The Alien Tort Claims Act: An Activist Tool for Change
By Bart Mongoven
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and British human rights charity Reprieve filed suit in California on May 31 against logistics consulting company Jeppesen Dataplan Inc. The suit claims the Boeing subsidiary knowingly aided CIA rendition activities abroad and is complicit in the torture of terrorism suspects.

The ACLU's suit, filed under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA), is significant because it reaches far beyond Boeing to the sizeable business community that has contracts with federal agencies involved in the larger war against Islamist militants. Jeppesen Dataplan specializes in logistics support, but the rendition program alone involves many additional contractors, all of which now see themselves as possibly facing action under ATCA. In addition to the renditions, the United States operates dozens of other programs that flirt with the boundaries of international human rights norms -- and private contractors have had at least a tangential role in almost all of them.

Legally, the suit faces many hurdles, including the defense that Jeppesen Dataplan did not know -- perhaps was not even allowed to know -- why the CIA needed the specific logistic support the company provided. Regardless of the legal merit and likelihood of success, the effect of this suit and others like it extends far beyond the offices of the defendant companies' general counsels. Not only is it a board-level issue, but it also draws attention from marketing, public relations, government relations and other departments that manage how people perceive the company. In pulling companies in so many directions, these suits are expensive, both in financial cost and in the distractions they cause senior executives.
In zeroing in on Jeppesen Dataplan, the ACLU is hitting directly at an issue on the minds of voters and consumers -- U.S. detention and interrogation tactics -- and attacking a company with high name recognition. Furthermore, though far from the truth, the selection suggests that the target was chosen almost at random, and that any major government contractor could face similar action. The ACLU, in fact, said as much in its announcement about the suit. "This is the first time we are accusing a blue-chip American company of profiting from torture," an ACLU lawyer said. "Corporations should expect to get sued where they are making blood money off the suffering of others," said another.
The suit opens the legal side of what will likely be a multi-prong, years-long process of placing the tactics used in the war against Islamist extremists under a public spotlight. The strategy is a product of a coalition of human and civil rights nongovernmental organizations that aim to make sure that, using the war as an excuse, the United States does not abuse suspects abroad in ways that are considered unacceptable within the United States. The goal is to bolster the political position of those calling for an end to the use of various tactics in the war and for an increase in transparency in the tactics the federal government uses to identify militants and their plans. Because the government is resistant to these calls, the activist groups involved aim to make corporations see that federal policies put them at risk, and thus turn the corporate sector into lobbyists for a change in tactics.
ACLU v. Boeing
ATCA, which dates back to 1789, states that federal district courts have "original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States." Though used in several ways since 1980 to sue individuals, it found new life in the 1990s as a vehicle by which foreign nationals can sue companies in U.S. courts for violations of universally understood human rights norms. In this case, the ACLU represents the plaintiffs in Binyam Mohamed, et al. v. Jeppesen Dataplan Inc. Mohamed is an Ethiopian living in the United Kingdom who was snatched while visiting Pakistan and flown to Morocco.
ATCA has been used fewer than 20 times against companies in the United States, with the only legal success coming in the first major ATCA suit initiated by human rights groups, John Doe v. Unocal, brought by the International Labor Rights Fund. (In that case, John Doe was Myanmarese). The oil company settled the suit out of court in 2005. The only other ATCA case that has advanced far into the judiciary, Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, was appealed to the Supreme Court, which ruled that the offense in question, kidnapping, did not rise to the level of a violation of core internationally recognized human rights norms.
While kidnapping does not rise to the level of violating international human rights norms, the combination of kidnapping and torture likely does. The ACLU's complaint against Jeppesen Dataplan alleges the company helped the CIA facilitate "the forced disappearance, torture and inhumane treatment" of three men, suspected al Qaeda militants Binyam Mohamed, Ahmed Agiza and Abou Elkassim Britel. The three allegedly were arrested by foreign intelligence or police in Sweden and Pakistan, picked up by the CIA and flown on charter jets to allied Middle Eastern countries, where the subjects were tortured. According to the ACLU, the CIA flew the men to those countries (with Jeppesen Dataplan's assistance) because they knew the intelligence services there would use techniques to extract information that are not legal in the United States.

The complaint contends that Jeppesen Dataplan knowingly played a critical role in renditions by providing flight planning services -- including the itinerary and route used -- as well as customs clearance assistance, ground transportation, hotel reservations and security for the team transporting the prisoner. Boeing and Jeppesen Dataplan deny having any knowledge of the reason for these flights, and contend that they cannot be held liable for the activities of their clients.

