by Cam Simpson
I am deeply indebted to several authors and journalists for their own work on some of the issues covered in this book, especially for the history of KBR Halliburton contained in chapter 7. Most notable is the incomparable Robert A. Caro. Others are T. Christian Miller, David Phinney, Dan Briody, P. W. Singer, David S. Rohde, Ariana Eunjung Cha, Sarah Stillman, and the historians Joseph A. Pratt and Christopher J. Castañeda. I am also indebted to filmmaker Jon Shenk, who generously provided me with transcripts of the interviews he and Pete Nicks conducted for Blame Somebody Else, their 2006 Emmy Award–winning documentary.
I also relied on hundreds of photographs and videos for many of the descriptions in the narrative. These include those that I took myself, but also hundreds taken by the incredible José Moré, whose work for the Chicago Tribune in 2005 yielded a visual diary of my investigation in Nepal and the Middle East.
Appendix: Interview Subjects
Kamala Thapa Magar
Associates and Family of Kamala Thapa Magar
Shakuntala Basnet, tailoring and sewing teacher, Tulsi Meher Ashram
Bhadra Kumari Ghale, Gandhian activist, writer, and former chairman of the Tulsi Meher Trust, Kathmandu, Nepal
Bijay Bahadur Khadka, former chief executive of Tulsi Meher Ashram, Kathmandu, Nepal
Ganga Bahadur Thapa Magar
Bhakti Maya Thapa Magar
Budhi Thapa Magar
Dhan Maya Thapa Magar
Duku Maya Thapa Magar
Fauda Singh Thapa Magar
Maya Thapa Magar
Dwarika Manandhar, textile instructor, Tulsi Meher Ashram
Sunna Shrestha, staff member, Tulsi Meher Ashram
Uday Thapa, primary school teacher, Gorkha District, Nepal
Family Members of the Other Victims in Nepal
Devaka Adhikari
Mahendra Adhikari
Ramchandra Adhikari
Yubaraj Adhikari
Bishnu Khadka
Jeet Bahadur Khadka
Rhadika Khadka
Sudarshan Khadka
Bhagwat Koiri
Bindeshore Singh Koiri
Iswar Singh Koiri
Pukari Devi Koiri
Satya Narayan Shah
Renuka Karki Shrestha
Tara Shrestha
Ram Dulari Sudi
Jitini Devi Thakur
Ram Kumar Thakur
Ram Naryan Thakur
Samundri Devi Thakur
Bhim Bahadur Thapa
Bishnu Maya Thapa
Krishna Maya Thapa
Kul Prasad Thapa
Others
Nepal
Biplav Bhatta, former worker in Iraq
Prabin Bhetwal, former worker in Iraq
Shamser Bahadur Karki, Nepal Foreign Employment Manpower Council
Yubaraj Ghmire, journalist and former editor of Samay magazine, Nepal
Prahlad Giri, Moon Light Consultant Pvt. Ltd., Kathmandu, Nepal
Ganesh Gurung, Nepal Institute of Development Studies
Reena Gurung, attorney, Nepal Institute of Development Studies
Members of the Kumar family, Taksar, Nepal
Gana Magar, New Bamboo Cottage, Kathmandu, Nepal
Prakash Mahat, former Nepalese foreign minister
Indra Tamang, former worker in Iraq
Govind Prasad Thapa
Kumar Thapa, subagent in Kathmandu, Nepal
Lok Bahadur Thapa, former Nepalese ambassador to Saudi Arabia
Middle East
Wadih al-Absi, First Kuwaiti Trading and Contracting
Ricardo Endaya, former chargé d’affaires of the Philippines in Baghdad (interviewed by Aamer Madhani)
Amin Mansour, Bisharat and Partners, labor broker for Daoud and Partners, Amman, Jordan
Eyad Mansour, Morning Star for Recruitment and Manpower Supply, Amman, Jordan
Ali Kamel al-Nadi, Bisharat and Partners, labor broker for Daoud and Partners, Amman, Jordan
Officials of the Indian government
Nader Rabadi, journalist, Amman, Jordan
Haitham Shwarham, Daoud and Partners
United States
Laurel Calkins, journalist, Houston, Texas
Craig Cook, husband of Molly McOwen
Marie de Young, KBR whistleblower
Rebecca Durham, former KBR worker, Iraq
Hon. Keith P. Ellison, U.S. District Court judge, Southern District of Texas, Houston
Agnieszka Fryszman, partner at Cohen Milstein Hausfeld and Toll
Matthew Handley, former partner, Cohen Milstein Hausfeld and Toll
Geoffrey Harrison, partner at Susman Godfrey
Michael Hausfeld, former chairman and partner at Cohen Milstein Hausfeld and Toll
Paul Hoffman, partner at Schonbrun Seplow Harris and Hoffman
