Clinton-Bush for Haiti

Could there be a more obscene insult to the people of Haiti than Obama's appointment of Clinton and Bush to head the US relief effort?

Writer-activist Raj Patel nails it:

It’s like sending in the horsemen of the apocalypse to negotiate peace.

Forget the fact that Bush is guilty of horrendous war crimes in Iraq, which the Obama administration has decided not to prosecute. Let's just look at his record in Haiti. Bush supported the brutal, corrupt Duvalier dictatorships. Then, when Haitians finally ended the reign of terror, held democratic elections, and voted in the leader of their choice, Jean-Baptiste Aristide, Bush kidnapped him and replaced his government with a US puppet regime.

Clinton forced Haiti to lower tariffs on rice imports from the US, destroying the livelihoods of millions of Haitian farmers. Twenty years ago, Haiti grew all the rice its people consumed, within the country. Now, Haitians are dependent on imported food, and the majority of them starve. Clinton's solution? Disney sweatshops, paying 38 cents/hour - not enough to cover even daily transport and lunch.

Bush and Clinton do not see Haitians as human beings, entitled to the basic rights of survival, dignity, self-determination, freedom from hunger and terror. Putting them in charge of disaster relief is beyond ridiculous - it's shameful and despicable.

Support Haitians, not aid industry

This just in from Sokari Ekine, creator of the award-winning blog, BlackLooks

It shows how ordinary Haitians, far from being the "pitiful helpless victims" depicted by global corporate media, are mobilizing in amazing ways, with virtually no resources, while governments and international aid organizations remain paralyzed by bureaucracy. It underscores the importance of getting any assistance directly to Haitians, and organizations already partnering with Haitians on the ground.

In August 2007, I visited Haiti to meet with Lavalas women. The trip was organized by Haiti Action, and I was able to meet many other activists on the ground as well. One of the women I met and stayed with was Rea. She is now using her home as a hospital and they are using whatever they can to tend to peoples' needs. Thousands of other Haitians are doing the same. Meanwhile, the aid agencies sit at the airport. Port-Au-Prince is quite a small but densely populated place. To say the aid agencies don't know how to go in, or have to wait - for what I am not sure - is stretching things a bit far.

Here is a list of organizations in Haiti to support, as recommended by Food First. All have strong records of effectiveness in Haiti, are Haitian-led, or partner with Haitians as equals, and work for justice and genuine democracy for Haiti.

1) Partners in Health -- Founded by Dr. Paul Farmer, this nonprofit health delivery program has served Haiti’s poor since 1987.

2) Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) -- Doctors Without Borders was working in Haiti prior to the quake with a staff of 800. Here is a report on January 13, 2009 with a link to their donation page.

3) Haiti Action-- Haiti’s grassroots movement – including labor unions, women’s groups, educators, human rights activists, support committees for prisoners and agricultural cooperatives – will attempt to funnel needed aid to those most hit by the earthquake. Grassroots organizers are doing what they can with the most limited of funds to make a difference.

4) Grassroots International -- has a long history of working with organizations on the ground in Haiti. Grassroots has committed to the extent possible to, “provide cash to our partners to make local purchases of the items they most need and to obtain food from farmers not hit by the disaster.”

Haiti: Ten Point Action Plan

1) Grants, not loans.
2) Keep corporations and corporatist policies OUT. Stop disaster capitalism in its tracks.
3) Cancel ALL Haiti's debt to the Inter-American Development Bank.
4) Let Aristide return to Haiti.
5) Lift the ban on Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas political party.
6) Rip up the neoliberal pre-earthquake Clinton-Obama program for Haiti: tourism, sweatshops, privatization, deregulation.
7) Do not allow US military or UN "peacekeepers" to point guns at desperate Haitians.
8) Allow all Haitians in the US to work, and remit money home.
9) Release all 30,000 Haitians held in US jails for deportation, and grant them Temporary Protected Status.
10) Demand that France start repaying the $21 billion it extorted from Haiti in 1825, to "compensate" France for loss of Haiti as a slave colony.

Indivisible

It's been over five years since I was first approached to contribute to this anthology. Five years of unexpected twists and turns for the editors - through two publishing houses, family bereavements, and more. But they never gave up. Here it is.

Indivisible: An Anthology of South Asian American Poetry

Forty-nine poets. 141 poems. Ghazals and sestinas to free verse, experimental writing, and slam poetry. And among those 141 poems, nestled in oh-so-crisp pages, gleaming like pomegranate seeds - some of mine.

Rarely does one have the pleasure of seeing so many poets violate the truth that no one can be in two places at the same time. Indivisible provides hundreds of local poetic delights and deserves a place among the best anthologies of poetry.
—Billy Collins, US Poet Laureate 2001 - 2003