Living Under Green Plastic Voices of Haiti's Homeless By BILL QUIGLEY

CounterPunch The United Nations reported there are 1.2 million people living in “spontaneous settlements” or homeless camps around Port au Prince. Three people living in the camps spoke with this author this week, before the hard rains hit. Source: multimedia.heraldinteractive.co Jean Dora, 71 My name is Jean Dora. I was born in 1939. I live in a plaza in front of St. Pierre’s church in Petionville [outside of Port au Prince]. I am here with twelve members of my family. We all lost our home. We have a sheet of green plastic to shade us from the sun. We put up some bed sheets around our space. I have many small grandchildren living here with me. My son and daughters live with here too. My daughter will soon have a child. She will go to the Red Cross tent when it is time for the baby to come. I worked for the Chinese Embassy for 36 years. I cleaned their offices. I retired in 2007. Until the earthquake I lived in an apartment with my family. The building was destroyed. At night we put a piece of carpet down on the ground. Then we lay covers down and try to sleep. When it rains, the water comes in. We bring bottles to fill up with water. But we have very little food. There is no toilet in the park. We must go behind the church. My son used to work to support us. He is a good chef. He worked at a restaurant by the Hotel Montana. The restaurant was destroyed. He lost his job. There is no work. During all my days, I have never seen anything like this. I am not in a good position to say what will happen next. I think things are not going to change. I hope things will get better. But I don’t think so. My son has no job and he cannot help our family. If my son is working, we can all stand up. If he is not working, we are down. The future is not clear. It looks dark for us. Nadege Dora, 28 My name is Nadege Dora. I am 28. I have three boys and one girl. I am supposed to deliver my baby this month. I now live in the plaza in Petionville with the rest of my family. Our house was destroyed. I used to sell bread on the street to make a little money. The father of the children does not help us. It is as if we are not alive to him. We are just trying to survive. No one in our family is working. There is no work. If you get a ticket you can go get a bag of rice. But I am a pregnant woman. I cannot fight the crowds for a ticket. I tried. But people were squashing me and I was afraid I would get knocked down and crushed. My niece helped a woman bring rice back from Delmas [another neighborhood outside of Port au Prince]. She shared her rice with us. Right now we still have some rice. But we have no oil. No meat, no milk, nothing but rice. We have no money to buy other ingredients. Since the earthquake I have never eaten a full meal. When my baby comes, I will go to the Red Cross tent to have the baby. I went there to see a Doctor. They gave me some pills. Those pills made me sick. The mayor came here and asked people if we had relatives in the countryside. They would help us go there. But we do not want to go to the countryside. We don’t know anybody in the countryside. We need to have a better life than this. Garry Philippe, 47 My name is Garry Philippe. I am 47. I live by the airport entrance. I built my own tent. I tied a sheet to a tree and I put up poles to hold up other sheets. I live here with my five children. My wife was killed in our house in the incident. We lived in Village Solidarity. I owned our house. I built our house over 4 years, step by step, as I got the money. I was outside when it happened. My girls were by the front door and ran out. My wife ran back to help the boys and she died. We had no funeral for my wife because we have no money for a funeral. I buried her myself in a cemetery by Cite Soleil. The children cannot imagine that their mother is gone just like that. They are always thinking about their mother. We do not have beds. When it is time to sleep we put bags on the ground. Then we put our covers on the bags and sleep. We wash ourselves by putting water in a bottle. Then we stand in a pot and pour the water on our selves. When it rained we went to a place where they had a plastic tent. We stayed there till the rain stopped. More than 20 people were inside that tent. Before, I was a mechanic in a garage. Where I worked was destroyed. There is no work since the quake. We heard other camps got bags of rice. In our camp, nothing. I ask friends for food. Sometimes someone will give us something to eat. We have no toilet in this camp. When we have to make a toilet, we do it in a bag. Then we bring the bag to the edge of the camp. It is about a one minute walk away. We see the trucks going in and out of the airport. Many trucks. But the trucks never stop for us. It is not safe here. But what can I do? I accept it, it is God’s work. We pray in the camp together. No one has come to talk to us to tell us what is going on. We know nothing about tents or tarps. There is no school for the children. I cannot tell you exactly what is going to happen next. I am not the Lord. I think it is going to get worse for us in the camps. We need tents and food. We need water and school and jobs. We need help to find a place to stay. The rain is coming soon. Water is going to come and our babies will lose their lives. Bill Quigley is legal director at the Center for Constitutional rights and a long time human rights advocate. This article was written with the assistance of Vladimir Laguerre in Port au Prince. You can contact Bill at: quigley77@gmail.com. http://www.counterpunch.org

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Africa: African Leaders Support Agribusiness Development Plan at UN-Backed Conference

High-level representatives from 44 African countries wrapped up a United Nations-backed conference in Nigeria today with the approval of an ambitious plan to generate employment, income and food security across the continent through agribusiness.