Stuart Ishimaru, civil rights lawyer, husband of Agnieszka Fryszman
Michael D. Kohn, partner, Kohn, Kohn and Colapinto, LLP
Michael Land, former KBR worker, Iraq
Aamer Madhani, former reporter, Chicago Tribune, currently at USA Today (interview transcript provided by Jon Shenk)
Molly McOwen, former plaintiffs’ lawyer, Cohen Milstein Hausfeld and Toll
Michael Mengis, partner at BakerHostetler
John R. Miller, U.S. ambassador at large and former head of the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (died in October 2017)
Melissa Norcross, KBR Halliburton former spokeswoman
Sara K. Payne, senior vice president, Rutherfoord International
Richard V. Robilotti, former district director, U.S. Department of Labor Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs
U.S. Representative Chris Smith, author and key proponent of several human trafficking laws
Mark B. Taylor, former senior coordinator for reports and political affairs, U.S. State Department Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons
Martina E. Vandenberg, attorney, and founder and president of the Human Trafficking Pro Bono Legal Center, Washington, DC
Angela Keel-Welsh, U.S. Army
Selected Bibliography
Although not all of these are cited in the “Note on Sources,” I found them all useful in the writing of this book.
Banerjee, Mukulika, and Daniel Miller. The Sari. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2003.
Bass, Jack. Unlikely Heroes. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981.
Bazyler, Michael J. Holocaust Justice: The Battle for Restitution in America’s Courts. New York: NYU Press, 2003.
Bradley, Mark Philip. The World Reimagined; Americans and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2016.
Bravin, Jess. The Terror Courts: Rough Justice at Guantanamo Bay. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013.
Breyer, Stephen. The Court and the World: American Law and the New Global Realities. New York: Knopf Doubleday, 2015.
Briody, Dan. The Halliburton Agenda: The Politics of Oil and Money. New York: Wiley, 2006.
Cameron, Mary M. On the Edge of the Auspicious: Gender and Caste in Nepal. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, and Kathmandu: Mandala Publications, 1998 and 2005.
Caro, Robert A. Means of Ascent: The Years of Lyndon Johnson. New York: Vintage Books, 1991.
Caro, Robert A. The Path to Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson. New York: Vintage Books, 1983.
Coll, Steve. Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power. New York: Penguin Press, 2012.
Fallows, James. Blind into Baghdad: America’s War in Iraq. New York: Knopf Doubleday, 2009.
Kipp, Eva. Bending Bamboo, Changing Winds: Nepali Women Tell Their Life Stories. Delhi and Kathmandu: Book Faith India and Pilgrims Publishing, 1995 and 2006.
Miller, T. Christian. Blood Money: Wasted Billions, Lost Lives, and Corporate Greed in Iraq. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2006.
Oldenburgh, Paul. 6 Days in Baghdad: Jamie Leigh Jones and Her Story of Sexual Assault as Told at Tria
l in Houston. Houston, TX: self-published on Amazon by a juror in the trial, 2012.
Olds, Sally Wendkos. A Balcony in Nepal: Glimpses of a Himalayan Village. Delhi: Ardash Books, 2004.
Pandey, Sita. Fever. New Delhi: Nirala Publications, 2004.
Parijat, Under the Sleepless Mountain. Varanasi, India: Pilgrims Publishing, 2007.
Pratt, Joseph A., and Christopher J. Castañeda. Builders: Herman and George R. Brown. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1999.
Ricks, Thomas E. Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq. New York: Penguin Group, 2006.
Singer, P. W. Corporate Warriors: The Rise of Privatized Military Industry. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007.
Stephenson, Joanne. Rawa Dolu: The Story of a Mountain Village. Pittsburgh and Kathmandu: Dorrance Publishing and Pilgrims Book House, 1996.
