"The Haitian people are asking not for charity, but for justice."
The Uses of Haiti last paragraph pg. 307
What, then is to be done?
Speaking of events since the 1991 coup, Noam Chomsky has noted that "honest commentary would place all of this in the context of our unwavering opposition to freedom and human rights in Haiti for no less than 200 years." The first order of business, for citizens of the United States, might be a candid and careful assessment of our ruinous policies towards Haiti. Remorse is not a very fashionable sentiment. But for many, old-fashioned penitence might be the first step towards a new solidarity, a pragmatic solidarity that could supplant both our malignant policies of the past and the well -meaning but unfocused charity that does not respond to Haitian aspirations. The Haitian people are asking not for charity, but for justice.
See blueness's comment, original sin.
IJDH is simply the most reliable source for information and analysis on human rights in Haiti.
— Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)
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Please sign petition to help stop forced evictiions: |
Action Alerts:
Aid:
Evictions:
Stop Forced Evictions of Haiti's Earthquake Victims Institute For Justice & Democracy in Haiti has a petition, here.
The UN and Haitian Government agreed on April 22 to an immediate 3-week moratorium on forced evictions which expired, Thursday, May 13th. Within that period reports of evictions continued. Humanitarian aid, including food, water and sanitation facilities have been cut off in targeted camps (1, 2). In other locations, residents are being harassed and abused by the police. The people most affected by the earthquake, those who have lost their families, homes and livelihoods, now live in fear that they may be violently forced to leave their present settlements without viable options established for relocation (2).
Additional Action Alerts:
TransAfrica Forum
Stand up and be counted (Partners in Health)
HAITI ACTION COMMITTEE ACTION ALERT Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti |
Leve-kanpe domi, The stand-up sleep; they call it in Creole.
"Amid Haiti's despair, hope"
Sleep deprivation didn't help the tense situation. Many complained about a lack of sleep during May's rainy season, marked by nearly daily deluges. A two-hour downpour the night before forced the mother, her newborn and six relatives crowded into the tent to stand. They clutched dry blankets and clothing to their chests and tried to keep their belongings off the ground until the rains subsided and a stream stopped running under the tent.
Leve-kanpe domi, they call it in Creole. The stand-up sleep.
The Miami Herald reports that former President Clinton say's he is not happy with progress in Haiti. He is however happy with the temporary shelter Haitian's have. Does that mean that he is happy with people having to stand and sleep?
The Miami Herald goes on to report that Bellerive say's that the issue of land ownership is being expedited. It is now June 2, 2010. There were articles in March that reported
... president Rene Preval has issued an executive order authorizing the taking of property by eminent domain...
.
And so when Bellerive says that he is expediting the issue, my question is what has he been doing? Is he holding out in order to help Haiti's elite families? The process is not acceptable.
And my Question for Clinton is-Isn't he in charge of the recovery? And if he is not pleased with it then what is he doing to fix it? And why is he pleased with the temporary shelter effort?
Miami Herald, Bill Clinton seeks hurricane-preparedness answers in Haiti
Clinton said he wasn't happy with the progress so far but was pleased with efforts to provide temporary shelter.
snip
Clinton also made a plea to Haitian landowners, saying he hoped they would allow displaced tenants to remain on their property at least through hurricane season.
``We have a serious land property problem in Haiti,'' Clinton said.
Many property owners have refused to let tenants back into their homes although many had paid six months' to a year's rent before the quake.
Bellerive says a solution for the land issue is being expedited.
``It's very complicated because you have to respect the property of the people,'' he said.
But he conceded that it's a question of political will, as well as commitment by all involved that once land has been allocated, individuals will be relocated there.
``I don't want to take the land of somebody and do not provide anything,'' Bellerivesaid during the community meeting.
And the issue is not limited to land. He said aid groups must commit to relocating people once the land is provided.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/...
Clinton does not have a good record when it comes to helping Haiti. He may have nice photo ops with Haitian children but those are the same children he is determined to ensure a nice sweatshop job for in an overcrowded city. I am reading Travesty in Haiti (tomorrow is book diary day) to understand aid and its effect on Haiti this is a must read book (and I am not done yet).
Haiti's food crisis is intentional and unforgivable act of USAID, CARE and many others.
Travesty in Haiti (pg. 107)
As it turns out, CARE had become involved in what was a very deliberate undermining of the Haitian peasant economy, the cornerstone of a plan that the World Bank and USAID had designed.
More on this tomorrow....
There are many interesting articles today and they all bring up the issue of shelter and land ownership. People at this diary have been asking this question for months. We wanted to know why eminent domain was not in the news? and why weren't people being moved to new safe camps. Now we hear about land ownership and imo very selfish people that would rather people die in the mud then share their land. And Bellerive calls their claims legitimate . Perhaps in a world where poor people dying doesn't matter, their claims are legit.
