Electronics Maker Promises Review After Suicides

Bobby Yip/Reuters

Ma Zishan, Gao Zhaoying and Ma Liqun, the mother, father and sister of Ma Xiangqian, who jumped to his death in January, mourn outside a Foxconn factory in southern Guangdong province on Wednesday.

By David Barboza DAVID BARBOZA

SHENZHEN, CHINA — There were bows and an apology from Terry Gou, one of the richest men in Asia and chairman of Foxconn Technology.

With about 800,000 Chinese employees, revenue of about $60 billion a year and a reputation for military-style efficiency, Foxconn is possibly the world’s biggest electronics maker. It is now also the focus of troubling questions about a wave of suicides among its workers at a pair of factories here that serve as major suppliers to global brands like Apple, Dell and Hewlett-Packard.

As part of a hastily assembled, carefully orchestrated news conference and tour led by Mr. Gou on Wednesday, Foxconn executives defended their labor practices, even as they vowed to do everything possible to prevent more young people from taking their own lives. And the company presented a panel of mental health professionals to discuss the likely causes of suicide in China generally.

And perhaps in a sign of desperation, the company said it had even begun putting safety nets up on factory buildings to deter suicide attempts. (Not soon enough in at least one case, apparently. Hours after the news conference, another Foxconn employee fell to his death from one of the complex’s buildings, according to the official news agency Xihuan, although it was not immediately known whether it was an accident or suicide.)
“We’re reviewing everything,” said Mr. Gou, whose Taiwanese company controls Foxconn Technology, which operates two sprawling factories here with about 420,000 employees.
Sensing a public relations fiasco and questions from Foxconn suppliers, Mr. Gou traveled here Wednesday from Taiwan on what company executives said was an emergency trip. “We will leave no stone unturned and we’ll make sure to find a way to reduce these suicide tendencies,” Mr. Gou said.
Apple, Dell and Hewlett-Packard, whose own corporate images are at risk from the suicides, say they, too, are now investigating conditions at Foxconn.
Mr. Gou, the 59-year-old founder of Foxconn and its Taiwanese parent company, the Hon Hai Group, sought to calm growing concerns that Foxconn’s labor practices and highly regimented operations are to blame for the rash of suicides on its two Shenzhen campuses this year.
The most recent confirmed suicide took place early Tuesday, when a 19-year-old employee fell to his death here. It was the 9th Foxconn suicide this year, police officials say, and the 11th time an employee at one of Foxconn’s two Shenzhen campuses attempted suicide. Two workers who survived suicide attempts suffered serious injuries.
In an interview Wednesday, Steve Dowling, an Apple spokesman, said his company was “saddened and upset” by the suicides and that Apple was determined to ensure that Foxconn workers were treated with respect and dignity. The company, whose popular iPod is among the products made by Foxconn, has conducted labor audits of the company in the past and sought improvements.
But questions about Foxconn’s labor practices have lingered. At a separate news conference late Wednesday, Shenzhen city officials suggested that the company was partly to blame for the accidents, although they offered few details.
And several labor rights groups are calling for an independent investigation into the deaths and labor practices at Foxconn. Workers are paid about $32 for a regular 40-hour work week, which is above minimum wage in the area, and often seek to work large amounts of overtime.
“Foxconn’s production line system is designed so well that no worker will rest even one second during work; they make sure you’re always busy for every second,” says Li Qiang, executive director of the China Labor Watch, a New York based labor rights group. “Foxconn only values the enterprise benefits but totally ignores the social benefits.”
Those claims have been bolstered in recent weeks by some of China’s state-run newspapers, which have published a series of sensational reports about the suicides, alongside exposes detailing what they claim are the harsh conditions inside Foxconn factories.
Some articles have described the company’s authoritarian management style, the heavy burdens workers face in trying to meet Foxconn production quotas. Others say the company has cramped dormitories that sometimes house 10 to a room.
But at Wednesday’s press conference, Foxconn executives extolled Shenzhen campus amenities that they said included modern dormitories, swimming pools and other recreational facilities. The company also said it had regularly passed stringent social audits conducted by Apple and other major customers, although some of those audits have cited labor infractions.
And while executives acknowledged a sharp rise in the rate of suicides on the Shenzhen campuses this year, they said there was no single or clear-cut cause. They insisted that personal problems and social ills, like the nation’s rising income gap, were largely to blame for the deaths — not what some say is the company’s authoritarian management style.

“There is a fine line between productivity and regimentation and inhumane treatment,” said Louis Woo, a Foxconn executive. “I hope we treat our workers with dignity and respect.”

Foxconn executives say they have invited several groups of sociologists and mental health experts here to study the suicides and offer advice about how to prevent additional deaths.
Jing Jun, a sociology professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing and one of the experts Foxconn invited here, dismissed the idea that the company’s labor practices were to blame. He said the victims were young people, aged 18 to 24, almost all of whom had recently moved to Shenzhen from rural areas. He said he believed they struggled with personal problems and the challenges of adjusting to factory life.
Professor Jing also offered a theory that widespread reports about the earlier suicides at Foxconn this year had created a contagion of copycats, particularly after rumors spread about the high compensation the company was paying some of the victims’ families. Some families had received about 100,000 renminbi, or a little more than $14,600, according to several Foxconn employees.
“We don’t know everything yet, but this almost seems like an infectious disease,” Professor Jing said. “And paying high compensation to some may have played some role.”
Health experts say the suicide figures from Foxconn, while troubling, actually remain far below the national rate of about 14 per 100,000 in China, as calculated by the World Health Organization — a figure that compares to about 11 per 100,000 in the United States. Some independent studies, though, say suicide rates in China are higher than reflected in the WHO figures.
In any case, Foxconn has drawn growing scrutiny with the sudden surge in suicides at a pair of factories here that company executives say recently hired about 100,000 workers to help meet growing demand for electronics.
Last year, a 25-year-old worker killed himself after he was accused of stealing an iPhone prototype. In e-mail and text messages to friends he said he had been beaten by the company’s security officers.
Mr. Gou rarely grants interviews and almost never allows journalists onto the Foxconn campus. But Wednesday he made an unusual show of concern, bowing several times at the news conference and apologizing for the tragedies.
And he promised to scrap recently announced plans to have all employees sign a form acknowledging that their relatives would only get basic, government mandated compensation — and nothing more generous — if they took their own lives.
The company said it originally released the form, which has been widely criticized here, after consulting with the government and worrying about whether rumors about high compensation was a contributing factor in some of the suicide attempts.
Mr. Gou even led dozens of journalists on a tour of Foxconn’s campus, visiting dormitories, a campus hospital, a production line and a center meant for helping employees with personal problems.
And he appealed to the media to be careful in its coverage of the suicides at Foxconn, which he said could fuel even more suicide attempts.
“I’m appealing to the press to take social responsibility: do not sensationalize this,” he said. But he also said the company was re-examining its own operations. “We can be a better company.”

