Today’s podcast features Global Justice Ecology Project’s Co-Director/Strategist Orin Langelle speak about his experience and thoughts regarding last Thursday’s (September 23) meeting in Manhattan with Evo Morales Ayma, the Indigenous President of the Plurinational State of Bolivia and Pablo Salón, Bolivia’s Ambassador to the UN to discuss the preparations for the upcoming UN Climate Conference in Cancún.
Click here to listen to the Podcast
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Filed under Climate Change, Climate Justice, Earth Minute
By Anne Petermann, Executive Director, Global Justice Ecology Project
On Thursday, September 23rd, Global Justice Ecology Project co-Director/ Strategist Orin Langelle and I traveled to Manhattan for a meeting with Evo Morales Ayma, the Indigenous President of the Plurinational State of Bolivia and Pablo Salón, Bolivia’s Ambassador to the UN to discuss the preparations for the upcoming UN Climate Conference in Cancún. Invited to the event were a small number of people representing NGOs, Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations and social movements including Indigenous Environmental Network, La Via Campesina, Grassroots International, the National Family Farm Coalition, and Institute for Policy Studies, among others.
After gathering at the Bolivian Mission on 2nd Avenue, our group of 30 or so negotiated the maze of police barricades and uniformed officers to arrive at the Church Center for the United Nations, directly across the street from the massive UN building.
We waited for an hour or so in the “Boss Room” of the Church Center until news came that President Morales was speaking to the UN General Assembly at that very moment, and would arrive at our meeting as soon as he was finished. The techies in the room did their best to transmit the live broadcast of Evo’s speech through the LCD projector but managed to finally get it working just in time to hear the applause as Morales exited the stage.
President Morales and his entourage finally arrived, greeting and shaking hands with new friends and old, along the walk to the front of the room. Pablo Salón opened the meeting with an update on the status of the negotiations going on at the UN General Assembly across the street. He was not optimistic in where they were headed, and instead emphasized the importance of the upcoming UN Climate meetings in Cancún for advancing the “Cochabamba Accord” and the “Rights of Mother Earth.” Both of these emerged in April of this year as outcomes from the World Peoples’ Summit on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth that took place in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Morales organized the summit to bring together climate justice and Indigenous leaders from around the world to discuss a peoples’ alternative to Obama’s heavy handed and highly undemocratic “Copenhagen Accord” that had been “acknowledged” but not adopted at the Copenhagen Climate Summit last December. Obama, Salón pointed out, had just that morning at the UN General Assembly pushed his Copenhagen Accord.
Ambassador Salón emphasized that, although language from the Cochabamba agreement had so far been included in the text of the negotiations at the interim climate meetings, it was going to take a major social mobilization before and during Cancún to ensure that the Cochabamba language makes its way into the final text. This call to mobilize had been raised at the recent Social Forum of the Americas in Paraguay and was being taken up by social movements around Latin America.
Next on the agenda, Representatives from Mexican social movements discussed the plans already being organized for Cancún. The crux of this long and detailed series of presentations was that, although there have been some differences between the Mexican social movements and organizations in terms of tactics and objectives, (differences which were being exploited by the government and the media), they were trying to put aside those differences to create one unified alternative space in Cancún–a space where social movements of all types could come together and share strategies and information with the aim to advance the struggle for climate justice.
Caravans of social movements to Cancún are being planned from points throughout the Americas. On the 20th of November, a huge march will take place in Mexico City on the 100th Anniversary of the Mexican revolution. And on the 7th of December, Via Campesina has called for “Thousands of Cancuns” to take place all over the world.
When President Morales finally spoke, he too emphasized the need to show a united front. He insisted, “It’s up to us. If we want the Cochabamba Accord, it will be up to the power of the people.” He continued, explaining, “I don’t believe very much in governments, but we need an alliance of social movements and progressive governments to find solutions, otherwise the planet is going to cook. We need a party in Cancun. We must cool the earth down and heal the earth of her fever.”
When the topic moved on to discussing the advancement of REDD–the UN’s hotly contested scheme to supposedly reduce deforestation by including forests in the carbon market–Pablo Salón explained that REDD will be a major focus of the negotiations in Cancún. He emphasized that the pro-REDD forces there are stacking the deck, hand picking who will be allowed to participate. Meanwhile the Mexican government is doing its best to legitimize REDD. “They are trying to manipulate the process to make it seem like Indigenous Peoples support REDD. REDD will be a crucial battle. It must be clear that there is no agreement among Indigenous Peoples about REDD.” He concluded by saying, “Using Indigenous Peoples to legitimize the buying and selling of nature is a big problem and we will do what we can to stop it.”
The consensus of the meeting was that the movements supporting the Cochabamba Accord and the Rights of Mother Earth need a unified message–one that is strongly opposed to carbon markets and against REDD. But it was also agreed that it is not so much the Cochabamba Accord itself that must be supported, but its ideas and positions.
