This is the 167th diary on the earthquake disaster in Haiti. The first diary was by Dallasdoc and previous diaries are linked below. This is the Justice Not Charity edition of the diary.
"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. Today is Haiti diary book day.
This is where Paul Farmer's book The Uses of Haiti ends. This is where our new diary begins. Farmer answers our question- what to do first, "The first order of business, for citizens of the United States, might be a candid and careful assessment of our ruinous policies towards Haiti." that is what this diary will attempt to do (mainly through the discussion that takes place in the comments). Many of us are new to learning about Haiti. But we really want to help. This diary is a place to learn about Haiti, about US policy towards Haiti, and to advocate for Haiti.
Join us in the comments for today's news roundup and more.
Damming The Flood |
The Class war in Haiti has been going on since slavery back when it was a French colony called Saint-Domingue. Haiti was the most profitable colony. It actually produced more than all the North American colonies combined. The wealth came from slave labor. As it was the most profitable colony by far it was also the most cruel, inhumane, and violent colony perhaps of modern time. The treatment of the slaves was stuff you have to be sick to think of. They buried people up to their neck and smeared sugar all over their face so they would be eaten alive by ants. That is just one example- they did produce large quantities of sugar and coffee.
The sudden increase in wealth strained the colonies social structure. Power was divided by three groups. The white plantation owning elite, the representives of France and the wealthy but politically powerless group of former slaves (affranchis) and mulattos. The affranchis and mulattos began to accumulate wealth and the white planters were angry and jealous.
The French Revolution started in 1789. And words like freedom and equality were in the air. Tensions between the factions on the island left it unable to cope with a slave revolt In 1791. It was huge and well organized. When the French came to help end the revolt the white planters began to rebel for more independence. They also wanted the new civic rights the affranchis had been given repealed. The French Commissioner Leger Sonthonax dealt with planters by granting permeant freedom to the slave armies that controlled most of the countryside with the condition that they would join his side. The free slave armies started taking over the island. Led by Toussaint L Ouverture they beat the French, British, Spanish and and groups of black and mulatto militias.
Toussaint became the leader of the island but he remained loyal to France. However he was more loyal to maintaing the abolition of slavery. Napoleon sent over the largest expeditionary force that had every crossed the Atlantic to restore slavery on the island. Toussaint led the army to victory. The French tricked Toussaint into meeting them and they captured and imprisoned him. He died a couple months later. He was an exceptional person and he accomplished what could not be accomplished and set the stage for his top General, Dessalines, to become the first President of a free and independent country. Think about that. A free slave conquered the savage "owners' and became president.
Haiti was shattered from war.
Haiti became the second country with a Declaration of Independence and the only country to live up to the ideal of equality and of freedom. However, Dassalines made a decision that would be held against him throughout history. He ordered the execution of the remaining French settlers except that were willing to renounce slavery, those that fought with them against the French and physicians, priests and artisans. He gave them a chance to renounce slavery and be spared. After the brutality slaves suffered at the hands for these French settlers, it may not have been tactically the best decision but I understand it. Unfortunately it was just the kind of ammunition the slave owning world could use against him as proof the he was savage and used as evidence that they were correct about him. And it became ammunition to demonize him throughout history. The US and every other country refused to recognize Haiti. The US placed an embargo on Haiti to isolate the country. Most of Haiti's income was based on export so this was a blow to the fledgling new country.
And on the home front he began taxing foreign trade which angered the islands elite. It did not take long for the structure that was put in place to divide the slaves from the former slaves and mulattos -to cause problems in the new country. The class war continued. Dassalines then tried to eliminate discrimination against blacks.
He distributed the land equally. The affranchi elite wanted to keep their privileges and status. Having learned from the French planters that violence was key to maintaining their privileges-they conspired to have him assassination 1806. Haiti's first coup only two years after it's independence.
They would use what they learned from the French planters- maintain order with violence, make a living on the backs of others and use brutality as necessary. The small farmers did well. However the elite were not able to grab enough land to create plantation based economy. (pg. 13) "Haiti's ruling class became in the nineteenth century what it remains to this day - a parasitic clique of medium-sized and authoritarian land-owners on the one hand, combined in uneasy alliance with an equally parasitic though more "outward-looking" assemblage of importers, merchants and professionals."
The small farmers were spread out over the land and the elite were useless. This made Haiti easy for other countries to raid and pillage. Germany, France and the US took advantage of this and frequently raided Haiti.
The US took it further. In 1915 under President Woodrow Wilson's leadership the US raided and then occupied Haiti for close to 20 years. And this marks another problem that remains with Haiti today. The formation of the army and the use of it to maintain control with brutal force. This is a legacy that we-the US-left in Haiti.
