January 15, 2010
Haiti Earthquake, #5
Please continue to read and widely re-distribute these Haiti Earthquake reports.

BELOW:  “As relief efforts ramp up, mass grave found outside Haitian capital”, by Anderson Cooper and Ivan Watson, CNN.  Go to: http://www.cnn.com/ for photos, documentary video coverage and more articles.
PLEASE MAKE TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS to Rights Action and/or to the groups listed below, for Haiti emergency response and the rebuilding of a just and fair nation. (To donate, see below)
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While the 7.0 earthquake is the immediate cause of Haiti’s’ disaster, the main cause of death and despair are the historic conditions of poverty, exploitation, injustice and vulnerability of a majority of Haiti’s 9,000,000 people.  These historic conditions of poverty, exploitation and vulnerability are caused by internal factors, and more importantly by foreign military, economic and political interventions, mainly by the United States, France and Canada.  While the short-term focus continues to be on search and rescue, search and body recovery, and on providing emergency support (food, water, shelter, medical attention to the injured, and disease prevention), critical attention must turn to openly and honestly debate the underlying historic national and international causes of Haiti’s endemic misery and injustice, so that a different and just Haiti can be built and constructed.

 

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To get on/off our list-serv: http://www.rightsaction.org/lists/?p=subscribe&id=3
For more information: Grahame Russell, co-director, info@rightsaction.org, 860-352-2448
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AS RELIEF EFFORTS RAMP UP, MASS GRAVE FOUND OUTSIDE HAITIAN CAPITAL
By Anderson Cooper and Ivan Watson, CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/15/haiti.earthquake/index.html?hpt=T2
Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) -- As Haitians drew close to the critical 72-hour mark after a devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake, a sign of their desperation -- a mass grave serving as possibly the final resting place of scores of victims -- was discovered Friday outside Port-au-Prince.
[The “critical 72-hour mark” refers to how long most people can survive trapped in collapsed building, with a realistic chance of being rescued. - Rights Action]
At least 100 bodies were discovered by a CNN crew in one open pit outside the capital city, with several other pits half-filled or completely covered over with earth, presumably full. Survivors of the quake brought bodies to the site on plywood, wrapped in cloth, by dump trucks and, in one case, an old refrigerator. The stench of death overwhelmed the city.
Elsewhere, bodies were being shoved into old crypts in the city's existing cemeteries.
Haiti's Minister of Civil Protection said Friday that the government estimates more than 50,000 people were killed, with the number possibly closer to 100,000. There is not yet an official count of the dead from Tuesday's earthquake.
Also on Friday, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced she is designating a temporary protected status for Haitian nationals who were in the United States as of Tuesday.  "This is a disaster of historic proportions and this designation will allow eligible Haitian nationals in the United States to continue living and working in our country for the next 18 months," she said. "Providing a temporary refuge for Haitian nationals who are currently in the United States and whose personal safety would be endangered by returning to Haiti is part of this administration's continuing efforts to support Haiti's recovery.
Despite the death and destruction, hundreds of people, mostly women, took to the streets in an area of Port-au-Prince on Friday, singing and chanting as they marched down the street -- a sign of resilience amid the mountains of rubble.  It is not the first time that such a display has been observed. Singing and clapping has been be heard well into the night in a large square that thousands of people have made home after the earthquake, a CNN crew reported.
Meanwhile, rescuers raced against a crucial 72-hour window of time to free those who still may be alive trapped under the remains of buildings while aid workers continued to trickle into the country, trying to provide water and food to survivors in the country's rubble-strewn capital.
The quake toppled many of Port-au-Prince's buildings, and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon estimated Friday that it left as much as "50 percent of buildings in the worst-hit areas damaged or destroyed."
Many of the capital's 3 million people are without access to food, water, shelter and electricity, he said, and crews are working "to save as many lives as possible."
The relief effort has been challenged by the destruction and the need for more supplies, he said, citing blocked roads and limited capacity at the capital's one-runway airport. The Federal Aviation Administration ordered a ground stop on all U.S. flights into Haiti Friday because of a lack of ramp space. But, he said, aid flights are arriving, and food and medical supplies are beginning to be distributed in Port-au-Prince.
"Although it is inevitably slower and more difficult than any of us would wish, we are mobilizing all resources as fast as we possibly can," Ban said Friday, announcing an appeal for $550 million. Ban listed the needs -- food, water, "tents, and more tents" for shelter, medical supplies, medical personnel and heavy lifting equipment. He said the World Food Programme "is feeding around 8,000 people several times a day" and food distribution centers in the capital are being established that will offer ready-to-eat meals. "Obviously, that is only a drop in the bucket in the face of the massive need," he added, "but the agency will be scaling up to feed approximately 1 million people within 15 days and 2 million people within a month."
