Tuesday, August 2, 2011
G4S Wackenhut
G4s Wackenhut is a private security company that operates in various parts of the United States of America and Canada, as well as other parts of the world. In Winnipeg, you can see their G4S logos on the armoured cars that drive money between banks. Nothing wrong with that, if it is public money it should not be stolen. I am not sure about security measures they take to keep it out of the hands of private bankers, but that's not the issue.
In Arizona, G4S Wackenhut use their services to transport migrants en-masse back into Mexico. Border Patrol agents bring in dozens of people and dump them into these buses. Sometimes they sit there for a few minutes, sometimes a few hours. Depends on when the buses leave to Mexico. The corporation has also ran several prisons in the US, after being contracted by the government. There have been allegations of abuse in these detention centres.
NMD policy is to stop by these buses and ask the drivers if there are any migrants inside, and if so, can we offer them water and food. In several instances in the past, the drivers have said yes, and have passed down these things to the people inside. Today, we talked with three grey shirted people with the company logo on their uniform, they refused to answer whether there were people in the bus and told us to contact their superiors. We did not see anyone in the buses, although we weren't sure because the windows are darkly tinted. I hope they were empty.
What was interesting was the fact that the bus was unmarked. The logo was not on its side, unlike other times. The last time I was in Arizona, they were clearly marked with the company logo. I don't know why they were hiding it. I think it is disturbing when private corporations take part in law enforcement, especially if the enforcement targets innocent people.
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