[News] New Orleans - PHRF Condemns Recovery Czar Ed Blakely and Mayor Ray Nagin
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Wed Apr 11 14:08:26 EDT 2007
PHRF Condemns Recovery Czar Edward Blakely and
Mayor Nagin; Demands Blakely be fired immediately.
The People's Hurricane Relief Fund (PHRF) demands
that Mayor Ray Nagin and the City Council fire
Edward Blakely for his demeaning statements and
plans denying the basic rights and dignity of the
people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.
"Blakely's statements in the New York Times
yesterday, were totally inexcusable", say's Kali
Akuno, PHRF Executive Director. "It is clear
that he was brought here merely to finish the
ethnic cleansing of New Orleans by making no
provision in his plans for the Black working
class majority that was and is the heart of New Orleans".
PHRF strongly condemns Blakely's gentrification
and displacement schemes for the redevelopment of
New Orleans that only favor the developers and
corporate profiteers. We further condemn Mayor
Ray Nagin and the City Council for tolerating and
approving his schemes. The privatization of the
very office and position of Edward Blakely must
also be condemned. Mayor Nagin should not have
followed the footsteps of Governor Blanco and set
up a private entity to manage and contract out
public funds. These extralegal institutions and
initiatives are wholly undemocratic and nepotistic.
Moreover Blakely slanders those of us who
advocate the right to return for all those who
want to return. Blakely claims we are "using
people" for political ends. To the contrary it
is the capitalist developers that Blakely
represents who are using the people, by refusing
to provide affordable housing; by refusing to
open up the public housing projects and by
refusing to grant any direct aid to the more than
50% of the New Orleans population that were
renters. These actions are in place to
facilitate a grand land theft from Black working
class homeowners and to change New Orleans into a white majority city.
The Right of Return is a fundamental human right
enshrined in several international treaties that
the United States Government is a party to. The
United States Agency of International Development
(USAID) articulates the clearest statement and
support of this human right by the Federal
Government in its "Assistance to Internally
Displaced Persons Policy". Produced in October
2004 the report states, "USAID's interest in
internal displacement is driven by humanitarian
and development concerns as well as political and
security considerations" (Summary, Page V).
Further it states, "USAID advocates that IDP's
should be granted the full security and
protection provided for under applicable norms of
international human rights law, international
humanitarian law, and national law" (Summary Page
VI). This policy statement can be located online
at <http://www.usaid.gov/>www.usaid.gov (search
Internally Displaced Persons Policy).
Edward Blakely, Mayor Ray Nagin, the New Orleans
City Council, and all the branches of Government
interfacing with Katrina and Rita related IDP's
must be held accountable to the standards
outlined in the Assistance to Internally
Displaced Persons Policy and the Guiding
Principles on Internal Displacement. To hold the
US government accountable to these and many other
human rights laws and policies, PHRF and a broad
range of Gulf Coast community, civil, and human
rights organizations will conduct an
International Tribunal on Hurricanes Katrina and
Rita August 29th September 2nd, 2007.
In the interests of accountability and
restorative justice, we demand that Blakely be
fired immediately for his blatant disregard for
the human rights of the displaced.
<http://www.peopleshurricane.org/>www.peopleshurricane.org
###
To read Ed Blakely's comments see:
New York Times
April 10, 2007
Steering New Orleans's Recovery With a Clinical Eye
By ADAM NOSSITER <
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/n/adam_nossiter/index.html?inline=nyt-per>
The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org
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