The suit is a long shot in the courts. There are a number of hurdles the ACLU must clear in order to get a single substantive hearing. First, it must convince a judge that the company is not covered by immunity as a government contractor. (Government contractors are covered under the sovereign immunity the federal government enjoys.) To do this, it must convince a judge that Jeppesen Dataplan was aiding the government but was not a party to the rendition program itself or to the torture that allegedly followed. Even if it succeeds, it also will have to successfully argue that national security will not be placed at risk if the case is heard. If it passes these hurdles, the suit will then receive a hearing, at which the ACLU will have to convince a judge that Jeppesen Dataplan knew that some of its flights were aiding and abetting torture.
Winning the case in court, however, is not the ACLU's game. Rather, through the suit, the organization is trying to place Jeppesen Dataplan, its parent company Boeing and the larger world of government contractors under scrutiny. More important, it is warning contractors that they have an interest in U.S. foreign policy and its practices.
ATCA's Power

ATCA's strength is that it places corporations in a position to defend themselves against allegations of complicity in gross human rights abuses usually committed in countries that have poor government oversight. The list of violations that rise to the level of ATCA -- including homicide, slavery, torture and rape -- are so heinous, however, that simply being the subject of such an allegation, regardless of vehement denials, can hurt the company's image.
The main goal of these suits, then, is to force the defendant companies and others in similar situations to implement internal human rights controls and demand more coherent external accountability mechanisms from the government. Since John Doe v. Unocal entered the courts in the late 1990s, petroleum, mining and other extractive industries have improved safeguards to ensure they do not face similar suits. After a brief flurry of cases against resource companies, the most obvious targets of ATCA suits -- companies with operations in developing countries with poor governance -- have not been subject to many suits. The bulk of ATCA suits filed in the past five years have been against consumer product manufacturers, companies that are less prepared for ATCA allegations and have not yet instituted management safeguards against such allegations.

The Long Term

Contractors might be almost immune from successful prosecution, but due to the nature of the allegation -- complicity in torture -- they are not immune to embarrassment. This suggests ATCA is being used as one part of a larger movement (other efforts by the ACLU, Amnesty International and others are under way as well) urging voters and political leaders to reassess U.S. tactics in combat and intelligence operations since 9/11. As the election approaches, congressional inquiries into such tactics -- and harsh criticism of the Bush administration -- will be inevitable. As a result, presidential and congressional candidates will be in a position to express outrage at current tactics and vow changes if elected. From an advocacy point of view, it is a strong strategy that will strengthen the activists' hand in the coming years.

Moving against corporations will be an important part of this strategy. The outcry from advocacy groups and politicians opposed to the Bush administration's conduct since Sept. 11, 2001, has led to continued congressional inquiries into the manner in which large and small defense contracts are awarded and how billing is managed. Furthermore, Congress also is more deeply scrutinizing companies that face allegations of wrongdoing. Contracts considered for the companies that managed Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison (CACI and Titan Corp.) for the Defense Department also receive more scrutiny inside the department, in part out of fear of congressional investigation. While Boeing's position as a leading defense contractor is not at risk, the ATCA suit threatens to bring added scrutiny to contracts awarded to the company, particularly to Jeppesen Dataplan.
The corporate role is crucial because the ACLU and its allies do not trust the next administration to be much different. As the 2008 campaign heats up, rhetoric critical of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, renditions and other tactics will only increase. (The rendition program did not begin with 9/11 but years earlier under former President Bill Clinton, and Clinton's predecessors presided over similar programs). Things change, however, when candidates become officeholders. In other words, while the politics of interrogation techniques and rendition seem fairly easy from the outside, the reality of fighting a war is much different than most voters imagine. The decisions the next administration makes, therefore, might not differ terribly from those the candidates will criticize during the next 15 months.
Though the ACLU may or may not succeed in changing how elected leaders approach these issues, the strategy will affect how CIA and Defense Department contractors do business. Just as the oil, mining and resource-extracting industries have built structures to monitor problems with an eye toward ATCA, so too will defense contractors, particularly those with brand names and large government contracts to protect.

The ATCA suit places government contractors (and would-be contractors) on notice: Any dealing with the government could place them at risk of a court case that, regardless of merit, can cause long-lasting damage to the company. The design, then, is to turn contractors into lobbyists for human rights. It is an approach that could work.

