WikiLeaks cables: Bangladeshi 'death squad' trained by UK government

From The Guardian.

The British government has been training a Bangladeshi paramilitary force condemned by human rights organisations as a "government death squad", leaked US embassy cables have revealed.

Members of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), which has been held responsible for hundreds of extra-judicial killings in recent years and is said to routinely use torture, have received British training in "investigative interviewing techniques" and "rules of engagement".

Details of the training were revealed in a number of cables, released by WikiLeaks, which address the counter-terrorism objectives of the US and UK governments in Bangladesh. One cable makes clear that the US would not offer any assistance other than human rights training to the RAB – and that it would be illegal under US law to do so – because its members commit gross human rights violations with impunity.

Since the RAB was established six years ago, it is estimated by some human rights activists to have been responsible for more than 1,000 extra-judicial killings, described euphemistically as "crossfire" deaths. In September last year the director general of the RAB said his men had killed 577 people in "crossfire". In March this year he updated the figure, saying they had killed 622 people.

The RAB's use of torture has also been exhaustively documented by human rights organisations. In addition, officers from the paramilitary force are alleged to have been involved in kidnap and extortion, and are frequently accused of taking large bribes in return for carrying out crossfire killings.

However, the cables reveal that both the British and the Americans, in their determination to strengthen counter-terrorism operations in Bangladesh, are in favour of bolstering the force...

Evil Bananas.

I was browsing through Cryptogon, when I caught an article on how Chiquita funded death squads in Colombia. If you follow the links back to the original article from Huffington Post on how Attorney General Eric Holder was one of the lawyers involved in getting Chiquita out of trouble on that one, you find the shocking statement that Chiquita's payments of money and guns to the Colombian paramilitaries led to the murder of 4000 civilians in Colombia.

So next time you eat that yummy, healthy Chiquita banana, just know that thousands of people have died for the greed of the company that brought it to you. Not that the banana itself is really to blame, the sick and corrupt corporations are.

Nonetheless, that banana is bleeding buckets of red blood.