The final take away message of the meeting was that social movements must continue to organize and coordinate in preparation for Cancún, and that this must include a concerted effort to raise the issues in the media. As Pablo Salón explained, “We need as much media coverage as possible.”
Those of us who attended are now tasked with taking these mandates to our allies and our constituencies in the countdown toward Cancún. Global Justice Ecology Project is taking this up and will be focused on connecting mainstream and alternative media with the voices of people resisting the impacts of climate change and fossil fuels, and with the messages of social movements fighting for climate justice. We will be doing our part to advance the principles of the Cochabamba Accord and the Rights of Mother Earth.
See you in the streets!
Photo: Evo Morales speaks at the Church Center of the United Nations while Cassandra Smithies translates. Photo: Petermann/GJEP
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Filed under Climate Justice, Indigenous Peoples, Posts from Anne Petermann, REDD
Two of the most recent additions to Global Justice Ecology Project’s New Voices on Climate Change program, Stine Gry Jonassen and Tannie Nyboe were arrested preemptively during the UN climate conference in Copenhagen last December (COP15) and were detained for up to a month. Stine and Tannie are accused of charges including planning violence against police, systematic vandalism and serious disturbance of public peace and order. Some of these charges are drawn from the Danish terror package and the penalties are strenghtened by the new Danish anti-protester laws introduced just prior to the COP15. The charges they face are unfounded, but can still potentially result in years in prison. Additionally Stine was officially accredited to the UN climate conference by Global Justice Ecology Project.
Please spread in all your networks:
Call for Solidarity actions with the accused COP15 activists
On the 18th of August there will be a solidarity demonstration in Copenhagen to mark the trial of the first two people accused of ‘organizing’ the protests around the COP 15. We urge everyone to spend the day or the following days on demonstrations and statements of support and solidarity – demonstration and manifestations outside Danish embassies, press work and articles – all are welcome and appreciated.
During the climate summit in Copenhagen, around 2000 people were arrested preventively and held in custody while they were trying to get their voices heard. These people along with thousands of other activists from around the world were trying to set a different and more just political agenda in the climate debate.
Approximately 20 people were detained for up to a month, out of which four people are faced with trials this autumn.* These people are accused of charges including planning violence against police, systematic vandalism and serious disturbance of public peace and order. Some of these charges are drawn from the Danish terror package and the penalties are strenghtened by the new Danish anti-protester laws introduced just prior to the COP 15. The charges they face are unfounded, but can still potentially result in years in prison.
During COP15 thousands of people from around the world gathered in Copenhagen to challenge the farcical political negotiations at the Bella Center and demand just solutions to the climate crises. We demonstrated for solutions that are not only favouring the rich western world. We protested for real solutions which are challenging the capitalist system, because this system has a constant focus on growth and profit that is obviously not able to solve the climate problems.
This dawning climate justice movement was met with antipathy and arrogance of power from the Danish government, which was reflected in the form of a massive police repression. During 2009 the Danish government and the Danish police carried out an intense scare campaign
in the media to demonize protesters and activists. Police were given extra power and economic resources for the COP 15. This led to thousands of preventive arrests, month-long surveillance of telephone and raids of private homes and accommodations, and grotesque and unnecessary detentions.
The police actions were completely out of proportion and a clear violation of our democratic rights. Their actions attempted criminalization of our right to organize ourselves politically. It was made clear that any movement that dares to challenge existing power structures and demand political changes are not welcome in Denmark today. Instead of listening to the massive criticism of the negotiations, the Danish government revealed a hypocritical lack of
interest in solving the climate problems. And now the Danish state is trying to make four individuals responsible for a whole movement’s collective decision-making and collective protests.
In our view – the right to protest and everyone’s right to be heard, is an essential element in a democracy – even if you are speaking against the existing capitalist system. We therefore call on everyone to show solidarity with the accused and make the criticism of the ongoing
processes visible.
We would like to receive information and documentation of any actions you take to collect on our website.
The coming trials is not just about the fact that innocent people might be convicted, but about everybody’s fundamental right to demonstrate, protest, take action and organize politically. It is important that we do not sign away these rights, but continue the fight.
In Solidarity – The Climate Collective
www.cop15repression.info or www.climatecollective.org
email: cop15repression@climatecollective.org
* The four accused are: Natasha Verco, Noah Weiss, Stine Gry Jonassen and Tannie Nyboe. Natasha and Noah’s trials are on the 24th, 25th and 31th of August, and Stine and Tannie’s trials are on the 6th, 27th and 28th of October. The prosecution case against the Danish state about the preventive arrests are on the 23th and 30th of August and the 1st of September.
