VELICHIKKALA, India, 10 May 2004 — Police are hunting a job agent who duped poor and illiterate workers into going to US Army camps in Iraq where they say they ended up trapped for months working as virtual slaves.
Allegations of abuse by US troops told by the first group of returnees sparked outrage in India last week, drawing comparisons with the treatment of Iraqi prisoners.
At the request of the Indian government, US officials have launched an investigation into the claims. But the workers, while insisting US troops intimidated and harassed them and that they were not allowed to leave, say they were never abused physically.
Interviews with those at the heart of the complaints indicate the main problems were with the contractor employing them — on behalf of a unit of US firm Halliburton — and Iraq’s harsh wartime environment and desert climate.
Police say the agent, who recruited the workers for another company in Bombay, which then sent them overseas, has fled.
Fasil Aliyarukunju and Abdul Azeez Shajahan, two day-wage Muslim butchers from Velichikkala village in the coconut and cashew groves of the southern state of Kerala, say they were tricked into going to Iraq.
They were then kept for nine months working 18 hours a day in US camp kitchens, threatened with beatings and verbally abused by soldiers before their contractor employer let them go home.
“They did not abuse us physically,” Fasil said, referring to US soldiers. “The psychological abuse was worse,” he said, sitting in a tiny cement-floored hut, the air heavy with wood smoke from cooking fires.
American soldiers made vague threats the contract kitchen staff would “face the consequences” if they stopped work, sometimes patting their guns as they spoke, the pair said.
At one camp, Q-West, several hours from Baghdad, a soldier fired at a stray dog while walking over to negotiate with workers who had gone on strike to demand unpaid overtime.
“We went back to work. When they shot at the dog, I felt I might also be shot at like a dog and killed,” Shajahan said.
Several times, he added, supervising soldiers tried to hit him, accusing him of not working properly.
But far worse were the recruitment agent and their employer, subcontracted to supply labor for Kellogg Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton. KBR is under scrutiny from military auditors over the cost of feeding troops in Iraq.
Halliburton, run by US Vice President Dick Cheney until he joined the race for the White House in 2000, is the military’s top contractor in Iraq, providing services ranging from laundry to oilfield repair.
“We did not knowing we were going to Iraq,” said Fasil, explaining the agent told them he had found jobs for them in Kuwait and promising 18,000 rupees a month ($400) — more than three times what they were earning at home.
So they sold off family jewelry and land and borrowed from neighbors to raise the agent’s fee of 80,000 rupees ($1,800) each.
They landed in Kuwait in August and after a wash and a meal, were put in a truck and driven through the desert for 24 hours.
“When we got there, we asked someone and they said ‘you are in Iraq’,” said Fasil.
There was no accommodation and they had to pitch tents in the sweltering heat. They worked twice as long and were paid half as much as promised and the Indian chef forced the Muslims to cut and cook pork, even during the sacred fasting month of Ramadan.
Fasil still walks the kilometer or so to the village mosque a few extra times a day to say prayers in penance. On top of that, came daily bombardments from the fighting going on around them.
“I just could not live in such conditions,” said Fasil, who spent much of his time at another camp, Tall Afar.
After months of pressuring and arguing, the subcontractor finally brought in replacements and let them drive, unprotected, to the border with Jordan, where Fasil was beaten by Iraqis for working for the Americans.
About three million Indians work in the Gulf, many as laborers, construction workers or in hotels and restaurants. India estimates more than 1,300 Indians are in Iraq and is investigating how many may be there against their will.
In response to the public uproar, the Foreign Ministry said at the weekend it was aggressively pursuing the issue, telling employers sending Indians to Iraq was illegal and investigating dubious recruitments.
“The immediate priority of the government is to ensure safety and security of Indian nationals... who have been taken to Iraq by recruiting agents on false assurances in contravention of the emigration requirements,” it said in a statement.
Amid increasing concern, the Kerala state government has asked New Delhi to bring back any workers there unwillingly.
“We don’t want this to happen to anyone else,” said Shajahan.
