OFW deployment to Iraq stopped

In the wake of last week’s death of a Filipino truck driver in Iraq, the government has stopped the deployment of workers to the strife-torn country.

In a business forum in Makati City, Labor Undersecretary Manuel Imson said President Arroyo has ordered a ban on the deployment of new overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to Iraq.

"We are after the interest of the workers there," he said.

Imson said that new applications were still being processed only to ensure the immediate deployment of workers as soon as the security situation in Iraq improves.

The plight of Filipino workers in Iraq gained added urgency last week when a 53-year-old truck driver, Rodrigo Reyes, was killed after his convoy was ambushed by insurgents near the Kuwaiti border.

Reyes’ death came just as Mrs. Arroyo set a zero casualty target for Filipinos in Iraq.

But in his report after a trip to the Middle East, special envoy Roy Cimatu insisted that there was no need to evacuate Filipinos based in Iraq, a view shared by Imson.

Imson said that all Filipino workers in Iraq were relatively safe as they were employed inside military bases.

What may pose a problem is the increase in number of OFWs who enter Iraq regularly from neighboring countries like Kuwait, Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Reyes was said to be an example of such OFW, as he was based in Kuwait.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Delia Albert said that the government cannot prevent contractors from sending OFWs from neighboring countries into Iraq to deliver supplies and other commodities.

But the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) said that it is working on safety measures and contract remedies for OFWs like Reyes.

The measures were taken up during a meeting Saturday between Cimatu and POEA Administrator Rosalinda Baldoz.

Cimatu and his team will fly to Iraq via Kuwait and Jordan, where he will first meet with the Philippine ambassadors in these countries to discuss their roles in any emergencies.

Cimatu said his team would be providing OFWs in Iraq with information on the military situation in the areas around their places of work including hazard maps of possible danger zones.

Meanwhile, the President has asked the Iraqi provisional government yesterday to help protect Filipino workers in Iraq.

Mrs. Arroyo conveyed this official request to Iraqi Minister for Municipalities and Public Works Nesreen Mustaf Siddeek Barwari, who paid a courtesy call on her at Malacañang.

In a press briefing after her meeting with Mrs. Arroyo, Barwari, who is the only woman in the 25-member Iraqi Governing Council, said she will do her "best to convey the desire of your President for us to look after your people who are working in Iraq."

Barwari expressed the council’s condolences to the family of the slain OFW and the "gratitude of the Iraqi people for the help, support and sympathy of the Filipino people."

"I would also like to take this opportunity to condole with the family of Rodrigo Reyes, who died in Iraq while doing his work as an innocent civilian," she said.

The visiting Iraqi minister and her five-man delegation were accompanied to the Palace by Albert, Cimatu, and Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas.

"The minister called on the President this morning to convey her appreciation for the contribution of the Philippine Humanitarian Contingent to Iraq (PHCI) in the reconstruction process of that country," Albert recounted.

Barwari is a Kurd who, along with other members of her family, became a political prisoner in 1981. Ten years later she fled to Turkey as a refugee. She soon found herself involved in the Kurdistan Regional Government.

Barwari, who will be in Manila until Thursday, said she would be meeting with other Philippine officials "to explore ways and means of cooperation and establishing linkages."

One of the officials she will meet is Ambassador Roberto Romulo, head of the private and public sector task force on the reconstruction of Iraq.

Romulo is in charge of coordinating with officials of the provisional government, as well as with United States officials in charge of the administration of Iraq, for the participation of Philippine companies in the reconstruction of the war-torn country and for the possible employment of OFWs.

Barwari said the Philippines stands a good chance of getting "favorable attention" in the $33-billion international reconstruction program for Iraq, $18 billion of which comes from the US.

"We want to take advantage of your good institutions for training Iraqi staff at different fields and also try to explore economic and work opportunities in Iraq," she said.

Barwari said her ministry alone has a budget of $4 billion for the construction of housing, roads, schools, and water and sanitation facilities.

"We welcome tenders and offers from the governments that have stood with the Iraqi people, and they would get favorable attention, of course," she said.

Barwari told Palace reporters that she is uncertain if she would retain her cabinet post once the new transition government of Iraq is installed into office by the US-led coalition this June.

But she assured them that whatever official commitments she would make with the Philippine government over its participation in the reconstruction of Iraq would be honored by whoever takes over her post.

In yet another Iraq-related development, a Philippine-born American general was identified yesterday as the author of a report exposing the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad.

Born in Manila, Maj. Gen Antonio Taguba is the second highest ranking Filipino-American officer in the US army. He was promoted to his current rank in September 2002.

Taguba detailed the prison abuse in a 53-page internal US military report that The New Yorker magazine said it had obtained.

The New Yorker said the report, completed late February, was not meant for publication. The magazine did not say how it obtained the report, which formed the basis of an article by Seymour Hersh entitled "Torture at Abu Ghraib."

The magazine said Army reserve Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski was put in charge of military prisons in Iraq June of last year.

The only female commander in the war zone, Karpinski was an experienced operations and intelligence officer but had never run a prison system.

In an interview in December, Karpinski said many of the inmates at Abu Ghraib were living better in prison than at home.

"At one point we were concerned that they wouldn’t want to leave," she said.

A month later Karpinski was officially admonished and quietly suspended, and a major investigation into the Army’s prison system, authorized by Lt. Gen Ricardo Sanches, the senior commander in Iraq, was under way.

Taguba’s conclusions about the institutional failures of the Army prison system in Iraq are devastating, said the weekly magazine in its latest issue on Monday.

The Taguba report said evidence included "detailed witness statements and the discovery of extremely graphic photographic evidence."

The New Yorker said Taguba had recommended that Karpinski and seven brigade military-police officers and enlisted men be relieved of command and formally reprimanded.

In her defense, Karpinski told Newsweek that she had warned her superiors from the start about the ill-treatment of Iraqi prisoners.

The trouble was, Karpinski said, she didn’t have enough troops or resources to do the job right, and the men at the top ignored her complaints.

"They just wanted it to go away," she said. — With Marichu Villanueva, Pia Lee-Brago, Jose Katigbak