Tracee Ellis Ross Back On B.E.T.
Tracee Ellis Ross Back On B.E.T.
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August 30, 2010
Fly On The Wall
Bobby V. – Fly On The Wall
He’s had No. 1 singles, platinum and gold albums, has toured the world and has appeared on songs with Lil Wayne and Ludacris, among many others. Five years into a remarkable solo career, Bobby V (formerly Bobby Valentino) has experienced the best the music industry has to offer while working with some of the game’s elite. No wonder he’s calling his fourth album Fly on the Wall.
He’s had No. 1 singles, platinum and gold albums, has toured the world and has appeared on songs with Lil Wayne and Ludacris, among many others. Five years into a remarkable solo career, Bobby V (formerly Bobby Valentino) has experienced the best the music industry has to offer while working with some of the game’s elite. No wonder he’s calling his fourth album Fly on the Wall.
“Being in this industry for over ten years, having three successful albums, touring the world, and having an impact on people’s lives through my music has been a dream come true. This album is a testament to my experiences in this industry and through it all I’ve been a Fly on the Wall learning the ins and outs of the music business along the way. I’ve had a lot of ups and downs but can always depend on my fans. Through the ups my fans keep me grounded and through the downs my fans keep me motivated. Everything I do is for them.”
Bobby V fills his new album with stories of his remarkable experiences. With production handled by Tim & Bob (Boyz II Men, Michael Jackson), The Pentagon (formerly The Underdogs [Beyonce, Justin Timberlake]), LOS (Usher, the Dream) and Jazze Pha (T.I., Ciara), Fly On The Wall contains the type of polished production accented by live instrumentation that has become Bobby V’s signature.
Case in point is the ultra-catchy “Phone #.” Featuring Plies and produced by Jazze Pha, the cut was born during a studio session. “Jazze’s phone went off and it was that 2Pac song, ‘What’z Ya Phone #? from the All Eyez On Me album”’ Jazze was doing a beat and that was the first thing that came to my mind…‘What’s your phone number?’ That’s how the first line came about."
Bobby V then took the song to another dimension by adding one of his trademark sound effects to the tune, something that has helped Lil Wayne featuring Bobby V’s “Mrs. Officer” (certified platinum) and Bobby V’s own “Beep” become hits. "As a writer I’ve learned that there are certain elements to making a hit record. The chorus is the most important part of a song so coming up with a catchy hook is crucial, so using my voice to mimic certain sounds like a cop car siren (Mrs. Officer) made it that much catchier.
On another note Bobby’s lane often involves bedroom activities, Bobby V delivers “Humming,” a tune about the thrills sex will provide, while “Alter Ego” describes how Bobby V transforms into another person during lovemaking sessions. Bobby is the ultimate ladies man, but on the flip side is a dedicated family man “I would like for people to get to know the real me. I’ve yet to open up like that. I graduated from college, I go to church on Sundays, and when I’m at home I love to hang out with my family.”
Love remains a focal point of Bobby V’s music because of its therapeutic qualities. “I think love brings happiness to everyone, I’m all about bringing love into peoples lives through my music. The reality is its rough out there in the real world and love helps us get through some of life’s biggest challenges”
Elsewhere, “Last Call for Love,” produced by Big Fruit (“Beep”), focuses on the scene as the club shuts down, while “Nobody” is a part two of sorts to Bobby V’s No. 1 hit single “Slow Down.” Like “Slow Down,” “Nobody” was produced by Tim & Bob and focuses on the allure of a particular woman. “If I can’t have this particular lady, I don’t want anybody else,” Bobby V reveals. “Sometimes when you have that special somebody in your life and you might be going through it, you still want her and you’re not settling for anybody else.”
Not settling into a particular sound, Bobby V stretches his creative wings on the airy, auto-tune assisted “Freaks Come Out” before delivering “Heaven,” a gorgeous slow song that salutes the woman of his dreams. “She’s like your angel and it feels like she fell straight from heaven. She’s everything you look for and everything you desired. It’s like God really sent her to you.”
From virtually any angle, Bobby V’s career seems to be heaven sent. Bobby scored a hit when he was only 15 years old with as one-fourth of the 1990s R&B group Mista, with “Blackberry Molasses,” a tune produced by Organized Noize (OutKast, TLC) that became a Top 20 R&B hit. Even with this success, Mista dissolved. Bobby V then enrolled at Clark Atlanta University, where he graduated with a communications degree and developed a keen business sense.
Reintroduced in 2005 with “Slow Down,” Bobby V quickly reignited his career. His debut solo album, 2005’s Disturbing Tha Peace Presents Bobby Valentino, earned the No. 1 spot on Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. He then sang the chorus on Ludacris’ hit “Pimpin’ All over the World” and toured in 2005 on the blockbuster Scream tour.
In 2007, Bobby V returned with Special Occasion, which featured the Timbaland produced hit “Anonymous,” and Rodney Jerkins produced “Turn the Page” His third album, 2009’s The Rebirth, featured the hit “Beep” and was the first album released on his own Blu Kolla Dreams imprint, in conjunction with Capitol Records which debuted at no. 1 on the Billboard Hip Hop and R&B chart.
As Bobby V’s career continues expanding, he makes a point to give back to those who are less fortunate. Through his Bobby V Foundation, the singer encourages people to value and to pursue higher education.
“I had the opportunity to go to college and graduate. That accomplishment is something I am very proud of and one nobody can take away from me. Through my foundation I want to give kids the same opportunity.”
With a string of hit singles and albums, a burgeoning record label and a charitable foundation inspiring the youth, Bobby V is ready to give his fans another album that thrills them as much as it entertains them. “Through this album I want my fans to feel like my entourage. I want them to walk every step of the way with me until we reach the top”.
Source: thinktankmktg
Kevin Hart – Seriously Funny
Kevin Hart – Seriously Funny
Voted the top comedian of 2009 by Humor Mill Magazine, Kevin Hart stars in his second solo stand-up performance live from Cleveland, Ohio.
Voted the top comedian of 2009 by Humor Mill Magazine, Kevin Hart stars in his second solo stand-up performance live from Cleveland, Ohio. Seriously Funny features Kevin Hart performing in front of a sold-out crowd at the Allen Theater—where he delivers his hilarious and unique brand of comedy. In this unforgettable night of comedy, Kevin Hart is in rare form and funny as ever!
