The Calvino Prize

The Calvino Prize is an annual fiction competition sponsored by the Creative Writing Program in the English Department of the University of Louisville. They will be awarded to outstanding pieces of fiction in the fabulist experimentalist style of Italo Calvino. Please note that these prizes are meant to encourage experimental writing, in the mode of Calvino, and are not meant to encourage merely imitative work.

Final Judge for 2010: Ben Marcus

First Place: $1500 and Publication
Second Place: $300

The first place entry will be published in the Salt Hill Journal of Syracuse University.

Further, the winner will be invited to read the winning entry, all expenses paid (within the continental US), at the Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture Since 1900 held at the University of Louisville every February. The 10 finalists will be posted on the website.

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Calvino Guidelines

 

The Calvino Prize
Submission Guidelines 

1. Submit up to 25 industry standard (double-spaced, 12-point font, pages numbered) pages of a novel, novella, short story, or short collection. Entries which use a smaller font or are single-spaced in order to make a longer work appear to be only 25 pages will be trimmed to approximately 25 industry standard pages. Work previously published is eligible and simultaneous submissions are accepted. An excerpt from a larger work is allowed; however, remember that the selection will be judged on its own merit and so should be able to stand on its own. 
2. Please submit TWO copies of your submission bound by a paper clip, binder, or single staple. DO NOT USE MULTIPLE STAPLES. The author's name should not appear on the work. All entries will be read anonymously. 
3. Please send two cover pages: one listing only the title of the manuscript; the other listing the title, author's name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address.
4. Please tell us in what magazine you learned of this contest.
5. Please do not send publication history of the author.
6. Submit anytime between July 1 and October 15, 2010.
   Deadline: October 15, 2010.  
   Winner announced December 15, 2010.
7. The entry fee is $25 and should be made payable to: The University of Louisville.
8. Mailing Address:
   
   The Calvino Prize
   English Department
   Room 315, Bingham Humanities Bldg.
   University of Louisville
   Louisville,  KY  40292
9. If you would like confirmation of receipt of manuscript, please enclose a self-addressed, stamped standard US Postal Service post card.
10. All results will be posted to the University of Louisville's website following the announcement on December 15, 2010. Finalists and winners will be notified via email. 
11. For questions, email Paul Griner, Director of Creative Writing atpfgrin01@louisville.edu
12. Faculty and employees of the University of Louisville and the University of Syracuse may not enter the contest.
13. The judges reserve the right to withhold the award if no entry is deemed worthy.
14. Previous first place winners may not enter for three years after winning.  Second place winners have no restrictions.
15. Final Judge 2010: Ben Marcus  

 

The APR/Honickman First Book Prize

The annual American Poetry Review /Honickman First Book Prize offers publication of a book of poems, a $3,000 award, and distribution by Copper Canyon Press through Consortium.

Each year a distinguished poet is chosen to be the judge of the prize and write an introduction to the winning book. The purpose of the prize is to encourage excellence in poetry, and to provide a wide readership for a deserving first book of poems.

Note:  The reading period for the 2011 prize will begin on August 1, 2010 and extend through October 31, 2010.

 GUIDELINES

JUDGE: Marie Howe

The prize of $3,000, with an introduction by the judge and distribution of the winning book by Copper Canyon Press through Consortium, will be awarded in 2010 with publication of the book in the same year. The author will receive a standard book publishing contract, with royalties paid in addition to the $3,000 prize.

The prize is open to any writer in English who is a U.S. citizen and who has not published a book-length collection of poems with an ISBN assigned to it. Poems previously published in periodicals or limited-edition chapbooks may be included in the manuscript, but the manuscript itself must not have been published as a book-length work exceeding 25 pages. Translations are not eligible nor are works written by multiple authors. The editors of The American Poetry Review will screen manuscripts for the judge.

Please note: Manuscripts cannot be returned.

Manuscripts must be postmarked between August 1 and October 31, 2010.

Please use first class mail. Do not use Federal Express, Overnight Mail, or UPS or any other service that requires a signature.

