Supervisor Responsible for Violence Promoted

By Sr. Correspondent, Antoine Craigwell

(New York, NY) - A gay sailor charged that he was forced to endure two years of brutal treatment by fellow U.S. Navy personnel because he refused to have sex with a prostitute.

Following on the death of Navy Seaman August Provost at Camp Pendleton in July this year, another sailor has come forward detailing a pattern of abuse and brutality meted out to suspected or gay servicemen.

 

 

 
 
Youth Radio reported on Sept 3, that former Petty Officer Third Class Joseph Christopher Rocha was subjected to various types of brutality for more than two years at his base in Bahrain. According to Rocha, his mates first suspected he is gay after he refused to participate in sexual encounters with a prostitute, a practice which is widespread on U.S. military bases; making it clear that he was not interested.

The abuse began about six-weeks after his deployment, sometime in 2004 and lasted until about 2006. Rocha said he was especially singled out by his immediate supervisor, chief master-at-arms, Michael Toussaint.

"I was in a very small testosterone-driven unit of men," Rocha says. "I think that's what began the questioning-you know-'Why don't you want to have sex with her? Are you a faggot?'"

In a revealing twist, while Rocha's case was being investigated, the Navy promoted Toussaint to Senior Chief even though they were aware of the role he had as a supervisor in creating a climate of abuse and being directly responsible for the violence, as the petty officer in charge of Rocha's unit, and perpetrated or presided over most of the abuse.

Documents from the Navy obtained by Youth Radio, under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), confirmed that after suspecting that Rocha is gay, his mates engaged in a pattern of abuse over a period of two years, which the Navy termed hazing and included hog-tying him to a chair and pushing him, still bound, into and leaving him in a dog kennel filled with feces. In the documents Rocha claims that other sailors forced him to simulate oral sex with a man for more than thirty times, recording the activity on video tape, claiming that it is to be part of a training exercise to teach sailors how to respond to hypothetical complaints about homosexual sex. He also claims that the sailors repeatedly hit him as hard as they could, while forcing him to bend over a desk.

Rocha did not report the abuse, which continued until 2006, because he feared retaliation as well as discharge under the "don't ask, don't tell," policy regarding gays in the military. According to Aaron Belkin, director of the Palm Center, a research institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, "It is very hard for an organization to get rid of abuse as long as discrimination remains official policy."

Rocha was a military police officer with anti-terrorism training who graduated at the top of his military class, and who received favorable performance evaluations throughout his career.

But the matter of abuse against Rocha was brought to light due to a colleague who complained, which prompted the Navy to launch its own investigation, and which concluded in 2007. Official documents from the investigation were also recently obtained recently through FOIA by one of Rocha's unit mates.

Reports have emerged that while Rocha was singled out and forced to endure the longest period of abuse, others were victimized as well. An official military summary of the investigation lists 93 incidents and types of abuse including throwing hard rubber balls at the groin, allowing a dog to attack a sex worker, and handcuffing two female sailors to a bed and forcing them to simulate lesbian sex while being videotaped.

When Rocha returned to the U.S from the Bahrain, he reportedly developed post traumatic stress disorder and after acknowledging to his superiors that he is gay, he was discharged under "don't ask, don't tell."