. It beauticians landed in Dubai just thirty-eight hundred dollars a month, as was better than being stranded with no Vbefore dawn in October, 2007. At the they had been promised, the women were pay. The next morning, the beauticians airport, they say, they were met by some- told that they would make only seven were separated, and sent to different mil- one associated with Kulak Construction hundred dollars a month, a sum that was itary camps. Two stayed at Camp Ana- Company, a Turkish firm with millions later reduced, under another subcontrac- conda; three were flown to Tikrit; two of dollars in Pentagon subcontracts to do everything from building bowling alleys for troops to maintaining facilities on bases. The women were driven to a pri- vate hospital in the heart of the city. “It was very quiet there, because it was Ra- madan,” Vinnie recalls. In a small exam- ination room, nurses gave them a series of blood tests and vaccinations. Vinnie asked what all the poking and prodding was for. “You’ll need these for Iraq,” one of the nurses explained. “Oh, we went crazy when we heard that,” the youngest of the Fijian women, a petite twenty-two-year-old former re- sort hostess named Melanie Gonebale, told me later. We spoke in her flimsy liv- ing quarters on Forward Operating Base Sykes, near Tal Afar, in northern Iraq. A Kevlar helmet and bulletproof vest sat at the foot of her bed. “We’d watched “You realize they won’t know the difference.”

TNY—2011_06_06—PAGE 59—133SC.—LIVE ART A15768 went to Camp Diamondback, in Mosul; and three—Vinnie, Lydia, and Mela- nie—ended up in Tal Afar, after stints in RECURRING AWAKENING Tikrit and Mosul. Before boarding their flights, the women received body armor I stop a tall girl all in blue on the hall and a tutorial on rocket attacks: how to and receive frst a harried and desultory apology duck and dive, then sprint to the nearest then, point blank, news that you passed late last night. bunker until the “all clear” sirens sounded. You passed at three-thirty in the morning. Only then, Vinnie told me, did her What is it, some sort of exam? situation truly sink in. Climbing into a She smiles at herself, military helicopter in her weighty new epicenter of this gear, she decided that she would have to revelation, I fnd myself walking along pray each night that the Lord would send a high ridge in the wake of an ice storm her home alive. “Am I going to get hurt?” at the heart of some annihilated fairy tale she wondered, as the Black Hawk took of forest in West Virginia, off. “Am I going to get killed? Who’s a redwing blackbird’s going to take care of my family, my chil- feet clenched to one crystal branch dren? Please, God, give me protection.” per deceased tree: eyes stitched shut and beak wide open. ot every third-country national And fnally, there it is: your face, foating makes it home safely. Since 2001, at my feet with nose pressed to transparent black ice; moreN than two thousand contractor fatal- yes, you are certainly dead, all the signs point to it. ities and more than fifty-one thousand Wrapped in white cerements, injuries have been reported in Iraq and white face more youthful Afghanistan. For the first time in Amer- ican history, private-contractor losses are now on a par with those of U.S. troops in “the infidels” and pressure governments to “Soldier of Fortune” during the previous both war zones, amounting to fifty-three prevent their citizens from going abroad night’s mor ­tar shelling. per cent of reported fatalities in the first to work for Coalition troops. Over the At first, Vinnie, Lydia, and Melanie six months of 2010. Since many T.C.N. summer and the early fall of 2004, the list got along well in Iraq, too. After several deaths and injuries are never tallied— of those kidnapped by insurgents in- months, the three were flown northwest contractors are expected to self-report, cluded Turks, Pakistanis, Indonesians, to Forward Operating Base Sykes, where with spotty compliance—the actual num- Indians, Egyptians, Macedonians, Bul- I first met them. They were working for bers are presumed to be higher. garians, and Kenyans. In one particularly another Turkish subcontractor, and were Constantine Rodriguez, a soft-spoken bloody incident, a caravan of Nepalese put under the supervision of a chain- thirty-eight-year-old from the former workers bound for a major U.S. airbase smoking Turkish man in his twenties. Portuguese colony of Goa, was working was taken captive. Eleven were shot dead, They lived in air-conditioned shipping at a Pizza Hut at Camp