The winning author and all other entrants will be notified by February 15, 2011. An announcement of the winner will appear in the March/April issue of The American Poetry Review.

You may simultaneously submit your manuscript elsewhere, but please notify us immediately if it is accepted for publication. Submission of more than one manuscript is permissible; each must be under separate cover with a fee, a return postcard, and a notification envelope.

The winning author will have time to revise the manuscript after acceptance, but please send no revisions during the reading period.

To be considered for the prize, send:

1. A clearly typed poetry manuscript of 48 pages or more, single-spaced, paginated, with a table of contents and acknowledgments. A good copy is acceptable.

2. Two title pages: one with your name, address, e-mail, phone number, and the book title; a second title page should contain the title only. Your name should not appear anywhere on the manuscript except the first title page.

3. An entry fee of $25 by check or money order, payable to The American Poetry Review.

4. A self-addressed stamped envelope for notification of contest results.

5. A self-addressed stamped postcard for notification of receipt of the manuscript. Your manuscript identification number will be included on this card when it is returned to you. If no postcard is included in your entry, you will not be notified of its receipt.

Send your submission to:

The American Poetry Review

Honickman First Book Prize

1700 Sansom St. Suite 800

Philadelphia, PA 19103

‘These New Plantations By the Sea’

Posted on September 15, 2010 by bulldozia| Leave a comment

A Royal Caribbean cruise ship docked in Labadee, Haiti. Photo: Rob Inh00d (flickr)

 

 

In Derek Walcott’s latest collection White Egrets (2010), we find an elegy to a beach he fears will soon be ruined by a new phase of hotel development which he compares to earlier, more brutal, forms of expropriation.

 

… these new plantations
by the sea; a slavery without chains, with no blood spilt –
just chain-link fences and signs, the new degradations.

Walcott is not the first to make this analogy. In Paradise and Plantation (2002), Ian Strachan argued that Caribbean hotels are modern plantations – locally-run but foreign-owned businesses that create a product for customers who live overseas, but instead of sugar or tobacco what they offer is a holiday experience in ‘paradise.’

Walcott’s poetry is sprinkled with negative images of Caribbean tourism and he has himself campaigned against hotel development in St Lucia. But the hotel also features in his work in a very different way.

As someone who has spent a lot of time in hotels – in Europe, North America and the Caribbean – Walcott, not surprisingly, also experiences them as a place of work. And writes about them as such in his poems.

In other words, Walcott often represents himself occupying hotels – a poem’s observations or argument emerging from an opening scene in which the poet stares into the mirror in his room, or gazes out across a city from a private balcony or enjoys chance encounters beside the pool or in the dining room or lobby.

These two aspects of the hotel in Walcott (the site of exploitation and the scene of writing) exist almost in complete ignorance of each other. The hotel as a site of exploitation is viewed from a distance as if by someone who would never set foot in them; the hotel as a scene of writing is described from within, by a guest, who has no sense of the exploitative relationships around him, barely acknowledging the presence of the staff or the effect of the hotel on the local economy and natural environment.

In this paper I make some tentative remarks on this, dare I say, ‘double-consciousness’, through a reading of some representations of the hotel and tourism in writings about Haiti.

The depiction of sex tourism in the stories of Dany Laferrière (subsequently adapted for the cinema) offers different perspectives on the hotel as a site of exploitation. By contrast, the travel narratives of those visitors who find comfort on the veranda after their intrepid adventures in the city beyond, tend to figure the hotel as a scene of writing. Seeing with one eye and then the other, the observer never quite imagines they might be the same hotel.

The ‘ethics of tourism’ so often revolves around questions of the environmental and economic impact of those who actually go there; but perhaps there is also an ethics that imposes demands on those who write and read about it from a distance?

Read more…

(View photo on Flickr: Rob Inh00d)

 

“For Colored Girls” Trailer is Here!

Tuesday Sep 14, 2010 – By Clutch

After much anticipation, the trailer for Tyler Perry’s film adaptation of N’tozake Shange’s 1975 stage play, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuff, is here. The film shorted to “For Colored Girls” premieres November 5.

