Asia-Pacific, Economy & Trade, Headlines, Human Rights, Labour, Middle East & North Africa, Migration & Refugees, North America

LABOUR-IRAQ: A Dramatic Nighttime Escape

David Phinney*

MANILA, Jun 15 2007 (IPS) - First Kuwaiti has been accused repeatedly by dozens of workers from the Philippines and Nepal of forcing them to work in Iraq over the past three years, including by Ramil Autencio who recounted his tale last November while sitting in front of his home – a two-room shack assembled with old wood and sheet metal in metropolitan Manila.

A tattered curtain hangs across the front entrance. Along the dirt alley off a busy commercial street, his neighbours live much the same while jets fly overhead connecting some 8 million Filipino labourers, 10 percent of the nation’s population, to the global economy – most seeking more than the 10 dollars a day that many make at home.

A stray dog and a few cats pattered by as his wife Angela and his two small children watched him carefully unfold a plastic bag holding his documents. Speaking in Tagalog, he held each paper like a sacred text strengthening his resolve to share the hell he says he endured during the cold winter months of 2004.

While at Jaleeb, Autencio claimed he signed papers as a supervisor placed his hand over the paragraphs. “I don’t read Arabic or English, but it was that, or jail,” he recalled. Before leaving the Philippines, the papers he signed at the airport were for work in Kuwait, he stressed again and again. He did not want to go to Iraq.

At one point a memo was posted at the Jaleeb warning people to prepare for travel Iraq, Autencio said. The paper has his name on it:

“People received 100-dollar salary deductions for failure to get on the buses. Furthermore, their daily deductions will be made from their salary until they reach Iraq, and their salaries will not be paid until the end of the month. If your name is on the list below and you wish to go back to the Philippines, you will still have to work until you can pay for your ticket expenses equivalent to USD 1,000.”

“These people failed to meet their departure dates for Iraq, which means that they also delayed many of your departures. Delayed departures mean that you might receive your salary late bec no more salaries will be paid in Kuwait. All salaries will be paid in Iraq!!! If everyone wishes to receive their salary on time, you must make sure that you do not miss your departure date, and make sure no one else fails to go!!!”

Once in Tikrit where he worked at a US military camp, Autencio said he was not getting paid. He was told the money was waiting in Kuwait, but that he and other Filipinos working with him found the working conditions increasingly unbearable. As if sharing a secret, Autencio unfolded a dog-eared yellow piece of paper. It is the paper he passed among the workers as he planned their escape. Over forty workers signed the paper and agreed to flee. They believed their chances would be better if they stuck together.

A Filipino in the U.S. Army sympathetic to their plight talked with a driver of a flatbed truck headed south. For three nights they drove racing to the Kuwait border. During the days, they hid with very little food or water, Autencio said. “We were nearly starved.”

The truckload of desperate Filipinos arriving at the border lacking papers stunned the Kuwaiti police who tried to stop them. “We were even angrier then because one of us had died so there was nothing they could do to stop us,” Autencio continued. “We pushed them away when they asked for our papers…We outnumbered them.”

The group made their way to the Philippines embassy, where the ambassador reluctantly allowed them shelter until their return home could be arranged.

Autencio also claimed he was paid only 300 dollars for his three-month ordeal. He sued First Kuwaiti for back pay, but lost in court. He blames that on his lawyer, who he says was unqualified. A second lawyer he hired disappeared.

That is enough for First Kuwaiti and Al-Absi finds Autencio’s allegations nothing but fiction.

“He sued me in court over this, and he lost,” Al Absi said. “He doesn’t have a case against us.”

* This is the second part of a two-part series. Read Part I: “LABOUR-IRAQ: Caught in Trafficking.” Philippine journalist Lucille Quiambao contributed research and translation to this report. David Phinney can be contacted at phinneydavid@yahoo.com.