Taji, Iraq, when and one man was beheaded. containers, played pool in the “morale, an insurgent’s rocket struck. Two of his Despite these risks and harsh condi- welfare, and recreation” hall, sang in Sun- Bangladeshi co-workers died, according tions, many T.C.N.s are grateful for their day church services, and ate meals in the to a former boss, and Rodriguez lost an jobs. In my travels through Iraq and Af- main dining facility, which included a eye and a leg. Disabled, he was sent back ghanistan, I met dozens of workers like hot-sandwich bar, a wings-and-burgers to southern India, where he had a young Paz Dizon, a Filipina cleaning woman grill, a “healthy choice” line, and an assort- wife and a baby to support. Although em- employed by G3 Logistics at the hospital ment of Baskin-Robbins ice cream. The ployees who are injured on U.S. bases are on Kandahar Airfield. (“Paz?” I repeated AAFES beauty salon turned out to be usually entitled to medical care and dis- when she introduced herself, to which she pleasant, filled with soldiers in vinyl ability compensation, few foreign workers replied, cheerfully, “Yes, like ‘Pass away!’ ”) chairs, M-16 rifles at their feet, flipping are aware of their rights, and fewer still She feels that she’s contributing some- through copies of Maxim as they awaited are able to navigate the byzantine process thing important to the war effort while seven-dollar pedicures or five-dollar required to receive payment. earning a wage that far exceeds what she straight-razor shaves. Dated fashion If most Americans know nothing could make back home. At night, she posters hung on the walls, with eighties- about this foreign workforce on U.S. snacks on Twinkies with the other Filipi- style Madonna look-alikes (hoop ear- bases, Al Qaeda and other extremist nas in her barracks; after rocket attacks, rings, feathered bangs) and inspirational groups have taken notice. As early as they sing eighties pop songs on a dust- words, like “Simplicity Is the Essence of 2004, Sunni militants launched a cam- covered karaoke machine. “We keep on Beauty” and “We’re Here for You!” paign to kill T.C.N.s. Their goal was to teasing that the G3 ladies will die happy, The three women had a knack for set- disrupt American supply chains by blow- singing and dancing,” her colleague Rey ting customers at ease. Vinnie would joke ing up truckers, and to punish Third Villa Cacas told me with a giggle, describ- with soldiers about “putting the ‘man’ in World Muslims who collaborated with ing how their boss belted out the lyrics to manicure” or show off snapshots of her

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TNY—2011_06_06—PAGE 60—133SC. comment, noted, “We do track and in- vestigate any report of criminal activity and grave than I have ever seen it, frowning slightly that occurs on our military bases.”) as though it were reading, one eye blind in a blond swath of hair, buses like these weren’t supposed to vague smile like the velvet depression be happening. In early 2006, after the lost diamond has left in its case; Areports of human trafficking, the De- now strangely you are moving partment of Defense launched an inves- in a wide circle around me, stepping tigation into subcontractors’ working sideways in time conditions. Government inspectors listed to some slow stately dance “widespread” abuses, including the illegal hand in hand confiscation of workers’ passports, “de- with the handless ceptive hiring practices,” “excessive re- in their identical absence cruiting fees,” and “substandard worker of afect, lips moving in unison. living conditions.” I can’t hear a thing, but it’s said That April, George W. Casey, then the instant of being aware we are sleeping the commanding general for Iraq, issued and the instant of waking are one an order to private contractors and sub- and the same—and thus, against delusion contractors there, seeking to establish we possess this defense. guidelines for humane treatment. For the Only if you refuse first time, T.C.N.s were entitled to “mea- to respond, if I can only write you, surable, enforceable standards for living and write on black wind-blurred water, what’s the use? conditions (e.g. sanitation, health, safety, etc.),” including “50 feet as the minimum —Franz Wright acceptable square footage of personal living space per worker.” All U.S. troops twelve-year-old son, Samuel, who liked their ultimate destination after arriving would receive training to help them rec- to eat trays of her stir-fried chicken with in Dubai, AAFES was not in violation of ognize