Posters for each starring lead cast member have also been released. Here we show the poster of actress Anika Noni Rose who plays Yasmine.

The trailer featuring a rendition of Nina Simone’s “Four Women” reveals quick snippets of stirring performances by Whoopi Goldberg, Janet Jackson, Loretta Devine, Thandie Newton among others.

It appears that the film’s script stays true to the original play, as anyone who is remotely familiar with the play will hear classic lines like Janet Jackson reciting “I got sorry greeting me at the front door. You can keep yours.”

Umm . . . looks like the trailer may shush our earlier doubts. What do you think? Sound off!

___________________________________________

No introduction necessary, I’m sure  Behold 8 brand new posters for Tyler Perry’s film adaptation of Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf. Loretta Devine, Kimberly Elise, Whoopi Goldberg,Janet Jackson, Phylicia Rashad, Anika Noni Rose, Kerry Washington and Thandie Newton all star…

You know what’s coming next right? A trailer of course! Stay tuned… (click each to enlarge):

>via: http://www.shadowandact.com/?p=30865&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium...

Review of “African women writing resistance”

by Sokari on September 14, 2010

in African Women

ForeWord Book Reviews » African Women Writing Resistance:: An Anthology
African Women Writing Resistance:: An Anthology

African Women Writing Resistance: An Anthology of Contemporary Voices collects writings of thirty-six women from thirteen African countries, providing a metaphorical megaphone to those women and a clear, unflinching look at what it’s like to be female and oppressed in their respective countries. The picture thus drawn is anything but pretty, but contains the seedlings of hope and change.

The writers aren’t hapless victims begging for hand-outs. On the contrary, they’re strong, determined, and fierce defenders of their right to choose their own paths in life. One of the most memorable stories of feminine resistance is in “Women’s Responses to State Violence in the Niger Delta” by Nigerian-born freelance writer and social justice activist Sokari Ekine. She relates events in Nigeria’s Ogoniland during the 1990s, as documented between 2000 and 2003 through fieldwork by the Niger Delta Women for Justice and the Ijaw Council for Human Rights.

Multinational oil companies were essentially handed the Niger Delta’s petroleum resources in exchange for arms and money for Nigerian military and police forces. The resulting environmental disaster caused by unchecked gas and oil extraction led to several groups forming to oppose it and the Nigerian government’s inaction. The Federation of Ogoni Women’s Organizations (FOWA) comprised a cross-tribal membership, and began protesting via the Federation’s member groups. Their actions were met with repeated, numerous daily beatings and sexual assaults perpetrated by the military.

Thousands strong, FOWA women then occupied eight oil company facilities in the Delta. They threatened their opponents with a rarely-employed but highly effective cultural calling-out called the Curse of Nakedness. In Delta cultures, public nakedness by women—especially married and elderly women—is considered a shaming of the men at whom it’s directed. Many men in the region believe that madness or other serious misfortunes will befall them if they see it. The FOWA women’s willingness to use it was proof of their determination and outrage. One only has to imagine the scene to realize the powerful effect it would have on those witnessing it.

Editor Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez also edited the [I]Women Writing Resistance: Essays on Latin America and the Caribbean[/i] (South End Press, 2004) collection. That project led her to form a college-level course and anthology focusing on African women. She and her co-editors sent a 2005 call for papers which, as she notes, prompted an “almost [immediate] flood of writing.” She notes in the preface, “We send it out into the world in the hope that it will be the inspiration for ever-expanding rings of ‘women writing resistance’ in Africa and worldwide.”

The heart-rending experiences which many contributors relate are also stories of renewal, survival, and continuing on. In a world that delivers nearly instant evidence of humanity’s transgressions, resistance is now harder to silence. The topics covered include environmental destruction, genocidal conflicts between tribes and ethnic groups, ineffective legal protections for women, forced marital arrangements, the life-altering effects of religious and social customs (especially female genital cutting), emigration, and exile. That’s an enormous amount of material to cover in one book, but it all needs to be more widely known, by those in African countries as well as in other nations.