Thapa, Deepak, and Bandita Sijapati. A Kingdom Under Siege: Nepal’s Maoist Insurgency, 1996 to 2004. Kathmandu: Printhouse, 2004.
Thapa, Manjushree. Forget Kathmandu: An Elegy for Democracy. London and New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2005.
Upadhyaya, Eda, ed. Hulaki: A Collection of Short Stories from Nepal. Kathmandu: Institute of Advanced Communication and Research, 2013.
Notes
Chapter 1
1. She had hoped for a quicker resolution: Sarah McGovern and Timothy J. Dowding, “Sustainable Cotton and Gap Inc.: A Case Study,” University of Connecticut Stamford, 2017, http://global.business.uconn.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/1931/2017/01/Sustainable-Cotton-Gap-Inc.pdf; Cam Simpson, “Tech’s Tragic Secret: The World’s Most Sophisticated Smartphones and Tablets Start in the Tin Mines of Bangka Island,” Bloomberg Businessweek, Aug. 27–Sept. 2, 2012, pp. 48–57; and “A Collective Approach to Achieving a Sustainable Indonesian Tin Sector: Legacy Report of the Tin Working Group,” April 2017, https://www.idhsustainabletrade.com/uploaded/2017/06/Aidenenvironment_TWG-Legacy-Report_final_Website.pdf.
Chapter 2
1. This reality is captured in a sacred Hindu text: “The Laws of Manu,” chap. 5, verses 156–61, Dharmashastras (sacred Hindu texts).
2. In 2015, when Nepal’s president, a widow herself: Hari Kumar Shrestha, “UDMF ‘Cleanses’ Janaki Temple After Worship by ‘Widow Prez,’” Nepal Mountain News, Dec. 19, 2015, http://www.nepalmountainnews.com/cms/2015/12/19/udmf-cleansesjanaki-temple-after-worship-by-widow-prez/.
3. At the start of the school day: Uday Thapa, interview with the author, Gorkha District, Nepal, 2016.
4. a norm meant to silence women and keep them from participating in any public conversation: Sylvia D. Hoffert, When Hens Crow: The Woman’s Rights Movement in Antebellum America (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995).
5. The tiny Persian Gulf state of Qatar: “UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants Concludes Country Visit to Qatar,” Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Nov. 10, 2013, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2009_2014/documents/droi/dv/1307_unsrrightsofmigrants_/1307_unsrrightsofmigrants_en.pdf.
6. But the global shift under way: “International Migration Report 2013,” United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2013), http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/pdf/migration/migrationreport2013/Full_Document_final.pdf.
7. Although relatively small, Nepal rose rapidly: Ibid., table II.2.
8. Because there were no income-earning opportunities: Ganesh Gurung and Jaganath Adhikari, “Nepal: The Prospects and Problems of Foreign Labour Migration,” in Pong-Suhl Ahn, ed., Migrant Workers and Human Rights: Out-Migration from South Asia (New Delhi and Geneva: International Labor Organization 2004).
9. By 1999, the money these men sent home . . . would become their nation’s top export: Jaganath Adhikari and Mary Hobley, “Everyone Is Leaving—Who Will Sow Our Fields? The Effects of Migration from Khotang District to the Gulf and Malaysia,” Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Kathmandu, December 2011.
10. The English- and Nepali-language brochures: Promotional materials from brokers collected by the author in Kathmandu, 2005.
11. The licensed brokers: Gurung and Adhikari, “Nepal: The Prospects and Problems”; and interviews by the author in Nepal, 2005, 2013.
12. International airlines: Records obtained by the author from the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, Air Transportation and Regulation Directorate, Kathmandu, 2004.
13. To squeeze more workers onto every flight: Gulf Air promotional literature on its fleet, obtained by the author from the airline in 2005. The company named each of its economy-only 767s the “Gulf Traveller,” a moniker it used on billboards and other signs in Kathmandu.
14. During takeoff, they heaved: Author’s personal observations on a B767 “Gulf Traveller” flight, Kathmandu to Manama, Sept. 15, 2005.
15. The two-century history: Keiko Yamanaka, “Nepalese Labour Migration to Japan: From Global Warriors to Global Workers,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 23, no. 1 (2000): 62–93.