The US "restructured" Haiti's economy. This means we took land to create plantations, took over banks to maximize Haiti's debt repayment, and trained a brutal army. The only people the Haitian army has ever fought against is Haitians. The small farmer was the armies only enemy.
Haiti's social structure has changed little. There is the tiny ruling class and there is the vast majority of Haitian's living in dire poverty. The poor are exploited and silenced by the army we left behind. 1% of Haitians control 50% of the wealth. Today's ruling class is made up of those that agreed to work for brutal dictators and terrorize their fellow Haitians along with the military and large rural landowners make up one group. Many of them are still openly loyal to the Dulaliers. This group is extremely conservative. The other group is made up of professionals, importers etc. They are the bourgeois. (They are the people we see on tv now advocating the HELP legislation. The textile-sweatshop factory owners.) They are also the ones that are given jobs by and profit from the NGOs and the poverty industry.
In 1946 the Haitians elected a relatively liberal president, Dumarasais Estime but it didn't take long for the Generals to take over. Francios Duvalier managed to rig the election in 1957 and become president. He organized his own para military the Tontons Macoutes. He did this to protect himself from the army and to join the army in terrorizing Haitians. (pg. 12) "Building a network of hundreds of army barracks and outposts established by US Marines, Duvalier granted more than 10,000 petty thugs, organized in some 500 regional "sections" (the smallest administrative unit in Haiti), the right to extract a living from the local population in return for preserving its docility." While technically these chefs de sections, weren't allowed to be judges they were in fact judge, jury and executioner. They marked a new error of terror for Haitians. The peasants, urban poor suffered along with the liberal wing of the elite.
The US strongly backed Duvalier because he kept the huge majority of Haitians under control. His son Jean-Francois, Baby Doc, took over in 1971 when Papa Doc, Francois, died. Baby Doc made a deal with the Nixon administration. In exchange for US support Baby Doc would keep taxes low, suppress trade unions, keep the minimum wage low and allow the repatriation of profits. This was the beginning of a new error of "structural readjustment."
To be continued next week (2nd half of the 1st chapter and chapter 2).
Book List : |
This is our book list so far:
In the Parish of the Poor by Jean-Bertrand Aristide,
Mountains Beyond Mountains, Damming The Flood, The Uses of Haiti, Travesty in Haiti, Partner To The Poor A Paul Farmer Reader, Walking on Fire, Brother, I'm dying,
Bitter Sugar: Slaves Today in the Caribbean by Maurice Lemoione [1985],
The Black Jacobins, C.L.R. James (h/t Deoliver47),
Edwidge Danticat's TheFarming of Bones,
The Chosen Place, The Timeless People,
Krik? Krak!PIH has a book list,
Breath, Eyes, Memory,
The Rainy Season - Haiti after Duvalier by A. Wilentz,
PIH has a new website. They have recommended reading, book list, links to websites with action alerts. Articles.
Videos
The Agronomist,
Aristide and the Endless Revolution,
Life and Debt ,
Poto Mitan,
Any suggestions? We are looking for books, articles, websites where we can get accurate information about Haiti. Please share any information.
Sources We Like |
Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA)
Canada Action Network
Democracy Now!
Center For Economic and Policy Research
Common Dreams.org
Global Policy Forum
HaitAction.Net, Haiti Action Committee Action Alert
Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (ijdh)
Kim Ives is the editor of Haiti Liberte
Partners in Health (PIH), PIH-For Advocates
Rabble.ca
SF Bay View
TransAfrica Forum
News Organizations: |
Al Jazeera English
AlterNet
BBC
Caribbean Net News
CNN
Huffington Post
IPS
MiamiHerald.com
NPR
Reliable source articles |
Haiti's History
President Aristide
US-Haiti-trade policy
Agriculture
AID
Video: |
watch Paul Farmer and Brian ConcannonVideo, Change Haiti Can Believe In: here.
Watch: Haiti Dreaming for More Than $3 a day
Life and Debt
Change?:
Tectonic Shifts? The upcoming donors' conference for Haiti
TransAfrica, Workers Unite in Haiti:
Summary of HOPE legislation: This is the same trade policy that we usually have to force Haiti to accept. But now we art told to celebrate it as an accomplishment? When did sweatshops become reason to celebrate?
CounterPunch, How NGOs are Profiting Off a Grave Situation: Haiti and the Aid Racket
CounterPunch, Aid Should Go to Haitian Popular Organizations, Not to Contractors or NGOs: Chomsky on Haiti
CounterPunch, Haiti Five Months After the Quake
Center For economic and policy research, Katrina Redux: New Disaster, Same Contractors
"Dye mon, gen mon."
Translation: Beyond the mountain is another mountain.