Distance breeds disinterest, and it’s easy for Westerners to take less notice of far off conflicts. But editors Browdy de Hernandez, Dongala, Jolaosho, and Serafin work to focus the world’s attention on the vicious reprisals against protest that African women—both in their home countries and abroad—have endured on a daily basis. They also show that African women look for and create alternatives to the injustices they’ve suffered, within and apart from traditional forms of protest.

Education is a necessity, as the writers in this volume know very well. Such an education must include the history of contemporary struggles for justice in other countries in response to decades of oppression. Anyone interested in African and women’s studies, world literature, and human rights efforts would do well to read African Women Writing Resistance; it turns the sensory assault of media reporting on violence into human faces, lives, and aspirations for the future.

Resistance, when effective, brings change. Reading African Women Writing Resistance will erase disinterest and ennui, and perhaps that is the first step toward supporting these writers’ admirable goals.

J. G. Stinson

Publisher: The University of Wisconsin Press (August 26, 2010)
ISBN: 9780299236649
Reviewed: September/October 2010

Blackwater's Black Ops

 21 comments

Jeremy Scahill

September 15, 2010  

 

 

Over the past several years, entities closely linked to the private security firm Blackwater have provided intelligence, training and security services to US and foreign governments as well as several multinational corporations, including Monsanto, Chevron, the Walt Disney Company, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines and banking giants Deutsche Bank and Barclays, according to documents obtained by The Nation. Blackwater's work for corporations and government agencies was contracted using two companies owned by Blackwater's owner and founder, Erik Prince: Total Intelligence Solutions and the Terrorism Research Center (TRC). Prince is listed as the chairman of both companies in internal company documents, which show how the web of companies functions as a highly coordinated operation. Officials from Total Intelligence, TRC and Blackwater (which now calls itself Xe Services) did not respond to numerous requests for comment for this article.

One of the most incendiary details in the documents is that Blackwater, through Total Intelligence, sought to become the "intel arm" of Monsanto, offering to provide operatives to infiltrate activist groups organizing against the multinational biotech firm.

Governmental recipients of intelligence services and counterterrorism training from Prince's companies include the Kingdom of Jordan, the Canadian military and the Netherlands police, as well as several US military bases, including Fort Bragg, home of the elite Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), and Fort Huachuca, where military interrogators are trained, according to the documents. In addition, Blackwater worked through the companies for the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the US European Command.

On September 3 the New York Times reported that Blackwater had "created a web of more than 30 shell companies or subsidiaries in part to obtain millions of dollars in American government contracts after the security company came under intense criticism for reckless conduct in Iraq." The documents obtained by The Nation reveal previously unreported details of several such companies and open a rare window into the sensitive intelligence and security operations Blackwater performs for a range of powerful corporations and government agencies. The new evidence also sheds light on the key roles of several former top CIA officials who went on to work for Blackwater.

The coordinator of Blackwater's covert CIA business, former CIA paramilitary officer Enrique "Ric" Prado, set up a global network of foreign operatives, offering their "deniability" as a "big plus" for potential Blackwater customers, according to company documents. The CIA has long used proxy forces to carry out extralegal actions or to shield US government involvement in unsavory operations from scrutiny. In some cases, these "deniable" foreign forces don't even know who they are working for. Prado and Prince built up a network of such foreigners while Blackwater was at the center of the CIA's assassination program, beginning in 2004. They trained special missions units at one of Prince's properties in Virginia with the intent of hunting terrorism suspects globally, often working with foreign operatives. A former senior CIA official said the benefit of using Blackwater's foreign operatives in CIA operations was that "you wouldn't want to have American fingerprints on it."

While the network was originally established for use in CIA operations, documents show that Prado viewed it as potentially valuable to other government agencies. In an e-mail in October 2007 with the subject line "Possible Opportunity in DEA—Read and Delete," Prado wrote to a Total Intelligence executive with a pitch for the Drug Enforcement Administration. That executive was an eighteen-year DEA veteran with extensive government connections who had recently joined the firm. Prado explained that Blackwater had developed "a rapidly growing, worldwide network of folks that can do everything from surveillance to ground truth to disruption operations." He added, "These are all foreign nationals (except for a few cases where US persons are the conduit but no longer 'play' on the street), so deniability is built in and should be a big plus."

