Officials: Fla. Men forced to work at farm.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

EAST PALATKA, Fla. (AP) - A farm labor contractor has been accused of luring homeless men into indentured servitude by forcing them to work off debts from the purchase of alcohol and crack cocaine, authorities said.


Officials are investigating whether conditions at the farmworker camp run by labor contractor Ronald Robert Evans - which was raided earlier this month by federal and local agents - amounted to modern-day slavery.


"Evans and his enforcers allegedly employ force or threat of force to keep the workers in a condition of involuntary servitude," reads a three-page U.S. Department of Labor "Operation Plan" distributed to agents before the raid.


Evans was charged last week with making false statements to a federal investigator and allowing unauthorized drivers to transport farmworkers. Three associates were arrested on similar charges. He was released on $50,000 bond and ordered to have no contact with the camp, a parcel of land off a dirt enclosed by chain-link fence topped with barbed wire.


Evans, 47, has not been charged with any crime involving indentured servitude. However, officials said additional charges were likely.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050611/D8ALE3IO0.html

[sasquatch]

1. Execute that son of a bitch

:mad:

[Laughing Mirror]

3. Execute him?

They released that summa bitch on a 50 thousand dollar bond, chump change for this ... contractor, surely, and they charged him with nothing much really, not yet anyway.

This incident is deeply troubling on several levels. Good thing though that the Coalition existed and that some of the enslaved workers were able to get in touch with them.

[scarlett1]

2. There are special places in Hell for people like this

You ever heard of the Thirteenth Amendment, Dude.

But the Homeless don't vote:sarcasm:

[uppityperson]

4. "farm" with barbed wire topped chainlink fence?

must have some damn tough coyotes around there.

[newswolf56]

5. What we have here is...

...a microcosm of the Bush economy.

[Voltaire99]

13. That's the way I see it, too.

If it's discovered he has forced them to pray to a white Christian God while they labored, he may qualify for some faith-based funding.

[roguevalley]

6. make him do servitude for the state for about 70 years.

[1monster]

7. Naw... send him to that sheriff in the Southwest who houses his prisoners

in tents and feeds them on less money a day than I spend on my fifteen pound dog. Make sure he's put on a chain gang every day until HIS debt and living expenses are paid off...

[Javaman]

8. Nope, so such thing as slavery in this country. La la la, I'm not listing!

[wellst0nev0ter]

9. So Janice Rodgers Brown Was Right!

This debauched sociolist hellhole IS turing people into slaves. I formally renounce all criticisms of her I held am retaining. :eyes:

[salin]

10. Isn't this the area for which a du-er ran for state house of reps?

Was that JCMach's district?

[Eloriel]

11. Okay, that story convinces me

For a long time now I've been torn between whether fascists are born that way or get twisted somehow on their way to adulthood.

Now I know: it's in their damn genes. Gotta be.

This harks back to those bad old days when we weren't even a nation yet, and the young and poor could come over here but had to work for years and years years -- and were usually treated abusively as well -- in indentured servitude before they were free.

Disgusting and pathetic.

[olddad56]

12. nobody on this board should be outraged...

This has been going on in several places in the US for some time. It was a feature article in A National Geographic magazine within the last year. Slavery is alive and well all over the world. Including the US.

[Jose Diablo]

14. This is the neocons plan for

the rest of our country and ultimately, the world. You see with this a glimpse of 'the future' according to their dreams.

Look at the laws being passed, look at the gutting of our pensions, the treasury, the destruction of our military, the corruption of the courts and the infiltration of the local police by the federal police. It's only a short time and we will see the 'black shirts' holding power positions in all local police to 'co-ordinate' terrorist investigations.

It's later than you think.

[Judi Lynn]

15. Do you remember THIS noble Bush move from only a few days back?

Posted 6/3/2005 9:53 PM

Fourteen countries accused of failing to do enough to stop human trafficking

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States accused 14 nations Friday of failing to do enough to stop the modern-day slave trade in prostitutes, child sex workers and forced laborers. The countries include Saudi Arabia, Washington's closest Arab ally in the war on terrorism.

Three other U.S. allies in the Middle East — Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar — were newly listed this year as nations that are failing to adequately address trafficking problems. The State Department said the 14 countries could be subject to sanctions if they do not crack down.

As many as 800,000 people are bought and sold across national borders annually or lured to other countries with false promises of work or other benefits, the State Department said in its annual survey of international human trafficking. Most are women and children.

"Trafficking in human beings is nothing less than a modern form of slavery," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said. "The United States has a particular duty to fight this scourge because trafficking in persons is an affront to the principles of human dignity and liberty upon which this nation was founded."
(snip/...)

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-06-03-human-trafficking_x.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He points his grubby finger at other country yearly. He has done it from the first. Other countries are perplexed, given his own country's practises.

Some of the most horrendous crimes against workers happen in Jeb's state.