Wyclef Jean candidacy an "effort to put a smiley face on military occupation
Wyclef Jean candidacy an "effort to put a smiley face on military occupation" in Haiti
By Charles Hinton, with editing assistance from Kiilu Nyasha
To cut to the chase, no election in Haiti, and no candidate in those elections, will be considered legitimate by the majority of Haiti’s population, unless it includes the full and fair participation of the Fanmi Lavalas Party of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Fanmi Lavalas is unquestionably the most popular party in the country, yet the “international community,” led by the United States, France, and Canada, has done everything possible to undermine Aristide and Lavalas, overthrowing him twice by military coups in 1991 and 2004, and banishing Aristide, who now lives in South Africa with his family, from the Americas.
A United Nations army, led by Brazil, still occupies Haiti, 5 years after the coup. Their unstated mission, under the name of “peacekeeping,” is to suppress the popular movement and prevent the return to power of Aristide’s Lavalas Party. One must understand a Wyclef Jean candidacy, first of all, in this context.
Every election since a 67% majority first brought Aristide to power in 1990 has demonstrated the enormous popularity of the Lavalas movement. When Lavalas could run, they won overwhelmingly. In 2006, when security conditions did not permit them to run candidates, they voted and demonstrated to make sure Rene Preval, a former Lavalas president, was re-elected.
Preval, however, turned against those who voted for him. He scheduled elections for 12 Senate seats in 2009, and supported the Electoral Council’s rejection of all Lavalas candidates. Lavalas called for a boycott, and as few as 3% of Haitians voted, with fewer than 1% voting in the runoff, once again demonstrating the people’s love and respect for President Aristide.
Fanmi Lavalas has already been banned from the next round of elections, so enter Wyclef Jean. Jean comes from a prominent Haitian family that has virulently opposed Lavalas since the 1990 elections. His uncle is Raymond Joseph (also a rumored presidential candidate,) who became Haitian ambassador to the United States under the coup government and remains so today. Kevin Pina writes in “It’s not All about That!: Wyclef Jean is fronting in Haiti,” Joseph is “the co-publisher of Haiti Observateur, a right-wing rag that has been an apologist for the killers in the Haitian military going back as far as the brutal coup against Aristide in 1991.
“On October 26th [2004] Haitian police entered the pro-Aristide slum of Fort Nationale and summarily executed 13 young men. Wyclef Jean said nothing. On October 28th the Haitian police executed five young men, babies really, in the pro-Aristide slum of Bel Air. Wyclef said nothing. If Wyclef really wants to be part of Haiti’s political dialogue he would acknowledge these facts. Unfortunately, Wyclef is fronting.” As if to prove it, the Miami Herald reported on 2/28/10, “secret polling by foreign powers in search of a new face to lead Haiti’s reconstruction . . .” might favor Jean’s candidacy, as someone with sufficient name recognition who could draw enough votes to overcome another Lavalas electoral boycott.
Wyclef Jean supported the 2004 coup. When gun-running former army and death squad members trained by the CIA were overrunning Haiti’s north on February 25, 2004, MTV’s Gideon Yago wrote, “Wyclef Jean voiced his support for Haitian rebels on Wednesday, calling on embattled Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to step down and telling his fans in Haiti to ‘keep their head up’ as the country braces itself for possible civil war.” During the Obama inaugural celebration, Jean famously and perversely serenaded Colin Powell, the Bush administration Secretary of State during the U.S. destabilization campaign and eventual coup against Aristide, with Bob Marley’s Redemption Song.
Jean also produced the movie “The Ghosts of Cite Soleil,” an anti-Aristide and Lavalas hit piece, which tells us that President Aristide left voluntarily, without mention of his kidnapping by the U.S. military, and presents the main coup leaders in a favorable light. It features interviews with sweatshop owners Andy Apaid and Charles Henry Baker without telling us they hate Aristide, because he raised the minimum wage and sought to give all Haitians a seat at the table by democratizing Haiti’s economy, a program opposed by the rich in Haiti.
It uncritically interviews coup leader Louis Jodel Chamblain, without telling us he worked with the Duvalier dictatorship’s brutal militia, the Tonton Macoutes, in the 1980s; that following the coup against Aristide in 1991, he was the “operations guy” for the FRAPH paramilitary death squad, accused of murdering uncounted numbers of Aristide supporters and introducing gang rape into Haiti as a military weapon.
It uncritically interviews coup leader Guy Phillipe, without telling us he’s a former Haitian police chief who was trained by US Special Forces in Ecuador in the early 1990s, or that the U.S. embassy admitted that Phillipe was involved in the transhipment of narcotics, one of the key sources of funds for paramilitary attacks on the poor in Haiti.
Wyclef runs the Yele Haiti Foundation, which the Washington Post reported on January 16, 2010 is under fiscal scrutiny, because “It seems clear that a significant amount of the monies that this charity raises go for costs other than providing benefits to Haitians in need . . . In 2006, Yele Haiti had about $1 million in revenue, according to tax documents. More than a third of the money went to payments to related parties, said lawyer James Joseph . . . (T)he charity recorded a payment of $250,000 to Telemax, a TV station and production company in Haiti in which Jean and Jerry Duplessis, both members of Yele Haiti’s board of directors, had a controlling interest. The charity paid about $31,000 in rent to Platinum Sound, a Manhattan recording studio owned by Jean and Duplessis. And it spent an additional $100,000 for Jean’s performance at a benefit concert in Monaco.” A foundation spokesperson “said the group hopes to spend a higher percentage of its budget on services as it gains experience.”
PLEASE SPREAD THE NEWS: "WYCLEF JEAN IS NOT A FRIEND OF THE PEOPLE'S DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT OF HAITI." The floating of his candidacy is just one more effort by the international forces, desperate to put a smiley face on a murderous military occupation, to undermine the will of the Haitian majority by making Wyclef Jean the Ronald Reagan of Haiti. Let us be clear. Jean and his uncle, the Haitian Ambassador to the U.S., are both cozy with the self-appointed czar of Haiti, Bill Clinton, whose plans for the Caribbean nation are to make it a neo-colony for a reconstructed tourist industry and a pool of cheap labor for U.S. factories. Wyclef Jean is the perfect front man. The Haitian elite and its U.S./U.N. sponsors are counting on his appeal to the youth to derail the people’s movement for democracy and their call for the return of President Aristide. Most Haitians will not be hoodwinked by the likes of Wyclef Jean.
Charlie Hinton is a member of the Haiti Action Committee and works at Inkworks Press, a worker owned and managed printing company in Berkeley. He may be reached at ch_lifewish@yahoo.com.
BP hires prison labor to clean up spill
BP hires prison labor to clean up spill while coastal residents struggle
by Abe Louise Young
In the first few days after BP’s Deepwater Horizon wellhead exploded, spewing crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, cleanup workers could be seen on Louisiana beaches wearing scarlet pants and white t-shirts with the words “Inmate Labor” printed in large red block letters. Coastal residents, many of whom had just seen their livelihoods disappear, expressed outrage at community meetings; why should BP be using cheap or free prison labor when so many people were desperate for work? The outfits disappeared overnight.
