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<i>As we commemorate the 10<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the terrible
earthquake that hit Haiti on January 12, 2010, we extend our
solidarity to the people of Puerto Rico who have experienced the
devastation caused by Hurricane Maria in 2017 and the recent
series of earthquakes. As in Haiti, these natural disasters have
been exacerbated by colonial occupation, and the denial and misuse
of aid. Recovery cannot proceed without decolonization and true
democracy. One struggle, one fight. </i><br clear="all">
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<p class="gmail-MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="text-align:center"
align="center"><b><span
style="font-size:13pt;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue""><span> </span>Haiti Ten Years after the
Earthquake<span></span></span></b></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue""><span> </span><span></span></span></b></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue"">January
12th marked <span></span>10 years since the 2010
earthquake in Haiti that killed more than 300,000 people,
and left an estimated
1.3 million more homeless. Much of the greater
Port-au-Prince region lay in
ruins, including the presidential palace, 17 of 19
ministries, and many schools
and hospitals. Entire neighborhoods leveled. Power out.
Roads blocked with
rubble, some still not removed.<span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
0.0001pt;font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman""><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue"">Generous
people worldwide, including half of all registered voters
in the United States,
donated $3 billion to NGOs, as part of the total of $16.3
billion spent or
promised for earthquake relief, but most of this money
never reached Haitians
on the ground. Also figures vary by source, and we really
don’t know a lot
about where much of the money went. By the end of 2018,
$7.54 billion had been
dispersed by donors, with little to no accountability for
how or where it was
spent, much of it on projects that did not directly
benefit Haiti or Haitians.
Many countries never gave what they promised. Of the money
pledged, $972M was
for debt relief – money Haiti never had in the first
place. NGOs used much of
their $3 billion for overhead (spent in the countries
where they are based) or
left money unspent. The American Red Cross received $486
million, took out<span> 25% for its own internal expenses,</span>
built 6 houses, and used <span>some of</span>
what was donated for Haiti in other countries.<span> </span>The
Clinton Bush Fund spent $2 million building a luxury hotel
for business travelers. The biggest investment went into
the Caracol Industrial
Park, more than 130 miles from Port-au-Prince, which today
provides only a
fraction of the sweatshop jobs promised.<span></span></span></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue"">The
United States government militarized the emergency aid.
They sent in thousands
of troops to provide “security,” when Haitians needed
food, water, and medical
care. There had been no security crisis at all. Even a
U.S. general noted
things were “relatively calm.” The airport was so clogged
unloading military
personnel and supplies, that Doctors Without Borders said
that five of its cargo
flights carrying 85 tons of medical and relief supplies
were turned away and
had to be shipped into Haiti by ground from the Dominican
Republic. Flights
from the World Food Program were delayed up to two days. <span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
0.0001pt;font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman""><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue"">In
the meantime, Haitians were taking matters into their own
hands, organizing
themselves into popular committees to clean up, to pull
bodies from the rubble,
build refugee camps, and provide for security. <span>Grassroots
women’s organizations that permeate Haitian communities
mobilized to contend with the collective loss of already
vulnerable housing,
water, food, and livelihoods. </span></span><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue"">Many of these resourceful organizers belonged
to
the <i>Lavalas</i> movement of President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide, twice elected by huge
majorities, but overthrown by military coups in 1991 and
2004, and this is what
the United States government and the Haitian elites feared
the most. Instead of
distributing emergency supplies to those who could deliver
them most
effectively, the thrust of militarized “relief” was to <i>prevent</i>
supplies
from reaching those who could help the most, <span>out
of a distrust of Haitians, the dismissal of their
ability to
rebuild and direct their own reconstruction, and the
fear they might actually
succeed.</span> And in case any mass demonstrations
developed in the streets,
U.S. and U.N. occupation troops were there to put them
down. </span><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue""><span></span></span></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue"">The
United States pledged $940M by the end of September, 2010,
but almost half,
$465 million, went through the Defense Department as
reimbursement for their
expenses. Of $2.43 billion in donations that came in by
the end of 2010, at
least 93% went back to the UN or NGOs to pay for supplies
and personnel, or
never left the donor states at all. $151 million was
completely unaccounted for.