UPDATE: Luckydog adds important information about the issue of land ownership in Haiti,here:
about the land ownership issues,,, (2+ / 0-)
...as in most things, the situation in Haiti is complicated.
In many situations, no legitimate title exists on land or property, the owners have no proof of their claim, or the legally registered title is in the name of someone who has left the country because any number of issues. Where legal title to land exists, it is often clouded and convoluted by a wide variety of issues.
In the area of Haiti where I worked, there was an additional problem of names. As a result of regime changes, a significant number of people had changed their names to become less visible. We had hospital records, sometimes with three-or-four very different names for the same patient.
Regime change also brings about "dechoukaj" - uprooting. Folks here in the US see it as 'looting', but it's not looting at all. Looting is where people take stuff and keep it...in Haiti, dechoukaj is more literally uprooting and destroying. Generally, if a gov't office is dechouke', all the furniture and records end up in a bonfire in the street. So, gov't land records are not in such good shape.
'Course, elites can make records disappear without dechoukaj...
That's not to make excuses for M. Bellerive, I'm really just pointing out that with this issue as with many others, Haiti has its complications.
PBS News Hour, Q&A: Haiti's Rebuilding Challenges Four Months After Quake:
Are the 500,000 displaced Haitians' short-term needs being met?
It seems to me that there is a continuing problem in the security of shelter, particularly with the rains coming and the hurricane season coming. And it seems that there's maybe even a bigger, more systemic problem on the ownership of land and clarity of title. It strikes me that from what I understand the government is having some difficulty in securing land that it needs because of disputes on ownership and ownership papers.
Also, there are people who are concerned about the security of their tenure on the ownership of property they have in the city. If they would, for example, leave the location, would someone else come and take it away. This seems to me to be an underlying problem that I don't how it's going to be resolved, but it's going to take some bold action by the authorities to resolve this issue of who owns what land where.
AFP, 'Immense challenge' to rebuild Haiti, president tells donors:
PUNTA CANA, Dominican Republic — Haiti faces an "immense challenge" in rebuilding after January's apocalyptic earthquake but can bounce back stronger, President Rene Preval told a donors' conference Wednesday.
Recovery projects to be financed with the 10 billion dollars pledged from an initial donors' meeting in New York in March will produce "a more decentralized, fairer Haiti," he told the event in the Dominican Republic resort of Punta Cana.
Former US president Bill Clinton, who co-chairs a commission with Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive overseeing much of the reconstruction funds, called on donors to make good on their pledges to make those plans reality.
So far, only Brazil has stumped up all its promised sum, 55 million dollars, according to the Haitian economy ministry.
Editorial, Washington Post, U.S. troops depart Haiti, but much work remains to be done:
But the scale and scope of what remains to be done are daunting. An estimated 1.5 million people -- more than 15 percent of the population -- remain without permanent dwellings. Many of them are in camps plagued by mean conditions made worse by the rains. Tens and maybe hundreds of thousands of children remain out of schools that were destroyed. Piles of rubble are everywhere. The tarps and tents rushed to the country after the quake will not last forever; nor will the patience and resilience even of long-suffering Haitians.
The Obama administration's request for some $1.6 billion in additional aid for Haiti is pending in Congress, which should act quickly to ensure ongoing American support for the hemisphere's poorest nation. At the same time, the Haitian government, which has been overwhelmed by the scope of the disaster, still needs to prove that it is up to the task of carrying out basic chores of administration. These include establishing a system by which property disputes can be adjudicated and land can be designated for new construction to house the homeless. They also include organizing parliamentary elections that were postponed by the earthquake as well as presidential elections before the end of the year.
I am adding this article because it is a must read and in order for things to change Haitians need to have control over the aid. Haiti needs a functioning government and the US needs to stop kidnapping democratically elected presidents in Haiti and then placing incompetent people in their place and then calling the Haitian government corrupt. My issue with this is not whether it is corrupt but it is not the Haitian government. We kidnapped the Haitian President. Aristide is stuck in South Africa. Let him come back. And don't make conditions of his return the continued exploitation of Haitians.
Since I have been learning about Haiti I see the same names of people that have been fighting for Haiti for the past 20 or so years. I also see the same names of people fighting to oppress Haiti and exploit poor people. Sometimes groups that I consider self seeking (to put it mildly) and groups that are for the people form alliances on certain issues. The elections are one of the issues that pro Aristide groups and pro coup groups have teamed up. This is risky but I don't know. The thing is if they can't get people food and shelter how are they going to get them ballots. And if they do get them ballots won't that beg the question why couldn't they get them food and shelter?
