More labour rage
Sunday, April 24, 2005
Photo source: AP/Gustavo Ferrari (via Yahoo News)
From the BBC:
More than 700 Bangladeshi workers have stormed their country's embassy in Kuwait, causing damage inside. [...] Mr Islam [the ambassador] told the BBC Bengali service that the motive for the attack was linked to wages not being paid. (Continued)
More details with Reuters
This is very worrying, but not at all surprising. There have been several similar events all over the Gulf in recent months, of migrant workers expressing anger at their situation. Usually peaceful, but occasionally violent.
Usually this anger has been expressed towards their employers or at their host government. But this time it is against their own government. Although there is no way to condone today's violence, this should serve as a much-needed wake up call to embassies all around the Gulf. Up until now they have silently watched their citizens being abused, without demanding that the basic rule of law be applied to them. As long as the foreign remittances are flowing in there's no probs.
See also: the Expat Files
This entry was posted
on Sunday, April 24, 2005 at 4/24/2005 06:29:00 pm. Permalink
4/25/2005 03:42:00 am
Good! It's about bloody time. Although I don't think embassies are the best targets, the morally bankrupt Arab ruling class and government need to be confronted. I hope we see more people standing up from themselves and organizing on a grassroots level for just the most minimum level of rights. Arab employers can't go on thinking that they can treat people like this. And yes, our home embassies are also every bit to blame for allowing this to go on for this long and to this degree. I don't think anyone's going to wake up overnight.... but maybe by the time the next generation rolls around, the sick and abusive hierarchy in place will have collapsed inorder for a more human, productive set of relations between the economy, culture, society.
4/25/2005 03:44:00 am
Good! It's about bloody time. Although I don't think embassies are the best targets, the morally bankrupt Arab ruling class and government need to be confronted. I hope we see more people standing up from themselves and organizing on a grassroots level for just the most minimum level of rights. Arab employers can't go on thinking that they can treat people like this. And yes, our home embassies are also every bit to blame for allowing this to go on for this long and to this degree. I don't think anyone's going to wake up overnight.... but maybe by the time the next generation rolls around, the sick and abusive hierarchy in place will have collapsed inorder for a more human, productive set of relations between the economy, culture, society to grow.
4/25/2005 08:49:00 am
Please read this:
http://www.bangladeshjournal.com/index.php?ID=3884&tim=24-4-2005
Some excerpts:
What was baffling about the whole issue is that the "responsible" Kuwaiti governments complete ineffectiveness to halt these companies who employ, the mostly poor labor from the south Asian continent, to stop abusing their powers.
On a greater context, the Kuwaiti government needs to stop such acts by confronting the problems at the root and that is to investigate the claims of nonpayment and inhuman treatment of foreign workers by the companies that employ them. The dubious record of the Arab countries in human rights are nothing new, but the steady escalation of massive malpractice to defraud workers from the poorest nations in the world is despicable and should be handled with extreme and utter scrutiny by the Governments of the Arab nations.