Bao Beibei contributed research.

NYT Article: At Front Lines, AIDS War Is Falling Apart. Is Carol Payne Flavell Part of the Crisis?

“there is a major black market scam being worked on
the $30 million a year in HIV/AIDS drugs we
finance... I could easily name the in-house folks but
my lips are sealed.”

- Email sent from Africa by Carol Payne Flavell, Administrative
Employee of United States Agency for International
Development (USAID) and Administrative Employee of
President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, also known as
Pepfar.  Currently residing in Olympia, WA. ”

At Front Lines, AIDS War Is Falling Apart,

Published May 9th, 2010

By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

KAMPALA, Uganda — On the grounds of Uganda’s biggest AIDS clinic, Dinavance Kamukama sits under a tree and weeps.

Her disease is probably quite advanced: her kidneys are failing and she is so weak she can barely walk. Leaving her young daughter with family, she rode a bus four hours to the hospital where her cousin Allen Bamurekye, born infected, both works and gets the drugs that keep her alive.

But there are no drugs for Ms. Kamukama. As is happening in other clinics in Kampala, all new patients go on a waiting list. A slot opens when a patient dies.


“So many people are being supported by America,” Ms. Kamukama, 28, says mournfully. “Can they not help me as well?”

The answer increasingly is no. Uganda is the first and most obvious example of how the war on global AIDS is falling apart.

The last decade has been what some doctors call a “golden window” for treatment. Drugs that once cost $12,000 a year fell to less than $100, and the world was willing to pay.


In Uganda, where fewer than 10,000 were on drugs a decade ago, nearly 200,000 now are, largely as a result of American generosity. But the golden window is closing.

Uganda is the first country where major clinics routinely turn people away, but it will not be the last. In Kenya next door, grants to keep 200,000 on drugs will expire soon. An American-run program in Mozambique has been told to stop opening clinics. There have been drug shortages in Nigeria and Swaziland. Tanzania and Botswana are trimming treatment slots, according to a report by the medical charity Doctors Without Borders.

The collapse was set off by the global recession’s effect on donors, and by a growing sense that more lives would be saved by fighting other, cheaper diseases. Even as the number of people infected by AIDS grows by a million a year, money for treatment has stopped growing.
Other forces made failure almost inevitable.

Science has produced no magic bullet — no cure, no vaccine, no widely accepted female condom. Every proposal for controlling the epidemic with current tools — like circumcising every man in the third world, giving a daily prophylactic pill to everyone contemplating sex or testing billions of people and treating all the estimated 33 million who would test positive — is wildly impractical.

And, most devastating of all, old-fashioned prevention has flopped. Too few people, particularly in Africa, are using the “ABC” approach pioneered here in Uganda: abstain, be faithful, use condoms.
For every 100 people put on treatment, 250 are newly infected, according to the United Nations’ AIDS-fighting agency, Unaids.

That makes prospects for the future grim. Worldwide, even though two million people with the disease die each year, the total keeps growing because nearly three million adults and children become infected.
Even now, the fight is falling short. Of the 33 million people infected, 14 million are immuno-compromised enough to need drugs now, under the latest World Health Organization guidelines. (W.H.O. guidelines are conservative; if all 33 million were Americans, most clinicians would treat them at once.)

Instead, despite a superhuman effort by donors, fewer than four million are on treatment. Just to meet the minimal W.H.O. guidelines, donations would have to treble instead of going flat.

Uganda is a microcosm of that: 500,000 need treatment, 200,000 are getting it, but each year, an additional 110,000 are infected.

“You cannot mop the floor when the tap is still running on it,” said Dr. David Kihumuro Apuuli, director-general of the Uganda AIDS Commission.

Some battles will still be won. Middle-income countries with limited epidemics, like India, Brazil and Russia, can probably treat all their patients without outside help. China almost certainly can. South Africa might; it has a raging epidemic but is rich by African standards.

But for most of Africa and scattered other countries like Haiti, Guyana and Cambodia, it seems inevitable that the 1990s will return: walking skeletons in the villages, stacks of bodies in morgues, mountains of newly turned earth in cemeteries.

As he tours world capitals seeking donations, Dr. Michel D. Kazatchkine, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, said he had become “hugely frustrated.”

“The consistent answer I hear is: ‘We love you, we hear you, we acknowledge the fund’s good results, but our budget is tight, our budget is cut, it’s the economic crisis.’ ”

No commander in the global fight openly concedes that the war is over, but all admit to deep pessimism.
“I don’t see the cavalry riding to the rescue,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, an AIDS researcher who leads one of the National Institutes of Health.

“I’m worried we’ll be in a ‘Kampala situation’ in other countries soon,” said Ambassador Eric Goosby, the Obama administration’s new global AIDS coordinator.
“What I see is making me very scared,” agreed Michel Sidibé, executive director of Unaids. Without a change of heart among donors, Mr. Sidibé said, “the whole hope I’ve had for the last 10 years will disappear.”

Donors give about $10 billion a year, while controlling the epidemic would cost $27 billion a year, he estimated.

His predecessor, Dr. Peter Piot, said he had seen optimism soar and then fade.
Hopes rose from 2001 to 2003 when cheap generic antiretroviral drugs became available, Secretary General Kofi Annan of the United Nations formed the Global Fund and President George W. Bush initiated the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or Pepfar.

“Then, we were at a tipping point in the right direction,” Dr. Piot said. “Now I’m afraid we’re at a tipping point in the wrong direction.”

