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<font size=4><b>Denounce U.S. for militarizing & stalling relief
effort!<br>
Tell the Pentagon: Don't do to Haiti what you did to New Orleans!<br>
Get water, food & medical treatment to the people now!<br>
</b></font><font size=3> <br>
</font><font size=5 color="#0000FF"><b>* <u>Monday, January 25th - 5
p.m.<br>
</u>* <u>Powell & Market, San Francisco</u> [Powell St. BART]<br>
</b></font><font size=3> <br>
Consider these facts: <br>
</font><font size=3 color="#FF0000"><b>1. U.S. forces refused to allow
aid planes to land</b></font><font size=3> at the Port au Prince and
Jacmel airports. Planes from the Caribbean Community, France, World Food
Program and Doctors Without Borders -- some loaded with desperately
needed medical equipment and field hospitals -- were repeatedly turned
away by U.S. Marines. Unloading military gear and "securing the
perimeter" was the Pentagon's priority. French Cooperation Minister
Alain Joyandet could not contain his outrage: <b>"This should be
about helping Haiti, not about occupying Haiti."<br>
</font><font size=3 color="#FF0000">2. By one week after the earthquake,
the U.S. had only airlifted 70,000 bottles of
water</b></font><font size=3> into Port au Prince...a drop in the bucket
for an estimated 3 million dehydrated people in the Haitian heat.
</font><font size=2>[USA Today, Jan. 19].</font><font size=3> The U.S.
military is denying port and airport access even to established aid
organizations, leading a Haiti-based aid group to conclude:
<b>"Right now the U.S. is blocking [water, food and medical]
aid."</b> <br>
</font><font size=3 color="#FF0000"><b>3. The Pentagon's first response
was to send in reconnaissance drones.</b> </font><font size=3>Destroyers
steamed toward Haiti. Aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson finally showed up
in Haiti, with Sidewinder missiles and helicopters...<b>but without
<i>any</i> emergency relief supplies!</b>
</font><font size=2>[<a href="http://www.gregpalast.com/">
www.gregpalast.com</a>]<br>
</font><font size=3 color="#FF0000"><b>4. The U.S. occupying force,
obsessed with "security," is holding back
aid.</font><font size=3> </b>Defense Secretary Gates "wouldn't send
in food and water because, he said, there was no 'structure...to provide
security.'"
</font><font size=2>[<a href="http://www.gregpalast.com/">
www.gregpalast.com</a>]</font><font size=3> Yet the President of faraway
Iceland ordered rescue teams in the air almost immediately. <b>Rescue
teams from Cuba, Venezuela and China moved to provide relief right away
without waiting for "security."<br>
</font><font size=3 color="#FF0000">5. "Aid is sitting at the
airport - while millions suffer.</b></font><font size=3> Why? People are
afraid to give it out for fear of provoking riots."
</font><font size=2>[Bill Quigley]</font><font size=3> Yet the
overwhelming response of Haitians to this tragedy is one of sharing and
caring for each other, showing "remarkable levels of patience and
solidarity on the streets." <b>The main source of
"violence" is the 12,000-strong U.S. occupying force which is
allowing thousands to die by withholding aid.<br>
</font><font size=3 color="#FF0000">6. The media show "images of
poor people searching for food, calling them
'looters',</font><font size=3> </b>when in fact mass starvation occurs as
shotgun-wielding security guards attempt to cordon off...the larger
markets."
</font><font size=2>[<a href="http://www.haitianalysis.com/">
www.haitianalysis.com</a>]<br>
</font><font size=3 color="#FF0000"><b>7. On 1/20, eight days after the
quake, hard-hit areas like Carrefour and Leogane "still hadn't
received any food, aid or medical help."</b></font><font size=3>
</font><font size=2>[Telesur]</font><font size=3> A large refugee camp at
Champs de Mars reported "no relief has arrived; it is all being
delivered on other side of town, by the U.S. Embassy." Washington
Post reported U.S. rescue operations focused on places frequented by
foreigners, such as U.N. headquarters, Montana Hotel and Caribe
supermarket.</font><font size=2> [P. Hallward,
<a href="http://www.haitianalysis.com/">www.haitianalysis.com</a>]<br>
</font><font size=3 color="#FF0000"><b>8. "Most Haitians have seen
little humanitarian aid....What they have seen is
guns</b></font><font size=3>, and lots of them. Armored personnel
carriers cruise the streets, and inside the well-guarded perimeter [of
the airport], the US has taken control," reported Al Jazeera.
<b>"It looks more like the Green Zone in Baghdad than a center for
aid distribution."<br>
</b> <br>
</font><font size=4>The massive U.S. military operation in Haiti comes 6
years after invading U.S. forces overthrew the democratic Aristide
government, and replaced it with a brutal coup regime. Meanwhile, the
Haitian people -- many of them dying from lack of water and medicine,
starving while food supplies sit on the airport tarmac -- are demanding
the return of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to his homeland.<br>
</font><font size=3> <br>
</font><font size=4>It is time to hit the streets and express our outrage
at the shameful actions by U.S. military authorities in Haiti. To
withhold aid desperately needed by the people - so reminiscent of their
behavior in New Orleans after Katrina - is a monstrous crime. <br>
</font><font size=3> <br>
</font><font size=4><b> </font><font size=5>Donate to the Haiti
Emergency Relief Fund:
<a href="http://www.haitiaction.net/">www.haitiaction.net</a></font>
<font size=4> <br>
</font><font size=5>Join us in raising these demands:</font>
<ul>
<li><font size=4 color="#008000">Get the people of Port-au-Prince clean
water, food, and medical treatment now.
<li>Allow President Aristide to return to Haiti from forced exile in
South Africa</b></font><font size=3> </font>
<li><font size=4 color="#008000"><b>Respect Haiti. Do not criminalize
people who need water, food and medical help. </b></font><font size=3>
</font>
<li><font size=4 color="#008000"><b>End the foreign military occupation
of Haiti.</b></font><font size=4> </font>
</ul><font size=3>Sponsored by Haiti Action Committee
<a href="http://www.haitisolidarity.net/">www.haitisolidarity.net</a><br>
<br>
<br><br>
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