Famed civil rights lawyer Mario Joseph will be making a special appearance at Tent City University for an important talk on conditions in his native Haiti as part of a rare trip to the UK.
This week marks the two year anniversary of the earthquake that devastated Haiti, and captured the worlds imagination. Two years on and people in Haiti are still living in massive tent cities, with hundreds sharing just a few portable toilets. Cholera and other endemic problems are now rife.
Billions in aid money was raised in the weeks following the devastation. Occupy LSX, in solidarity with the Haitian people has been asking: “Where did the money go?”
Mr Joseph, an expert on Haiti’s politics and history and can answer all of your questions. As Haiti’s most prominent human rights lawyer, he is regularly consulted by members of the U.S Congress, human rights organisations, journalists and grassroots activists throughout the world. He has led the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) in Port-au-Prince since 1996 representing political prisoners and victims of political violence.
Solidarity Above Charity
If the media choose to ignore the continued suffering of the Haitian tent cities, we at Occupy LSX will not! It is the only answer to two years of pointless misery and suffering to build links between tent cities in Haiti and tent cities of global occupy. The only way to bring a spotlight back on the crisis and criminality inflicted on Haiti.
The tent cities of Haiti are said to now feel like tent cities of disempowerment. As people in occupations all around the world begin to move between different tent cities globally we must add Tent City Haiti to our travels; to live and build amongst Haitians within tent cities in solidarity with the Haitian people – not profiteer, as with the 17,000 (and rising, according to one UN study) registered, but unregulated “charities” who hoovered up the cash and ply their trade in Port-au-Prince’s well stocked hotels and restaurants. To live with Haitians, to build links and build hope.
By Timmons Anthony
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2101763,00.html
Hello I was at Occupy St Paul on Sunday, but unfortunately I will not be with you for this talk.
I just put a link to an article which has been published on many sites showing that only 1% of the money given went to the Haitian government. Now, there are calls from various dogooders asking the Haitian government to take its responsibilities and to take part in the reconstruction, when it has been systematically bypassed and weakened by most of the actors involved.
If you read Haitian newpapers, blogs etc. you will see that Haitian people want all the foreign agencies to leave the country, and that they want to be given the chance to rebuild Haiti without interference. There were more than 1000 NGOs in Haiti before the earthquake and Haiti was still the poorest country in the world. Haiti does not need this kind of development.
http://www.nationofchange.org/blogs/bill-quigley/haiti-seven-places-where-earthquake-money-did-and-did-not-go-1326132524