We urge you to join us in showing your support for the Haitian people. We must act now to show concrete expressions of solidarity. We will be sending urgently needed medicines to Haiti. The long-term need in Haiti is for the social and economic transformation of the island and for the Haitian people to be able to reclaim political and economic sovereignty over their country. People in the United States are making it crystal clear that the Haitian people do not stand alone. Two hundred years ago the Haitian people created what is now the second oldest republic in the Americas and the first free Black republic in the western hemisphere following the only successful slave insurrection in history.
The humanitarian catastrophe facing the Haitian people from Hurricane Jeanne can only be understood in the political and social reality caused by IMF neo-liberal policies and the anti-people policies flowing from the U.S. coup that overthrew the democratically-elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Cuba, by contrast, because it has sovereign control over its economy and resources, has been directly hit by hurricanes in recent years but has prevented any major loss of life.
The Emergency Campaign to Support the Haitian People will include support for both political/educational mobilizations and for the shipment of urgently needed medicines to Haiti. It will also publicize the struggle of those in Haiti who are the victims of repression. The Emergency Campaign to Support the Haitian People (ECSHP) will act in solidarity with those in Haiti who are heroically building opposition to the foreign occupation and its proxy government. The Haitian people are refusing to return to colonial servitude and we must support their right to be the masters of their own destiny.
We urge everyone to support the Emergency Campaign by helping to organize the upcoming Sunday, December 5 indoor rally in Solidarity with Haiti that will take place at New York Technical College located in Brooklyn, New York at 5:00 p.m. This program will feature Mario Dupuy, former Communications Secretary of State for President Aristide’s government; Ben Dupuy, Secretary General of the National Popular Party (PPN); former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, and other well-known leaders and personalities. This will be an exciting, inspirational and educational event and we hope you tell your friends and family to save the date.
Help Send Medicine to Haiti
The death toll from the September 18 floods in Northwest Haiti caused by Hurricane Jeanne is now close to 2000 and climbing. Hundreds of thousands are homeless and destitute, their shops, livestock and crops swept away.
And the worst is yet to come. The receding flood waters, laced with sewage and the bloated corpses of humans and animals, are leaving behind diseases such as cholera, dysentery, malaria and dengue fever. These after-effects will be less noticed but more lethal.
The hearts of people around the world have gone out to the flood’s victims in Haiti. Many individuals and organizations are sending food, clothing and money. But one of the most urgent needs is for medicine.
Press reports have described hospitals and clinics knee deep in mud. Doctors have been performing amputations without anesthesia. Infections from the putrid flood waters are widespread while there are virtually no antibiotics or other medicines to treat the sick.
In Port-au-Prince, a group of progressive Haitians have formed the Committee to Aid the Flood Victims (KOPEVI). Working in conjunction with the International Alliance for Health and Social Development (AISDS), directed by Father Jean Bien-Aimé and Dr. Max Mondestin, KOPEVI will collect and distribute medicines to doctors and clinics in the flood ravaged region.
The Emergency Campaign will be purchasing medicines to send to KOPEVI, including Metronidazole, Mebendazole, Bactrim, and other antibiotics. These medicines will save lives, alleviate suffering and mitigate the effects of water-born disease. All the humanitarian efforts put together are not enough but these medicines will help.
The Emergency Campaign to Support the Haitian People can only move forward with your support and with the generous donations and contributions of those who care about Haiti, those who want to provide immediate relief to those victimized by the storm and its aftermath, and those who want to help build a larger political/education mobilization to expose the role of the Bush Administration, the IMF and imperialism in perpetuating of the suffering of the people in Haiti.
You can make an urgently needed contribution immediately to the Emergency Campaign to Support the Haitian People by clicking here to donate by credit card online through our secure server. Credit card donations are not tax deductible. If you want to make a tax deductible donation to the Emergency Campaign, you can do so by writing a check made out to the Progress Unity Fund/Haiti and send it to Progress Unity Fund, 167 Anderson St., San Francisco, CA 94110.
Background to Haiti’s Unnatural Disaster:
The role of the IMF and the Bush Administration
The roots of this disaster are political, not natural. The Feb. 29 Washington-backed coup against President Aristide removed a popularly elected government. All elected local officials, including mayors and councilpeople who would be on the front lines of relief efforts, have been replaced by the notoriously brutal former Tonton Macoutes and Duvalierists whom the people distrust and fear. The people also recognize that these forces are thieves apt only to plunder the relief resources. While Haiti’s constitutional government might not have averted today’s devastation, it surely would have been better able to respond if only because it enjoyed popular support, participation and enthusiasm.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank are also to blame for accelerating the deforestation which contributed to the flood’s severity. For three decades, they have forced Port-au-Prince governments to follow neoliberal dictates to lower tariff barriers and grow cash crops.
These policies have ruined hundreds of thousands of Haitian farmers who have then migrated to the cities. They cook with charbon, or charcoal, which is half the weight and efficiency of wood. Peasants remaining on the land have turned to cutting down trees for charbon to fuel the growing cities.
These are the root causes of the disaster in Haiti, and in the weeks ahead we intend not just to send medicine but to organize events to make these root causes known and to support the democratic forces in Haiti working to change this status quo.
Haiti’s rain-induced floods were devastating because the country has been already ravaged by a flood of cheap imports, weakened by coups and despair, and neglected by a greedy bourgeoisie intent only on its own enrichment, not its compatriots’ welfare.
Democracy is a prerequisite for the development that can result in better infrastructure, housing, irrigation, reforestation, and governmental disaster preparation and relief. By overthrowing the popularly elected government, Washington, Paris and the Haitian ruling class made this year’s disasters worse.
The Emergency Campaign to Support the Haitian People will include support for both political/educational mobilizations and for the shipment of urgently needed medicines to Haiti.
Join in this effort in solidarity with the people of Haiti today. Mark your calendars for the December 5th rally in Solidarity in Haiti, and please help with urgently needed support by clicking here to make a donation today.
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
http://www.ANSWERcoalition
National Office in Washington DC: 202-544-3389
New York City: 212-533-0417
Los Angeles: 323-464-1636
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
For media inquiries, call 202-544-3389.