human trafficking and abuse, and cashew nuts. Lydia, as she worked, asked anti-trafficking regulations. (The orga- major contractors were ordered to design soldiers about their lives in the States: any nization did note that, in general, “bet- a mandatory anti-trafficking awareness girlfriends, kids, Harleys? Melanie, the ter safeguards and improvements were session for their employees. shyest of the three, ended her pedicure necessary to protect contract workers.”) But the Pentagon’s “zero tolerance” sessions by inquiring, like a peppy travel Late one night in early April, 2008, I policy for violators proved largely toothless. agent, “Have you thought about taking knocked on the door of Lydia and Vinnie’s In one incident, in December, 2008, U.S. your holiday in Fiji? You should come. shipping container to find Lydia curled up military personnel discovered that a ware- It’s a beautiful place, like paradise, really. on the floor, knees to chest, chin to knees, house operated off the base by a K.B.R. You can have your honeymoon there crying. Vinnie told me, after some hesita- subcontractor, Najlaa International Cater- someday.” (She regularly extolled the vir- tion, that a supervisor had “had his way ing, was filled with more than a thousand tues of Fiji-brand artesian bottled water, with” Lydia. According to the two wom- workers who appeared to be human- to the point that she came to be known en’s tearful account, non-consensual sex trafficking victims. Many of the men were around the base as “the Fiji Water lady.”) had become a regular feature of Lydia’s sent home, but Najlaa retained its service Some customers would tease back, life. They said the man would taunt Lydia, contracts and won a new multimillion- asking, “Why’d you choose to leave a calling her a “fucking bitch” and describ- dollar deal for operating a U.S.A.I.D. din- nice place like Fiji for a shit-hole like ing the various acts he would like to see her ing facility in the Green Zone. this?” If the boss was out for a smoke perform. Lydia trembled, her normally A representative of Najlaa’s associate and the man in the lavender swivel chair confident figure crumpled inward. “If he firm in Amman, Jordan, told me that the seemed trustworthy, the women would comes tonight, you have to scream,” Vin- workers’ mistreatment had been due to a tell him. One sympathetic customer, nie told Lydia, tapping her fist against the temporary “cash money problem,” and a an American private contractor, got in aluminum siding of the shipping con- K.B.R. spokesman said that the com- touch with associates in New York; a let- tainer. “Bang on this wall here and scream!” pany “fully disclosed the incident to our ter was sent to the Defense Department, The next day, I dialled the U.S. Ar- U.S. government clients including all re- requesting an official investigation into my’s emergency sexual-assault hot line, medial actions taken by both K.B.R. and whether the women’s recruitment and printed on a pamphlet distributed across Najlaa.” What’s more, a K.B.R. spokes- working conditions were “exploitative.” the base that read, “Stand Up Against man said that “we actively encourage our Soon thereafter, the AAFES Inspector Sexual Assault . . . Make a Difference.” employees to raise issues of concern General dispatched a business mana- Nobody answered. Despite several calls through the proper channels and pro- ger to interview the beauticians. But the over several days, the number simply cesses the company has in place.” manager determined that, because the rang and rang. (A U.S. Central Com- However, in some cases managers three had their passports and had known mand spokesman, when later reached for have clearly been dissuaded by their supe-

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TNY—2011_06_06—PAGE 61—133SC. •• riors from taking an interest in such mat- eral McChrystal assumed command of the number of third-country nationals ters. Soon after Mike Land, an American U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, in counted by the Department of Defense who was a K.B.R. foreman, complained June, 2009, he set out to reduce the role in Afghanistan had actually increased by about the living conditions of his Filipino of T.C.N.s. He pushed a policy of “Af- nearly fifty per cent from the previous June, and Indian men, he received an official rep- ghanization,” bringing in local Afghan reaching seventeen thousand five hun- rimand: “You are expected to refrain from workers to replace third-country nation- dred and twelve. further involvement