AIDS2031, a panel he convened to look ahead to the epidemic’s 50th anniversary, issued a pessimistic report in November that concluded: “Without a change in approach, a major epidemic will still be with us in 2031.” Because of population growth, it said, there may still be two million new infections a year even then.
According to the Uganda AIDS Commission, the lifetime bill for treating one Ugandan AIDS patient, counting drugs, tests and medical salaries, is $11,500.

Donors have decided that is too much, that more lives can be saved by concentrating on child-killers like stillbirth, pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria, measles and tetanus. Cures for those killers, like antibiotics, mosquito nets, rehydration salts, water filters, shots and deworming pills, cost $1 to $10.

Under its new Global Health Initiative, the Obama administration has announced plans to shift its focus to mother-and-child health. The AIDS budget was increased by only 2 percent.

The British government and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation also said they would focus support on mother-child health.

“The political winds have changed,” said Sharonann Lynch, chief author of the Doctors Without Borders report. “And I don’t believe for a minute it’s just the economic downturn. I think world leaders feel the heat is off and they’re fatigued.”

American taxpayers have been particularly generous to Uganda, paying for 88 percent of its drugs; Ugandans know it.

Karen Morgan, an American who runs a laboratory at the hospital where Ms. Kamukama was turned away, said: “Just today, a patient came up to me in the parking lot and said, ‘Thank you, American.’ I said, ‘For what?’ He said ‘For my medicine. You care if I live or die.’ ”

Nearby, in a tent on the hospital lawn, Moses Nsubuga, a D.J. known as Supercharger, rehearsed his troupe, the Stigmaless Band, composed entirely of teenagers on AIDS drugs.
One of their songs is “America, Thank You So Much.”

Dr. Peter Mugyenyi, the hospital’s founder, helped the Bush administration form its AIDS plan and sat beside Laura Bush during the State of the Union address as it was announced.

The loss of donor interest “makes me frantic with worry,” Dr. Mugyenyi said. “Once word spreads that there is no treatment, people do what they did in the past: go to the witch doctors and buy fake treatments.”
He offers copies of e-mail messages he exchanged with American aid officials. One reminds him that he has been instructed to stop enrolling new patients and asks for an explanation of reports that he is treating 37,000 when only 32,000 are authorized. Another asks him not to announce publicly that his funds have been frozen.
He admits slipping pregnant women and young mothers like Ms. Kamukama into treatment slots “contrary to instructions.”

“Morally, I can’t turn them away,” he said.
He has another reason. Family members like Ms. Kamukama and her cousin will often share one set of pills, an act of love that leads to disaster. Incomplete treatment means both will probably die, but may first develop drug-resistant AIDS and pass it on.

American officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity confirmed the financing freeze.
“The decision was made late in the Bush administration to cap Uganda at $280 million,” one said. “That’s an industrial amount of money.”

United States Embassy officials debated adding $38 million, he said, but cabinet-level Ugandan ministers had been caught stealing from other donors and, though forced to repay the money, were not jailed. The government “hasn’t shown the leadership or commitment to transparency to earn additional funds,” the official added.

Also, he said, Uganda contributes too little. Oil was recently discovered near Lake Albert and the government promised to spend the royalties on roads and electricity, but did not mention AIDS.

“And now the paper says they’re buying Russian jets,” another official added with obvious disgust. Uganda is negotiating for a $300 million squadron of Sukhoi fighter-bombers.
For doctors on the front line, the frustration is palpable.

Dr. Natasha Astill is a British AIDS specialist working at a hospital on the edges of the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, in a mountain valley with pygmy settlements close by fancy gorilla-tourist lodges. It is so remote that the drugs that reached Kampala in 2003 did not get here until 2007.

After a long day in which she and a nurse saw 118 patients, many huddling together in the examining room to avoid the storm pounding on the tin roof, she broke down in tears. All day she told subsistence farmers she could not, for example, treat the white fungal thrush filling their mouths unless they could pay $1 a day — more than they earn.

She can still give free antiretrovirals to a few; while her hospital’s American funds are frozen, it still gets some drugs from the Ugandan Ministry of Health and cash gifts from wildlife tourists and the singer Elton John. But soon this hospital, too, will make a waiting list.


“It makes me angry,” she says. “It feels horrible. Sometimes you wonder if you’re doing people favors. You start them on drugs, you give them hope, and then you’re not sure you can keep it up. We all knew these drugs are for life.”

--------------------------------End of Article.

Click here to see to see the video.

Click here to see over 16 more photos of the AIDS crisis in Uganda.

---------------------------------

Update!  Over 3,000 People have signed the Petition to Stop the Black Market Sales of AIDS Medicine in Africa!  Please Join them!

Carol Payne Flavell. Charles Ble Goude, Andre Nkouaga. Petition the United States government for a redress of grievances

To:  U.S. Congress

WE THE PEOPLE of the United States of America, pursuant to the Bill of Rights, Amendment One, which gives the right of the American people to petition the United States government for a redress of grievances, hereby state the following:

WHEREAS, Carol Payne Flavell's name is found in numerous Internet search results listed as the "Deputy Director at United States Agency for International Development, Washington,  DC."  Her name also appears with the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR, created by George Bush in 2003 and her name appears with the Hoops4Africa and Hoops ForAfrica program. She has been very active in a large variety of recent activities involving moving money across international borders as can be seen by a large variety of her emails published on the Internet.

WHEREAS, the United States Agency for International Development” (USAID) website states:

"In broad terms, USAID focuses on corruption as the misuse of public office for private gain. It encompasses abuses by government officials such as embezzlement and nepotism, as well as abuses linking public and private actors such as bribery, extortion, influence peddling, and fraud. Corruption arises in both political and bureaucratic offices and can be petty or grand, organized or unorganized. Though corruption often facilitates criminal activities such as drug trafficking, money laundering, and prostitution, it is not restricted to these activities."

WHEREAS, Carol Payne Flavell has written numerous emails that have been widely published detailing her activities in her own words that warrant a full investigation into her financial holdings.