(A proverb of both patience and the recognition of how difficult life in Haiti is.)
ijdh:
Anyone interested in democracy and rights has reason to be interested in Haiti. Over two centuries ago, Haitians challenged the notions of human rights taking root in Europe and the nascent United States, insisting that all people are human and that slavery could have no place in any republic worthy of the name. This was the beginning of the modern human rights movement.
— Paul Farmer, Co-Founder, Partners in Health
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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.
A note about ratings listed here: We have 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. For more tips, see: Evaluating Charities Not Currently Rated by Charity Navigator.
NGOs: |
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."
Can-Do.org is intensely dedicated to working on the local level to provide lasting solutions to some of the world’s most critical issues, from environmental degradation to natural disasters, humanitarian crises to educational inequity. Their donation page is here.
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.
Healing Hands for Haiti (a physical rehab and prosthetics organization based in Port au Prince), Lamp for Haiti, and a group that umbrellas several projects called Healing Haiti. parryander has personal experience with these groups, so I suggest checking out their comments.
Another organization, The Honor and Respect Foundation, was described in a story on Narconews called Getting Help to Haiti. The foundation was created by journalist Reed Lindsay, who is now Telsur's D.C. Bureau Chief, for children who couldn't get into other schools. Their website says that it "seeks to establish funds in support of several specific programs carried out by grassroots groups in the poorest neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince." I have a phone number for a contact there and will get direct information tonight.
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.
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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L'Athletique D'Haiti:
“While many children and parents see the club as a way to make it to the Haitian National team and also as a route ?to college scholarships or professional teams outside of Haiti, there’s more to the program than sports. By encouraging youngsters from wealthier families to compete with those from the slums, Robert Duval is also chipping away at the barriers of long divided Haitian society. And as Duval points out, ‘Some of these kids have a lot of talent, not only for soccer. Maybe it’s school or music or writing poetry. But sports will lift them to the next level of life.’” ?- Finbar O’Reilly, National Post, Canada
L'Athletique D'Haiti parryander describes Bobby Duval
Besides being an immensely generous and charming man, he can be delightfully blunt and wonderfully funny. He has no time for crap. He has been through the wars - those of his personal experience being a prisoner of Baby Doc, and also those of the violence in Cite Soleil - the gang wars.
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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:
We are deeply grateful for the multitude of people who have contacted us wanting to provide medical assistance. As patients flood to our sites from Port-au-Prince, we're finding ourselves in need of both medical personnel and supplies. In particular, we need surgeons (especially trauma/orthopedic surgeons), ER doctors and nurses, and full surgical teams (including anesthesiologists, scrub and post-op nurses, and nurse anesthetists). If you are a health professional interested in volunteering, please send an email to volunteer@pih.org with information on:
• Your credentials
• Language capabilities (Haitian Creole or French desired)
• Overseas experience (if any)
• Any prior experience in emergency/post-disaster relief efforts
• Availability
• Contact information
As phone lines in Haiti remain down and transportation and communication are difficult, PIH is still in the process of determining where we can set up operations in Port-au-Prince, and how we can transport patients and volunteers to our sites. We will be able to offer more concrete information after these logistical matters are resolved. Once again – thank you for your support. Kenbe fèm.
The Jean Cadet Restavek Foundation. Restaveks are child slaves. This is an organization for children run by a Haitian man who is a former child slave.
Reiser Relief, a group that parryander works with
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).
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ShelterBox: TexMex is busy moving, but carolina stargazer is still watching the store. The next ShelterBox diary is planned for Tuesday morning, but activity in
Friday's diary will be monitored until then. Matching funds are available.
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 it.
Social Networking Efforts: |
Media Make Change has this to say:
Too often, we hear stories that are told about the survivors, where a narrator with a minimal connection to the tragedy attempts to explain lives that s/he doesn’t truly understand. But Haitian citizens have the right to tell their own stories; they have the right to engage in public discussion about how to remedy the crisis in Haiti.
Check out their 5 Easy Ways to Help page. In particular, they would like to have your old digital camera to put in the hands of a Haitian citizen.
Past diaries in this series: |
Be sure to also see diaries by Bev Bell for informed ground-level information on Haiti's needs.
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.
ShelterBox: TexMex is busy moving, but carolina stargazer is still watching the store. The next ShelterBox diary is planned for Friday morning, but activity in Tuesday's diary will be monitored until then. Matching funds are available.
Thursday is Haiti diary book day. Here is the Book List
UPCOMING DIARIES
Sunday: ***open***
Monday: RunawayRose
Tuesday: ***open***
Wednesday: ***open***
Thursday: Book Day -allie123
Friday:
Saturday: Aji
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.
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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. Big thank you to swampus for maintaining the google doc for months.