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UN expert: North Korea a 'state of fear'

Geneva - The North Korean government runs a state of fear while people are denied sufficient quantities of food, the United Nations human rights expert on the reclusive country said Monday. Addressing the UN's Human Rights Council, Vitit Muntarbhor...

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We Follow 'Hope For Haiti Now' Donations With World Food Programme

MTV News crew met with WFP's Louis Hamann to see how food donations are being distributed in Haiti. By Gil Kaufman Sway and members of the World Food Programme visit a haitian home Photo: MTV News Haiti faces untold challenges as the Caribbean island nation tries to dig out and recover from the devastating 7.0 earthquake that leveled thousands of buildings and killed more than 200,000 in January. In addition to medical attention and shelter in advance of the rainy season, one of the most crucial needs continues to be food aid to the millions of Haitians left homeless in the wake of the disaster. MTV News returned to the island in late February to follow the trail of some of the more than $65 million raised during January's "Hope for Haiti Now" telethon. We dropped in on staffers from the 50-year-old United Nations World Food Programme, which delivers life-saving food to victims of war, civil conflict and natural disasters across the globe. Even before the quake, conditions were desperate in Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, with poverty and hunger already rampant. But the destruction of so many homes, businesses and government buildings made conditions even more dire for the chronically hungry and impoverished. MTV's Sway traveled to Haiti to document the work of the WFP, applying stickers to a few 110-pound bags of urgently needed rice to follow their path to hungry Haitians. Surrounded by bags of food in the port of the nation's devastated capital, Port-au-Prince, WFP's Louis Hamann said the organization has brought in about 25,000 metric tons of food (around 55 million pounds) to date. "It just gives you an idea of how massive this operation is for us here in Haiti," he said, noting that the $58 million grant from "Hope for Haiti Now" has helped the organization buy, ship and distribute the food aid to those most in need, possibly for the next year. Rice is an obvious first-choice staple to distribute because it is easy to store, cook and share and a little goes a long way. "The reason that it's only rice right now is to make sure that we reach everybody quickly and efficiently [and] calm down the food situation in Port-au-Prince," said Hamann, who added that the plan is to move to a "more traditional basket" of food items featuring staples of the Haitian diet in the next weeks and months. Sway also visited a massive staging area where trucks were loaded up with bags of rice that were delivered early in the morning to the sea of refugees set up in a temporary tent city inside the Sylvio Cator Soccer Stadium near the island's capital. As the thousands inside the stadium lined up for food aid early in the morning, they were quickly joined by thousands more looking for rice, an example of the more than 3,000 families that line up every day in just one location to haul away the heavy bags. MTV's crew then followed one of those families as they carried a bag back to their crumpled home, a pile of rubble and twisted metal, where the rice would be cooked over a makeshift carbon stove by widowed mother Myrthile Joseph. "Thank you to everyone that donated for Haiti from all over the world," said a grateful Joseph. "Thank you for the distribution that is going to the people in need." Learn more about what you can do to help with earthquake-relief efforts in Haiti, and for more information, see Think MTV. Visit HopeForHaitiNow.org or call (877) 99-HAITI to make a donation now. Related Videos Making Progress In Haiti

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Media Statement Regarding Expected United Nations Somalia Sanctions Committee Report

NAIROBI, Kenya, March 12, 2010 - The New York Times carried a front-page story on March 9 saying that a report is forthcoming from the UN Somalia Sanctions Committee alleging large-scale diversion of the UN World Food Program (WFP) humanitarian aid effort. An advance copy of the report was leaked to the Times by unknown parties perhaps seeking [...]