regarding the working als whenever possible. Conventional wis- The “drawdown” of operations in Iraq, and living conditions of the sub-contract dom held that allowing Afghans—or, in on the other hand, has created new workers as that is not your responsibility. . . . Iraq, Iraqis—to work on U.S. bases posed difficulties for T.C.N.s there. Last sum- Any future interference with [the subcon- a grave security threat to troops. But the mer, Colonel Richard E. Nolan, of the tractor’s] operations will result in additional military’s new counter-insurgency doc- military’s contracting office, expressed action up to and including termination.” In trine turned this logic on its head. What concern that T.C.N.s were being aban- Afghanistan, one high-ranking contracting if bringing in workers from Sierra Leone doned on U.S. bases when their compa- officer told me that labor law “doesn’t exist and Bangladesh rendered U.S. bases less nies lost contracts or were ordered to shed here,” and that enforcement would be hard safe, by alienating locals and occupying numbers. I met several such workers, one to prioritize if it did: the job “is to get the jobs they could perform? McChrystal saw of whom, a Popeye’s employee, had been war fighters what they need.” an opportunity to make inroads with Af- told by a sympathetic boss to pack his bags, Still, the Obama Administration has ghanistan’s unemployed masses. carry them to the office of a U.S. com- made a point of talking about contrac- “Afghanization” turned out to be a tall mander, and fall to his knees weeping, in tor accountability. Not long after taking order. Corruption meant that U.S. tax dol- the hope of being granted a ticket home. office, in 2009, President Obama pledged lars were soon funnelling into the hands At Kandahar Airfield, in Afghanistan, to make good on his campaign promise of Taliban insurgents. Even the process I talked to Joel Centeno, a Filipino who to end the “lack of planning, oversight, of getting Afghans on and off the bases sat with his head buried in his hands on a and management of these contractors,” proved exhausting, slowing down vital picnic bench behind a T.G.I. Friday’s. A which “has repeatedly undermined our construction projects. By March, 2010, at Pentagon subcontractor had laid him off troops’ efforts in the field.” When Gen- the height of the Afghan First initiative, but refused to provide him with a return

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TNY—2011_06_06—PAGE 62—133SC.—LIVE ART A15760 ticket. (“Thank you and appreciated your the Rever Beauty Salon. Lydia and her cruitment and subsequent mistreatment. contribution to the team,” his termina- husband had a baby girl. “It took me, She spoke, too, of her children, and the tion letter read.) Centeno was among the like, four months to get away from my months she’d spent away from them war’s new breed of workers: adrift on U.S. own head,” she recalls. “I was sleeping in while serving U.S. soldiers in the salon. bases, searching for work, unable to the day and waking up in the night, so After the meeting, Ambassador at afford the ticket home, and fearful of loan many negative stories. . . . I just wanted to Large Luis CdeBaca, the director of the sharks who await them there. take my son to school and pick him up.” State Department’s Office to Monitor Melanie arrived home a few months and Combat Trafficking in Persons, n early April, 2008, Vinnie and Lydia later, equally relieved. She busied herself notified officials at AAFES and the Office were told that they would be flying with wedding plans and got a job at the of the Secretary of Defense about the al- backI to Fiji. (Not long after I began con- Pure Fiji Spa, where customers are in- legations, and urged them to investigate. ducting interviews with the women, structed to “step lightly over running wa- “We’re going to make sure that Secretary U.S. military personnel complained that ters . . . leaving behind cares and the out- Clinton is aware of these allegations,” he they were “making trouble” on the base.) side world as if on a far distant shore.” wrote in a February, 2010, e-mail to De- For them, the prospect of returning Then one afternoon in the fall of 2009, fense Department officials, first obtained home was a godsend. “We’re just count- Vinnie heard on the radio that the police by the Project on Government Over- ing the days,” Lydia told customers. were calling for people who had been de- sight. Soon thereafter, the women’s story “Fresh fruit and beaches and our fami- frauded by Meridian Services Agency