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Guest Editorial: Welcome to New Assyria, Sweden

GMT 6-7-2007 18:23:26
Assyrian International News Agency
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(AINA) -- Behind me, you can hear the Swedish National Anthem, Du gamla, du fria (you old, you free), it is the church bells of St Ragnhild that are playing our national anthem.

Earlier today, I was on the premises of Samira Herdo Gharib. She is a real enthusiast, someone who helps Iraqi refugees. Everywhere on her premises, there are children in the Swedish colors, blue and yellow. Newly arrived refugees are mixed with compatriots who have been here for thirty years. They are from Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. They are all Assyrians, also called Syriacs and Chaldeans, and they are all Christian. They want to celebrate the country that has given them a refuge, a haven. They want to celebrate Sweden, the Royal Family; several of them are wearing pictures of Queen Silvia and the Crown Princess Victoria. They want to be a part of the Swedish National Day. An elderly Swede walks by the children and mumbles "pathetic".

On the other side of the city's vascular bridge, a mass is being held. It is in honor of father Ragheed Ganni and his three lay workers, who just days ago were brutally killed in Mosul.

The church is filled everywhere, so is the yard. Assyrians from all over Stockholm, members from all the churches, even the natives, want to show their reverence and participation.

Prominent guests, such as members of the Swedish Parliament and municipal politicians, are sitting inside the church. At the altar, there are priests and bishops in all colors. All the churches in the Middle East are represented. From Mosul itself, the Archbishop of the Syriac Orthodox Church, Ishak Zakka, has arrived.

The sweet voices of the church choir fill the premises and us with warmth, sadness, but also joy. Some people see a flickering light in all of this darkness. Assyrians, no matter what they call themselves, are preaching and acting in unity.

The most surprising thing durring this mass is that the chair of the Swedish xenophobic party, The National Democrats, Marc Abramsson, has come to show his condolences. It is Özkan Kaldoyo, from the Assyrian Chaldean Syriac Union, who invited him.

"I want him to understand that we did not come to Sweden to take advantage of the welfare system, that we are not extortionists. We came because otherwise we would be killed. We are persecuted!"

One of the world's most prestigious newspapers is visiting from the USA. There will be a long report on why Södertälje, a small suburb of Stockholm, has become the capital for an ethnically and religiously persecuted group of people from the Middle East.

The reporter of the newspaper leaves the church early in order to interview the municipal commissioner of Södertälje. I cross the bridge again, this time with the president of The Assyrian National Association, Rachel Hadodo, and the vice president Aboud Ado. We talk about a little bit of everything, about the refugee problem, about how the war has affected our people in Iraq, but also about the name schism and local problems in Södertälje.

After a couple of hours, I sit in my sister's car to go visit my brother, who had to break off his honeymoon after a car accident. Before even making it to the door, a friend calls me from Baghdad. "A priest has been kidnapped." Hani Ablahad, a Chaldean-Catholic priest, was kidnappad along with five other youths from his congregation. The only thing anyone knows and what little people saw, was that they were dragged into two cars about a hundred meters away from church.

I call Skandar Beth Kasha, one of the editors of Ankawa.com. They received the information, but do not know any more than I do.

My cell phone beeps, a SMS from a photographer of a well-known magazine. I had forgotten about him. He is in the hotel lobby, waiting for me. Before I have time to sit in the car, Sister Hatune, the nun I travelled to Amman with, calls. She wants me to call a family in the Swedish city of Norrköping. Three children, all under the age of ten, had their father killed in Iraq. In front of their eyes, the fundamentalists first shot him, and then beheaded him. When I call, the family does not want to talk about it. Instead, they want to tell me of other relatives in Iraq who have disappeared, been kidnapped. They want to tell about relatives who are living and hiding in Jordan, and other relatives who have been cheated by refugee smugglers, left in the middle of nowhere in Egypt.

As soon as they mention Amman, I realize that I promised to call my friend Hanna Shamoun.

"The border is filled with Assyrians, who after the murder of the priest in Mosul, are trying to enter Jordan", he says in profound resignation from Amman.

The reporter from the prestigious American newspaper asked me what I am going to do next. Surprised, I looked at him. "A strange question from one reporter to another", I think at first. Then I realize that he actually has understood that I will not allow any weird journalistic ethical rules to control me.

My people are being butchered and I must do what I can to make the world wake up. As so many other Assyrians do? We cannot and must not, give up!

The cell phone beeps again. It is the photographer of the magazine, now tired of waiting.