The executive wrote back and suggested there "may be an interest" in those services. The executive suggested that "one of the best places to start may be the Special Operations Division, (SOD) which is located in Chantilly, VA," telling Prado the name of the special agent in charge. The SOD is a secretive joint command within the Justice Department, run by the DEA. It serves as the command-and-control center for some of the most sensitive counternarcotics and law enforcement operations conducted by federal forces. The executive also told Prado that US attachés in Mexico; Bogotá, Colombia; and Bangkok, Thailand, would potentially be interested in Prado's network. Whether this network was activated, and for what customers, cannot be confirmed. A former Blackwater employee who worked on the company's CIA program declined to comment on Prado's work for the company, citing its classified status.

In November 2007 officials from Prince's companies developed a pricing structure for security and intelligence services for private companies and wealthy individuals. One official wrote that Prado had the capacity to "develop infrastructures" and "conduct ground-truth and security activities." According to the pricing chart, potential customers could hire Prado and other Blackwater officials to operate in the United States and globally: in Latin America, North Africa, francophone countries, the Middle East, Europe, China, Russia, Japan, and Central and Southeast Asia. A four-man team headed by Prado for countersurveillance in the United States cost $33,600 weekly, while "safehouses" could be established for $250,000, plus operational costs. Identical services were offered globally. For $5,000 a day, clients could hire Prado or former senior CIA officials Cofer Black and Robert Richer for "representation" to national "decision-makers." Before joining Blackwater, Black, a twenty-eight-year CIA veteran, ran the agency's counterterrorism center, while Richer was the agency's deputy director of operations. (Neither Black nor Richer currently works for the company.)

As Blackwater became embroiled in controversy following the Nisour Square massacre, Prado set up his own company, Constellation Consulting Group (CCG), apparently taking some of Blackwater's covert CIA work with him, though he maintained close ties to his former employer. In an e-mail to a Total Intelligence executive in February 2008, Prado wrote that he "recently had major success in developing capabilities in Mali [Africa] that are of extreme interest to our major sponsor and which will soon launch a substantial effort via my small shop." He requested Total Intelligence's help in analyzing the "North Mali/Niger terrorist problem."

In October 2009 Blackwater executives faced a crisis when they could not account for their government-issued Secure Telephone Unit, which is used by the CIA, the National Security Agency and other military and intelligence services for secure communications. A flurry of e-mails were sent around as personnel from various Blackwater entities tried to locate the device. One former Blackwater official wrote that because he had left the company it was "not really my problem," while another declared, "I have no 'dog in this fight.'" Eventually, Prado stepped in, e-mailing the Blackwater officials to "pass my number" to the "OGA POC," meaning the Other Government Agency (parlance for CIA) Point of Contact.

What relationship Prado's CCG has with the CIA is not known. An early version of his company's website boasted that "CCG professionals have already conducted operations on five continents, and have proven their ability to meet the most demanding client needs" and that the company has the "ability to manage highly-classified contracts." CCG, the site said, "is uniquely positioned to deliver services that no other company can, and can deliver results in the most remote areas with little or no outside support." Among the services advertised were "Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence (human and electronic), Unconventional Military Operations, Counterdrug Operations, Aviation Services, Competitive Intelligence, Denied Area Access...and Paramilitary Training."

The Nation has previously reported on Blackwater's work for the CIA and JSOC in Pakistan. New documents reveal a history of activity relating to Pakistan by Blackwater. Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto worked with the company when she returned to Pakistan to campaign for the 2008 elections, according to the documents. In October 2007, when media reports emerged that Bhutto had hired "American security," senior Blackwater official Robert Richer wrote to company executives, "We need to watch this carefully from a number of angles. If our name surfaces, the Pakistani press reaction will be very important. How that plays through the Muslim world will also need tracking." Richer wrote that "we should be prepared to [sic] a communique from an affiliate of Al-Qaida if our name surfaces (BW). That will impact the security profile." Clearly a word is missing in the e-mail or there is a typo that leaves unclear what Richer meant when he mentioned the Al Qaeda communiqué. Bhutto was assassinated two months later. Blackwater officials subsequently scheduled a meeting with her family representatives in Washington, in January 2008.

