HAITI: AFTER THE CATASTROPHE, WHAT ARE THE PERSPECTIVES ?

Thanks to Greg Chamberlain for forwarding this Public Declaration by progressive civil society organizations in Haiti.

It represents a strong current of thought among left-leaning Haitians who are both grieving and mobilizing, but are also deeply concerned on a political level, by the widely perceived failure to date of the Preval government to speak out to the Haitian people and the world -- to lead, as they see it; by the US military focus on 'security' vs. food aid in the immediate days after the earthquake -- and the continued US military control of logistics in the humanitarian response; and their concerns about global discussions related to 'rebuilding Haiti' that they feel reflect a neoliberal economic agenda of globalization and not a national agenda developed by Haitians for Haitians. - AC

HAITI: AFTER THE CATASTROPHE, WHAT ARE THE PERSPECTIVES ?

Port-au-Prince, 27 January 2010 -

Statement by the coordinating committee of progressive organisations (see the list of the participating platforms and individual organizations at the foot of the text)

To all our partners

On January 12th 2010 an earthquake of unprecedented force struck our
country with dramatic consequences for the people of many areas in the
west and south east, and for the country as a whole. The tremor
registered 7.3 on the Richter scale, and the irreparable losses it
caused have left our country in mourning and unbearable pain. The
tragedy we are facing today is certainly one of the gravest in our
history, and its traumatic effects will stamp their mark on our 21st
century.

The partial accounts that have already been disseminated go some way to
expressing the dreadful, indescribable horror that we collectively
lived through during those endless 35 seconds on January 12th, and
which have left so powerful a legacy of pain and tears. More than
150,000 dead, 500,000 injured, over a million homeless, tens of
thousands who have lost limbs, 300,000 refugees who have fled into the
countryside, more than 3 million disaster victims who, from one minute
to the next, saw their lives, their homes and their society changed
forever. A whole society is traumatised, and lives in fear of probable
aftershocks or of a second earthquake.

Our organizations have all been profoundly affected by this event. We
have lost close relatives, work colleagues, children, young people,
professionals with dreams full of promise and skills, buildings,
equipment, tools, and a huge body of documents embodying thirty years
of the collective experience of grassroots and community organizations.
The losses are enormous and irreplaceable.

Despite our pain, it is important that that we all pause to reflect on
what has happened and to draw from this tragic experience the lessons
and the guidance that will allow us to continue our tireless dedication
to building a different country, one that is capable of overcoming the
cycle of dependency and destruction and rising to the level of the
dreams of universal emancipation of its founders and of all the people
of Haiti.

The extent of the disaster is certainly linked to the character of the
colonial and neo-colonial State our country has inherited, and the
imposition of neo-liberal policies over the last three decades. The
extreme centralization around the ‘Republic of Port-au-Prince’ imposed
after the US occupation of 1915-1934 is certainly one determining
factor. In particular the complete liberalization of the housing market
has opened a space for rampant speculation by every kind of
opportunist.

We have been deeply moved by the extraordinary spirit of solidarity
displayed by the people of the metropolitan area who for the first
three days after the disaster responded with self-organization, helping
to save the lives of thousands of people trapped under the rubble and
building 450 refugee camps which made it possible for 1.5 million
people to survive thanks the sharing out of the available resources
(food, water, and clothing). We honour and respect the people of
Port-au-Prince! These spontaneous organs of solidarity must now play a
central role in the reconstruction and reconceptualising of our
national space.

We address this letter to our partners, and the national and
international networks in which we participate, to inform you of the
actions we have taken and our objectives for the short, medium, and
long term.

For over a week now a group of organizations and platforms have been
meeting regularly to address the new situation, setting up new
strategies and methods of work. As representatives of the organizations
and platforms who are signatories to this document, and as a result of
a number of meetings to assess the new situation and define common
strategies, we have adopted a position based on the following
guidelines:

To contribute to defending the main gains made by the popular and
social movements of Haiti now threatened by the new situation.
To help to respond to the urgent immediate needs of the people, by
setting up community service centres with the means to respond to the
following needs: food, primary health care, medical and psychological
assistance for those in shock as a result of the earthquake.
To take advantage of the presence of the international press in our
country to present a different image to that disseminated by the
imperialist forces.
To establish new ways of overcoming the atomisation and dispersal which
are among the central weaknesses of our organizations.

This process of gathering our forces should begin with the creation of
a common space where our six teams can provisionally come together
while they continue to work independently, while at the same time
putting in place permanent mechanisms for mutual exchange and joint
work. We will seek to establish a collective approach in seeking common
responses to our problems, and to build a real and viable alternative
based on popular
democracy.

As far as the immediate emergency is concerned, we are in the process
of setting up centres in each area of the city. One is already
operational at 59 Avenue Poupelard in the premises of a community
school run by the SAJ/VEYE YO (Solidarite Ant Jen) organization. It
provides for nearly 300 people who are given two meals a day and
accommodated in tents. The centre offers them consultations, medicine,
and psychological support. These services are also offered to those
living in the refugee camps that have been spontaneously set up in the
area. The centre functions thanks to the generous support of a group of
Haitian professionals (doctors, nurses, psychologists, and social
workers) with the support of the aid organization, Deutsche Not Ärzte
e.V. (German Emergency Doctors Union) - Cap Anamur. We are trying to
extend the centres into other metropolitan districts badly hit by the
earthquake and where no centres of this kind currently exist. We
anticipate that four more will be set up the districts of Carrefour
(Martissant, Fontamara) and Gressier. We would call upon the solidarity
of all our partners in helping to ensure that they function effectively.