Work crews in Grand Isle, Louisiana, still stand out. In a region where nine out of 10 residents are white, the cleanup workers are almost exclusively African-American men. The racialized nature of the cleanup is so conspicuous that Ben Jealous, the president of the NAACP, sent a public letter to BP CEO Tony Hayward on July 9, demanding to know why Black people were over-represented in “the most physically difficult, lowest paying jobs, with the most significant exposure to toxins.”
The same stretch of beach must be cleaned over and over, as the tide washes more oil in every day. This is Grand Isle, La. – Photo: Ann Marie Gorden, USCG
Hiring prison labor is more than a way for BP to save money while cleaning up the biggest oil spill in history. By tapping into the inmate workforce, the company and its subcontractors get workers who are not only cheap but easily silenced—and they get lucrative tax write-offs in the process.
Known to some as “the inmate state,” Louisiana has the highest rate of incarceration of any other state in the country. Seventy percent of its 39,000 inmates are African-American men. The Louisiana Department of Corrections (DOC) only has beds for half that many prisoners, so 20,000 inmates live in parish jails, privately run contract facilities and for-profit work release centers. Prisons and parish jails provide free daily labor to the state and private companies like BP, while also operating their own factories and farms, where inmates earn between zero and 40 cents an hour.
Obedient inmates, or “trustees,” become eligible for work release in the last three years of their sentences. This means they can be a part of a market-rate daily labor force that works for private companies outside the prison gates. The advantage for trustees is that they get to keep a portion of their earnings, redeemable upon release.
The advantage for private companies is that trustees are covered under Work Opportunity Tax Credit, a holdover from Bush’s Welfare to Work legislation that rewards private-sector employers for hiring risky “target groups.” Businesses earn a tax credit of $2,400 for every work release inmate they hire. On top of that, they can earn back up to 40 percent of the wages they pay annually to “target group workers.”
If BP’s use of prison labor remains an open secret on the Gulf Coast, no one in an official capacity is saying so. At the Grand Isle base camp in early June, I called BP’s Public Information line and visited representatives for the Coast Guard Public Relations team, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Louisiana Fisheries and Wildlife Department. They were all stumped. Were inmates doing shore protection or oil cleanup work? They had no idea. In fact, they said, they’d like to know – would I call them if I found out?
I got an answer one evening earlier this month when I drove up the gravel driveway of the Lafourche Parish Work Release Center jail, just off Highway 90, halfway between New Orleans and Houma. Men were returning from a long day of shoveling oil-soaked sand into black trash bags in the sweltering heat. Wearing BP shirts, jeans and rubber boots – nothing identifying them as inmates – they arrived back at the jail in unmarked white vans, looking dog tired.
Beach cleanup is a Sisyphean task. Shorelines cleaned during the day become newly soaked with oil and dispersant overnight, so crews shovel up the same beaches again and again. Workers wear protective chin-to-boot coveralls – made out of high-density polyethylene and manufactured by Dupont – taped to steel-toed boots covered in yellow plastic. They work 20 minutes on, 40 minutes off, as per Occupational Safety and Health Administration safety rules. The limited physical schedule allows workers to recover from the blazing sun and the oppressive heat that builds up inside their impermeable suits.
During their breaks, workers unzip the coveralls for ventilation, drink ice water from gallon thermoses and sit under white fabric tents. They start at 6 a.m., take a half-hour lunch and end the day at 6 p.m., adding up three to four hours of hard physical labor in twenty-minute increments.
They are forbidden to speak to the public or the media by BP’s now-notorious gag rule.
At the end of the day, coveralls are stripped off and thrown in dumpsters, alongside oil-soaked booms and trash bags full of contaminated sand. The dumpsters are emptied into local HazMat landfills, free employees go home and the inmates are returned to work release centers.
Work release inmates are required to work for up to 12 hours a day, six days a week, sometimes averaging 72 hours per week. These are long hours for performing what may arguably be the most toxic job in America. Although the dangers of mixed oil and dispersant exposure are largely unknown, the chemicals in crude oil can damage every system in the body, as well as cell structures and DNA.
Inmates can’t pick and choose their work assignments and they face considerable repercussions for rejecting any job, including loss of earned “good time.” The warden of the Terrebonne Parish Work Release Center in Houma explains: “If they say no to a job, they get that time that was taken off their sentence put right back on and get sent right back to the lockup they came out of.” This means that work release inmates who would rather protect their health than participate in the non-stop toxic cleanup run the risk of staying in prison longer.
Prisoners are already subject to well-documented health care deprivations while incarcerated and are unlikely to have health insurance after release. Work release positions are covered by Worker’s Compensation insurance, but pursuing claims long after exposure could be a Kafkaesque task. Besides, there is currently no system for tracking the medical impact of oil and dispersant exposure in cleanup workers or affected communities.
‘They’re not getting paid – it’s part of their sentence’
To learn how many of the 20,000 prisoners housed outside of state prisons are involved in spill-related labor, I called the DOC Public Relations officer, Pam LaBorde, who ultimately discouraged me from seeking such information. “Frankly, I do not know where your story is going, but it does not sound positive,” she said on our third phone call.
Going to prison officials directly didn’t help. The warden of a South Louisiana jail refused to discuss the matter, exclaiming, “You want me to lose my job?” A different warden of a privately-owned center admitted on condition of anonymity that inmates from his facility had been employed in oil cleanup but declined to answer further questions. Jefferson Parish President Steve Theriot and Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser and Grand Isle Police Chief Euris DuBois declined interview requests.
These are thick plastic suits taped to plastic-covered boots that these men in Port Fourchon, La., must work in under a broiling sun. – Photo: Patrick Kelley, USCG
Transparency problems are longstanding with the Louisiana DOC. There is also scant oversight of private prison facilities. Following Hurricane Katrina, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) issued a 140-page report that documented abuses and botched prison evacuations, as well as the numerous times its requests for official information were rejected. “It appears that you are standing in the shoes of prisoners, and therefore DOC is exempted from providing any information which it might otherwise have to under public records law,” DOC lawyers told the ACLU National Prisons Project.
Some officials have been more forthcoming. A lieutenant in the Plaquemines Parish Sheriff’s Office told me that three crews of inmates were sandbagging in Buras, Louisiana, in case oil hit there. “They’re not getting paid – it’s part of their sentence,” she said. “They’ll work as long as they’re needed. It’s a hard job because of the heat, but they’re not refusing to work.”