WHEREAS, Carol Payne Flavell is the mistress of Andre Nkouaga, a currently married man and a citizen of another country here on a permit which strictly forbids him to work and earn money, who shares many of Carol Payne Flavell‘s finances and business transactions with him.

Carol has stated that she is trying to hide Andre’s funds from his current wife in email statements such as “he has a lot…at third locations in Berlin.  She is apparently quite an internet sleuth (I imagine she does intelligence work and she is a diplomat).  At any rate I had all 4 of the sites blocked to her and pretty restricted to other users.  Somehow she got my voodoomama appellation and... ...has reportedly sent out private investigators, threatened a "diplomatic incident."  …that won't make a big splash, but I've warned Andre repeatedly that the money we have sitting in his account in Paris is at tremendous risk if she wants to make an issue of it.  He doesn't seem to understand the legalities of shared property, particularly if one person has the funds to hire a good lawyer in her home country (fortunately, they were married in Paris many years ago).  Her name is Veronika Marz (or Marx)(or Mars), I've never seen it in writing though she used to work at OECD [OECD stands for Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development]  */Paris and I could probably dig it up from there, she lives in Berlin now). 

WHEREAS, Carol Payne Flavell has written numerous emails stating such things as “they asked our "affiliation" we said US Embassy.”

WHEREAS, Andre Nkouaga is not an employee of the US Embassy.”

WHEREAS, Carol Payne Flavell, has made reference to Charles Blé Goudé and referred to him as (among other things) “he controls the oil.  What can I say?  Except that I'm intrigued” and referred to Charles Blé Goudé in emails as “a friend in very high places.” [ Email sent by Carol Payne Flavell on Thu, Nov 12, 2009]

Charles Blé Goudé (seated, center) with supporters of the COJEP after their storming of RTI studios in Abidjan.

 

WHEREAS, Charles Blé Goudé has been involved in countless violent activities leading to the death of countless innocent men, women and children.

WHEREAS, “Charles Blé Goudé is the founder and current leader of Congrès Panafricain des Jeunes et des Patriotes (COJEP).  Set up in June 2001, the group has attracted controversy and international condemnation due to its alleged involvement in extra-judicial killings and demonstrations organised by the group which have often turned violent. The organisation is strongly nationalist and has even been accused of racism and Islamophobia” [Reference pages] “

WHEREAS, Charles Ble Goude has been described as one of three people placed on the list of “COTE D IVOIRE: Profiles of three facing UN sanctions.” The Global Security article states: “The United Nations has placed individual sanctions on political figures in Cote d’Ivoire. [One of the] three who...face an international travel ban and assets freeze... [are] as follows:

“CHARLES BLE GOUDE: The...UN Sanctions Committee UN statement (found here), says he was listed for sanctions for "public statements advocating violence against United Nations installations and personnel...direction of and participation in acts of violence by street militias, including beatings, rapes and extra-judicial killings... [and an] obstacle...to the peace process." Charles Ble Goude...has been nicknamed 'The General' for his ability to bring thousands of youngsters onto the streets within hours.”

WHEREAS, Charles Blé Goudé has stated, on Adolf Hitler: “I've gotten to the point today where I don't believe anymore that Hitler was bad, or that Milosevic is bad.” [Le Patriote, Newspaper of the RDR), 12 May 2004]

WHEREAS, Samuel A. Weems, who was elected as one of the one hundred delegates to rewrite the Arkansas Constitution and once held the office of prosecuting attorney has written a widely published article condemning Carol Payne Flavell’s support of violent activities and terrorists.  Among his many statements to her which he forwarded to numerous politicians and published many places, he said “Ms. Flavell, by your agency's giving $15 million US tax dollars… Your action is nothing more than the total support for [a] regime that is guilty of ethnic cleansing.”  

WHEREAS, Samuel A. Weems, who was elected as one of the one hundred delegates to rewrite the Arkansas Constitution and once held the office of prosecuting attorney has written a widely published article condemning Carol Payne Flavell’s support of violent activities and terrorists.  Among his many statements to her which he forwarded to numerous politicians and published many places, he said:  “Shame on you Ms. Flavell. Read the Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights report on their web site www.mnadvocates.org Ms. Flavell-I am certain that you are aware of the fact that the United Nations voted not once but on five different occasions demanding…withdraw from its unlawful occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh because they have illegally invaded 20% of Azerbaijani lands. These United Nations resolutions can be verified in their yearly reports. Therefore, I am amazed that you should allocate $15 million dollars of my tax money to help such acts of terrorism against Muslims and Jews. The United States "claims" to be fighting against such terrorist acts that your agency is encouraging and supporting. Consider what the United Nations says…Ms. Flavell”

WHEREAS, Samuel A. Weems, who was elected as one of the one hundred delegates to rewrite the Arkansas Constitution and once held the office of prosecuting attorney has written a widely published article condemning Carol Payne Flavell’s support of violent activities and terrorists.  Among his many statements to her which he forwarded to numerous politicians and published many places, he said “Consider this fact Ms. Flavell. The United States is a co-chair with Russia of what is called the Minsk group. This is an organization of countries who claim to be fair and who "claim" to be working to help…work out a peace settlement. How can the United States be fair when you are giving $15 million dollars this time to an…organization to rebuild only…losses in this region and nobody knows if this money will not be spent to support the 50.000…terrorists occupying Karabakh?”