Through Total Intelligence and the Terrorism Research Center, Blackwater also did business with a range of multinational corporations. According to internal Total Intelligence communications, biotech giant Monsanto—the world's largest supplier of genetically modified seeds—hired the firm in 2008–09. The relationship between the two companies appears to have been solidified in January 2008 when Total Intelligence chair Cofer Black traveled to Zurich to meet with Kevin Wilson, Monsanto's security manager for global issues.

After the meeting in Zurich, Black sent an e-mail to other Blackwater executives, including to Prince and Prado at their Blackwater e-mail addresses. Black wrote that Wilson "understands that we can span collection from internet, to reach out, to boots on the ground on legit basis protecting the Monsanto [brand] name.... Ahead of the curve info and insight/heads up is what he is looking for." Black added that Total Intelligence "would develop into acting as intel arm of Monsanto." Black also noted that Monsanto was concerned about animal rights activists and that they discussed how Blackwater "could have our person(s) actually join [activist] group(s) legally." Black wrote that initial payments to Total Intelligence would be paid out of Monsanto's "generous protection budget" but would eventually become a line item in the company's annual budget. He estimated the potential payments to Total Intelligence at between $100,000 and $500,000. According to documents, Monsanto paid Total Intelligence $127,000 in 2008 and $105,000 in 2009.

Reached by telephone and asked about the meeting with Black in Zurich, Monsanto's Wilson initially said, "I'm not going to discuss it with you." In a subsequent e-mail to The Nation, Wilson confirmed he met Black in Zurich and that Monsanto hired Total Intelligence in 2008 and worked with the company until early 2010. He denied that he and Black discussed infiltrating animal rights groups, stating "there was no such discussion." He claimed that Total Intelligence only provided Monsanto "with reports about the activities of groups or individuals that could pose a risk to company personnel or operations around the world which were developed by monitoring local media reports and other publicly available information. The subject matter ranged from information regarding terrorist incidents in Asia or kidnappings in Central America to scanning the content of activist blogs and websites." Wilson asserted that Black told him Total Intelligence was "a completely separate entity from Blackwater."

Monsanto was hardly the only powerful corporation to enlist the services of Blackwater's constellation of companies. The Walt Disney Company hired Total Intelligence and TRC to do a "threat assessment" for potential film shoot locations in Morocco, with former CIA officials Black and Richer reaching out to their former Moroccan intel counterparts for information. The job provided a "good chance to impress Disney," one company executive wrote. How impressed Disney was is not clear; in 2009 the company paid Total Intelligence just $24,000.

Total Intelligence and TRC also provided intelligence assessments on China to Deutsche Bank. "The Chinese technical counterintelligence threat is one of the highest in the world," a TRC analyst wrote, adding, "Many four and five star hotel rooms and restaurants are live-monitored with both audio and video" by Chinese intelligence. He also said that computers, PDAs and other electronic devices left unattended in hotel rooms could be cloned. Cellphones using the Chinese networks, the analyst wrote, could have their microphones remotely activated, meaning they could operate as permanent listening devices. He concluded that Deutsche Bank reps should "bring no electronic equipment into China." Warning of the use of female Chinese agents, the analyst wrote, "If you don't have women coming onto you all the time at home, then you should be suspicious if they start coming onto you when you arrive in China." For these and other services, the bank paid Total Intelligence $70,000 in 2009.

TRC also did background checks on Libyan and Saudi businessmen for British banking giant Barclays. In February 2008 a TRC executive e-mailed Prado and Richer revealing that Barclays asked TRC and Total Intelligence for background research on the top executives from the Saudi Binladin Group (SBG) and their potential "associations/connections with the Royal family and connections with Osama bin Ladin." In his report, Richer wrote that SBG's chair, Bakr Mohammed bin Laden, "is well and favorably known to both arab and western intelligence service[s]" for cooperating in the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Another SBG executive, Sheikh Saleh bin Laden, is described by Richer as "a very savvy businessman" who is "committed to operating with full transparency to Saudi's security services" and is considered "the most vehement within the extended BL family in terms of criticizing UBL's actions and beliefs."