By Nuri Kino

Violent crime up again, more murders, robberies
By James ViciniMon Jun 4, 9:45 AM ET
More murders and robberies in 2006 sent U.S. violent crimes higher for the second straight year, the FBI said on Monday, with the increase blamed on gangs, youth violence, gun crimes and fewer police on beats.

The FBI reported that the number of violent crimes nationwide went up by 1.3 percent last year, following a 2.3 percent increase in 2005. That had been the first rise in four years and the biggest percentage gain in 15 years.

The report showed that murders in big cities jumped last year by 6.7 percent. Robberies, an important indicator of crime trends, increased 6 percent nationwide.

Cities with big increases in the number of murders included Orlando and Miami in Florida; Oakland and San Diego in California; Phoenix, Arizona; Corpus Christi, Texas; Grand Rapids, Michigan; Reno, Nevada and Little Rock, Arkansas.

Even though the higher violent crime numbers had been expected, they still represented bad news for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who has targeted violent crime as a top priority for the U.S. Justice Department.

A department study released last month of 18 metropolitan areas cited more violence by local gangs or street crews, a greater prevalence of guns in the hands of criminals and younger, more violent offenders as key reasons for the rising crime rates.

Criminologists agreed with those reasons and also said there are fewer police on the beat. They cited the Bush administration's shift in emphasis to prevent terrorism since the September 11 attacks and funding cuts for programs to put more police officers on the street.

'WAKE-UP CALL'

"The fact that we are seeing these increases several years in a row should be a wake-up call," said James Alan Fox, a professor of criminal justice at Northeastern University in Boston.

"There's a tendency to think the sky is falling. It's not," said Fox, noting the increases have been relatively small. "We're not talking about an epidemic here."

David Kennedy, director of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said the crime problems appear to be spreading to medium-sized and smaller cities.

He said the emergence of deadly drug crews or street gangs can have a potentially profound impact on a city's homicide or gun assault rate.

Lawrence Sherman, director of a criminology center at the University of Pennsylvania, called it an unusual pattern that murder is going up in some big cities, but down in others.

One possible explanation is that some police departments are doing much more to catch people illegally carrying concealed weapons, he said.

In the FBI report, murders nationwide increased overall by 0.3 percent. The increase in big cities was nearly offset by declines in non-metropolitan areas.

In the violent crime category, burglaries and murders increased nationwide while the number of rapes declined by nearly 2 percent and aggravated assaults fell slightly.

Violent crime went up in every region of the country except for the Northeast. The largest increase occurred in the West at 2.8 percent.

The number of so-called property crimes declined by nearly 3 percent. Burglaries and arsons increased while motor vehicle theft and larcenies and thefts decreased.

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kuar/local-kuar-588901.mp3

Power of One: An interview with Mauro DeLorenzo

(2007-05-16) Mauro DeLorenzo is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute whohas been called one of the brightest, conservative thinkers in foreign policy today. In this episode of Power of One, DeLorenzo discusses American humanitarian efforts around the world and questions the effectiveness of our moral imperative. To listen, click on the MP3 or Real Media audio file above.

Power of One is a radio program produced by the Clinton School of Public Service in partnership with KUAR. It features exclusive in-depth interviews with the distinguished speakers who visit the school.

© Copyright 2007, UALR PUBLIC RADIO

Baghdad's Green Zone Is a Haven Under Siege
By John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, June 7, 2007; A21

BAGHDAD -- Rusty Barber was sitting at his desk in a comfortable if spartan office inside Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone when the first explosion sounded, close enough to rattle the building and his nerves. He got up from his chair, directly in front of a window, and hurried to the building's more protected central corridor. Then the second mortar shell struck.

The round decapitated a palm tree just outside Barber's office, spraying shrapnel across the side of the building, splintering Barber's window and peppering the room with bullet-size pieces of razor-sharp metal. One traveled through a wooden closet and destroyed a porcelain sink; one embedded itself in the small refrigerator; one ricocheted off his desk; another struck his computer monitor.

"It was a sobering event," said Barber, 42, head of the local office of the U.S. Institute of Peace. In all, about 10 mortar rounds struck different parts of the Green Zone that day in mid-May, killing two Iraqis and wounding 10 people. Ten cars were damaged or destroyed in the barrage at Barber's complex, a short walk from the U.S. Embassy.

"You accept a level of risk when you come over here, but no one expects a direct encounter with shrapnel like this," Barber said, carefully fingering a jagged, inch-long piece of metal retrieved from the refrigerator.

