[Peace-discuss] Today News- Gazette

[Jan & Durl Kruse]

Need investigation of UI's Blackwater link

Sunday August 5, 2007

In an exclusive story, the Chicago Tribune reported on July 31 of an  
investigation involving the director of the prestigious University of  
Illinois Police Training Institute and Blackwater U.S.A., the  
controversial private paramilitary Iraq contractor. Blackwater USA is  
the world's largest paramilitary organization with over 20,000 soldiers  
and its own air force.

It is not only that The News Gazette was scooped by the Chicago  
Tribune, but to this reader's knowledge no local reporting of the  
Blackwater USA and police training institute connection, including even  
a press release from the police-training institute itself has appeared  
in print, even though Blackwater and the institute signed a  
collaboration agreement in May 2007.

Lack of local reporting about Blackwater USA, allegedly involved in the  
torture at Abu Ghraib prison, and other paramilitary groups including  
Triple Canopy, another private contractor that signed an agreement  
early in 2007 with the police-training institute, has created an  
informational vacuum.

Hopefully, the UI will undertake to thoroughly investigate the  
relationships between Blackwater, Triple Canopy and other potential  
paramilitary connections to the institute, and The News-Gazette and  
other media will report on how these relationships with paramilitary  
groups may adversely affect the quality of law enforcement training in  
Illinois.

Do we really want global policing organizations involved in the  
training of Illinois law enforcement and to depart from the 50-year-old  
tradition of a local program that trains Illinois police to protect and  
serve?

ROGER EPPERSON

Urbana
  Find this article at:
   
http://www.news-gazette.com/news/opinions/letters/2007/08/05/ 
need_investigation_of__uis_blackwater
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