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Venezuela’s revolution achieves social gains

A revolution makes a difference. For the corporate media, however, what happens to people's lives and dignity goes by the boards, focused as they often are on stories aimed at casting Venezuela as a pariah state. Under discussion here is the business of a socialist revolution. The National Institute of Statistics released data recently showing that poverty rates fell from 70 percent in 1996 to 23 percent last year, with extreme poverty dropping from forty to six percent. Venezuela's Human Development Index, a United Nations tool for composite surveys, advanced from 0. 802 in 2000, one year after President Hugo Chavez took office, to 0.844 in 2007. In one recent year Venezuela moved from 62nd in the world to 58th, from the "medium" range of rankings to "high." Venezuela's Gini coefficient changed over the decade from 0.49 to 0.39. Perfect inequality corresponds to a Gini coefficient of one, while zero represents complete equality. These conclusions were contested in Venezuela, especially by right wing academicians, although the World Bank and the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Commission backed them. Government spending, indicative of priorities, set the stage for these improvements. The Bolivarian News Agency reported recently that social spending over 11 years on health care, education, food, and more came to $330.6 billion. Total government income during the period was $500 billion. In 1998, social spending represented eight percent of the gross domestic product and is 20 percent now. Investment in education, 3.38 percent then, became seven percent by 2008. Health care outlay rose from 2.8 percent in 1997, to 6.0 percent in 2007, to 10 percent projected this year. Social missions operating outside ministerial bureaucracies serve as vehicles for programs. The list includes: Missions Robinson, Ribas, and Sucre aimed at literacy and primary education, secondary education, and university study respectively; Mission Miracle, for surgical sight restoration; Mission Smile, dental care; Mission Ché Guevara, job training; Mission MERCAL, food security; Mission Habitat, housing; Mission Zamora, land reform; and Mission Trees; among others. Food supplementation is one success story. Eleven years ago, 252,000 children received school meals. Now, over four million receive two meals a day in schools. A million people eat at special locations set aside for meals. Another is literacy, with the rate rising from 86 percent in 2001 to 96 percent presently. Improvements in health care have been remarkable. Beginning in 2003, primary and preventative health care expanded by means of the social mission known as Barrio Adentro ("Inside the Neighborhood") I. Barrio Adentro II includes specialized medical and diagnostic services, 600 rehabilitation facilities, and 35 "high technology medical centers." A strengthened network of public hospitals evolved out of Barrio Adentro III, while Barrio Adentro IV calls for the building of specialty hospitals. A new pediatric heart center is already operating. The presence of 15,000 Cuban doctors working throughout Venezuela fueled these initiatives, particularly Barrio Adentro I and Operation Miracle. The Cuban doctors with Venezuelan colleagues have undertaken to educate new doctors. Some 20,000 medical students studying throughout the country are close to graduating. The government last month increased funding for Barrio Adentro III by $93 million, for fighting infectious diseases by $21 million, and for hospital improvements generally, $186 million. A campaign to immunize 95 percent of the population against 14 diseases began recently. Members of six million families will be immunized in their homes. Infant Mortality fell from 21.4 infants dying in 1998 out of 1000 births, to 13.7 percent in 2007. Life expectancy at birth last year was 73.9, up from 72.8 in 1998. High quality primary care is accessible now to 95 percent of the population, at no cost. Only 20 percent of poor people could obtain medical care earlier, reportedly of poor quality. Ambulatory care centers have doubled in number to over 11,000. From 20 doctors per 100,000 people in 1998, the number now exceeds 60. However, too many mothers are dying during and after childbirth, with rates oscillating since 1998 between 51 deaths per 100,000 women and 65 deaths. Late last year President Chavez announced the creation of the Baby Jesus Mission (Mision Niño Jesus) aimed at promoting maternity and pre-natal health care for the sake of safe birthing. Photo:Daniel Zanini H./http://www.flickr.com/photos/zanini/ / CC BY 2.0

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FAO claims progress in avian flu preparedness

CIDRAP >> FAO claims progress in avian flu preparedness. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said this week that "substantial progress has been made in the preparedness and response mechanisms" for battling H5N1 avian influenza around the world....