to began to circulate among Army officials lies.” After boarding a U.S. military air- come forward with their stories. She in a classified PowerPoint presentation, craft, they flew to Mosul to await pro- learned that the company had reportedly distributed by the U.S. Army Inspector cessing. They said that they were held conned more than twenty thousand Fijian General School. “Army policy opposes there for more than a month, and that workers into paying large fees for fraudu- any and all activities associated with their passports and identification badges lent “Middle East jobs.” Meridian’s direc- human trafficking,” the briefing notes, were confiscated by their Turkish sub- tor, a portly local named Timoci Lolohea, adding, in red ink, “No leader will turn a contractor. This meant they had no had, according to the Fiji Times, extracted blind eye to this issue!” right of mobility; without an I.D., the more than $1.6 million from his victims Yet, when reporters asked the U.S. Ar- U.S. military could detain them simply over the previous five years; they included my’s Criminal Investigation Command for going to the latrine or walking to the not only poor workers but also church (C.I.D.) for details last summer, they were A.T.&T. phone booth to call their fam- congregations, tribal elders, and village told that allegations of the women’s mis- ilies. Even so, Lydia managed to get in community centers seeking overseas em- treatment had been investigated earlier touch with her husband and son on oc- ployment for their constituents. In the and were “not substantiated.” (According casion. “Don’t worry, Mommy’s doing lush farming region of Waimaro, one vil- to an internal AAFES report, “allegations all right, I’ll be home soon,” she told lage spokesman produced receipts to show of rape never surfaced” in the organiza- them, to which her five-year-old re- that Lolohea had collected the equivalent tion’s prior investigation of the women’s sponded, “Will you buy me a big gun?” of as much as twenty-seven thousand dol- recruitment.) C.I.D. officials declined to Finally, in the first week of May, they lars—a Fijian windfall—from thirteen im- say whether any victims had been inter- boarded a homebound flight. They car- poverished villages in exchange for jobs in viewed, and, when reached recently, a ried a few souvenirs: their AAFES name­ Kuwait which never materialized. The C.I.D. spokesman apologized for being tags, snapshots in front of a sandbagged devastation from Lolohea’s recruiting unable to locate any record of the case. Ac- bunker, perfume from an Iraqi contrac- scheme was so widespread that the deputy cording to the spokesman, “C.I.D. takes tor, and an oversized black T-shirt for director of the Fijian police created a spe- allegations of sexual assault very seriously Lydia’s son that read, in both English and cial task force to investigate it. and fully investigates allegations where Arabic, “Caution Stay 100 Meters Back When several human-rights litigators there is credible information that a crime or You Will Be Shot.” in Washington, D.C., learned, through may have occurred involving Army per- When Vinnie arrived home, she found my investigation, of the beauticians’ ex- sonnel or others accompanying the force.” her whole family waiting up by a lantern periences, they flew Vinnie to the U.S. to Lydia and Vinnie both say that no one on a big ceremonial kuta mat on the living- hear the details of her case. I sat in on sev- from the military or AAFES spoke with room floor—all but her youngest, Samuel, eral days of interviews with labor experts. them about the sexual-assault claims. who hid under a blanket in a nearby room, Her trip culminated in a meeting with ashamed that he’d grown chubbier in her State Department officials, at which Vin- n the three years since Vinnie and absence, and frightened that his mother nie spoke with purpose about her false re- Lydia returned from Iraq, thousands of wouldn’t recognize him. “It’s your mama,” third-countryI nationals have tried to make Vinnie coaxed him. “Come out from their grievances known, sometimes spec- under there!” When he finally emerged, tacularly. Previously unreported worker Vinnie held him in her arms. riots have erupted on U.S. bases over is- Vinnie passed several weeks with her sues such as lack of food and unpaid children and her husband, cooking big wages. On May 1, 2010, in a labor camp meals and singing gospel tunes. Eventu- run by Prime Projects International ally, she went back to work styling hair at (P.P.I.) on the largest military base in