Only 1% - $24 million, went to the Haitian government. <span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
0.0001pt;font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman""><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue"">The United States seized on the earthquake as
a
pretext to reinforce its neoliberal economic agenda on
Haiti.</span><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue""> <span> And the Haitian earthquake proved to
be highly lucrative to foreign
businesses</span>. </span><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue"">In
the private sector, of nearly $1 billion spent in US
government contracts for
postquake Haiti by April, 2011, only 23 of 1490 contracts
went to Haitian firms
for a total of $4.8 million. Through 2018 the US Agency
for International
Development (USAID) awarded $2.3 billion, but only 2.3% of
it went directly to
Haitian organizations or companies. A Haitian official
commented, “We are the
ones accused of corruption for the money we don’t
receive.”</span><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue""><span></span></span></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue"">In
spite of all efforts to marginalize them, the Haitian
grassroots movement has
only grown stronger in the ten years since the quake.
Their advocacy led to the
return of President Aristide from exile in South Africa in
2011, but all they
could do to stop the imposition of Michel Martelly as
president was to not vote.
Aristide’s <i>Fanmi Lavalas</i> Party was still banned
from participating in
elections, because it was understood they would win.
Despite the record low
turnout, the world powers recognized Martelly, who began
his administration of
repression, theft, corruption, and the selling off of
Haitian land and
resources. <span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
0.0001pt;font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman""><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue"">Upon
his return, Aristide and his wife and colleague, Mildred
Trouillot Aristide,
reopened the University of the Aristide Foundation
(UNIFA), which has now
graduated its second class. UNIFA has Schools of Medicine,
Nursing, Physical Therapy,
</span><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue"">Engineering,
Dentistry, Law and Continuing Education</span><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue"">, </span><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue"">and is raising funds to build a teaching
hospital. Radio and
Tele Timoun operate from the Aristide Foundation and
provide news to counter
the monopoly news corporations.</span><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue""><span></span></span></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue"">But
the United States, the United Nations, and the Haitian
elites still fear the
popular movement, and have turned to increasingly brutal
tactics to suppress
it. In a completely corrupt election cycle in 2015/2016, <i>Fanmi
Lavalas</i> was
allowed to run candidates, but they were prevented from
winning through massive
voter suppression and fraud. The electoral council named a
completely
unqualified Jovenel Moise president, stopping a recount in
mid-process.
Haitians have been in the streets ever since in protest. <span></span></span></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue"">Now
it’s been discovered that $4.2 billion has disappeared
from Petrocaribe funds.
Venezuela has been selling Haiti oil at discounted prices
through its
Petrocaribe program, initiated by the government of Hugo
Chavez, with the
understanding that Haiti will sell the oil at market rate
and use the profit to
finance infrastructure and economic development. Instead
the Martelly and Moise
regimes have stolen it, and the protests have only grown
stronger calling on
the imposed president Moise to resign.<span></span></span></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue"">Instead
Moise has dug in and is refusing to leave. Police, under
the control of the
United Nations, and death squads reminiscent of the <i>tonton
macoutes</i> of the Duvalier dictatorships operate with
impunity. In November, 2018, they </span><a
href="https://secureservercdn.net/50.62.88.95/65c.874.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/The-Lasalin-Massacre-ONLINE-7-11-19-Nat-NLG-2.pdf"
style="color:blue;text-decoration:underline"
moz-do-not-send="true"><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue"">massacred at least 77
people and possibly many more whose bodies were not
found, in the historically
militant neighborhood of La Saline.</span></a><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue""> They attack demonstrations, and on June 24,
2019
fired into a crowd of protesters, killing as many as 30
people. Moise is now
hiring foreign mercenaries as well to control and
terrorize the population.<span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in
0.0001pt;font-size:10pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman""><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue"">Haiti
needs massive solidarity to support the grassroots
movement calling for the
overthrow of the Moise regime, and the creation of a
society based on democracy
and economic equality. </span><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri">There is
almost no <span>informed</span> media
coverage of Haiti now.</span><span
style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue"">
Haiti Action Committee is working to Make Haiti Visible
and to support the
Haiti Emergency Relief Fund -<a name="_GoBack"
moz-do-not-send="true"></a>
<b><a href="http://www.haitiemergencyrelief.org"
moz-do-not-send="true">www.haitiemergencyrelief.org</a>
</b>- which will get donations to the people on the
ground doing the work to fulfill the dream of the 1804
revolution that has been
suppressed ever since. Please join with us.</span><span
style="font-family:"Times New Roman""><span></span></span></p>
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<div>sent by Haiti Action
Committee</div>
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<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://freedomarchives.org/">https://freedomarchives.org/</a></div>
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