16. Overseas workers had to pay massive fees: Adhikari and Hobley, “Everyone Is Leaving”; Gurung and Adhikari, “Nepal: The Prospects and Problems”; and interviews by the author in Nepal, 2005, 2013.
17. the job would pay in the range: “Report of the Commission of Inquiry, Established by Decree of the Council of Ministers of His Majesty’s Government [of Nepal], Sept. 6, 2004, Chairman Top Bahadur Singh, former Justice of the Supreme Court of Nepal, obtained by the author in Kathmandu, 2005.
18. On June 9, 2004: Ibid.; Le Royal details obtained from Emporis, a private provider of data on building and construction projects, http://www.emporis.com/buildings/131261/le-royal-hotel-amman-jordan.
19. A Jordanian labor broker . . . “room boys”: “Report of the Commission of Inquiry”; and copy of the advertisement obtained by the author from the offices of Kantipur Daily, Kathmandu, 2005.
Chapter 3
1. A bulletin cut into the afternoon music: BBC Monitoring translation report of Radio Nepal broadcast, obtained by the author, 2004.
2. The terrorists . . . something called “Bisharat”: “Report of the Commission of Inquiry”; and numerous news reports, including “Islamist Group Says It Has Abducted 12 Nepalese in Iraq,” Agence France Presse, Aug. 20, 2004, 5:39 p.m., GMT, dateline Dubai.
3. Less than one-half of 1 percent: Google Public Data, “World Development Indicators, Infrastructure, Fixed Broadband Internet Subscribers: India, Nepal, Pakistan,” accessed by the author, https://www.google.co.uk/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=it_net_user_p2&idim=country:NPL:IND:PAK&hl=en&dl=en#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=it_net_bbnd&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:NPL:IND:PAK&ifdim=region&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false.
4. It was among the first . . . would eventually become ISIS: Aki Peritz, “I Watched All the Terrorist Beheadings for the U.S. Government, and Here’s What I Learned,” PostEverything (blog), Washington Post, 2014, https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/07/02/i-watched-all-the-terrorist-beheadings-for-the-u-s-government-and-heres-what-i-learned/?utm_term=.4ff0f50b576c.
5. On October 1, 1999 . . . a wedding ground and public space: Interviews of witnesses by the author in Nepal, 2016; and Nepal: A Spiralling Human Rights Crisis (London: Amnesty International, 2002).
6. Maoists also kidnapped hundreds: Ibid.
7. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs had mobilized . . . Arabic-language radio and television: “Report of the Commission of Inquiry.”
8. The violence had started in full: Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (New York: Penguin Group, 2006).
9. Nearly one hundred contractors: Contractor casualty data collected by the author in 2005; similar data available at icasualties.org, “Iraqi Coalition Casualties: Contractors—A Partial List,” http://icasualties.org/Iraq/Contractors.aspx.
10. Within just one day: “Report of the Commission of Inquiry.”
11. They spontaneously and simultaneously attacked . . .
that lasted four days: Ibid.
12. The meaning of loss . . . into the effigy: Sthaneshwar Timalsina, “Ritual, Reality, and Meaning: The Vedic Ritual of Cremating a Surrogate Body,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 159, no. 1 (January 2009): 45–69.
Chapter 4
1. Five-star hotels clad in white stone . . . the country’s GDP: Ibrahim Saif and David M. DeBartolo, “The Iraq War’s Impact on Growth and Inflation in Jordan,” research paper of the Center for Strategic Studies, University of Jordan, 2008, http://iraqslogger.powweb.com/downloads/cssjordan_report.pdf. For troop levels, see Amy Belasco, “Troop Levels in the Afghan and Iraq Wars, FY2001–FY2012: Cost and Other Potential Issues,” Congressional Research Service, Washington, DC, 2009, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R40682.pdf.
2. Mansour had told the wire service: Ravi Nessman, “Militant Website Reports That 12 Nepalese Hostages Slain in Iraq,” Associated Press International wire, Aug. 31, 2004.
3. Mansour made a brief appearance: Shafika Mattar, “Jordan-Based Firm Trying to Determine Fate of 12 Kidnapped Nepalese Workers Sent to Iraq,” Associated Press International wire, Aug. 23, 2004.
4. In fact, the kidnappers themselves: “Islamist Group Says It Has Abducted 12 Nepalese in Iraq.”