Press Release . . . Press Release. . . Press Release. . .
Tel: 0207 482 2496
HAITI EARTHQUAKE – EMERGENCY VIGIL
In support of the people of Haiti
Wednesday 20 January 5-7pm
St Martin in the Fields Church steps
Trafalgar Sq, London WC2N
Survivors are dying as US military blocks relief from getting through to them.
Urgent Haiti Earthquake Appeal
Banks and shops protected while most people get no help.
Donate to grassroots women.
Support return of elected President Aristide.
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Hundreds of thousands are feared dead after the earthquake. Thousands of homes have been crushed along with hospitals, the National Palace and the UN’s HQ. At least three million people, a third of the population, have been affected.
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People everywhere are outraged the US military has taken over Haiti's airport and are obstructing rescue efforts. Caribbean and Latin American governments and Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres have complained that the US has prevented humanitarian aid coming in. French officials accused the US of occupying rather than helping Haiti. In a repeat of what happened during Katrina, banks, shops and institutions are being protected while starving people who help themselves to whatever they can find are called a ‘security risk’ and shot at.
Donate and protest! Stop potential genocide
People are dying because water, food and medical supplies are not reaching them, especially those in the poorest neighbourhoods. We ask people to donate money to go to grassroots women and their families, and therefore communities, rather than to thieving elites and their corrupt NGOs:
Haiti Emergency Relief Fund: established long before this latest disaster and is dedicated to helping grassroots people. Please send us an email at
womenstrike8m@server101.com telling us what you have donated and when so we can inform the Fund administrators that you wish to prioritise grassroots women. Experience in every country is the same: resources in women’s hands go straight to help children and other vulnerable people. We are urging people to make financial contributions to grassroots women, the main carers on whose work community survival depends. Big or small, donations are needed now more than ever. They will go directly to those in immediate need – no NGO takes an “administrative cut”.
Call the US embassy to protest on 020 7499 9000. Call the Foreign Office on 020 7008 1500. Call your MP on 020 7219 3000.
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Since 12 January survivors have been desperately calling for emergency relief. They are increasingly angry that despite promises the aid is not getting to them. People looking for loved ones are struggling with their bare hands to free trapped survivors.
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The earthquake’s devastating effects could have been avoided. In 2008 experts warned of this kind of catastrophe. The US and the UN have occupied Haiti for years, but their priority is military occupation, not survival – unlike Cuba, which has weathered similar natural disasters with hardly any loss of life.
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After other disasters, governments pledge help which they may never send; and what the public sends is often siphoned off before reaching those it was intended to help. We must do all we can to prevent this happening again in Haiti.
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People are calling for the return of their democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, removed by Bush. US troops marching into Haiti seem more concerned with stopping the movement for Aristide’s return than with any rescue. From his forced exile in South Africa, President Aristide, cried as he said that he and his wife were prepared to leave immediately. "We feel deeply and profoundly that we should be there, in Haiti, with them, trying our best to prevent death.” He added in Creole, “If one suffers we all suffer. Togetherness is strength. Courage. Hold on, hold on."
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Will the only person with a mandate to govern be kept from leading Haiti's recovery and reconstruction? Haitians feel he is the only guarantee that funds will be used to save lives and rebuild homes, hospitals, schools.
Facts about Haiti:
o In 2004 a US military coup removed Haiti’s democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The US was backed by Canada and France. UN forces have occupied Haiti ever since.
o In 2008 four consecutive hurricanes devastated Haiti, killing over 1,000 people. Many more later died because two-thirds of the people were left starving and homeless.
o UN troops did not help hurricane victims. Despite their technology and a $535m yearly budget, saving lives from starvation, drowning and homelessness was not part of their mandate. Well-funded NGOs did little.
o The Free Market has devastated Haiti. 98% is deforested. Even fruit trees were cut down. Soil is then washed away in floods and mudslides. US-subsidized rice destroyed local farms which had sustained Haitians for centuries. When the price of staples went up in 2008, people starved. Women made ‘mud cakes’ to stave off hunger.
o 78% of Haitians live on less than $2 a day. US and Canadian corporations and Haiti’s elite profit from sweatshops, as people are forced to work for slave wages. Before the earthquake Bill Clinton, UN special envoy to Haiti, was promoting yet more sweatshops as the route to ‘development’.
The extent of this catastrophe is being blamed on Haitians having a ‘failed state’. But who failed? Not the people of Haiti who have shown extraordinary courage and resilience.
For over two centuries Haitians have survived much more than natural disasters. They have been demonised and victimised for their 1804 revolution in which they freed themselves from the imperial powers. Their enormous contribution to humanity as the first to abolish slavery is kept largely hidden. With gunships in the harbour, France imposed a crippling ‘debt’ to ‘compensate’ its slave owners; while the US invaded and occupied, imposing economic blockades and dictatorships.
But people have never given up. In 1991 and again in 2000 they elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a liberation theology priest, with a 60% and 91.8% mandate; they have been campaigning for his return from forced exile in South Africa, and an end to the occupation. Aristide prioritised food security, health, education, and raised the minimum wage. He encouraged reforestation and agricultural co-operatives.
Even before the present crisis, Haitians made it clear that they want Aristide back. In 2009, they boycotted elections which banned Aristide’s party Fanmi Lavalas from standing – 97% of people did not vote!
The Global Women’s Strike holds regular Vigils and other actions for Haiti in London, Guyana, Los Angeles and San Francisco. With the Haitian grassroots, we are demanding the return of disappeared human rights activist Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine who worked tirelessly with women and children who have least, and of President Aristide.
Once again the revolutionary people of Haiti are being given a death sentence for their ongoing refusal to submitto foreign intervention. Help stop this genocide. Your support is needed now.
For more info please visit:
www.globalwomenstrike.net or call: 020 7482 2496
