Ten Things the US Can and Should Do for Haiti

[Downwinder]

Ten Things the US Can and Should Do for Haiti

by Bill Quigley
One. Allow all Haitians in the US to work. The number one source of money for poor people in Haiti is the money sent from family and workers in the US back home. Haitians will continue to help themselves if given a chance. Haitians in the US will continue to help when the world community moves on to other problems.

Two. Do not allow US military in Haiti to point their guns at Haitians. Hungry Haitians are not the enemy. Decisions have already been made which will militarize the humanitarian relief - but do not allow the victims to be cast as criminals. Do not demonize the people.

Three. Give Haiti grants as help, not loans. Haiti does not need any more debt. Make sure that the relief given helps Haiti rebuild its public sector so the country can provide its own citizens with basic public services.

Four. Prioritize humanitarian aid to help women, children and the elderly. They are always moved to the back of the line. If they are moved to the back of the line, start at the back.

Five. President Obama can enact Temporary Protected Status for Haitians with the stroke of a pen. Do it. The US has already done it for El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Sudan and Somalia. President Obama should do it on Martin Luther King Day.

Six. Respect Human Rights from Day One. The UN has enacted Guiding Principles for Internally Displaced People. Make them required reading for every official and non-governmental person and organization. Non governmental organizations like charities and international aid groups are extremely powerful in Haiti - they too must respect the human dignity and human rights of all people.

Seven. Apologize to the Haitian people everywhere for Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh.

Eight. Release all Haitians in US jails who are not accused of any crimes. Thirty thousand people are facing deportations. No one will be deported to Haiti for years to come. Release them on Martin Luther King day.

Nine. Require that all the non-governmental organizations which raise money in the US be transparent about what they raise, where the money goes, and insist that they be legally accountable to the people of Haiti.

Ten. Treat all Haitians as we ourselves would want to be treated.

Bill is Legal Director at the Center for Constitutional Rights and a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. He is a Katrina survivor and has been active in human rights in Haiti for years with the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti. [e-mail]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/14-11

[Peace Patriot]

1. Excellent list! I'm spreading it around. nt

[social_critic]

2. Ten things the US should do to help Haiti

1. Build clinics to teach them to use contraceptives and perform free abortions
2. Build schools to teach young girls the advantages of education and avoiding pregnancy
3. Pay Haitians a sum for each year they go by without having children. The goal should be population stabilization with a slight reduction over time.
4. Pay to build infrastructure to generate electricity with windmills, that's the only viable sustainable power generation system they have.
5. Provide scholarships to smart Haitians to go overseas and study, get college degrees, and stay there so they can send money to their poor relatives remaining in Haiti.

Haiti is a failed society because they destroyed their environment, and its very overpopulated, lacking the space to grow food, and lacking fuel (they already cut down all the trees). The solution is draconian methods to control population. As a people, they are nothing special, they tend to be poorly educated, and don't have any special skills. Therefore the best solution is to help them reduce their numbers, and encourage them to re-build their destroyed eco system. Plus the windmill construction can be done with American materials and labor, so it'll help reduce unemployment here at home and increase our exports. The company running the electric power system should of course be privately held, and be listed in the NY Stock exchange. We shouldn't be putting money down to encourage a communist style takeover of the electricity system, or it'll collapse the way it has done in Cuba and Venezuela.

[Mika]

3. Everything the US has done is discourage any "communist style takeover" of anything in Haiti.

What you are seeing is the result.

Further privatization of the infrastructure and commons will spell furthering of the downward spiral.


Cuba and Venezuela have been consistently and continually expanding the social infrastructure under their socialist governments, while Haiti has been in a death spiral at the hands of corporatization and privatization.

OXFAM even states that Cuba is the definitive model for disaster preparation and mitigation. They point out that it is because the government there represents and protects all of the people - including the poorest and those at greatest risk.

DISASTER PLANNING ESSENTIAL FOR MINIMIZING RISKS
http://www.oxfamamerica.org/whatwedo/emergencies/asian_floods_2004/background/cubalessons

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[social_critic]

4. Cuba and Venezuela are basket cases

Don't get off trying to compare Haiti to Cuba and Venezuela. Both of them are basket cases either under outright communist dictatorship or on their way to an economic meltdown and a similar dictatorship. Compare Haiti to the Dominican Republic, both share the same island, same weather, similar situation. Haiti is a disaster because it's a collapsed society - they damaged the environment to the point of no return.

Don't kid yourself, I've been to both Cuba AND Venezuela, I know what's going on in both, and they are terrible examples. I suppose you must be paid by somebody to lay it on so thick. Or maybe you're just a sandalista who likes to make excuses for communist excesses and abuse of human rights.

[Mika]

5. Funny.

"Don't get off trying to compare Haiti to Cuba and Venezuela."

:rofl:

---

[social_critic]

6. No, you are the funny one.

Repetitive statements in admiration of two clowns who are ruining their respective nations are kinda funny, if it wasn't so tragic. And comparing Haiti to Venezuela shows you are lacking in the proper education regarding American history, geography, economics, ethnography, you name it. Maybe if you didn't spend your time kissing Chavez' behind you could educate yourself. Why don't you go to Venezuela, visit El manicomio, talk to people there, and see what they think about Chavez? LOL.