In early May, Gov. Bobby Jindal’s office sent out a press release heralding the training of 80 inmates from Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in “cleaning of oil-impacted wildlife recovered from coastal areas.” DOC spokesperson Pam LaBorde subsequently denied that any inmates participated in wildlife cleaning efforts.
Offering an exception to this policy of secrecy is Lafourche Parish Work Release Center, the only one in the state that is accredited by the American Correctional Association. It is audited regularly and abides by national standards of safety and accountability, which is perhaps why I was able to simply walk in on a Thursday afternoon and chat with the warden.
Capt. Milfred Zeringue is a retired Louisiana state police officer with a jaunty smile, powerful torso and silver hair. His small gray office is adorned with photos of many generations of his Louisiana family and a Norman Rockwell print picturing a policeman and a small runaway boy sharing a meaningful look at a soda fountain counter. A brass plaque confers the “Blood and Guts Award” upon Zeringue. Of 184 men living under the captain’s charge, 18 are currently assigned to oil spill work. The numbers change daily and are charted on white boards that stretch down the hallway.
Capt. Zeringue says that inmates are glad for any opportunity they can get and see work release jobs as a step up, a headstart on re-entry. “Our work release inmates are shipped to centers around the state according to employer demand,” he explains, describing the different types of skilled and unskilled labor. “I have carpenters, guys riding on the back of the trash trucks, guys working offshore on the oil rigs, doing welding, cooking. Employers like them because they are guaranteed a worker who’s on time, drug-free and sober.”
“And,” he adds, “because they do get a tax break.”
Inside the center, men sit around long plastic tables watching TV, or nap on thin mattresses under grey wool covers. The windowless dormitories hold 20 to 30 men each in blue metal bunk beds. Hard hats hang off of lockers, ceiling fans circle slowly and each bunk has a white mesh bag of laundry strung from one rung.
An air of dejection and fatigue permeates the atmosphere, but the facility looks safe and clean. It’s surrounded by chain link fence and staffed by former police officers. One long shelf stacked with donated romance and adventure novels serves as a library. GED classes and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings gather weekly. Individuals are free to walk around the halls, use pay phones, shoot pool, or sit and watch cars pass on the highway from a small outdoor yard. A doctor visits once a week. Inmates greet the captain as we walk and jump to hold doors open for us.
Zeringue exudes a certain affection for the workers in his center. “To me, I’m kind of like Dad here. The inmates come to me and talk about their problems. They get antsy and nervous when they’re close to getting out – how am I going to survive, how’s my family gonna be with me?”
Like all Gulf Coast residents, inmates have good reason to feel anxious about the future. BP has received almost 80,000 claims for lost revenue in the wake of the spill. Scores of people are out of work, the offshore drilling industry is in limbo and the age-old fishing and shrimping professions are looking death in the face. In the towns and bayous of the Gulf, anxiety and post-traumatic stress are taking hold.
In some places, the desperation is palpable. I met Randy Adams, a construction contractor from Grand Isle, on the sidewalk outside of a local bar. “This BP spill is turning me into an alcoholic, because I don’t have anything to do,” he says. “That, that, thing – that thing they did –” He points to the beach. He’s unable to say “spill” or label it in any way. He points to the water again and again. “That thing has taken everything away from me. I have a gun under the front seat of my truck, and every day I decide, do I want to put a bullet in my skull? Live or die: That’s my choice here, every day. My life is gone. Do you understand?”
Scott Rojas of the Jefferson Parish Economic Development Commission suggests that for all the work to be done, finding local labor to do oil-spill cleanup jobs is trickier than it would seem. “These are really hard and really low-paid jobs. I know agencies have put effort into finding locals to do the work. But they may not always have an easy time of it. As for reports of inmates being hired, I can’t confirm or deny. The people down in Grand Isle swear to it, but you’re going to have to talk to them.”
The Louisiana Workforce Commission, the state unemployment agency, is advertising hazardous waste removal oil spill cleanup positions as “green jobs.” They pay $10 per hour, so these jobs might seem like an attractive opportunity. But Paul Perkins, a retired Angola Prison deputy warden who owns and operates five for-profit inmate work release centers, says that even as the agency is “overflowing with applications for oil spill jobs,” the work force is inconsistent. “They might hire 400 people on Monday, and after one day of work, only 200 will come back on Tuesday.”
Hiring prison labor might prove more reliable, but it evokes understandable rage among Gulf Coast residents. According to Perkins, the Louisiana Secretary of Corrections, James LeBlanc, met with disaster contractors in early June and asked them to stop using inmate labor until all unemployed residents found work. But as the spill has so dramatically demonstrated, in this new environment, the government seems only able to make polite requests. BP calls the shots, and its private contractors, like ES&H, are the sole clean-up operators. From there, subcontractors, such as Able Body Labor, decide whom to employ.
Working for BP: ‘This isn’t what I would like to be doing’
Anna Keller relocated to Grand Isle in May to work with Gulf Recovery LLC to help develop community-based responses to the oil disaster. Also a member of Critical Resistance New Orleans, Keller says it is “common knowledge” that prisoners are doing cleanup. “If you talk to anyone working on the beach they’ll tell you, yes, prisoners are working here.”
She describes a shipping container that sits at the turn-off for the Venice Boat Harbor, advertising “Jails to Go.” Such containers work as contract labor housing for work release prisoners, with bunks inside, bars on the windows and deadbolts on the doors.
According to Keller, the use of inmate labor takes recovery one step further away from those people who are most intimate with the ecology, culture and landscapes of the area. In her view, they should be hired first, and not just for the grunt jobs. “Community members should be hired in the planning stages and paid for their expertise. The local people are the true experts here.”
Up the road at A-Bear’s Restaurant in Houma, an elderly man in overalls describes his son’s financial dilemmas to the room of locals over dinner. The son is 40, married with children, and was laid off from an oyster shucking factory shortly after the BP leak began. He’s now walking door-to-door with a lawnmower, looking for grass to cut. The man holds his head in both arthritic hands. The waitress hands him a paper napkin to blot his eyes. I ask him if his son would work for BP in the cleanup and he grimaces. “Maybe, no, I don’t think so,” he says. “That would be hard for his pride, you know? For that little money? No.”
Beach cleanup workers do make the lowest wages in the recovery effort. Others on the BP payroll have it slightly better, but the jobs they are doing are a daily reminder of what they have lost. Chris Griffin is a French-speaking Cajun shrimper whose father and grandfather also captained shrimp boats. After oil contamination closed the Gulf waters, Griffin was hired to captain airboat tours of oil-impacted marshlands for BP. Three times a day he steers a slim four-seat boat with a deafening engine into the waters he’s known all his life, while Coast Guard officials give media tours and answer the same grim questions again and again.
