Kentucky Bend
| Kentucky Bend | |
|---|---|
| Re-education and labor camp | |
| Other names | Kentucky Bend Agricultural Station #405 |
| Location | Kentucky Bend, Kentuckiana, United Commonwealth |
| Built by | Continentalist Party of the United Commonwealth |
| Operated by |
Continental Commissariat for Rehabilitation and Corrections (reportedly) Continental Commissariat for Agriculture (officially) |
| Commandant | Wright Killian |
| Original use | Prisoner-of-war camp |
| Operational |
1920–present Officially closed in 1922 (According to official Continentalist Party statements) |
| Number of inmates | 55,000 |
Kentucky Bend, officially known as Kentucky Bend Agricultural Station #405, is a re-education and labor camp that has been in operation unofficially since the Continental Revolutionary War in the 1920s. It is the largest camp of its kind in the United Commonwealth and is notorious for its alleged imprisonment and harsh treatment of high-profile political prisoners, regime critics, suspected anti-government activists, disgraced ex-party officials, criminals, and other individuals. A number of foreign-born individuals, mostly those from other Anglo-American states are also reportedly imprisoned there. Kentucky Bend has been described by former inmates as a concentration camp where forced labor, live human experimentation, and other human rights abuses occur. Official Continentalist policy has maintained that while the camp was in operation during the Continental Revolutionary War, it is no longer maintained as an internment camp and is instead the site of an agricultural processing plant. It has been likened to the Soviet gulag and North Vietnamese concentration camps.
As of 2019, an estimated 55,000 have been secretly detained at Kentucky Bend while over 1.5 million have been processed throughout the camp's entire operation. A League of Nations human rights panel stated that it has received credible reports that the camp is used to silence and punish political opponents of the Continentalist Party, as well as party officials who have fallen out of party favor.
Within the United Commonwealth, public knowledge of Kentucky Bend is widespread despite its information and search results being officially censored on the Continentalist Internet by the Appalachian Firewall. It is described as one of the United Commonwealth's most significant open secrets as "Kentucky Bend" is commonplace in the Continentalist vernacular. The threat of being sent to Kentucky Bend is frequently employed by law enforcement authorities to intimidate and deter at-risk citizens. Most reports of the camp's operations and working conditions have come from Continentalist defectors including former prisoners and guardsmen. According to most defectors, the aim and purpose of the camps is to suppress opposition to the government by forcing prisoners to renounce anti-government rhetoric. As much as forty percent of prisoners detained at the camp can expect to be held indefinitely, sometimes for life without trial or release.
Officially, Kentucky Bend is administered by the Continental Commissariat for Agriculture and it is listed as an agricultural processing facility. It asserts that the people within the complex are workers who are voluntarily contracted for long-term employment or individuals receiving specialized training with agricultural-related skills. The United Commonwealth cites Kentucky Bend as an example of its model worker-owned factory where the workers collectively own the plant, housing, and surrounding land. The government claims that the high-security nature of the camp was a locally decided measure to deter theft and foreign espionage. It is reportedly under the actual control of the Continental Commissariat for Rehabilitation and Corrections due to its status as one of the major Continentalist concentration camps.
Kentucky Bend has been a longtime subject of international controversy and condemnation. International awareness of the purported nature of Kentucky Bend emerged after World War II when former Continentalist state official Clyde Gleeson released an autobiography detailing his time overseeing the camp. It was a frequent point of contrition during the Cold War between the United Commonwealth and its Anglo-American neighbors. It has also become an unofficial symbol of the United Commonwealth's labor prison system as it is reportedly used as the model example for similar, smaller camps throughout the country.
History
The camp was first established in 1920 to serve as an internment camp for Federalist prisoners of war captured during the Continental Revolutionary War. The camp was first proposed by Greg McCarthy and proposed it to be created in the Kentucky Bend due to the place being located behind the frontlines and based deep within Continentalist-controlled territory. After it finished construction, Kentucky Bend was built to hold 8,000 people at max and by the autumn of 1920, the first arrival of Federalist POWs came in and numbered at 2,433 soldiers, including 32 officers and 3 colonels. By December, the camp had over 6,000 captured Federalist soldiers, civilians, and politicians and the camp went through major expansion process in order to hold more and more prisoners. By June 1921, Kentucky Bend was the largest Continentalist internment camp and was restructured to hold upwards as 30,000 prisoners and had a prison population of 18,723 by mid-1921 according to prison census data from the time. McCarthy served as the camp's commandant throughout the entire war and he developed a reputation for strict discipline, keen observance, and willingness to use drastic means to keep the prison population in check. McCarthy became infamous to distributing food and other rations based upon how "re-educated" the prisoners were with those that renounced their allegiance to the Federalist regime being given rations first and those that refused and remained loyal to the Federalist Party were given rations of low quality or none at all. Sanitation was also an issue and many prisoners died as a result.
By the beginning of 1922, the camp had 20,000 prisoners and the Continentalists began using many of the prisoners as a source of free labor and used them to construct roads, bridges, facilities and other forms of infrastructure for the Continentalists to use in order to support them logistically during the final climactic battles of the war. Many prisoners were released in 1922 with many having sworn their new loyalty to Warren and the Continentalist Party and others being released due to them being civilians and posed little to no threat to the future Continentalist government. By the time of the Siege of Chicago, the camp had 23,000 prisoners and was expanded once more to accommodate for more prisoners. The camp's sanitation conditions were also improved, though the camp's conditions had caused the deaths of 4,234 prisoners and McCarthy was pressured to resign and was relocated to the 4th Logistical Company supporting the Siege of Chicago and was replaced by Martin Cornwallis for the remainder of the war. By the end of the war, Kentucky Bend had between 28,000-32,400 prisoners and had been expanded to accommodate a max population fo 50,000 people. By the time of the war's end, Secretariat Warren and began plans to release all Federalist prisoners of war starting with civilians and low-ranking personnel and planned on relocating high-ranking political and military prisoners to Kentucky Bend until war crime trials could begin. In December 1922, the camp was officially shut down and the new Continentalist government showcased footage of pardoned prisoners to back up their claim, but the camp continued operations long after the war had ended and was repurposed as well.
Location and facilities
Kentucky Bend is located at the center of the geographic Kentucky Bend, an oxbow loop meander of the Mississippi River in Southwestern Kentuckiana. The entire land, which encompasses 26.9 square miles (69.6 km2), is wholly owned and operated officially by the Continental Commissariat for Agriculture. The only land access to the bend to the south is fenced and marked off as restricted land, while there are 2-mile wide buffer zone along the opposite shoreline of the Mississippi River which is similarly fenced off. River traffic is heavily restricted and monitored by the Continental River Guard, a division of the Continental Coast Guard.