WASHINGTON, April 18 (UPI) -- Since the very first conflicts, until it was made illegal under international law, rape was a part of warfare. But a series of recent allegations against Private Military Contractors suggests that it is not just a historical phenomenon. snip
Consider Dawn Leamon's story, which is chronicled in detail in the April 3 issue of The Nation. She says that while working for the U.S. contractor Kellogg Brown Root she was raped in Iraq earlier this year by a U.S. soldier and a KBR colleague.
She says that following her rape, she spoke with a woman at the KBR Employee Assistance Program. "She discouraged me from reporting, saying, 'You know what will happen if you do,'" Leamon said. snip
Those with long memories will recall that Kathryn Bolkovac, a U.N. International Police Force monitor, filed a lawsuit in 2001 against DynCorp for firing her after she reported that the company's police trainers in Bosnia were paying for prostitutes and participating in sex trafficking. Many of the DynCorp employees were forced to resign under suspicion of illegal activity. But none was prosecuted, since they enjoy immunity from prosecution in Bosnia.
Earlier that year Ben Johnston, a DynCorp aircraft mechanic for helicopters in Kosovo, also filed a lawsuit against his employer. The suit alleged that in the latter part of 1999 he "witnessed coworkers and supervisors literally buying and selling women for their own personal enjoyment, and employees would brag about the various ages and talents of the individual slaves they had purchased."
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