“This isn’t what I would like to be doing,” Griffin says, “but I’m glad I have a job so I can take care of my family. I’m not worrying about the money. Not everybody has that. Me, I’m worrying about the years in the future here. Will we keep cleaning it up? Will they take care of everybody?”
_____
Source:SFBayView
Outsourcing a U.S. war: Ugandans in Iraq
Outsourcing a U.S. war: Ugandans in Iraq
by Ann Garrison
Last week the Pentagon proclaimed that the last U.S. combat forces had left Iraq. This after an armored unit drove out of the country and crossed the border into Kuwait. However, there will still be 50,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.
An Iraq veteran turned war critic, Camillo Mejia, said that 4,000 U.S. troops who are leaving Iraq will be replaced by 7,000 employees of private military contractors. Other observers say the U.S. has long outsourced the Iraq occupation to troops from some of the world’s poor nations, such as Uganda, Angola, India and Bangladesh, and that many of the mercenaries due to replace other U.S. troops will also come from those countries, especially from Uganda.
The New York City-based Black Star News publishes many critics of U.S. foreign policy in Africa, and Black Star’s Ugandan-American Editor Milton Allimadi is among the most outspoken critics of U.S. use of Ugandan mercenaries, elsewhere in Africa and in Iraq.
“This is not surprising,” declares Allimadi. “It’s a disturbing development and something needs to be done to really stop this because Ugandans are being victimized by the dictator, Yoweri Museveni, and now in collusion with the United States government.
“And another reason why this is very disturbing: It’s an extension of what the U.S. has been doing for a couple of years now with respect to Uganda – outsourcing of torture of people interdicted by the United States to Uganda. And this was well documented in a report by Human Rights Watch that has not garnered sufficient attention.
“The report is called ‘Open Secret: Illegal Detention and Torture’ by the Joint Anti-Terrorism Task Force in Uganda. It was published last year, April 8, 2009, and it says that the United States provided not only training, but also $5 million for Ugandan security agents to torture individuals detained in Uganda, which is illegal according to the Leahy Amendment, an amendment by Sen. Patrick Leahy, which prohibits U.S. cooperation or funding or training for any government that is torturing its individuals or committing human rights abuse.
“It needs to be investigated by the Senate and by Congress.”
In Kampala, former Ugandan soldiers fill out application forms for jobs with the Dreshak company in Iraq. Ugandan security guards make $600 to $1,000 per month over a year-long contract in Iraq, reports Middle East Online, far less than the $15,000 that Western recruits are paid but 20 times the average income in Uganda. – Photo: Middle East Online
Black Star News contributor Michael Kirkpatrick has traveled in Northern Uganda, the wartorn home of the indigenous Acholi people, and written about Blackwater, Dreshak and KBR’s recruitment in refugee camps, otherwise known as Internally Displaced Persons or IDP camps, which he first observed in 2007.
“Back in 2007, I traveled to Northern Uganda at the invitation of some Acholi friends of mine,” says Kirkpatrick. “This was an opportunity for me to see how that part of the country was rebuilding after a 20-year rebel insurgency.
“While I was there, I met a young woman who was there from the British High Commission, and she was studying a local language in the city of Gulu, which is the largest city in Northern Uganda. And she was there to learn this obscure tribal African language because she needed to train translators in Iraq. Well, I thought this was odd, that the Acholi language was being spoken in Iraq.
“Well here what I learned was that there were Acholi, young Acholi men, being recruited by military contractors to go to Iraq and they obviously needed translators because these young men did not speak English, so they needed translators in Iraq to be able to instruct and direct these military contractor employees.
“I’ve come to learn even since then that the recruitment of Ugandans is a very common practice by these military contractors. There are a lot of things going on in East Africa that require the U.S. presence there. And currently, right now, there are recruiting stations in the capitol city of Kampala and there are regularly long lines of Ugandans waiting to get jobs.
“For Ugandans, this isn’t an act of fighting Al Qaeda. This isn’t an act of justice or spreading democracy in the Middle East. For them it is purely an economic issue. They need the jobs; they need the money. From my point of view, we are exploiting a desperate people. We’re bribing them with money to carry weapons into a war that is not theirs.”
Asked whether recruiting stations belong to private military contractors or the U.S. military, Kirkpatrick responded: “They are private. They are not U.S. military. They are not manned or stationed by U.S. military. But believe me, the U.S. military is paying their bills.”
Kirkpatrick also says that private for-profit companies do not have to report casualties or open their accounting books to anyone.
San Francisco writer Ann Garrison writes for the San Francisco Bay View, Digital Journal, Examiner.com, OpEdNews, Global Research, Colored Opinions and her blog, Plutocracy Now. She can be reached at anniegarrison@gmail.com. This story originally appeared in Black Star News.
Source:SFBayView
Gulf waste heads to landfills
Gulf waste heads to landfills, some with problems
By The Associated Press
Oily boom, trash from Gulf spill heads to landfills, some with state environmental issues
The cleanup of history's worst peacetime oil spill is generating thousands of tons of oil-soaked debris that is ending up in local landfills, some of which were already dealing with environmental concerns.
The soft, absorbent boom that has played the biggest role in containing the spill alone would measure more than twice the length of California's coastline, or about 2,000 miles. More than 50,000 tons of boom and oily debris have made their way to landfills or incinerators, federal officials told The Associated Press, representing about 7 percent of the daily volume going to nine area landfills.
A month after the oil stopped flowing into the Gulf, the emphasis has shifted toward cleanup and disposal of oily trash at government-approved landfills in coastal states.
Environmental Protection Agency officials say the sites meet federal regulations, are equipped to handle the influx of waste and are being monitored closely, although three sites have state environmental issues. State records show two are under investigation and one was cited in May for polluting nearby waters.
Some residents and experts question the wisdom of adding crude-covered refuse to dumps, since it could take years for potential problems to surface. They worry about the impact on groundwater if contaminants leach past liners enclosing the decaying garbage.
"Common sense would tell you you probably shouldn't keep dumping there if there are already problems," said Eric Schaeffer, a former head of the EPA's enforcement office who now heads a Washington-based legal advocacy group. "EPA needs to be able to say why despite the violations and discharges these are safe."
Weathered oil is less toxic than fresh oil, the EPA says, but can still contain some levels of benzene and other risky chemicals.
Both BP and the EPA are sampling the waste each week at the landfills, and the EPA and U.S. Coast Guard officials alike say so far it has not turned out to be hazardous. In some landfills, the spill waste is being mixed directly with regular household and industrial trash, which can contain chemicals, plastics and food.