Something interesting Kim Ives is the editor of Haiti Liberte and the title of the article is As MINUSTAH Gases Students: CEP Sets New Elections for November 28. I read the article on this site and they called it Haiti: Protests demand Preval resign. Very different. I am glad I found Ives website.
By Kim Ives
Both KID and Alternative, along with other right-wing politicians and parties that supported the 2004 coup against elected-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, have joined in an unlikely alliance with popular organisations aligned with Aristide’s party, the Lavalas Family.
The alliance, called Heads Together of Popular Organizations (TKOP), has held three massive demonstrations of many thousands in the capital Port-au-Prince on May 10, May 17, and May 25.
The protests called for Preval’s resignation, Aristide's return from exile in South Africa and the repeal of the “state of emergency” law that puts a foreign-dominated council in charge of Haiti’s post-earthquake reconstruction, among other demands.
Nobody is more distrustful of Preval’s electoral supervision than Lavalas militants, whose party, Haiti’s largest, was barred in November from taking part in parliamentary elections originally scheduled for February.
Fourteen other parties were also disqualified. The election was cancelled after the January 12 earthquake.
A previous Preval-appointed CEP, containing five members of the current one, also disqualified the Lavalas Family party from parliamentary elections held in April and June 2009. Those elections were massively boycotted, with less than 5% of voters turning out.
On May 25, thousands of demonstrators converged on the crumbled National Palace for the third time in two weeks. Lavalas marchers were joined by “reformed” coup supporters and traditional political parties.
The demonstration was spirited but peaceful. Barricades to prevent marchers from demonstrating in front of the palace were swept away by the crowd, which filled the broad street between the palace fence and the earthquake victims’ tents on Toussaint L’Ouverture Place.
With the announcement of elections, some politicians have stepped back from the anti-Preval protests. Sweatshop owner Charles Henri Baker, a former presidential candidate and leader of the pro-coup Group of 184 front in 2004, took part in the May 18 protest but not the May 25 march.
News website to watch
Kim Ives is the editor of Haiti Liberte
The now requisite warnings: |
Please do your research before donating. The Charity Navigator tool is a useful resource for this purpose. For those not familiar, Charity Navigator evaluates and rates charities according to their financial responsibility and sustainability. Their homepage now lists comprehensive information the major organizations on the ground in Haiti now. (h/t DeepHarm and deb s) An additional resource for researching charities is the Better Business Bureau's Wise Giving Alliance site.
There are a number of misunderstood messages, rumors, or outright hoaxes being circulated. If something sounds "too good to be true" or you have questions about it, Snopes has a Haiti page to verify or debunk them.
A note about ratings listed here: allie123 has looked up all of the charities listed here and we've put ratings next to the ones that have actually been rated. It looks like this: (****/A). The number of stars (1-4) indicates the rating from Charity Navigator and is also a clickable link to a detailed review of that particular charity. The letter grade is from AIP and is explained here.
The lack of a rating does not mean that something is wrong with it. A lot of good (and bad) organizations have yet to be rated. Also, Charity Navigator, for example, does not evaluate organizations that are exempt under Internal Revenue Code from filing the Form 990. If you don't see a rating, it just means that maybe you should do a little more research before donating. When questions have been raised about a particular entry here, we've either removed it or we've included the question or criticism next to the entry. For more tips, see: Evaluating Charities Not Currently Rated by Charity Navigator.
The Aristide Foundation for Democracy (AFD) was created in 1996 by former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide (the first democratically elected president of Haiti) with a simple principle in mind: "The promise of democracy can only be fulfilled if all sectors of Haitian society are able to actively participate in the democratic life of the nation."
CanDo is a direct outcome organization that provides AID and relief in emergency situations.
Fonkoze (***) , a micro-lending organization in Haiti. From their Web site:
Fonkoze is Haiti’s Alternative Bank for the Organized Poor. We are the largest micro-finance institution offering a full range of financial services to the rural-based poor in Haiti. Fonkoze is committed to the economic and social improvement of the people and communities of Haiti and to the reduction of poverty in the country.
According to their Web site, their offices have taken quite a hit. This is another one in the category of long-term rebuilding. (h/t parryander and dizzydean)
Haiti Emergency Relief Foundation:
Haiti’s grassroots movement – including labor unions, women’s groups, educators and human rights activists, support committees for political prisoners, and agricultural cooperatives – are funneling needed aid to those most hit by the earthquake. They are doing what they can – with the most limited of funds – to make a difference. Please take this chance to lend them your support.
All donations to the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund will be forwarded to our partners on the ground to help them rebuild what has been destroyed.
Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti:
We fight for the human rights of Haiti’s poor, in court, on the streets and wherever decisions about Haitians’ rights are made. We represent the unjustly imprisoned and victims of political persecution, coordinate grassroots advocacy in Haiti and the US, train human rights advocates in Haiti and disseminate human rights information worldwide.
The Lambi Fund (***) is a secular non-profit nonprofit whose mission is "to assist the popular, democratic movement in Haiti. Its goal is to help strengthen civil society as a necessary foundation of democracy and development. The fund channels financial and other resources to community-based organizations that promote the social and economic empowerment of the Haitian people." They support "projects that embrace the following principles: non-violent, non-partisan, community-based, promoting the advancement of women, using education and training for empowerment, and promoting the overall democratic movement."
Partners in Health (****/A+) has now started a BLOG about its efforts called Stand with Haiti. It has very useful information. Partners in Health is also putting out a call for health volunteers, in case you are a medical professional who can help out that way.
Matching Funds
Turn a $25 donation into a $50 donation.
Matching funds currently available at this link for Reiser Relief, a group that parryander works with:
Reiser Relief is a charity started by my friend Father Reiser - it funds our water truck, pays teachers salaries, feeds kids, and it supports orphanages and homes for the elderly and women.
A total of $20K in matching funds have been provided for Reiser Relief from Razoo.
As of May 13, over $4K remain (this number does not appear to be updated daily, but we will keep it as current as possible).
SOIL is based in Haiti (founded by two American females) and although their regular mission is :Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL) is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting soil resources, empowering communities and transforming wastes into resources in Haiti, they are in the streets in PAP providing normal disaster relief services and translation (they speak Kreyol). They have said that all donations in the next 30 days (at least) will go directly to their relief work rather than their usual mission. They have been in Haiti for several years and are very familiar with the people and communities (h/t Royce)
TransAfrica:
Today, TransAfrica Forum campaigns against the crippling debt burden on the countries of Africa and the Caribbean by opposing Vulture Funds, companies that threaten the gains of already hard-fought for debt relief. TransAfrica Forum also struggles for international financial architecture that promotes sustainable growth and takes cues from civil society.
Other news and diaries: |
ShelterBox: carolina stargazer is still watching the store. ShelterBox diary- Tuesday's diary is up. A new diary will be posted Friday. And carolina will continue to monitor the Tuesday diary until she posts the Friday diary. Matching funds are available.
There are two excellent liveblogs by mindoca. This is the first one and this is the second. If you need more specific information, these are a great place to start. mindoca has spent time in Haiti and offers a true first-hand view of disaster relief and Haiti itself.
Mokurai has contributed The Real Story in Haiti and Haiti: Dimensions of Disaster.
FishOutofWater takes a moment to explore the benefits of Partners in Health's commitment to solar powered health centers.
Meteor Blades points the way to a better and more sustainable future for Haitians in Haiti Could Use a New Deal.
As the MSM (in the United States) turns attention away from Haiti, Deoliver47 reminds us that things are not suddenly all better: Raining Disease and More Deaths.
For some good pre-earthquake background on Haiti, see Daisy Cutter's Book Review: "Damming the Flood" by Peter Hallward, pt 1. This diary was published in July 2008 and presents a history of Haiti up to 1999 using Hallward's book as a reference. Excellent.
Two recent diaries by Deep harm remind us that the rains are coming and tents are needed.
This series was created by Dallasdoc and has been maintained with the help of (listed alphabetically): Aji, ALifeLessFrightening, allie123, AntKat, Avila, betson08, big spoiled baby, cosmic debris, Deep Harm, Deoliver47, Frederick Clarkson, J Brunner Fan, Jimdotz, maggiejean, marabout40, Norbrook, OHknighty, oke, parryander, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, Pluto, RunawayRose, swampus, and thebluecrayon. All of these previous diaries can be found by clicking here (listed in reverse chronological order).
UPCOMING DIARIES
Thursday: Book diary allie123
Friday: Avila
Saturday: Aji
Sunday:
Monday:
If you would like to volunteer to contribute a diary to continue this series, please volunteer in the comments below. Norbrook has created a Google documents file** with the source code for our usual introduction and the list of charities the community has developed. Doing one of these diaries, thanks to Norbrook, is not nearly as demanding as it was early in the series. Also, updates need to be made far less frequently. You don't need to set aside huge chunks of time for it and it's easy to multi-task if you have other things to do, as long as you're able to check the comments every 30 minutes or so.
**There is also a backup to the original google doc. See this comment for more details.
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The icons and March 13 formatting revision of this diary series are courtesy of the html artist known on Daily Kos as Pluto. The "Help Haiti" image at the top of the diary that has become the "logo" of this series is courtesy of AuntKat.