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Olympic Tent Village: Rally for Homeless

VANCOUVER POET LAUREATE JOINS OLYMPIC TENT VILLAGE RALLY FOR HOUSING AND OLYMPIC TENT VILLAGE BRINGS ATTENTION TO DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE HOMELESSNESS AND EMPTY HOUSING PROMISES Monday Feb 15th at Noon at Pigeon Park (Carrall and Hastings) Monday Feb 15th - The upcoming 2010 Winter Olympics has escalated the homelessness crisis in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and the Greater Vancouver area. Since the Olympic bid, homelessness has nearly tripled in the Greater Vancouver Regional District, while real estate and condominium development in the Downtown Eastside is outpacing social housing by a rate of 3:1. Meanwhile, a heightened police presence has further criminalized those living in extreme material poverty in the poorest postal code in Canada. With the eyes of the world on Vancouver, residents of the Downtown Eastside Women Centre Power of Women Group and supporters are organizing a rally for housing on Monday Feb 15 at noon at Pigeon Park (Carrall and Hastings). An Olympic Tent Village will also be going up to affirm the call for justice and dignity. Instead of empty lots and empty promises, the Rally for Housing and the Olympic Tent Village calls for: 1. Real action to end homelessness now 2. End condo development and displacement in the Downtown Eastside 3. End discriminatory ticketing, police harassment, and all forms of criminalization of poverty. On the inaugural evening of the Olympic Tent Village, Vancouver's 2009-2011 Poet Laureate Brad Cran, who has previously declined participation in the Cultural Olympiad, will be reading poetry as part of "Reading Resistance". He will be joined by poets from the Downtown Eastside and across Vancouver, including Mercedes Eng, Cynthia Oka, and Dorothy Trujillo Lusk. The Rally for Homes has been endorsed by: Endorsed by: Carnegie Community Action Project, DTES Elders Council, Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, Impact on Communities Coalition, Streams of Justice, Vancouver Action, Walk 4 Justice, Community Advocates for Little Mountain, Anti Poverty Committee, DTES Community Arts Network, Indigenous Action Movement, Association of Chinese Canadians for Equality and Solidarity Society, Solidarity Notes Labour Choir, No One Is Illegal – Vancouver, Food Not Bombs, Vancouver Status of Women, Downtown Eastside Residents Association, Indigenous Environmental Network, Organizing Centre for Social and Economic Justice, Bus Riders Union, Alliance for People’s Health, Women Elders in Action, Canadian Union of Postal Workers – National Representative, UBC Students for a Democratic Society, East Van Abolitionists, http://www.facebook.com/l/a7e64;Gatewaysucks.org, Justice for Girls, W2 Community Media Arts Society, Submedia, Vancouver Catholic Worker, Pivot Legal Society, UBC Centre for Race, Autobiography, Gender, Siraat Collective, The Rational Coop-Radio, Bulland Awaaz- Coop-Radio, Pink Resistance, CIPO –Vancouver (Popular Council of Indigenous Nations of Oaxaca in Vancouver), Rhizome Cafe, Native Youth Movement, Network of Sri Lankan Law Students, Oxfam Canada, Whistler Watch, http://www.facebook.com/l/a7e64;no2010.com, Warrior Publications, Workless Party, Teaching Support Staff Union, 2010 Welcoming Committee, Latin America Connexions Collective, Servants Vancouver, Building Bridges Human Rights-Vancouver, Check Your Head, SFU Interfaith Institute for Justice, Peace and Social Movements, http://www.facebook.com/l/a7e64;Stopwar.ca, Headlines Theatre, Student Christian Movement-UBC, Community Olympics Watch, Rain Zine, Industrial Workers of the World, The Press Release Collective, Simon Fraser University Public Interest Research Group, 2010 Homelessness Hunger Strike Relay, Friends of Women in the Middle East Society, Iran Solidarity-Vancouver, Federation of Iranian Refugees, Wake Up With Co-Op! at CFRO, UBC Colour Connected Against Racism, BC Persons with AIDS Society, Progressive Forum of Nepalis in America, Grassroots Women, Grandview Woodland Food Connection, Ethical Environmental Consulting, Purple Thistle, Bridgeview Community Action Group, Ahavat Olam Synagogue, The Under One Umbrella Society, Bridgeview Community Action Group, Neworld Theatre, St. James’ Social Justice Group, West End Residents Association, Fraser Valley Peace Council, Homes not Highways, Jacob’s Well, Faithful Public Witness Committee of Van-Burrard Presbytery of the United Church, Longhouse Council of Native Ministry. Censored news reporter Brenda Norrell http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

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