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Ezili Dantò's Message to Paul Farmer, Senate Foreign Rel. Committee, Dobbins and Francois

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Rebuilding efforts should hire companies that are committed to integrating all levels of corporate responsibility - economic, social and environmental - in their entire range of operations.

Rebuilding and redevelopment efforts should prioritize agricultural production, building flood barriers and better drainage systems. Infrastructure, sanitation, sewers, electricity, earthquake and hurricane resistant homes, hospitals, schools, supermarkets, etc. Better transportation such as inter-connecting roads from the outback to the cities, a railroad, effective public transportation, watershed protection, communication networks, projects to combat illiteracy, building a universal education system that respect Kreyòl and indigenous Haitian culture and a universal health care system that services the public, an integrated urban land, public spaces and housing reform in the unique character of Haitian art and culture, et al...


8. Relief, rebuilding and redevelopment should be designed by Haitians and their collaborators, not USAID/State Department or the "international community."


USAID has a history of mistreating the Haitian majority, feeding dependency, starving democracy and should not be the US agency overseeing the US relief effort. And if they are, oversight and accountability are needed. (See, Ezili's US Congress must provide more oversight guidelines for USAID.)

a. Oversight and accountability
Demand more oversight of USAID earmarked funds for Haiti, greater fiscal accountability, transparency and quantifiable evidence of self-sustainable development achievements and, in particular these new Haiti foreign assistance guidelines should ensure, that food and other aid actually reach their intended beneficiaries and not end up for sale in the open market or stay in Washington or used in Haiti mostly on administrative salary, fees and expenses for USAID's political benefactors, shipping companies and nonprofits.

b. Support Haitians to rebuild Haiti
The Obama administration should support an international response to the tragic Haiti earthquake that supports relief, rebuilding and development efforts designed by Haitians and that allows Haitians with their collaborators in Black America and other chosen partners first preference to assist the Haitian government with plans to rebuild Haiti, and given contract preference and employment preference to rebuild Haiti. Moreover, Haitian natives in Haiti ought not to have to compete with anyone living abroad, including Haitians in the Diaspora for relief, rebuilding and redevelopment jobs generated in the rebuilding of Haiti.
c. Promote Haitian self-reliance, self-respect, self-determination, not dependency, injustice and indignities


Stop the stranglehold of USAID, its other international counterparts and the over 10,000 NGOs over Haiti. Their grip must be loosened if a new paradigm is to be installed for the people of Haiti that promotes Haitian self-reliance not Haitian dependency.

Haitians are in need of justice, restitution, reparation, human rights not charity. Fair trade not free trade. Haiti needs to have its indigenous culture and domestic economic development respected. It does not need the failed unholy Western enslavement trinities of political, socio-economic and educational/religious institutions keeping Haiti's Black majority in physical and mental chains. Nor does Haiti require further colonial paternalism, false benevolence and to be burden with dependency through World Bank/IMF/IFI's debts and such other modern tools of domination, economic enslavement and financial colonialism. In particular, respect means humanitarian assistance, rebuilding and redevelopment aid should go directly to the Haitian government and not through USAID and its major corporate subcontractors Catholic Relief Services, World Vision, Care International, International Red Cross, DYNCORPS, and other such Blackwater-like sorts of private contractors because USAID projects undermines Haitian sovereignty, does not promote sustainable development and the funds allocated to USAID for Haiti generally do not reach the people most in need.

USAID was at the frontlines of the irregular warfare creating Coup D'etat, chaos, anarchy and destabilization in Haiti culminating in the 2004 ouster of President Aristide and UN/US occupation.

"The objective of irregular warfare is control over the civilian population and the neutralization of the state, and its principal tactic is counterinsurgency, which is the use of indirect and asymmetric techniques like subversion, infiltration, psychological operations, cultural penetration and military deception." (Cuba: USAID making ever-higher investments in subversion.)
9. Prioritize jobs and skills transfer to Haitian nationals

It should be the aim of the rebuilding to train qualified Haitians and Haitians without jobs living in Haiti as their only abode to take over the work that Haitians from the Diaspora or other consultants may hold in the short term during the formulation, design, maintenance of a rebuilt Haiti. For the initial phases of medical relief, there are more Haitian doctors abroad then in Haiti and said doctors and health care providers and collaborators must be immediately integrated in the conceptualization, coordination and distribution of the medical relief efforts. Haitian doctors leaving in Haiti should simultaneously be trained to take over running the hospitals, clinics and health care systems built during the reconstruction phase. This model should apply, as possible, in all the other fields also.

10. Debt Cancellation
The Obama administration should support an international response that supports debt cancellation for Haiti and supports humanitarian relief, rebuilding and development efforts with grants, not loans. Haiti cannot afford to invest in humanitarian relief, rebuilding and development projects while continuing to make payments on debts owed to multilateral financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Debt service payments to these international financial institutions were an onerous burden to Haiti even prior to the earthquake and severely hindered the Haitian governments' ability to meet its people's need. The Obama administration should support three specific debt cancellation initiatives and urge an international response that also acts to:
a. Immediately cancel all debts owed by Haiti to the multilateral financial institutions (IMF, WB and IDB);

b. Suspends all debt service payments to these institutions until the debts are completely canceled; and,

c. Provides that all additional funds to Haiti for the rescue, relief, rebuilding and redevelopment are to be given in the form of grants, not loan debts.
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Part 2, will cover the compassionate manner to treat the one million estimated orphans; a stop to their forced assimilation and quick adoptions that's dangerous, denies that Haiti has a different family structure to the European nucleus -mom/dad unit and that cultural sovereignty must be respected; it will address propose that the US and international community:

- Encourage maximum leveraging of Diaspora remittances

- End free trade, began fair trade. Support domestic food production, indigenous Haiti manufacturing and job creation. Support grassroots, indigenous Haiti capacity building organizations.

Next Page  1  |  2  |  3  |  4

 

http://www.ezilidanto.com

Human Rights Lawyer, Ezili Dantò is dedicated to correcting the media lies and colonial narratives about Haiti. A writer, performance poet and lawyer, Ezili Dantò is founder of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network, runs the Ezili Dantò website, (more...)
 

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