WHEREAS, Carol Payne Flavell has stated, in regards to her dealings with Armenia. “Andre and I were talking about all this for the third time tonight and something "clicked."  It was that line about they already know about YOU that was riding under my skin all day.  Shit, it is all coming into focus.  It was already clear to me that this guy plays an intelligence function here, they often get placed in consular. The key phrase in all of this is "they already know all about YOU."  I imagine he already knows about me from the Armenia files... ” [Email sent by Carol Payne Flavell on Nov 5, 2009] 

 

WHEREAS, Carol Payne Flavell has stated, “...guy with locks is going to cart a suitcase full of cocaine to the U.S. I had never formally met this shit-head until I walked up and introduced myself this morning.  But we've run into each other a lot and he's about my age and has definitely given me the eye on more than one occasion, some very warm greetings.  his little wet dream got a nasty wake up call this morning when mssr. very black with dreads showed up at his counter.  fuck that sonofabitch.  I probably can't get it into his personnel file but I can make some loud noise.  Fuck... I don't let these guys mess up my day.  As I told Andre, they don't want you or me dead, they want us very much alive because they know we both have extensive networks at many levels and they want entree to those contacts.  That was the message I have heard a number of times, most recently....  But shit, they never let a trail go cold. We got through today's events and are laughing about it, that's a good thing.  I will make sure Andre has a visa in hand before I make waves, and I'm going to make some very big waves.  Perhaps it goes back to the dream, these little assholes get wiped out, I hope it goes that way. love, Carol” - [Email sent by Carol Payne Flavell on Nov 5, 2009]

WHEREAS, Samuel A. Weems, who was elected as one of the one hundred delegates to rewrite the Arkansas Constitution and once held the office of prosecuting attorney published his article condemning Carol Payne Flavell’s support of violent activities and terrorists in October 20^th and within 4 months he was found dead.

WHEREAS, Carol Payne Flavell has stated, in regards to her private business known as Thunderbolt: “Micah [Jones] and Andre [Nkouaga], the other two directors of Thunderbolt.”

WHEREAS, Carol Payne Flavell has stated: “Most of my available funds have now moved to an account in france to transfer here for the club/business.  This was an act of faith on my part, I like having a nest egg, and there's a good chance that money could go down the drain if the political situation goes sour again (which is going to happen if you read the latest UN report on CI).  Meanwhile we have the children issues...”

WHEREAS, Carol Payne Flavell has stated, in numerous emails written by her that have been widely published, that she and her fellow directors of Thunderbolt, “Micah [Jones] and Andre [Nkouaga],” have current, ongoing legal troubles all over the world.  Yet Carol Payne Flavell has somehow been able to spend $10,000.00 per month to get her son and fellow business director Micah Jones out of legal trouble when she stated: "I haven't mentioned this, but Micah got himself in deep shit back east that has cost about $10K a month [in legal fees] for the past few months, and he is probably also coming here.” 

WHEREAS, Carol Payne Flavell has stated, in numerous emails written by her that have been widely published, that she and her fellow directors of Thunderbolt, “Micah [Jones] and Andre [Nkouaga]," have current, legal troubles all over the world. Carol Payne Flavell stated: “Then another thing hit this week.  You probably remember my stories about the problem employees... well that has gotten very ugly, both are threatening me with lawsuits.  ...they are coming after me with both barrels blasting to the point where our... lawyer is out doing research on civil cases in foreign courts and referring me to private lawyers, even he admitted that it is... possible... to file a civil case that will be decided by... court. I would have laughed about this a week ago but it's no longer a laughing matter.  These two...want revenge.  So no matter how frivolous, I'm likely to end up spending lots of money on counsel to try to "fight" a case in a court that is controlled by one of the plaintiffs.  I would laugh but it's no longer funny.  The allegations are really about him, she is peripheral to it, but she has a green card and says she has high-level political connections (Hillary) and so is cleaning up behind him, saying that she is the one who has been "harmed" by it all.  On Tuesday... we thought the coast was clear.  Wed morning, an email went out that she was sick (he asked an admin assistant to send the message), then he came in and asked for 3 days off, next thing we hear, she is "hospitalized..." they immediately insert an IV drip line... ...the two heads of agency go to visit her at the hospital and he is there holding her hand when they walk in. He is a doctor. It is clear... that they are trying to document "physical harm" for a future court case; and they are also playing the "sympathy" card.  If it weren't bad enough already, he called in today that his house was burglarized last night and all the portable phones and his wife's jewelry was stolen... some of that stolen property might be thrown into my yard shortly.” [Email sent by Carol Payne Flavell on Thu, Oct 29, 2009]

WHEREAS, Carol Payne Flavell has repeatedly stated her experience in being able to move government money in statements such as “I...then headed to a 2 hour policy agenda meeting I was chairing, went well except that my nemesis was present and making comments to the effect that I'd screwed up actions for which he was responsible. Cockroach. Cafard in french and it has a particularly ugly meaning here, even 35 years ago the ivorians were calling the Burkina "les cafards" because they were entering the country to get a job. Next, I move immediately to a two person meeting with the head of data collection for the government, to discuss next year's workplan and how to move the money. My masters is in nutrition and I have years of experience... and I know how to move the money, so that was an interesting meeting." [Email sent by Carol Payne Flavell on Nov 4, 2009]

WHEREAS, Carol Payne Flavell has paid for luxurious travel and Penthouse Suites for her 'business meeting' which can be proven when she stated: “We are staying a second night and will be coming back tomorrow (Sunday).  -- the manager was VERY impressed. I would like to have the annual business meeting (required) of Thunderbolt Enterprises here over New Year's.  I have...booked the penthouse unit...for December 30/31 and January 1.  I wanted to invite the folks who had helped us most, I am happy to do it and would plan to have a few hours of serious business discussion and then ….just head out and play. ...this place is...luxurious, with a gorgeous look out over the water and the cascades, mother mountain prominent, in the distance.  If I wanted to do it near Oly, I'd just do it at the house.  I want to get everyone "away" from the house and Oly,  Also, I can't hold off until next year, I need to hold this meeting this calendar year, darn those state business folks. Here's the score.  This place has...two suites on the third floor lower level...Andre and I will take one...the other two beds are on the upper "crows nest" level, they are also separated in space.  There is a huge conference space beside the kitchen on the main level...there is certainly lots of room. I am happy with inviting all with exception of DJ Dave, neither of the muscians thought he was worth the investment, he is a nice person but I don't think he will be part of future productions...there are also conference facilities, including speakerphone in the unit, so we  can "conference" and there is DSL internet and an open access machine in the lobby.”  [Email sent by Carol Payne Flavell on Sat, December 26, 2009]

THEREFORE, it is concluded that Carol Payne Flavell and Andre Nkouaga’s finances all over the world warrant a full investigation.

FURTHER, the United States government has allowed, and is continuing to allow, Carol Payne Flavell to benefit and/or direct the American people’s tax money.

