Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights

April 23, 2008

CENSORED: US Torture Training at Fort Huachuca

By Brenda Norrell
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

PHOENIX -- OK, so its no surprise, but it keeps happening. Reporters and editors keep asking for my comments and columns. Then those words are censored and stashed in the "Don't even think about publishing it department."
The subject this time was not a funny one. It was the ongoing torture training at Fort Huachuca in southern Arizona. Two priests, Fr. Steve Kelly and Fr. Louie Vitale, just spent five months in prison for kneeling in prayer at Fort Huachuca in opposition to US torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo, torture in violation of the Geneva Conventions.
A reporter for the Arizona Business Journal asked me to comment on the newest human intelligence training facility contract for Fort Huachuca, which went to Sletten Corp. of Phoenix. Here's what I said on April 7. It was chopped by the media powers that be:

"The United States government is acting like a dog gone mad with rabies. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has declared himself 'god' and voided all federal laws to build the border wall. Now, in a continuance of the practices which reflect the Nazi regime, the United States will continue to build torture training facilities at Fort Huachuca. It was here that the root of the torture manuals were produced that led to the rape, disappearance, torture and murder of an unknown number of Indigenous Peoples and innocent farmers in Central and South America, before the manual was exposed in 1996.
"The United States, in violation of the Geneva Conventions, has tortured people to death in Iraq and Afghanistan. While Americans sleepwalk, hypnotized by television and Wal-Mart shopping, their country is in ruin."As we make our way across the United States, broadcasting from the Longest Walk, we see that fear has been used to manipulate the people into building power plants and allowing oil and gas drilling on their own lands. The purpose is profiteering for corporations and their politicians. From California to Kansas, we have listened to the stories of a sinking and desperate America. The continuance of torture and torture training is another cancer in the body of America."
--Brenda Norrell
The Contract:
Sletten Companies, Phoenix, Ariz. was awarded on March 28, 2008, an $11,981.566 firm-fixed price contract for the design and construction of a human intelligence training facility. Work will be performed in Fort Huachuca, Ariz. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Work is expected to be completed by July 31, 2009. Web bids were solicited on Jan. 24, 2008, and six bids were received. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Los Angeles, Calif. is the contracting agency (W912PL-08-C-0008).


UNCENSORED ARTICLES
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