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 6, 2011 63

TNY—2011_06_06—PAGE 63—133SC.—LIVE SPOT ART—R 20962C—PLEASE INSPECT AND REPORT ON QUALITY Baghdad, more than a thousand subcon- at the managers. Four-foot pieces of ply- rived—followed by Ugandan security tractors—primarily Indians and Ne- wood crashed through glass windows. guards—did the camp fall quiet. Some palis—rampaged, using as weapons fists, Workers broke down the door to the food workers attempted to hide, though there stones, wooden bats, and, as one U.S. cellar and made off with as much as they wasn’t anywhere to go—just a sea of military policeman put it, “anything they could carry. gravel dotted by an archipelago of dismal could find.” The riot spread through the vast white shipping containers, in which The riot started as a protest over a lack camp. At one point, as many as fourteen workers slept in tightly packed rows of of food, according to a whippet-thin hundred men were smashing office win- creaky bunks with colorful towels draped worker in the camp named Subramanian. dows, hurling stones, destroying com- between them for privacy. A forty-five-year-old former rice farmer puters, raiding company files, and batter- “Almost every window in the camp from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, ing the entrance to the camp where a was destroyed, food everywhere,” Ser- Subramanian worked twelve-hour days large blue-and-white sign reads “Treat geant Jonathan Trivett, one of the first cleaning the military’s fast-food court. others how you want to be treated. . . . U.S. military policemen to the scene, re- Around seven o’clock on the evening of No damaging P.P.I. property that has calls. “They pretty well destroyed the en- the riot, Subramanian returned to the been built for your comfort.” (According tire camp. . . . It was shocking.” Trivett, P.P.I. compound and lined up for dinner to an investigation conducted by K.B.R., a handsome twenty-five-year-old with with several thousand other workers. But “P.P.I. employees . . . became agitated an aw-shucks Indiana smile, later gave the cooks ran out of food, with at least five after being told they’d experience a delay me a tour of the camp, which M.P.s now hundred left to feed. This wasn’t the first while additional food was prepared.” patrol twice daily to insure that nothing time; empty plates had become common “Upon full assessment of the incident,” a “out of the ordinary” is taking place. in the camp during the past year. Several company spokesperson relayed in a writ- (“Lotta love, buddy,” he greets the guards of the men stormed over to the manage- ten statement, “K.B.R. notified P.P.I. at the gate.) His police team did its best ment’s office, demanding more rice. management of the need for changes to to investigate the rioters’ motives, but When management refused, he recalls, prevent any recurrence and worked with most workers, including Subramanian, dozens more entered the fray, then hun- the subcontractor to implement those were too terrified to talk, and the major- dreds, and ultimately more than a thou- corrective actions.”) ity spoke little or no English. Three mil- sand. Employees started to throw gravel Only when U.S. military police ar- itary policemen under Sergeant Trivett’s supervision that night later received Army Achievement Medals for their role in quelling the rampage. Several weeks after the riot, the defiant mood spread to other parts of the base. Workers in the neighboring camp of Gulf Catering Company (G.C.C.), another subcontractor, staged a copycat riot, pelting their bosses with stones and accusing the company of failing to pay them their proper wages. That same week, more G.C.C. employees en route from a base in Balad set fire to their bar- racks to protest unpaid wages. Several buildings burned to the ground. This was not unprecedented. In 2008, in another nearby labor com- pound, a rumpled Iraqi businessman named Alaa Noori Habeb faced a simi- lar horde of rioting workers. At the time, he ran a Baghdad warehouse for a com- pany called Elite Home Group, which sheltered and fed hundreds of foreign K.B.R. subcontractors in conditions that were, he admitted, foul. As Habeb flipped through photos of the incident, he told me how Nepalis in his com- pound erupted in rage—ripping up mat- tresses, tearing out electrical boxes, and destroying company computers. A man- ager at yet another K.B.R. subcontractor camp in Baghdad, Ziad Al Karawi, de-