THEREFORE, it is up to the American people to exercise their rights and hold Carol Payne Flavell and Andre Nkouaga accountable for financial irregularities which may or may not lead to the support of other friends in high places of Carol Payne Flavell.

CONSEQUENTLY, the people of the United States of America declare the following,

TO THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT: Pursuant to the Bill of Rights, Amendment One, we, the people of the United States, declare that we are grieved over the actions of Carol Payne Flavell and Andre Nkouaga and hereby petition the United States government to take immediate action to cease funding Carol Payne Flavell with any taxes from the United States of America in any way, manner of form until Carol Payne Flavell and Andre Nkouaga’s finances receive a full financial investigation.  This includes past, current and future finances in the USA, France, Berlin and worldwide.

We, the People, further DEMAND an immediate, thorough and honest investigation by the US Government into Carol Payne Flavell and Andre Nkouaga’s finances.

Sincerely,
The Undersigned

-------------------
Due to Carol Payne Flavell’s affiliation with violent individuals when you click on this link  please fill in your name and we will add it to our private petition which will not be published online and sent to the US Congress.  Thank you.

Meta tags and Keywords: Andre Nkouaga, Carol Payne Flavell, narcotics, underage, minors, bounced checks, smuggling, Olympia, Paris, Berlin, hospital, Washington, Government, Zaire, Amsterdam, voodoomama, Carol Flavell, Carol P Flavell, Customs, Interpol, International Police, Customs Patrol, HoopsForAfrica, Hoops4Africa, criminals,

Côte d'Ivoire Time Line

Last updated 1 June 2007

A chronology of key events:

Sources: http://www.acig.org/, http://www.irinnews.org/ and http://news.bbc.co.uk/

1637 French international workers landed at the inhospitable coastline near Assignee.
1843-1844 Admiral Bouet-Williaumez signed treaties with the kings of the Grand Bassam and Assinie regions, placing their territories under a French protectorate.
1893 Côte d'Ivoire made into a colony.
1904 Côte d'Ivoire becomes part of the French Federation of West Africa.

Independence

1944 Brazzaville Conference granted French citizenship to all African "subjects," the right to organize politically was recognized, and various forms of forced labor were abolished.

Felix Houphouet-Boigny
first president
from 07 Aug 1960
to 07 Dec 1993

1945: Elected deputy to French National Assembly
1946: Founds Côte d'Ivoire Democratic Party
1960: Elected as president
1990: Won first contested presidential election

1944 Felix Houphouet-Boigny, later to become Côte d'Ivoire's first president, founds a union of African farmers (Syndicat Agricole Africain), which develops into the inter-territorial African Democratic Rally (RDR) and its Ivorian section, the Côte d'Ivoire Democratic Party, known in French as the Partie Democratique de la Côte d'Ivoire (PDCI).
1946-1959 Felix Houphouet-Boigny was elected to the first Constituent Assembly, and represented Côte d'Ivoire in the French National Assembly.
1947 The colony of Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) was separated off from Côte d'Ivoire.
1956 The French Overseas Reform Act (Loi Cadre) transferred a number of powers from Paris to elected territorial governments in French West Africa and removed some voting inequalities.
1958 Côte d'Ivoire becomes an autonomous republic within the French Community. This was a result of a referendum that brought community status to all members of the old Federation of French West Africa except Guinea.
1960 Côte d'Ivoire becomes independent. Houphouet-Boigny, who was elected the first President of the republic.

Ban on parties lifted

1990 Opposition parties legalized; Houphouet-Boigny wins Côte d'Ivoire's first multiparty presidential election.

Henri Konan Bedie (HKB) Dec. 1999
President
from 07 Dec 1993
to 24 Dec 1999

1993 Henri Konan Bedie becomes president following the death of Houphouet-Boigny.
1995 October Bedie re-elected in a ballot that is boycotted by opposition parties in protest at restrictions imposed on their candidates.
1995 December Bedie's Democratic Party wins parliamentary elections by a landslide.
23 December 1999 23 December Mutiny by soldiers demanding payment of allowances owed to them for peacekeeping duty in Central African Republic.
24-25 December 1999 A former army chief of staff, Gen Robert Guei (1990-1995), announces the destitution of the government of President Henri Konan Bedie, the dissolution of parliament and other state organs, and the formation of the National Public Salvation Committee (CNSP Comite National de Salut Publique). Leaders of the opposition Rassemblement des Republicains (RDR), detained since October, are freed. Bedie is evacuated by the French military to Lome, Togo, before continuing on to Paris.

Popular Uprising

27 May 2000 The Higher Council of Imams (Conseil Superieur des Imams) complains that security forces have been abusively withdrawing ID cards from Muslims and sometimes destroying them.
31 May 2000 Ouattara calls on his supporters to vote “Yes” at the constitutional referendum, while deploring the fact that the draft contains certain “ambiguities and incoherence” relating to the eligibility issue.
3 June 2000 Côte d’Ivoire’s bishops warn at their plenary assembly that the specter of civil war looms over the country.

General Robert Guei
President
from 25 Dec 1999
to 25 Oct 2000

4-5 Jul 2000 Mutiny by soldiers demanding payment for their participation in the December 1999 coup d’etat. Guei hints that the RDR was behind the mutiny which, he claims, was really a coup d’etat.
17 Jul 2000 The government announces that both parents of a presidential candidate need to be born Ivorians.
24 Jul 2000 Referendum on the constitution. ‘Yes’ votes: 86.53%; participation: 56%
4 Sep 2000 Six presidential guards detained since 1 September are charged with endangering the security of the state. The six are reportedly close to Master Sergeant Ibrahim Coulibaly, known as I.B, a former bodyguard of Ouattara’s children.
18 Sep 2000 A group of soldiers attack Guei’s residence in Abidjan. Two loyalist soldiers are killed. The minister of communication indirectly accuses the RDR, which denies the accusation. About 20 members of the presidential guard are arrested.
October 2000 Guei proclaims himself president after announcing he has won presidential elections, but is forced to flee in the wake of a popular uprising against his perceived rigging of the election result.

