Haiti Emergency
“After 25 years spent working in Haiti and having grown up in Florida, I can honestly say that I have never seen anything as painful as what I just witnessed in Gonaives. At least 80% of the estimated 300,000 residents have been displaced or otherwise affected by the flooding…Throughout Haiti bridges, roads, clinics and homes have been washed away.” (Dr. Paul Farmer of Partners in Health, from a 9/10 interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now.)
Please consider sending funds to one of these reliable, tax-deductible organizations listed at :
Campaign for Labor Rights (CLR): Haitian Workers Hurricane Relief Fund
1247 E St SE, Washington, DC 20003 or www.clrlabor.org
CLR is collecting funds for the Confédéderation des Travailleurs Haitiens to distribute to union sisters and brothers and their families for hurricane relief. The CTH has been rebuilding since a US-sponsored coup in 2004 overthrew Haiti’s elected government. According to the CLR, the coup was led by groups funded and trained by the International Republican Institute, whose Board is chaired by John McCain. CTH members were targeted because of their support for Haitian democracy and opposition to foreign intervention.
Haiti Emergency Relief Fund/Vanguard
383 Rhode Island St. Suite 301, San Francisco, CA94103; 415-487-2111. www.haitiaction.net
Haiti Emergency Relief Fund: Since its inception in March 2004, the HERF has given concrete aid to Haiti’s grassroots democratic movement as they attempted to survive the brutal coup and to rebuild shattered development projects. We urge you to contribute generously, not only for this immediate crisis, but in order to support the long-run development of human rights, sustainable agriculture and economic justice in Haiti.
http://www.haitisolidarity.net/article.php?id=238.
Haiti KONPAY – Emergency Hurricane Relief Fund
7 Wall St., Gloucester, MA01930 or www.konpay.org
Focusing on Haitian solutions to environmental, social and economic problems and providing training and funding to grassroots and community-based projects. KONPAY is supporting Haitian-led efforts to reforest Haiti and protect the environment.
Haiti Reborn
PO Box 5206, Hyattsville, MD 20782 www.Haiti.quixote.org
Supporting the growing Kofaviv movement of women demanding an end to violence and rape; establishing the development of a reforestation program, including satellite nurseries; advocating an end to unjust and undemocratic foreign intervention in Haitian democracy and economy; countering the destructive myth of Haitians as helpless victims by highlighting Haiti’s proud history and giving voice to today’s brightest leaders.
MADRE (Emergency & Disaster Relief Fund)
121 West 27th Street #301, New York, NY 10001
http://madre.org/index.html
a New York-based human rights group demanding human rights for women and families throughout the world, and also working on disaster relief with one of its sister organizations in Haiti.
Partners In Health
641 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115 www.Pih.org
Their mission is both medical and moral, based on solidarity, rather than charity alone. When a person in rural Haiti falls ill, PIH uses all of the means at their disposal to make them well—from pressuring drug manufacturers, to lobbying policy makers, to providing medical care and social services. PiH is supporting relief and recovery programs in communities affected by the hurricanes.
Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL)
124 Church Rd, SherburneNY 13460 www.oursoil.org
dedicated to empowering communities, building the soil and nourishing the grassroots. SOIL protects soil resources and transforms wastes into resources. SOIL promotes integrated approaches to the problems of poverty, poor public health, agricultural productivity, and environmental destruction.
Summary: reliable agencies for donations.
— Peter Mott
Haiti Emergency
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— Peter Mott
Haiti II
feb29@sonic.net]
Sent: Friday, March 14, 2008 1:47 AM
To: Dear Friends of Haiti 2
Subject: President Aristide Message on Feb. 29th Internat’l Protests – 4 years after the coup
P. Jean-Bertrand Aristide
Pretoria, South Africa
Dear Friends,
May the spirit of International Day in Solidarity with the Haitian People continue to spread!If the more than 10,000 people killed in the 18 months that followed the February 29, 2004 coup d’état could speak, what would they say? Would they join voices with the young women raped and sexually assaulted since the coup? Would they remind us that these women are estimated to constitute half the population of Haiti’s shanty towns? Would they unite with the voices of the 3,200 people imprisoned in a National Penitentiary built to hold 1,200 prisoners? And what of the countless others who were inhumanely abused and now clearly betrayed? What would their message be?
They would rise in chorus with Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine to say Mési, thank you, for the solidarity demonstrated four years later.
Because they cannot, I will: Thank you.
Thank you to each and every participant in the 56 actions organized in 47 cities across four continents as part of the 3rd International Day of Solidarity. Your solidarity strengthens the people’s determination to continue to affirm human dignity and struggle for true democracy, justice and peace. United to all our Haitian sisters and brothers who, on that same day, condemned the kidnapping of February 29, 2004 and called for our return to Haiti, let us continue to drink from this historical stream of solidarity with grateful thanks to our mother Haiti. “Gratitude is the least of the virtues but ingratitude is the worst of the vices.”Ab imo pectore, from the bottom of my heart,
Dr. Jean-Bertrand Aristide Pretoria, March 11, 2008— Peter Mott
Haiti Strategy
I would like to know just how much US subversion of Haiti is going on now; who to ask; and what we should do about it.
We know (I believe) this much:
—That the US Marines took the elected Pres. Aristide from the Presidential Palace at 3 am, warned him of a bloodbath of his people by the opposition if he didn’t leave with them, flew him to a destination kept secret from him (the Central African Republic) and apparently have stopped him from returning from South Africa to Haiti.
—That the US, Canada and France have pressured the UN to have their Peacekeeper forces attack and kill Aristide supporters in Cite Soleil several times since.
—That the US blocked international loans to Aristide’s government in the years before this, weakening him (and increasing the suffering of his people).
—Thant the National Endowment for Democracy (outside the US govt. and without Congressional oversight, but paid entirely with taxpayer money)supported planners of the coup.
Questions:
—Is new Pres. Rene Preval subject to similar pressures now? And prevented from opposing neoliberal economic programs?
—Is the UN policy continuing?
—Is the US motivation neoliberal empire, with “fear of the good example”?
—Should we join others in a campaign (eg, restart an ad hoc Working Group for Haiti through the LASC (Latin America Solidarity Coalition)?
—What groups in Haiti need our help; which should be consulted about these questions?
—What should be our aims, goals?
—Which groups in the US should be included (or joined) in this?
Thanks, Peter Mott
— Peter Mott
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