In August Blackwater and the State Department reached a $42 million settlement for hundreds of violations of US export control regulations. Among the violations cited was the unauthorized export of technical data to the Canadian military. Meanwhile, Blackwater's dealings with Jordanian officials are the subject of a federal criminal prosecution of five former top Blackwater executives. The Jordanian government paid Total Intelligence more than $1.6 million in 2009.

Some of the training Blackwater provided to Canadian military forces was in Blackwater/TRC's "Mirror Image" course, where trainees live as a mock Al Qaeda cell in an effort to understand the mindset and culture of insurgents. Company literature describes it as "a classroom and field training program designed to simulate terrorist recruitment, training, techniques and operational tactics." Documents show that in March 2009 Blackwater/TRC spent $6,500 purchasing local tribal clothing in Afghanistan as well as assorted "propaganda materials—posters, Pakistan Urdu maps, etc." for Mirror Image, and another $9,500 on similar materials this past January in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

According to internal documents, in 2009 alone the Canadian military paid Blackwater more than $1.6 million through TRC. A Canadian military official praised the program in a letter to the center, saying it provided "unique and valid cultural awareness and mission specific deployment training for our soldiers in Afghanistan," adding that it was "a very effective and operationally current training program that is beneficial to our mission."

This past summer Erik Prince put Blackwater up for sale and moved to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. But he doesn't seem to be leaving the shadowy world of security and intelligence. He says he moved to Abu Dhabi because of its "great proximity to potential opportunities across the entire Middle East, and great logistics," adding that it has "a friendly business climate, low to no taxes, free trade and no out of control trial lawyers or labor unions. It's pro-business and opportunity." It also has no extradition treaty with the United States.

Jeremy Scahill

September 15, 2010  

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About the Author

Jeremy Scahill

Jeremy Scahill, a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute, is the author of the bestselling Blackwater...

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Shhhhhh! JSOC is Hiring Interrogators and Covert Operatives for 'Special Access Programs'(Covert Ops, US Intelligence, US Military)

The military's most elite, secretive force has started advertising for highly-sensitive positions on public jobs sites. Is this 'Preparing the Battlefield' 2.0?

Jeremy Scahill

 12 comments

 

 

WikiLeaks and War Crimes (Internet and New Media, Covert Ops, US Military, US Wars and Military Action)

There was a brief moment when it seemed the evidence of civilian killings, military cover ups and widespread lack of accountability contained in the WikiLeaks documents would spark a genuine inquiry into US conduct in Afghanistan.

Jeremy Scahill

 

Haiti's Disaster Capitalists Swoop In

— Flickr/United Nations Development Programme

Who benefits when refugees are moved from camps into garment and cell-phone industry "work zones?"

— By Siddhartha Mahanta

 

9 Comments | Post Comment

Tue Sep. 14, 2010 3:07 AM PDT

 

Refugee evictions, private land grabs, disaster capitalism—you can't tell the story of Haiti without all this. Eight months after the earthquake, many of the 1.7 million Haitians living under tattered tarps in squalid squatter camps around Port-au-Prince are being forced to abandon the tent cities they've set up on privately owned land. Meanwhile, businesses—eager to slurp up the spoils of disaster—are swooping in to score major paydays by moving the refugees to new camps, some set to operate as industrial work zones. And there's no one stopping it.

In March, Haitian landowners and police authorities began kicking displaced Haitians out of their makeshift cities at the behest of the owners of the land on which the camps sat. International Action Ties, a grassroots community development agency working in Haiti, says authorities are regularly flushing out the camps. The International Organization for Migration, which heads up the international aid response to the quake, has been unable to prevent expulsions and has been relegated to playing mediator between landowners and camp occupants. A recent IAT report provides a vivid blow-by-blow of expulsions by Haitian police in the communes of Delmas and Cité Soleil: bulldozers demolishing flimsy shelters, policemen swinging batons and shooting their guns in the air, and several cases of sexual assault. IAT skewers the Haitian government and UN system, and blasts the aid community for not defending the refugees (for more, read this report from July).