Laurent Gbagbo
President
from 26 Oct 2000
to present

October 2000 Laurent Gbagbo, believed to be the real winner in the presidential election, is proclaimed president. Opposition leader Alassane Ouattara, who had been excluded from running for president, calls for a fresh election.
October 2000 Fighting erupts between Gbagbo's mainly southern Christian supporters and followers of Ouattara, who are mostly Muslims from the north.
December 2000 President Gbagbo's Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) emerges as the biggest single party in parliamentary elections though on a low turn-out of 33%.
January 2001 Attempted coup fails.
February 6 2001 Two generals Lassana Palenfo and Aboulaye Coulibaly accused of trying to assassinate the former military ruler, General Robert Guei, appear in court to face an additional charge embezzling more than three million dollars belonging to the country's national lottery and the port of Abidjan.
14 February 2001 A key opposition leader, Henriette Diabate with the Rally of the Republicans party, is charged with a number of crimes, including illegal arms possession and destabilizing the country.
27 February 2001 US ambassador to Côte d'Ivoire accuses the security forces of arresting citizens arbitrarily, torturing detainees and acting with impunity.
10 March 2001 Ivorian government says it has obtained massive price cuts from international pharmaceutical firms for Aids therapy drugs. The cuts would reduce the monthly cost of treating a patient by over 80%.
19 March 2001 President Gbagbo and opposition leader Ouattara meet for the first time since violence erupted between their supporters in October 2000 and agree to work towards reconciliation.
2001 Child slavery under the spotlight following reports of a child slave ship off the west coast of Africa. Growing allegations of child slavery in cocoa plantations strain relations with international community. Government moves to tackle the issue, US House of Representatives passes funding bill providing for voluntary "no child slave labor" labels on cocoa products.
March 2001 Calls for fresh presidential and legislative elections after Alassane Dramane Ouattara's party gains majority at local polls.
June 2001 Amnesty International criticizes government's human rights record over the alleged extra-judicial, revenge killing of 57 northerners during presidential election campaign in October 2000. Eight gendarmes accused of the killings are cleared in August.
Ouattara accuses government of manipulating ethnic problems, especially between the several million Burkinabe immigrants and locals, to retain power.
July 2001 Former foreign minister Amara Essy is appointed as Secretary General of the newly formed African Union.
July 2001 Pascal Affi N'Guessan elected to replace President Gbagbo as head of the ruling Ivorian Popular Front to rejuvenate the leadership of the party.
October 2001 Gbagbo sets up a National Reconciliation Forum. General Guei refuses to attend in protest against the arrest of his close aide Captain Fabien Coulibaly. UN insists on reconciliation before it will resume aid.

Alassane Dramane Ouattara
Prime Minister
from 07 Nov 1990
to 11 Dec 1993

November 2001 Opposition leader Alassane Ouattara returns to Côte d'Ivoire, ending a year-long exile in France and Gabon.
January 2002 The "big four" President Gbagbo, opposition leader Alassane Ouattara, former military ruler General Guei and deposed president Bedie meet for long-awaited talks on resolving their differences.
June 2002 Opposition leader Alassane Ouattara a non-native is granted nationality papers. Supporters celebrate in the streets and say the move will allow him to contest future presidential elections.
August 2002 Ouattara's RDR opposition party is given four ministerial posts in new government.

Rebellion

19 September 2002 Rebellious exiled military personnel and co-conspirators in Abidjan simultaneously attacked government ministers as well as military and security facilities in Abidjan, Bouake, and Korhogo. In Abidjan, government forces stopped the coup attempt within hours, but the attacks resulted in the deaths of Emile Boga Doudou, Minister of Interior, and several high-ranking military officers, including General Guei and his family. The failed coup attempt quickly evolved into a rebellion, splitting the country in two. The rebels, calling themselves the "Patriotic Movement of Côte d'Ivoire" (MPCI), retained control in Bouake and Korhogo, and within two weeks moved to take the remainder of the northern half of the country. Soon, they were advancing towards Abidjan. The presence of French soldiers between Bouake and Yamoussoukro stopped the rebel advance to Abidjan.
October-December 2002 Paris forced the MPCI to sign a ceasefire with them in October, as well as an agreement for French forces to monitor the ceasefire line. Later there were clashes and a battle for the key cocoa-industry town of Daloa. Previously unknown rebel groups, the Ivorian Popular Movement for the Great West (MPIGO) and the Movement for Justice and Peace (MJP), seize towns in west. MPIGO and MJP were allied with the MPCI, and The three groups began calling themselves the "New Forces."

Linas-Marcoussis Agreement

January 2003 The ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) placed 1,500 peacekeepers in Côte d'Ivoire, including units from Benin, Ghana, Niger, Senegal and Togo. These troops and political pressure from Paris resulted in the French-brokered Linas-Marcoussis Agreement. All the major political parties agreed to a power-sharing national reconciliation government, which was to include New Forces as well. The parties agreed to work together on modifying national identity, eligibility for citizenship, and land tenure laws, which many observers see as some of the root causes of the conflict. The Linas-Marcoussis Agreement also stipulated a UN Monitoring Committee to report on implementation of the Agreement.

Power-sharing

Seydou Elimane Diarra
Prime Minister
from 10 Feb 2003
to 04 Dec 2005 and
from 8 May 2000
to 27 Oct 2000

March 2003 Political parties, rebels agree on new government to include nine members from rebel ranks. "Consensus" prime minister, Seydou Diarra, tasked with forming cabinet. President Gbagbo formed a government of national reconciliation with 41 ministers, but this did not meet until mid- April, when international peacekeeping force was finally in place to provide security for New Forces ministers. President Gbagbo accepts peace deal at talks in Paris. Deal proposes power-sharing government.
May 2003 Armed forces sign "full" ceasefire with rebel groups to end almost eight months of rebellion.

UPRISING

July 2003 At a presidential palace ceremony, military chiefs and rebels declare war is over.
August 2003 Group of suspected mercenaries and their backers detained in France; said to have planned to assassinate President Gbagbo.
2003 September Rebels accuse President Gbagbo of failing to honor peace agreement and pull out of unity government.
30 November 2003 a group of "young patriots" supported by some 100 government troops (FANCI) attempt to forcibly cross the ceasefire line in the area of Mbahiakro, east of Bouake. Their goal is to launch an attack against the New Forces in Bouake. The group is stopped by the French Licorne forces. A FANCI armored personnel carrier is destroyed during the ensuing exchange of gunfire. This incident constituted a grave violation of the ceasefire agreement.
11 December 2003 Nineteen are killed in armed attack on state TV building in Abidjan. It is between Government forces and a militia group calling itself "the Ninjas". This aggravates concerns regarding the safety of the New Forces cabinet ministers and prompts a decision by the New Forces to delay their return to the Government.

