Citizen vigilante groups were given a free pass, Akuno charged.
“Real hard corps vigilante groups from Algiers Port, Gretna, from further west, which came into New Orleans for raids, they were shooting people, they came in here shooting --- it was open season on black people,” Akuno said.
Blackwater had been training these white community associations in the French Quarter, in Midtown and in Marigny Bywater -- a place that was once majority black but gentrification began before the storm and it was accelerated, he added.”
Investigative journalists Jeremy Scahill and Daniela Crespo reported for TRUTHOUT in September 2005 that “heavily armed” paramilitary mercenaries from Blackwater, also fresh from Iraq, were openly patrolling the streets of New Orleans. Scahill and Crespo said they were told by Blackwater personnel that they were “on contract with the Department of Homeland Security and have been given the authority to use lethal force.”
Akuno used the Danziger Bridge incident, which was widely reported on, as one example of mercenary violence that is “indisputable.”
On a concrete lift bridge that spans the Industrial Canal, police opened fire on who they say were four people shooting at them from the base of the bridge. The official police report identifies two sets of gunmen going up the east side of the half-mile-long bridge.
Were these individuals shooters, as the police maintain, or were they were innocents in the wrong place at the wrong time?
“They started out shooting over peoples’ heads but they actually shot four people,” Akuno said and added “this sets a standard to understand that a lot more happened that hasn’t been told, that hasn’t seen exposure -- like the pictures that people have showing bodies all shot up -- in the West Bank (Algiers) -- and there’s no water in the West Bank, it didn’t flood. People fled to the west bank because there wasn’t any water there....”
There are many reports of bodies shot with military calibre weapons, but we have seen no photos to back up the charges. We have seen a video which shows white racists talking about “open season” on black people. There is another video on YOUTUBE which shows white men in Louisiana State University T-shirts openly talking about how black people should be kicked out of New Orleans.
Again, it took no extraordinary feat of investigative journalism to obtain these comments and the autopsy report. It is everywhere, but, other than an investigation by National Public Radio, the autopsy report seems to have received little attention outside of New Orleans.
The autopsy, conducted on a mentally retarded man, Ronald Madison, by Dr. James Traylor of the New Orleans Coroner's Office, found seven gunshot wounds -- five to the back.
New Orleans, Louisiana, United States of America: Reports of shooting and harassment by public and private mercenary groups, a police force seemingly out of control shooting an unarmed mentally retarded man, and battle hardened soldiers fresh from Iraq patrolling the streets of an American tourist town, while citizens are trapped on rooftops and in attics.
Georgianne Nienaber is a writer, author, and investigative journalist. She lives in the world. Her articles have appeared in The Huffington Post, SCOOP New Zealand, Glide Magazine, Rwanda's New Times, India's TerraGreen, COA News, ZNET, OpEdNews, The Journal of the International Primate Protection League, Friends of the Congo, Africa Front, The United Nations Publication, A Civil Society Observer, and Zimbabwe's The Daily Mirror. Her fiction exposé of insurance fraud in the horse industry, Horse Sense, was re-released in early 2006. Gorilla Dreams: The Legacy of Dian Fossey was also released in 2006. Nienaber spent much of 2007 doing research in South Africa, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. She was in DRC as a MONUC-accredited journalist, and recently spent six weeks in Southern Louisiana investigating hurricane reconstruction. She is currently developing a documentary on the Gulf of Mexico DEAD ZONE.
It is not often that you find a writer that can have a world-view, who weaves a thread that ties all the different levels that come into play coming from one incident and show how one effects the other, but Ms Neinaber does it here.
It has always amazed me when I hear someone say that conspiracies don't exist, as if groups like Bilderberg, Trilateral Commission, and meetings at Bohemian Grove aren't effecting what policies go down or that powers-that-be wouldn't use psy-ops and the media they own to brainwash the masses or use any means necessary to retain their stranglehold on whatever resources are left that sustain life when there is so much evidence proving otherwise.
When I moved to New Orleans I became enamoured with the rebellious nature of the original settlers against the very forces that would make this region an epicenter for a grand experiment in a One-World-Government the powers-that-be wish to turn the rest of the world into. What happened here was no mistake. If there was incompetence it was by design. They are trying to kill us.
I'm grateful to Ms. Nienaber for doing such a wonderful job in shedding light on our plight at the same time expressing a sense of what it is to feel what we have been going through, as she has also shown her love for this area and its people. We love you back.
by
Mr M (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 15 diaries, 1684 comments)
on Monday, February 18, 2008 at 8:19:20 AM
The world has become sheep hearded into economic pens of debt and servatude.
While no one wants to beleive I was in New Orleans 3 weeks after Katrina. I know the "elite" of the city and they want the "bad element" out. Katrina just provided the opportunity.
Did anyone ever trace where all the money went?
by
Michael Morris (18 articles, 0 quicklinks, 16 diaries, 302 comments)
on Monday, February 18, 2008 at 1:15:52 PM
Just last night my 14 year old son asked me about Katrina. What it was, and what happened. I tried to explain as best I could. Tonight he will understand better what I could not tell him.
Thank you. For Evangeline. And for all of us, Thank you.
peace
by
mikel paul (11 articles, 1 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 442 comments)
on Monday, February 18, 2008 at 1:27:42 PM
Every American should understand what this government is capable of. Everyone that looks at people who have "Conspiricy Theories" askance should read this. They want more of us dead.
by
Timothy V. Gatto (348 articles, 177 quicklinks, 38 diaries, 574 comments)
on Monday, February 18, 2008 at 10:01:25 PM
Whenever I read Katrina accounts all I can think of is walking into my livingroom and finding my daughter, a young woman of color, sobbing as she watched the coverage of Katrina. I thought she was just feeling sorry for all those people. She turned around and said: "It's not just that, Mom. It's that I finally realized the government of this country hates and wants to kill off us black people. What is happening in new Orleans is the final proof." She was right.
by
memary (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 70 comments)
on Tuesday, February 19, 2008 at 6:27:30 PM
I think you are partially correct. But not all politicians feel that way personally. My freshman Senator from Minnesota, Amy Klobuchar, promised me and a journalist from Africa...looking us both in the eye, that she would do something about repression of journalism in Africa. She is a neighbor...I cannot get to her since she was elected and she has refused to answer any questions or correspondence since. I will hold her feet to the fire at every opportunity. I don't understand what happens when people get elected to office, but it is deplorable. And, I still respect Amy Klobuchar as a woman I once knew who had integrity.
by
Georgianne Nienaber (145 articles, 46 quicklinks, 13 diaries, 337 comments)
on Wednesday, February 20, 2008 at 6:10:37 PM
11 comments
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