It is too soon to tell if the potential hazards from the oily waste would be greater than any risks posed by what's already in the landfills, experts say. That will depend on the volume of the Gulf trash, the mass of industrial chemicals already there and how all those agents interact over time, said Conrad Volz, who directs the University of Pittsburgh's Department of Environmental and Occupational Health.
In the meantime, the alternative to using already troubled landfills is placing oily waste in other dumps without environmental issues — where oily waste's potential impacts could be tracked separately, experts say.
"The oily waste may not be the most toxic thing in those landfills," said Kurt Pennell, an environmental engineer at Tufts University who sits on a National Research Council committee studying groundwater problems near landfills and Superfund sites. "But obviously if ... the landfill isn't well controlled, that is problematic."
EPA Assistant Administrator Mathy Stanislaus, who oversees the agency's waste management plans, said the landfills can handle the oily waste properly.
"The landfills ... have the system in place, the kind of liner, the kind of monitoring systems to manage this so that there are not environmental impacts," Stanislaus said in an interview. "If there are any issues of concern, we will revisit."
The Gulf trash's trip to the landfill begins in oiled marshes and beaches where tar balls washed up regularly. Recently, near the mouth of the Mississippi, workers standing in small boats collected 16,000 feet of oily absorbent boom in one day alone from waters surrounding one oil-covered marsh.
The boom is wrung out and dried before being shipped to landfills or incinerators.
Concerns about pollution prompted Harrison County, Miss., supervisors to decide against accepting more oily waste in their coastal county, which is recovering from Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Waste is being trucked to the Chastang Landfill 25 miles north of Mobile, Ala., where state officials are investigating high levels of mercury and barium found in the dump's groundwater monitoring wells.
Nearby residents said they were worried that more chemicals were coming to the facility.
"We already got enough problems here, and now they're going to bring us the oil and everything that comes out of those Gulf beaches?" said Lawrence Andry, 70.
The landfill's owner, Waste Management, believes the water contamination is the result of naturally occurring metals in the soil, not the dump, and is performing tests, said spokesman Ken Haldin.
Gulf waste also is taken to the county-run Magnolia Landfill about 60 miles south in Summerdale, Ala., which is being investigated for groundwater tainted with arsenic, acetone and other pollutants. State officials fined the dump $30,000 last month for failing to properly monitor methane flares used to burn off gas from the heap.
Ed Fox, who manages the facility, said people should not worry because the well water used to monitor pollution is tested twice a year.
The Colonial Landfill in Sorrento, La., which is receiving Gulf waste, was cited in May for exceeding its permitted spills into a stream feeding the Lake Pontchartrain basin 11 times last year. State officials said the dump fixed the problem last month, but got another state citation for failing to show inspectors log books and install proper barriers around its monitoring wells — problems the operator says were addressed. Louisiana environmental authorities said Friday they are still in violation.
When informed that three landfills had issues, Stanislaus said EPA officials had visited the facilities and knew of the deficiencies, but that didn't disqualify them from accepting spill waste.
"We take these issues very seriously," he said. "If we find any major violations at any landfill that would impact the health of communities, and the state doesn't step in and act swiftly ... the on-scene coordinator and EPA will step in and stop any waste shipment."
BP's three waste hauling contractors say they're following strict procedures to ensure safe disposal, as do operators of the receiving dumps. Houston-based Waste Management Inc. has a contract to dispose of waste from Mississippi, Alabama and part of the Florida Panhandle. The rest of Florida is handled by Phoenix-based trash hauler Republic Services Inc., and Heritage Environmental Services has the BP contract for Louisiana.
___
Burke reported from Fresno, Calif.
Source: AP News
Marcus Garvey Lives!
Marcus Garvey Lives!
Garvey's legacy carried on by the African Socialist International
The following article comes from the August 2006 issue of The Burning Spear Newspaper, the organ of the African People's Socialist Party. The recent 5th Congress of the African People's Socialist Party-USA reaffirms that his legacy lives on in the work of the African Socialist International.
(UhuruNews)Each August, growing numbers of Africans around the world celebrate the birth of Marcus Mosiah Garvey who was born on August 17, 1887 in St. Ann's Bay, Saint Ann, Jamaica.
The celebration of Garvey's birth date is due to the fact that since the attack on Africa that led to the capture, dispersal and enslavement of millions of Africans and the colonization and balkanization of Africa, no African has been more instrumental in creating the vision of a free and liberated Africa and African people. No African has been more successful in setting the example for organized resistance that would result in the liberation and unification of Africa and African people everywhere.
Garvey, more than anyone, contributed to the ideas advancing the existence of African people as a dispersed nation to be liberated from imperialism and served by our own all-African government in Africa.
In 1914, Garvey organized the Universal Negro Improvement Association in Jamaica. At the time, the UNIA was conceived as a fraternal reform association that would work for the upliftment of African people through the creation of educational institutions and industrial opportunities. However, it was only after his location to Harlem in 1916 that the organization began to achieve rapid growth.
By 1920, there were more than a thousand UNIA branches and divisions around the world. In August of 1920 at its first convention, held in Madison Square Garden in New York, more than 25,000 Africans from Africa and virtually everywhere else Africans had been forcibly dispersed, came together in a month-long display of unity and organization never before witnessed by Africans or anyone else.
The UNIA, which would become the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League, was comprised of members and followers who were mostly working class. This was one of the most important reasons for its strength, estimated at being from 6 to 11 million members and followers, and also one of the reasons it was greatly feared and hated by various imperialist governments and significant sectors of African middle class leadership, most of which saw assimilation into U.S. imperialist society as the only way to achieve their aspirations.
Garvey makes incredible accomplishment in building steamship line
In 1919, the UNIA founded the Black Star Line Steamship Corporation. This was one of several ventures that included the Universal Printing House, the Negro Factories Corporation, and the Negro World Newspaper, printed in three languages.
Marcus Garvey built a single internationl economic capacity for African people in the eraly 1900s that has not yet been duplicated. This was on of the many aspect of Garvey's work to consolidate a single African nation.
All of these were among the efforts to create an economy around which the oppressed and dispersed African nation would be organized. Central to these efforts was the Black Star Line that was to initiate trade between Africans worldwide.
The Black Star Line venture failed because of a number of factors including inexperience on the part of Garvey and the UNIA. And, while the ineptitude of Garvey and the UNIA is something all his detractors, then and now, love to expound on as being the reason for the failure of the Black Star Line, this explanation overlooks the fact that this was not the primary reason for its failure. It also overlooks the significance of the creation of the Black Star Line.
The fact is that Garvey and the UNIA built a steam ship line in 1919 when almost the whole African world lived under white colonial domination, the exceptions being the nominal independence of Liberia and Ethiopia. Additionally, this was only a little more than 50 years after the formal emancipation of enslaved Africans in the U.S. and during the year that was the bloodiest in post-emancipation America in terms of anti-African terror launched by whites in the U.S.