Mortar and rocket attacks on the Green Zone are nothing new, but people who live and work in the complex -- a walled compound of about five square miles on the banks of the Tigris River that is headquarters to the Iraqi government and U.S. forces -- say that the strikes are becoming more frequent, accurate and deadly.

Despite the rising casualty toll from the attacks -- eight people have been killed, including two U.S. soldiers, and about 25 have been injured since late March -- the bigger problem is the psychological impact of insurgents striking the symbolic heart of the United States here, Iraqis and Americans say. That view is strengthened by the sense -- correct or not -- that the Green Zone was a relatively secure oasis where the war didn't seep in.

"It's amazing to people in the red zone, who think that if it can happen in the Green Zone, it can happen anywhere, and what's going to happen next?" said a 27-year-old Iraqi computer technician, who spoke on condition his name not be used, fearing that he and his family could be targeted. Like many Iraqis, he works in the Green Zone but lives outside it, an area some now call the red zone.

Anti-government satellite television channels broadcast insurgent statements claiming that they can strike the Green Zone with impunity, he said, which scares Iraqis because "the mortars are coming from the same place every day, and no one is doing anything about it. Stuff like that gets to people" more than fear of the bombs themselves, the technician said. "For Iraqis, we're used to it. For Americans, they're a little afraid because they haven't seen it before."

U.S. officials say they place a premium on "force protection," but they refuse to detail how they are combating the mortar and rocket problem, saying such information could help the attackers. But an indication of the measures being taken came late Saturday when U.S. Apache helicopters fired on insurgents preparing to fire rockets at the Green Zone from the east, near the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City. Four insurgents were killed, and 10 rockets and a van were destroyed in the attack, the U.S. military said in a statement. It said six insurgents were tracked back to a residence in Sadr City, where they were apprehended.

U.S. military officials say the Green Zone attacks also come from Sunni areas in southern Baghdad.

"It's more of a psychological terror weapon because they're firing at the seat of government, the U.S. headquarters and various embassies," said a senior U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk publicly about the attacks. The actual danger was slight, he asserted. "Compared to being in the Green Zone, driving in Beltway traffic scares the hell out of me."

Nonetheless, dozens of mortar shells have landed in and around the Green Zone since March. The Washington Post reported Sunday that U.S. officials said at least three Iranian-made 240mm rockets recently were fired at the Green Zone by Shiite extremists.

In response to the attacks, the U.S. Embassy advised its personnel on March 28 that body armor and helmets were required for all "outdoor activities" within the embassy's grounds. A May 3 directive told Green Zone residents to "remain within a hardened structure to the maximum extent possible and strictly avoid congregating outdoors." A May 19 notice went further, saying that "congregating outdoors is strictly prohibited until further notice," and ordered the closing of "the palace pool area" because of "the threat of indirect fire" -- the term used for rockets and mortars.

The embassy is housed in ousted president Saddam Hussein's Republican Palace, where amenities include a kidney-shaped outdoor pool.

The war is penetrating the Green Zone in other ways, too. On April 12, a suicide bomber attacked a cafeteria in the Iraqi parliament building, killing an Iraqi lawmaker and wounding about 20 people. Last week, the embassy confirmed that two of its Iraqi employees -- a husband and wife -- were missing; a statement posted on the Internet by the Islamic State of Iraq, a Sunni insurgent umbrella group believed to have been founded by al-Qaeda in Iraq, said it had executed them. The kidnapping of five Britons from an Iraqi Finance Ministry building last week also greatly curtailed U.S. civilian activities outside the Green Zone, officials said.

Inside the enclave, most civilians and diplomats interviewed said they will not let fear rule their lives. Iraqis typically shrugged off the danger as minor.

"I've seen worse than this," said a 24-year-old from Baqubah, a mixed Sunni-Shiite city about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, who has worked with U.S. forces for three years and began working in the Green Zone about eight months ago after five separate attempts on his life.

"When I was born in '82, we were at war, and another one started when I was 8 and it hasn't stopped till now," he said. "Even our kids are used to it. They are not afraid of car bombs. They are sad to see it and to lose family members and friends, but we live in a dangerous society."

Barber, of the Institute of Peace, said, "The daily lives of our local staff are so much more challenging than ours that it provides perspective and inspiration." Citing the threat of kidnappings, market bombings and checkpoint confrontations, he added, "You see their commitment and say how can you do less?"

After a time considering the recent attack outside, Barber studied his office with a closer eye.

"Maybe I should move my desk from in front of the window."