[Haiti-London-Konbit] Fwd: Haiti: "Post Disaster Needs Assessment" - Whose Needs? Whose Assessment?

[Haiti-London-Konbit]

> Message forwarded from The Haiti Support Group
>
> Haiti: "Post Disaster Needs Assessment" - Whose Needs? Whose  
> Assessment?
> By Beverly Bell, 26 February 2010
>
> The Haitian government has been largely silent since the January 12  
> earthquake. Publicly, that is.  Who knows what officials are saying  
> behind closed doors to international governments and other donors?   
> Citizens don’t.  They have heard from President René Préval about  
> his personal losses from the quake – his shirts, his palace -  but  
> about little else, least of all about the substance of governmental  
> plans for reconstruction.
>
> This week – a full six weeks after the world-historic-level  
> catastrophe - the Haitian government launched a post-disaster needs  
> assessment (PDNA). The PDNA establishes working groups to assess  
> damages and look at the macro-plan for reconstruction.
>
> The results may shape the process of reconstruction, though not  
> necessarily.  It is not clear that Haitian government perspectives  
> will hold much weight in the reconstruction relative to the U.S.  
> government, the International Monetary Fund, the Inter-American  
> Development Bank, and other global powers. What is clear is that,  
> except for the wealthy business sector, the perspectives of Haitian  
> civil society will have little to no weight.  For example, the  
> process laid out in the PDNA terms of reference grants one week,  
> March 14-20, for “consultation with civil society and the private  
> sector.” This consultation will occur after the draft plan has  
> already been drawn up and been reviewed by the Haitian government.
>
> Social movements are busy forming coalitions and planning their  
> governmental advocacy. They aim for the inclusion of the needs and  
> voices of those who are usually denied input into public policy  
> formation, and denied benefit of the fruits of those policies:  
> peasant farmers, sweatshop workers, informal sector workers,  
> destitute women, and others. They hope to count on the strong and  
> lasting involvement of progressive international friends as they  
> construct just economic and social alternatives.
>
> Below are comments by Camille Chalmers, coordinator of the Platform  
> to Advocate Alternative Policy (PAPDA, by its Creole acronym) on  
> this and other elements of the reconstruction, the 20,000-troop  
> strong U.S. military force which has just amassed in Haiti, and the  
> role of international solidarity.
>
> “Of course all of this [the PDNA] has been done in silence by  
> technocrats. I invite you to help PAPDA follow the work with a  
> critical eye.
>
> “One scandal is that the Haitian people’s movement and their  
> organizations have been excluded by the international community from  
> decision-making in solutions to this crisis. We have, for instance,  
> the IMF loan which is not a grant that matches the dimensions of  
> this human tragedy, but an extortionist and cynical loan tied to  
> conditionalities in order to facilitate a more favorable environment  
> for transnational investment in Haiti. There is going to be a grab  
> for the reconstruction, like in Iraq, with American transnationals  
> profiting off the reconstruction.
>
> “What the U.S. is doing - the militarization of Haiti with the  
> pathetic excuse of humanitarian aid - is unacceptable. This is part  
> of a strategy to militarize the Caribbean region as a way to  
> confront the people’s awakening in Latin America and also to  
> threaten the Bolivarian Venezuela Republic. This is not an isolated  
> action. There is the military base set up by U.S. imperialism in  
> Curaçao, with the complicity of the Dutch government. There are the  
> military bases in Colombia. And now we have this military response  
> to a fundamentally humanitarian problem.
>
> “We have to denounce the militarization of the aid, not just for  
> Haiti for the whole region. There is a spectacular deployment of  
> arms, with combat boats and combat airplanes, which has no  
> correspondence with a humanitarian crisis. This military presence of  
> the U.S. has brought no relief to the human catastrophe we are  
> living. Quite the contrary; they delayed the humanitarian aid of  
> countries such as Venezuela and Cuba, of European countries, of  
> CARICOM, in order to privilege militarization. We have been outraged  
> to find so many weapons being sent instead of food, medicine, or  
> water.
>
> “What is going on in Haiti is really scandalous. What is being  
> pursued really is the geopolitical control of the Caribbean. It’s  
> outrageous that they shamelessly use the painful situation that the  
> Haitian people are going through at the moment for this purpose.
>
> “Together with geopolitical control, we believe that the  
> militarization of Haiti responds to what Bush called a ‘preventive  
> war’ logic. The U.S. fears a popular uprising, because the living  
> standards in Haiti have for so long been intolerable, and this is  
> even more so the case now; they are inhumane. So the troops are  
> getting ready for when the time comes to suppress the people.
>
> “Our people reject militarization. We don’t want Haiti to turn into  
> a military base; we won’t allow it to happen.
>
> “In the face of this humanitarian farce to justify militarization  
> and of an international community which wants to reconstruct Haiti  
> according to its own interests instead of those of the Haitian  
> people, our people have shown a great capacity. They got organized  
> to face this crisis; they practiced solidarity in a very moving way.  
> Here you can see people sharing all they have, living on the streets  
> and sharing their clothes, their food… whatever they have is shared  
> with those around them.
>
> “It is among this self-organized people where the foundations for a  
> very necessary alternative project can be found. Not more of the  
> same, but something really alternative and popular.
> We need to collectively create a space to go beyond the crisis, to  
> battle together for social change
>
> “We are very touched by the international solidarity since the  
> catastrophe. Haiti is a country that has been isolated since [the  
> revolution of] 1804 and that now is back in the eyes of the  
> international public opinion. We have a chance to establish more  
> real and permanent ties, beyond charity.
>
> “We call on people to found an international solidarity network in  
> the same spirit as the Sandinista international brigades, to help us  
> in reconstruction tasks and also in getting out of our social  
> crisis. We are talking of people-to-people solidarity, not of the  
> solidarity that states use in order to dominate people. We are going  
> to meet with Haitian organizations in the diaspora and with all  
> Haitian solidarity networks to see concretely how these networks can  
> work with us in  international solidarity.
>
> “We ask the U.S. people to work for a change in American policy  
> toward Haiti, so they can truly leave space for Haitians to  
> determine their own path. Come stand with us in what we’re doing.”
>
> (Camille Chalmers’ comments are a merger of a February 24 email to  
> Beverly Bell and others, a February 11 interview by Beverly Bell,  
> and a January 28 teleconference with the Center for Economic and  
> Policy Research.)
>
>
> _______________________________________________________
>
> Sent by the Haiti Support Group - A British solidarity organisation  
> supporting the Haitian people's struggle for participatory  
> democracy, human rights and equitable development - www.haitisupport.gn.apc.org

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