Clearly, this was not a sign of ineptitude. If anything, it was miraculous.
Also, the hostility of the U.S. and white society to African economic advancement during the period is revealed in the fact that only two years after the launching of the Black Star Line, the Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma was attacked and bombed, destroying it. Today no one claims that the destruction in Tulsa was due to the ineptitude of the African business people there.
No. Ineptitude was not the primary factor in the failure of the Black Star Line. The most critical factor in its failure was the active opposition and sabotage by the U.S. government, the white left, and the African petty bourgeoisie. The Communist Party USA worked tirelessly to undermine Garvey while the NAACP and W.E.B. Du Bois actively sought the support of the U.S. attorney general to acquire a ship that could be used to destroy the Black Star Line.
Along with the white left and African petty bourgeois active opposition, the Bureau of Investigation (precursor to the FBI), launched its own vicious campaign to rid the imperialist world of Marcus Garvey and the UNIA. In 1922, Garvey would be indicted by the U.S. government on contrived charges of using the mail to defraud through sale of the Black Star Line stock.
Though the charge was politically motivated and facilitated by agents who worked within the Black Star Line for the U.S. government, Garvey was tried and imprisoned in 1925. He spent two years in prison before being released and deported to Jamaica.
The movement that Garvey led would never be the same after his imprisonment and deportation. Agents and opportunists within the organization and enemies without were finally able to render the UNIA ineffective. Garvey, from his location in Jamaica and separated from the connections and membership in the U.S. -- which was then becoming a major imperialist center -- was unable to effectively defend the organization. On June 10, 1940, Marcus Mosiah Garvey died in relative obscurity in London, England.
Garvey initiated process of creating a united, liberated Africa that influenced other oppressed peoples’ struggles
However, the legacy of Marcus Garvey lives today. And it should, despite the barrage of slander that had been unleashed against him when alive and despite the efforts by U.S. and European imperialists and African petty bourgeois liberals to erase him from history.
Garvey was not only the man who moved toward constructing a unifying national economy and a vision for African liberation, unification and redemption. He was also voted by oppressed Africans from around the world as the provisional president of Africa when Africa suffered under the book of direct white power colonialism.
Garvey began creating all the organizations and symbols of State power to be exercised by an independent African people. He initiated a process in Liberia, where he bought land and sent a construction expedition there that would create a beachhead from which the struggle to free Africa could be launched.
The great meetings of the Garvey movement at its Liberty Halls, especially in New York, would become of major interest to all imperialists. Not only were Africans from throughout the world, especially seamen, constantly visiting these meetings, but also other oppressed people and their developing leaders, such as Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh who regularly attended Garvey meetings.
The Negro World also became a major irritant to imperialists. During the period of the resistance to U.S. imperialism in Nicaragua during the 1920s, the Negro World became a means through which followers of the anti-imperialist Nicaraguan revolutionary leader Augusto Sandino would communicate and advance their ideas.
On August 13, 1920, the UNIA adopted the Declaration of Rights of The Negro Peoples of the World. The significance of this declaration resonates today, some 86 years later. Among the complaints laid out in the declaration is Point 3 which declares, “That European nations have parceled out among them and taken possession of nearly all of the continent of Africa, and the natives are compelled to surrender their lands to aliens and are treated in most instances like slaves.”
Among the rights advanced by the declaration is this one that declares, “that Negroes, wheresoever they form a community among themselves should be given the right to elect their own representatives to represent them in Legislatures, courts of law, or such institutions as may exercise control over that particular community…
“…We believe that the Negro should adopt every means to protect himself against barbarous practices inflicted upon him because of color…
“…We believe in the freedom of Africa for the Negro people of the world…
“…We strongly condemn the cupidity of those nations of the world who, by open aggression or secret schemes, have seized the territories and inexhaustible natural wealth of Africa, and we place on record our most solemn determination to reclaim the treasures and possession of the vast continent of our forefathers…
“…We believe in the self-determination of all peoples…
“…We demand complete control of our social institutions without interference by any alien race or races…
“…That the colors, Red, Black and Green, be the colors of the Negro race…
“…We proclaim the 31st day of August of each year to be an international holiday to be observed by all Negroes…
“…We want all men to know that we shall maintain and contend for the freedom and equality of every man, woman and child of our race, with our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor…”
These select quotes from the extensive declaration helps us to understand the significance of the vision and the organizational efforts of the movement founded and led by Marcus Garvey. They also help to explain why the legacy of Garvey is eternal.Political movement of Pan Africanism born in opposition to Garvey
Today, with the crisis-ridden imperial white power groaning in response to the efforts of the oppressed peoples of the world to free ourselves from its domination, more and more of the African middle class or petty bourgeoisie are also looking toward Africa and some form of African unity.
In many ways, this is similar to the time of Garvey when for a time the imperialists were engaged in the first imperialist war to divide the world among themselves and oppressed peoples everywhere were attempting to forge their own path to freedom from colonial domination.
The power of the Garvey legacy has resulted in an effort by some, especially petty bourgeois African liberals, to lump Garvey and Du Bois together as founding fathers of practical, political, Pan Africanism. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Garvey was not a Pan Africanist. In fact, Pan Africanism, as a political movement, was formed by Du Bois and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). It was founded in opposition to the Garvey movement and as part of the overall imperialist-led struggle that led to its demise.
Both Du Bois and Garvey were always clear that they were opponents. In a June 20, 1921 letter to the New York Age and quoted in Volume III of the Marcus Garvey Papers edited by Robert Hill, Du Bois writes, “Bishop Smith mingles the Pan African Congress and the Garvey movement as practically one idea. This is a grave mistake. The Pan African Congress has nothing to do with any ‘Africa for the Africa[ns]’ movement. The object of the Pan African Congress is simply to bring representatives of the various people of African descent into knowledge and common acquaintanceship, so that out of such conferences general policies and actions can be evolved…
“Many colored persons know this, but have been restrained by the Garvey movement. Mr. Garvey’s African program has been dangerous, ill-considered[,] impracticable, and for that reason the Pan African Congress has not invited him to participate. On the other hand we must be generous enough to give Mr. Garvey the credit of having foreseen the necessity of union in business and social uplift between all the African people. He is not the man to carry this out because he lacks poise and business ability…”
Garvey, quoted in the same book on page 583, introduced this resolution during his opening address at the August 1921 UNIA convention:
“Be it resolved: That we, the duly elected representatives of the Negro peoples of the world, from North America, South America, Central America, West Indies, Asia, Europe, Australia and Africa, assembled in open conclave on this day of August, 1921, at the 12th Regiment Armory, New York City, United States of America…do hereby place on record our repudiation of a Pan African Congress to be held in London, England…
“Our repudiation of this Congress, as representatives of the Negro peoples of the world, is based on the fact that W.E.B. Du Bois, secretary of the so-called Pan African Congress, and those associated with him, are not representatives of the struggling peoples of the world, and that the men who have called the said Congress have not consulted with the Negro peoples of the world of their intention, and have received no mandate from the said people to call a Congress in their name…
“That we believe the motives of the Congress are to undermine the true feeling and sentiment of the Negro race for complete freedom in their own spheres, and for a higher social order among themselves, as against a desire among a certain class of Negroes for social contact, comradeship and companionship with the white race…”
There is no confusion here, by either Du Bois or Garvey. Moreover, a careful reading of the statements from both men will reveal the class bias of each.