Rebels rejoin government of national unity.

March 2004 The government says 37+ people were killed on Thursday when police and the army prevented a march to call for the full implementation of the Linas-Marcoussis peace Accord. Opposition leaders say the death toll had risen to 162. They claim many had died in reprisal killings after the aborted rally. They accuse the military of rounding up dozens of their supporters. The violence was the most severe in a series of setbacks to the peace process in Côte d'Ivoire. An international committee supervising the peace process said it was concerned about reports of abuses and raids carried out by security forces in Abidjan.
A 2004 A United Nations force begins deployment.

Jules Yao Yao

Spokesman of the
armed forces

June 2004 Ivorian Mi-24s flew their first strike against rebel positions near the village of Mamimigui, in the centre of the country, some 370km NW from Abidjan. Five government soldiers and 15 rebels were killed. Spokesman of the armed forces of Côte d'Ivoire, Col. Jules Yao Yao, specified that Mi-24s were sent to attack several rebel positions. This was confirmed by rebel spokesman, Sidki Konate, who stressed that this was a violation of a ceasefire from 3 May 2003, and that an outbreak of a new civil war was now imminent.
31 July 2004 Accra III peace summit in Ghana. Reforms agreed upon include the adoption of laws foreseen under a tattered Linas-Marcoussis Agreement signed in January 2003 to end the civil war and the amendment of a constitutional provision dictating who is eligible to stand for president. A timetable for disarming the paramilitary and militia forces on all sides of the conflict, including the rebels who retain control of the north, was also hammered out during the marathon summit.
29 September 2004 Ivorian parliament fails to agree citizenship laws, which were a key requirement of the January 2003 peace deal.
13 October 2004 Ivorian rebels say they will not disarm, as planned, until immigration laws are changed.
28 October 2004 Vendors selling newspapers accused of supporting the opposition are attacked by pro-government militants in Abidjan and southern towns. The New Forces order eight rebel ministers to return to the rebel-held north, saying it had discovered the government smuggling arms across its territory.

Government launches air strikes

4 November 2004 The air strikes are on New Forces camps in Bouake and Korhogo in the rebel-held territory in north.
5 November 2004 Government continues air strikes and clashes on the ground in north.
6 November 2004 An Ivorian air strike, delivered around 1:30 PM, hit a French position near Bouake. The bombing kills nine French peacekeepers and an American aid worker. In less than one hour, French peacekeepers destroy almost all the country's air force. This caused an outburst of anti-French feelings in Côte d'Ivoire. Within 48 hours no less than five French schools are burned in Abidjan and Yamoussoukro. Homes are looted and dozens of French shops destroyed.

Charles Ble Goude

November 2004

9,000 traumatized foreigners including 8,000 French and 200 Britons, as well as Lebanese, Moroccans, Spaniards, Italians, Canadians, Americans and Belgians are evacuated after Ble Goude, the leader of the "Young Patriots," called on Ivorians to take to the streets to confront French troops. The "Young Patriots" loyal to President Laurent Gbagbo are blamed for much of the violence.
9 November 2004 French soldiers fired to disperse protesters after days of rioting in the main city Abidjan. French troops deployed in Abidjan, said their only aim was to protect French citizens and property. Ivorian militants accused them of planning to topple President Laurent Gbagbo. Demonstrators ransacked the Hotel Ivoire after French troops pulled out and smoke rose into the sky.
December 2004 Parliament passes key reforms envisaged under the 2003 Linas-Marcoussis Agreement, including abolishing need for the president to have both Ivorian mother and father.

The Pretoria Agreement

6 April 2005 Government and New Forces declare an "immediate and final end" to hostilities. The move follows talks in Pretoria, South Africa.
June 2005 Massacres in western town of Duekoue: President Gbagbo says more than 100 people were killed, but contradicts widely-held view that ethnic rifts lay behind violence.
October 2005 Planned elections are shelved as President Gbagbo invokes a law which he says allows him to stay in power.

Charles Konan Banny
Prime Minister
December 2005

December 6, 2005 The head of West Africa's Central bank(BCEAO), Charles Konan Banny named as transitional prime minister of Côte d'Ivoire until October 2006.
January 2006 Young people, who support President Gbagbo, closed the streets in Abidjan for five days. They were protesting against what they see as UN interference in internal affairs. Ruling party (FPi) temporarily pulled out of transitional government and peace process. United Nations vehicles, bases, and buildings were attacked in Abidjan, Daloa, and Guiglo.
February 2006 The UN secretary general sent a $3.5 million bill to Ivory Coast's president, Laurent Gbagbo, for damage caused to UN property and equipment during last month's anti-UN riots.
Main political rivals meet on Ivorian soil for the first time since the 2002 rebellion. They agree to meet again to iron out differences.
June 2006 Militias loyal to President Gbagbo miss disarmament deadlines.
September 2006 Political, rebel leaders say they've failed to make any breakthrough on the main issues standing in the way of elections - principally voter registration and disarmament.
The government resigns over a scandal involving the dumping of toxic waste in Abidjan. Fumes from the waste kill three people and make many more ill.
November 2006 UN Security Council resolution extends the transitional government's mandate for another year until October 2007.
March 2007 After multiple peace accords and postponed national elections, Ivorian President Gbagbo and the New Forces rebel leader, Guillaume Soro, signed a peace agreement that established a new transitional government with Gbagbo as President and Soro as Prime Minister.
UN and French peacekeepers remain in the country. The new government is tasked with disarmament, demobilization, reintegration of former combatants, creating a national identification system, and organizing elections by early 2008.

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Sources: http://www.acig.org/, http://www.irinnews.org and http://news.bbc.co.uk

Côte d'Ivoire news and Côte d'Ivoire demographics