At the same time, the two platforms and four organizations involved
have set up a meeting and coordination centre at the offices of
FIDES-Haiti, in Impasse Gabriel-Rue de Fernand in Canapé Vert. This
space is open to other platforms and organizations of the popular and
democratic movement. We are committed to mobilizing the different
elements of that movement with a view to, on the one hand, extending
emergency help to the disaster victims, and on the other, to lead to
the formulation of a joint plan designed to rebuild our organizations
and institutions. We will communicate this plan, and the concrete
projects associated with it, to our partners as soon as possible.

The emergency aid effort we are involved in is alternative in character
and we expect to advocate a method of work which will denounce the
traditional practices in the field of humanitarian aid which do not
respect the dignity of the victims and which contribute to the
reinforcement of dependency. We are advocating a humanitarian effort
that is appropriate to our reality, respectful of our culture and our
environment, and which does not undermine the forms of economic
solidarity that have been put in place over the decades by the
grassroots organizations with which we work.

Finally, we would like to salute once more the extraordinary generosity
of spirit which has moved public opinion across the world in the wake
of the catastrophe we have suffered. We acknowledge it and we believe
that this is the moment for creating a new way of seeing our country
that will make it possible to build an authentic solidarity free of
paternalism, pity, and the taint of inferiority. We should work to
maintain this spirit of solidarity as against the momentary impact of
fashion and media exaggeration. The response to the crisis has proved
that in certain situations the people of the world can move beyond
hasty judgments based on sensationalism and stereotypes.

Massive humanitarian aid is indispensable today, given the scale of the
disaster, but it should be deployed in terms of a different vision of
the reconstruction process. It should connect with a break from the
paradigms that dominate the traditional circuits of international aid.
We would hope to see the emergence of international brigades working
together with our organizations in the struggle to carry out agrarian
reform and an integrated urban land reform programme, the struggle
against illiteracy and for reforestation, and for the construction of
new modern, decentralised and universal systems of education and public
health.

We must also declare our anger and indignation at the exploitation of
the situation in Haiti to justify a new invasion by 20,000 U.S.
Marines. We condemn what threatens to become a new military occupation
by U.S. troops, the third in our history. It is clearly part of a
strategy to remilitarise the Caribbean Basin in the context of the
imperialist response to the growing rebellion of the peoples of our
continent against neo-liberal globalization. And it exists also within
a framework of pre-emptive warfare designed to confront the eventual
social explosion of a people crushed by poverty and facing despair. We
condemn the model imposed by the U.S. government and the military
response to a tragic humanitarian crisis. The occupation of the
Toussaint Louverture international airport and other elements of the
national infrastructure has deprived the Haitian people of part of the
contribution made by Caricom, by Venezuela, and by some European
countries. We condemn this conduct, and refuse absolutely to allow our
country to become another military base.

As leaders of the organizations and platform who have set this process
in motion, we are writing to share our initial analysis of the
situation. We are certain, and you have already shown this to be true,
that you will continue to support our work and our struggles in the
framework of the construction of an alternative from which our country
can rise again from this terrible catastrophe and struggle to break
free of the cycle of dependency.

For the Coordinating Committee:

Sony Estéus Director of SAKS

Marie Carmelle Fils-Aimé
Programme officer for ICKL

Camille Chalmers
Director of PAPDA

On behalf of the organizations and platforms taking part in this
initiative:

Marc Arthur Fils-Aimé, Institut Culturel Karl Léveque (ICKL);
Maxime J. Rony, Programme alternatif de Justice (PAJ);
Sony Estéus, Sosyete Animasyon ak Kominikasyon Sosyal (SAKS);
Chenet Jean Baptiste, Institut de Technologie et d’animation (ITECA);

Antonal Mortimé, Plateforme des Organisations Haïtiennes de Droits
Humains (POHDH) composed of:
Justice et Paix (JILAP), Centre de recherches Sociales et de Formation
pour le Développement (CRESFED), Groupe Assistance Juridique (GAJ),
Institut Culturel Karl Léveque (ICKL), Programme pour une Alternative
de Justice (PAJ), Sant Karl Lévèque (SKL), Réseau National de Défense
des Droits Humains (RNDDH), Conférence haïtienne des Religieux
(CORAL-CHR)

Camille Chalmers, Plateforme haïtienne de Plaidoyer pour un
Développement Alternatif (PAPDA) composed of:
Institut de Technologie et d’animation (ITECA), Solidarite Fanm Ayisyèn
(SOFA), Centre de Recherches Actions pour le Développement (CRAD),
Mouvman Inite Ti Peyizan Latibonit (MITPA), Institut Culturel Karl
Léveque (ICKL), Association Nationale des Agroprofessionnels Haïtiens
(ANDAH)