Du Bois, with his concern for Garvey’s lack of poise and his begrudging and cynical praise for Garvey’s recognition for “union in business,” speaks volumes of his class sympathies as does Garvey’s complaint that Du Bois and his cohorts “are not representatives of the struggling peoples of the world.”
The imprisonment and deportation of Garvey were necessary for the development of the Pan Africanist movement which, up to then, was simply a gathering of a handful of African intellectuals, some of whom, like Blaise Diagne in France, actually worked for imperialist governments.
With Garvey’s forced removal from the scene, many people joined the Pan Africanist movement out of confusion while some others, like Garvey’s wife Amy Jaques Garvey, joined in 1945 in an effort to advance the work of her late husband.
Garvey's work continues on in the work to build the African Socialist International
We, of the African People’s Socialist Party, are African Internationalists, followers of Garvey who continue to develop his ideas to make them consistent with the times in which we live.
Our opposition to Pan Africanism is not opposition to the literal translation of the words, which simply mean “all-African.” Our opposition is to what Pan Africanism is as a political expression.
People like Du Bois, and later George Padmore, created Pan Africanism as something petty bourgeoisie in outlook, pacifist and parliamentarian in tactics and strategy, anti-communist and neocolonialist in worldview.
However, for most people, Pan Africanism is whatever its advocates want it to be. It is not a theory, so much as it is a belief in the solidarity of African people worldwide, without regard for issues of class or practical program to liberate and unite Africa and African people in a revolutionary struggle against imperialism.
There have been many brilliant, heroic Pan Africanists. They include giants like Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Walter Rodney and Mangaliso Sobukwe. However, most of the difficulties and disasters that destroyed these courageous leaders and their movements, Rodney being a possible exception, came as a result of their adherence to the Pan African values that came from Du Bois and Padmore.
We believe that the efforts to build the African Socialist International, a single organization of African revolutionaries committed to the struggle to liberate and unite Africa and African people under the leadership of the African working class and to create a socialist United States of Africa is Garveyism in the era of imperialism in crisis.
For the African People’s Socialist Party the celebration of the legacy of Garvey means that we should live like him and fight to accomplish his vision in our lifetime. We call on all others who would be like Garvey and who go beyond the annual process of paying homage to a deceased Garvey, to join us in building the ASI, our greatest testimony to the fact that Garvey lives!
One Africa! One Nation!
Wyclef Jean’s presidential candidacy a distraction
Haitian music star Wyclef Jean’s presidential candidacy a distraction
Ezili Danto
The on-again-off-again presidential candidacy of music star Wyclef Jean is a distraction for Haiti.
On Friday, Aug. 20, the Haiti Electoral Council ruled that 15 out of the 34 candidates had not met the legal requirements to run for president of Haiti. Jean was one of the rejected candidates and he’s chosen to appeal the decision.
That’s his right, but I wish the media would focus less on this personality-driven story and more on the reality of what’s going on in Haiti right now.
Almost eight months after the earthquake, the recovery effort in Haiti is going almost nowhere.
There are 2 million homeless earthquake victims still on the streets of Port-au-Prince, the capital. Less than 5 percent of the rubble has been removed from the streets to make room for permanent shelters. And roughly 20 percent of those living in the 1,300 tent camps have, in the past month, been forcibly evicted with nowhere to go.
There are almost no homes to live in, no jobs to be had.
This is a disgrace, considering all the donations, upward of $1 billion, that came in to the nongovernmental institutions after the earthquake. Much of this money is earning interest for charity executives; it is not reaching the earthquake victims.
The upcoming election seems to have plenty of candidates but not much of an electorate. How are the 2 million homeless, who lost everything, including their identification cards, going to be able to vote on Nov. 28?
Will the people outside of the capital and surrounding cities where the earthquake hit be able to vote? Or is the purpose of these elections that primarily the wealthy, whose houses didn’t crumble in the earthquake and who all have their identification cards, be the ones to vote?
If so, how could this be called a representative government?
In every election since 2004, when President Bush ousted Haiti’s democratically elected leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti’s most popular political party, the Fanmi Lavalas, has been excluded from participation.
Again, how can any government, then, be called representative?
Even if Wyclef Jean wins this appeal, how are his young constituents, in the crumbled areas without IDs, voter registrations and addresses, going to vote? Moreover, even if the masses do vote, who will make sure their votes are not dumped into garbage bins, as happened in the 2006 presidential election?
But Jean only puts on the dress of a populist to get votes and pander to a desperate population. As he’s said, “Don’t worry, I’m not a populist, I’m a capitalist.”
Haiti is a country that needs the government to lead, not the private sector that’s failed for 200 years to do so. The Haitian government must ensure the human rights of the majority to shelter, medicine, food, clean water, justice, inclusion, dignity and living-wage jobs.
We need to ask whether these rushed elections, scheduled for Nov. 28, will bring relief if they further destabilize the country by enraging the Haitian majority, which is likely to see its voice stifled yet again.
Exacerbating catastrophe to capitalize on catastrophe is a workable formula for key stakeholders in Haiti affairs, as these elections may provide fresh reasons to perpetuate the U.N./U.S. presence in Haiti.
Supposedly the Haitian government, which says it is bankrupt from the earthquake, has pledged $7 million of the $29.6 million it will cost to run these elections. The rest of the election monies will come from mostly foreigners. Will they use their clout to support a candidate that will put their interests above those of the Haitian people?
Under the circumstances, there are more important things for Haitians to do than holding this election. The $29.6 million could be better used to employ Haitians to remove all the rubble and erect permanent housing.
Ezili Danto is an award-winning playwright, performance poet and human rights attorney. She is the founder of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network. She can be reached at pmproj@progressive.org.
Source:uhurnews
Myth of a prosperous black Atlanta exposed
Myth of a prosperous black Atlanta exposed in a cry for housing