TNY—2011_06_06—PAGE 64—133SC.—LIVE ART—A 15817 scribed how a thousand Indian and Sri Lankan men under his supervision slept on crowded floors: “rats and flies at- tacked us. . . . We had no beds to sleep at or tables to eat at. . . . No communica- tion, no TV, no soap to wash or bathe, no visits from anyone from the company or K.B.R. . . . The workers had no choice except going out in a protest.” In the wake of various uprisings, workers have been reprimanded and sent home. K.B.R. insists that its “business ethics and values” require that employees and subcontractors are treated with “dig- nity and respect,” that it adheres to U.S. government guidelines for the treatment of workers, and that it “follows rigorous policies, procedures, and training,” to protect the welfare of foreign-national workers. But, even after investigations by K.B.R. and the military, little seems to change. A spokesman for U.S. Central Command acknowledged that it “does not play a formal role in the monitoring of living conditions on U.S. bases,” al- “Save it for the parole board.” though each base has a military chain of command responsible for “working with the entities involved to insure minimum •• standards are met.” Government officials rarely learn of these riots, most of which working Web site, of Lydia, Vinnie, and vertising jobs in Dubai. He also opened take place in compounds watched over three other beauticians on a U.S. base a new office in Suva, where, each morn- by private guards. Nor do major media emblazoned with the words “Salsa Nite! ing, throngs of workers have been lining outlets. “We thought the journalists Mosul, Iraq. No wonder I haven’t been up outside his gate. They bring their would come,” Imtiyas Sheriff, a thirty- seeing them in town. Lovely hairdress- passports and pockets stuffed with bor- eight-year-old G.C.C. bus driver and fa- ers . . . Take care ladies!” Before she left, rowed cash. They are undeterred by the ther from Sri Lanka, told me. “They call Lydia warned the men that it’s a small large white sign at the entrance, which this Operation Iraqi Freedom, but where world. “Next time,” she told them, “don’t the police have ordered Lolohea to post, is our freedom?” Still, many of the work- you take all these ladies and fool them.” reading, “NO Recruitment Until Fur- ers have faith that the U.S. military The Fijian press has denounced Ti- ther Notice.” Most have heard the ru- wants to do right by them. In fact, the moci Lolohea, Meridian’s director, as a mors about Lolohea’s shady past, and majority view American soldiers and “fraudster” and “con artist.” But some they know that he was long denounced marines as their sole protectors. “The Fijian officials seemed to have condoned in the local newspapers as one of “Fiji’s American people are a good people,” the such activities, in the hope of bringing most wanted men.” But they’ve also round-faced Sheriff said to me more remittances from U.S. military opera- heard that he’s offering a starting salary than once, as we crouched in a swelter- tions. “The government knows that of six thousand dollars a month to pro- ing bunker. “They will help us, if they more men are leaving for Kuwait and spective security guards and military lo- know what is happening.” Iraq and it is a good thing, because it is gistics workers for his new company, providing employment for the unem- Phoenix Logistics Corporation Limited. ack in Fiji, Vinnie and Lydia’s quest ployed,” Fiji’s Minister for Labor, Ken- And so the crowds keep flocking to his for accountability has proved fruit- neth Zinck, said back in 2005. Zinck illicit office in the midst of the rainy sea- less.B Spotting one of her “lying bastard” was initially assigned to lead the govern- son—most of them eager young men in recruiters on the street not long ago, Vin- ment investigation into Meridian’s prac- baggy jeans and baseball caps, or in tra- nie ran up to him, scolding, “How can tices. In July of 2010, Lolohea (who did ditional sulu skirts, but also the occa- you show your face around here?” Lydia not respond to requests for comment) sional woman, her head filled with and several of the other women stormed pleaded not guilty to charges of unlaw- dreams of a life in the City of Gold.  the offices of Meridian Services, de- ful recruiting. manding that the men answer for their Through it all, Lolohea’s employ- newyorker.com/go/ask actions and take down a photograph ment empire has remained. Recently, he they’d posted, from a Fijian social-net- put up a placard outside his house, ad- Sarah Stillman takes questions from readers.

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