Appeal in support of the women in Haiti

HAITI EARTHQUAKE
EMERGENCY APPEAL
In support of the people of Haiti

As the US and the aid industry plan for Haiti, Haitians continue to organise for their own survival. With amazing resilience the people of Haiti, especially women, try to ensure water, food, shelter and medical help in their neighbourhoods. US soldiers occupy while rescue teams and most journalists and foreign doctors leave. The emergency has become a fundraiser and a business opportunity for many non-Haitians. Banks and shops are protected, people are neglected. Donate to grassroots women. Support the return of elected President Aristide, the only person with a mandate to govern.

DONATE here!

Please donate to HAITI EMERGENCY RELIEF FUND established long before this latest disaster and dedicated to helping grassroots people. Give to grassroots women, their families and communities, rather than to thieving elites and corrupt NGOs. We all know that resources in women’s hands go to help children and other vulnerable people. Donations will go directly to those in immediate need – no NGO takes an “administrative cut”.

Send us an email at womenstrike8m@server101.com saying what you have donated and when, so we can inform the Fund administrators. Big or small, donations are desperately needed.

Hundreds of thousands are feared dead. Thousands of homes have been crushed along with hospitals, the National Palace and the UN HQ. A third of the population is affected.

People everywhere are outraged that the US military took over the airport and obstructed rescue efforts. Caribbean and Latin American governments and Medecins Sans Frontieres complained that the US prevented humanitarian aid from landing. The Venezuelan government and French officials accused the US of occupying rather than helping Haiti. In a repeat of what happened during the Katrina disaster, banks, shops and institutions are being protected while starving people are called a ‘security risk’ and shot at.

PROTEST! People in the poorest neighbourhoods continue to die. Call: US embassy
(020 7499 9000), British Foreign Office (020 7008 1500), your MP (020 7219 3000).

• Since 12 January survivors have been desperately calling for emergency relief. They are dying because despite promises the aid is not getting to them. People looking for loved ones are still struggling with their bare hands to free trapped survivors, get food, water and medical help to the injured and the vulnerable.
• The earthquake’s devastating effects could have been avoided. In 2008 experts warned of this kind of catastrophe. The US and the UN have occupied Haiti for years, but their priority is not survival – unlike Cuba, which has weathered similar natural disasters with hardly any loss of life.
• After other disasters, governments pledge help which they may never send. And what the public sends is often siphoned off before reaching those it was intended to help. We must do all we can to prevent this happening again in Haiti.
• People are calling for the return of their democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, removed by Bush. US troops marching into Haiti seem more concerned with stopping the movement for Aristide’s return than with any rescue. From his forced exile in South Africa, President Aristide, cried as he said that he and his wife were prepared to leave immediately. "We feel deeply and profoundly that we should be there, in Haiti, with them, trying our best to prevent death.” He added in Creole, “If one suffers we all suffer. Togetherness is strength. Courage. Hold on, hold on."
• Will the only person with a mandate to govern be kept from leading Haiti's recovery and reconstruction? Haitians feel he is the only guarantee that funds will be used to save lives and rebuild homes, hospitals, schools.

Facts about Haiti

In 2004 a US military coup removed Haiti’s democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The US was backed by Canada and France. UN forces have occupied Haiti ever since.

In 2008 four consecutive hurricanes devastated Haiti, killing over 1,000 people. Many more later died because two-thirds of the people were left starving and homeless.

UN troops did not help hurricane victims. Despite their technology and a $535m yearly budget, saving lives from starvation, drowning and homelessness was not part of their mandate. Well-funded NGOs did little.

The free market has devastated Haiti. 98% is deforested. Even fruit trees were cut down. Soil is then washed away in floods and mudslides. US-subsidized rice destroyed local farms which had sustained Haitians for centuries. When the price of staples went up in 2008, people starved. Women made ‘mud cakes’ to stave off hunger.

78% of Haitians live on less than $2 a day. US and Canadian corporations and Haiti’s elite profit from sweatshops, as people are forced to work for slave wages. Before the earthquake Bill Clinton, UN special envoy to Haiti, was promoting yet more sweatshops as the route to ‘development’.

The extent of this catastrophe is being blamed on Haitians having a ‘failed state’. But who failed? Not the people of Haiti who have shown extraordinary courage and resilience.

For over two centuries Haitians have survived much more than natural disasters. They have been demonised and victimised for their 1804 revolution in which they freed themselves from the imperial powers. Their enormous contribution to humanity as the first to abolish slavery is kept largely hidden. With gunships in the harbour, France imposed a crippling ‘debt’ to ‘compensate’ its slave owners; while the US invaded and occupied, imposing economic blockades and dictatorships.

But people have never given up. In 1991 and again in 2000 they elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a liberation theology priest, with a 60% and 91.8% mandate; they have been campaigning for his return from forced exile in South Africa, and an end to the occupation. Aristide prioritised food security, health, education, and raised the minimum wage. He encouraged reforestation and agricultural co-operatives.

Even before the present crisis, Haitians made it clear that they want Aristide back. In 2009, they boycotted elections which banned Aristide’s party Fanmi Lavalas from standing – 97% of people did not vote!

What Global Women's Strike is doing

The Global Women’s Strike holds regular Vigils for Haiti in London, Guyana and the US. Following the Haitian grassroots, we demand the return of President Aristide and of disappeared human rights activist Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine who worked tirelessly for women and children who have least.

Once again the revolutionary people of Haiti are being given a death sentence for their ongoing refusal to submit to foreign intervention. Help stop this genocide.

Only Aristide has the mandate to lead Haiti's recovery

www.guardian.co.uk 18 January 2010

It took a catastrophe to put Haiti back on the political map. Yet its contribution to world civilisation is considerable. Having extended the 1789 French revolution to Haiti, Black Jacobins ended slavery, leading the way for abolition in the Americas. Western governments never forgave this impertinence, imposing crippling debt, occupations and dictatorships.

But Haitians never lost awareness that they could overcome and, if necessary, overthrow. In 1986, a mass movement kicked out the murderous Duvaliers whom the west had backed for decades, and in 1990 elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a liberation theologist determined to move the population "from destitution to poverty with dignity". He prioritised food security, health and education, encouraged agricultural co-operatives, and raised the minimum wage. Within months a US-backed coup overthrew him. Elected again in 2000 with over 90% of the vote, he was again removed in 2004, not by "a bloody rebellion" (Haiti's exiled former president vows to return, 15 January) but by bloody US marines.

Haitians continue to call for Aristide's return. Will the only person with a mandate to govern be kept from leading their recovery and reconstruction?

Selma James