And there's a twist: It's not even clear these landowners officially own the property that the displaced people are being expelled from. Murky titling laws have plagued Haiti since its early days, clouding landowners' claims with ambiguity and contributing to the country's current catastrophe. Post-colonial Haiti's first ruler, Jean-Jacques Dessaline, imposed dramatic land reforms in the early 1800s, apportioning plantation land among freed slaves. But after his assassination, subsequent efforts at reform failed, and military leaders appropriated old plantation land. Land titling gradually became more and more muddled as one dictator gave way to another. In the 1950s and '60s, François "Papa Doc" Duvalier meted out land to members of his death squads, or left property up for grabs. In the '80s, another attempt to formalize land holdings failed.

On January 11, 2010, the day before the quake, around 85 percent of Port-au-Prince's residents lived on property of dubious ownership. "There's no real registry to show who owns the land," says Oxfam's Julie Schindall. "On any given plot, there may be three people asserting themselves as landowners for any given reason." IAT estimates that some 70 percent of landowners don't bear title to the property they claim, and it demands a moratorium on evictions until the ownership chaos can be sorted out. In the interim, it's the responsibility of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti to protect the human rights of Haitians, according to its mandate. That includes the right to shelter and housing. Haitian law, Schindall adds, clearly bars forced evictions.

The reasonable course would seem obvious: Sort out the legalities and the who-owns-what before ripping down tents and moving the stricken, the sick, and the dying out of the camps. But in March, President René Préval, under pressure from landowners and business elites, ordered aid groups to discontinue food services (though some limited distribution to pregnant women and children continued). This was seen as a move designed to put pressure on camps to disband.

In the absence of government leadership on this issue, businesses and NGOs are filling the gaps—and exploiting the situation. For instance, Nabatec, a consortium owned by some of Haiti's most powerful families, and World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organization, plan to build a new city of 300,000 displaced Haitians, complete with garment factories, homes, stores, and restaurants. This new business zone will be in Corail Cesselesse, about nine miles from Port-au-Prince. Nabatec owns the land where the refugees will live, and stands to gain a chunk of the $7 million dollars the Haitian government plans to pay landowners who've given up property for the site.

"After I take people to Corail [Cesselesse], they don't sleep well anymore," says Melinda Miles, director of the aid group KONPAY. "It's 40,000 people living in the middle of the desert." She says that Corail Cesselesse, like other camps, has been without proper food distribution for the past two months; children in the camp have orange hair, a symptom of malnutrition. And Nabatec has positioned itself to make a killing as the commercial gatekeeper for private companies seeking to set up shop in Corail, including a South Korean garmet firm and a Vietnamese cell phone company.

With most NGOs not addressing the expulsion issue, many displaced Haitians remain at the mercy of landowners anxious to reclaim their property. They're caught between an incapable government and a rush of foreign investment looking capitalize on a ruined country—just as hurricane season kicks up.

Siddhartha Mahanta is an editorial intern at Mother Jones. Got story ideas? Email him at smahanta (at) motherjones (dot) com. For more of his stories, click here.

Live Video: Nneka

By Jim Beckmann | Published: September 3, 2010

Hailing from Warri, in the Delta region of Nigeria, Nneka first began singing as a student in Hamburg, and as a result her songs bridge the divide between the continents. One listen to the songs on her first US release, Concrete Jungle (she has two previous albums), and you’ll immediately hear a blend of hip-hop, R&B, soul, Reggae, and Afrobeat, with influences ranging from Fela Kuti and Bob Marley to Talib Kweli and Lauryn Hill. And throughout, her socially driven lyrical content and the languages themselves mix her both her African and European experiences. Though a perfect fit for any show, Nneka was certainly in her element performing live on The Best Ambiance with Jon Kertzer. Check out the video from the session here:

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Slavoj Zizek

In this short RSA Animate, renowned philosopher Slavoj Zizek investigates the surprising ethical implications of charitable giving.

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