Throughout the city, people tried to cope as best they could amid now-common activities brought on by the disaster. In just a brief moment on one street, people carried an injured man on a makeshift stretcher as a severely injured woman lay on the sidewalk outside a first-aid treatment center. A truck bearing a coffin passed by, closely followed by a van carrying another injured person.
The United Nations announced Friday that at least 37 of its personnel had died -- 36 with the U.N. mission and one with the World Food Programme. The number of unaccounted for people stands at 330. There are 12,000 people working for U.N. entities in Haiti.
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TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS FOR RIGHTS ACTION’S "HAITI RELIEF" WORK:
Make check payable to "Rights Action" and mail to:
UNITED STATES:  Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887
CANADA:  552 - 351 Queen St. E, Toronto ON, M5A-1T8
Credit card donations: http://rightsaction.org/contributions.htm
Stock donations: Contact Grahame Russell, info@rightsaction.org
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WHAT RIGHTS ACTION DOES WITH “DISASTER” RELIEF FUNDS
In 1998, RA provided hundreds of thousands of dollars of funds and support to Hurricane Mitch victims in Honduras.  In 2004-2005, RA raised and distributed emergency funds to community groups in Haiti in response to the dual crisis of the military coup against the government of President Aristide and a series of hurricanes and tropical storms that devastated Haiti through 2004 and into 2005.  In 2005-2006, RA provided hundreds of thousands of dollars of funds and support to Hurricane Stan victims in Guatemala.
With disaster relief funds, RA funds and supports existing community and shanty-town based organizations
that provide on-going basic needs (food, water, shelter, medical, emotional) to the disaster victims, and
that have a vision of community development and re-building that critically addresses and transforms the underlying causes of poverty, exploitation and vulnerability.
RA does not have staff in Haiti, and will directly fund community and shanty-town based organizations and/or the organizations listed below.
HAITI-FOCUSED GROUPS WE RECOMMEND - Please contact and/or donate to these groups directly:
PARTNERS IN HEALTH:  http://www.pih.org/home.html.  Mission:  To provide a preferential option for the poor in health care.  Partners In Health (PIH) works to bring modern medical care to poor communities in Haiti and 8 other countries around the world.  The work of PIH has three goals: to care for our patients, to alleviate the root causes of disease in their communities, and to share lessons learned around the world.
INSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE AND DEMOCRACY IN HAITI:  http://www.ijdh.org/  Mission:  To work with the people of Haiti in their non-violent struggle for the return and consolidation of constitutional democracy, justice and human rights, by distributing objective and accurate information on human rights conditions in Haiti, pursuing legal cases, and cooperating with human rights and solidarity groups in Haiti and abroad.
WORKING TOGETHER FOR HAITI:  http://www.konpay.org/  Konbit Pou Ayiti/KONPAY (Working Together for Haiti) strengthens existing organizations, builds national networks, creates relationships between individuals and organizations in the U.S. and Haiti, and supports collaboration and the sharing of technology and expertise. KONPAY focuses on Haitian solutions to environmental, social and economic problems and provides training and funding to grassroots and community-based projects. KONPAY is supporting Haitian-led efforts to reforest Haiti and protect the environment.
HAITI EMERGENCY RELIEF FUND:  http://haitiaction.net/About/HERF/HERF.html  HaitiAction.net is a leading news source for breaking news and analysis on the current situation in Haiti.  Their primary content provider is HIP (Haiti Information Project) which works with journalists on the ground in Haiti.  The Haiti Emergency Relief Fund supports organizations giving humanitarian aid to the people of Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake.
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www.rightsaction.org / info@rightsaction.org:  Rights Action (with tax-deductible status in Canada and USA) funds and works with community development, environmental justice, human rights and disaster relief organizations in Guatemala and Honduras, and also in El Salvador, Haiti, Oaxaca and Chiapas.  Rights Action educates about and is involved in activism related to the underlying local, national and global causes of poverty and exploitation, environmental destruction, human rights violations and disasters.
For more information: Grahame Russell, co-director, info@rightsaction.org, 860-352-2448
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TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS FOR RIGHTS ACTION’S "HAITI RELIEF" WORK:
Make check payable to "Rights Action" and mail to:
UNITED STATES:  Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887
CANADA:  552 - 351 Queen St. E, Toronto ON, M5A-1T8
Credit card donations: http://rightsaction.org/contributions.htm
Stock donations: Contact Grahame Russell, info@rightsaction.org
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