[roody]

9. I love being in Cuba and not seeing young women

laden with one, two, or three little ones.

[roody]

8. Cuban doctors and teachers are

experts at numbers one and two. I am sure they are already in Haiti.

[dipsydoodle]

10. Hmm

[Judi Lynn]

7. Our nasty little racist war in Haiti

MICHAEL I . NIMAN
J U N E 7, 04

Our nasty little racist war in Haiti

ANNETTE Auguste was at home with her grandson
when her front door exploded. The US Marines who
came for her never knocked. Instead, they used explosives
to blow the front door off of her home, then
charging in, they killed her two dogs. They handcuffed
her five-year-old grandson at gunpoint and kept him
cuffed for five hours. The Marines are holding Auguste
without legal authority or charges, accusing her of
conspiring with “local Muslims” in a plan to attack US
forces.

Does this sound like another faceless Iraqi woman about to disappear into the “rape
rooms” of the world’s most notorious penal system? Think again. Auguste’s murdered dogs
were named Ram Ram and Party Cool. Auguste herself is a folksinger, Voudun Priestess
and former Brooklyn resident. Her kinfolk in all-American neighborhoods like Flatbush and
Canarsie are raising hell about the mistreatment of their aunt and mother. No, this isn’t
Iraq. It’s one of the more or less invisible battlefronts in the Bush Wars.

Annette Auguste is Haitian. And no, she’s not an al Qaida operative. The “local Muslims”
she was supposedly running with would be rather hard to find, with Muslims not even
registering a demographic blip in this Caribbean nation where, according to the CIA, the
most popular religious practice is “Voodoo,” or more accurately, Voudun.
Auguste’s real crime is that she was a member of deposed Haitian President Jean
Bertrand Aristide’s Lavalas Party, which was removed from power in a February coup
despite, according the most recent US Government commissioned Gallop poll, still
enjoying the overwhelming support of the Haitian people.

Or Picture this: On May 18th – Flag Day – upwards of 30,000 Haitian patriots marched,
demanding that occupying American forces leave their country. Haitian police, operating
in tandem with US Marines, opened fire on the peaceful demonstration, killing up to eight
unarmed demonstrators. Again, this is not Iraq – it’s Haiti. The May 18th killings were
witnessed and chronicled by Kevin Pina, the Associate Editor of the San Francisco Bay
Area’s preeminent African American newspaper, The Bay View. Pima luridly describes the
death of one of the Flag Day victims, Titus Simton, writing, “It was I who filmed his last
breath as he lie bleeding from a single shot to the head. The only weapon he had in his
hands lay beside him, a bloodied Sony Walkman he was listening to as he marched
peaceably demanding the return of his president.”

It’s important to put Titus Simton’s name into print. And the name of Daniel Lescouflet,
shot dead by police on the same day in front of the St. Jean Bosco Catholic Church, where
Haiti’s deposed president served as a priest before entering politics. It’s important that
their names be in print so that they don’t simply disappear without a trace, as thousands
of Haitians now seem to be doing.

More:
http://www.coldtype.net/Assets.04/Niman.04/Niman.20.04.pdf

[dipsydoodle]

11. I'd wondered if this might happen

given the complete absense of the current president doing anything even closely resembling half intelligent over the past few days.

Haiti’s democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was controversially ousted out of office in 2004, has announced his intentions to return home in the aftermath of the 7.0 magnitude killer earthquake that struck his country on Tuesday.

Aristide, who has been living in exile in South Africa with his family, announced his offer to return to Haiti in Johannesburg yesterday, according to international media outlets.

’As far as we are concerned, we are ready to leave today, tomorrow, at any time to join the people of Haiti, to share in their suffering, help rebuild the country, moving from misery to poverty with dignity,’ Aristide said.

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_news?id=161583046

[Judi Lynn]

12. It would be good for the people, absolutely, but he has powerful enemies in the right-wing US

who are determined to keep him out of his own country any way they can, as they are hell bent on exploiting the cheap labor and don't want ANYONE there who will look out for the best interests of the Haitian people.

It's the ancient, filthy "Me first" syndrome. Small, powerless countries can't defend against it very well, clearly.

I'm sure his life would be in imminent danger the minute he steps back on Haitian soil. Without a doubt he's more than aware of this, and has determined he'll keep trying until the end to make a difference.

He's courageous, he cares about his fellow Haitians, and that's why real Haitians love him so much. He would be a unifying force, until a SOA-trained sniper dropped him, that is.

http://www.haitiaction.net.nyud.net:8090/News/HIP/4_13_8/4659.jpg http://images.newstatesman.com.nyud.net:8090/articles/2008/1029/029_p46.jpg

http://msnbcmedia1.msn.com.nyud.net:8090/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/040226/040226_nyhaitians_vmed_3p.widec.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8090/_HyyDHyAwI6k/Skzri4id3tI/AAAAAAAAFuE/n9HuHeLBb44/s400/aristide+coup+woman.jpg

http://www.mscottbrauer.com.nyud.net:8090/wp-content/msb-haiti-08.jpg

http://www.blogtheberkshires.com.nyud.net:8090/haiti/phone_IMG_9360blog.jpg