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Filed under Climate Change, Climate Justice, Copenhagen/COP-15, Independent Media, Media
In 2009, Indigenous peoples throughout the world called for a global
mobilisation ‘In Defense of Mother Earth’ on October 12, reclaiming
the day that used to be imposed as ‘Columbus Day’. Responding to this
call, and the demand for a day of action for ‘system change, not
climate change’ issued by the global movements gathered in Copenhagen
last year, Climate Justice Action is proposing a day of direct action
for climate justice on October 12, 2010.
Today, we know…
For years, many had hoped that governments, international summits,
even the very industries and corporations that caused the problem in
the first place, would do something, anything to stop climate change.
In December 2009, at the 15th global climate summit in Copenhagen
(COP15), that hope was revealed as an illusion: a comfortable way to
delude ourselves into believing that ‘someone else’ could solve the
problem for us. That ‘someone’ would make the crisis go away. That
there was someone ‘in charge’.
Today, after the disaster of COP15, we are wiser. Today we know:
– That we cannot expect UN-negotiations to solve the climate crisis
for us. Governments and corporations are unable (even if they were
willing) to deliver equitable and effective action on the root causes
of climate change.
– That the climate crisis isn’t a natural process, nor is it
accidental. Rather, it’s the inevitable outcome of an economic system
that is bound to pursue infinite economic growth at all costs.
– That only powerful climate justice movements can achieve the
structural changes that are necessary, whether it is through ending
our addiction to fossil fuels, replacing industrial agriculture with
local systems of food sovereignty, halting systems based on endless
growth and consumption, or addressing the historical responsibility of
the global elites’ massive ecological debt to the global exploited.
Today we know that is up to all of us to collectively reclaim power
over our daily lives. It is we who must start shutting down and moving
beyond the engines of capitalism, the burning of fossil fuels, the
conversion of all life into commodities, and the toxic imaginaries of
consumerism. It is we who must create different ways of living, other
ways of organising our societies.
Today we know that climate justice means taking action ourselves.
The 12th of October: then, and now
As the COP15 came crashing down, so did any remaining belief in the
capacity of UN-negotiations to implement equitable or effective
solutions. As they plan to stage their 16th summit in Cancun, Mexico,
it is becoming clear already that the movements will need to put up a
strong fight to stop any attempt to use the UN to profit from the
crisis through privatising our forests and carving up our atmosphere.
But real and just solutions to the climate crisis will come from
elsewhere – we must create other strategies, find other ways out of
the crisis.
In the ashes of the COP15, a meeting of global movements proposed
organising a global day of action under the banner ‘System Change not
Climate Change’. Climate Justice Action, the network responsible for
organising some of the disobedient actions in Copenhagen, took up this
suggestion by calling for a ‘global day of direct action for climate
justice’. Rather than once again following the global summit circus
around the world, being forced into nothing but a reaction to their
failures, we decided to set our own rhythm and our own schedule for
change.
On the 12th of October, 1492, Christopher Columbus first set foot on
the landmass that we know today as the Americas, marking the beginning
of centuries of colonialism. Thus began the globalisation of a system
of domination of the Earth and its people in the eternal pursuit for
growth, the subordination of life to the endless thirst for profit.
Latin America’s liberation at the beginning of the 19th century put an
end to direct rule by foreign crowns, but failed to put an end to the
exploitation of the many for the benefit of a few. Instead, this
system has become ever more pervasive, reaching to the bottom of the
ocean, to the clouds above us, and to the farthest depths of our
dreams. This is the system that is causing the climate crisis, and it
has a name: capitalism.
This day has recently been reclaimed by movements of indigenous
peoples – those who first felt the wrath, the violence, the
destructive force of this project – as a day ‘in Defense of Mother
Earth’. On May 31, 2009, the IV Continental Summit of Indigenous
Peoples of Abya Yala (the Americas) called for a Global Mobilization
“In defence of Mother Earth and Her People and against the
commercialization of life, pollution and the criminalization of
indigenous and social movements”.
Today it is all of us, and the entire planet, who increasingly suffer
the fate that some five centuries ago befell the indigenous of the
Americas and their native lands. Then, it was the colonisers’ mad
search for the profit obtained from precious metals that drove them to
wipe out entire cultures; today, it is capital’s search for fossil
fuels to drive its mad, never-ending expansion, that still wipes out
entire cultures, and causes the climate crisis. Then, they were
enslaved and often killed to provide labour to the infernal machines
of Europe; now, we are all enslaved and exploited to provide labour to
the infernal machines of capital. Then, it was a continent and its
people that was driven to destruction; today, it is a world and its
people that is being driven to destruction. Today, we are all the
global exploited.
Of course, not all life submitted to the rule of capital in a single
day. Capitalism is a complex web of social relations that took
centuries to emerge and dominate almost the entire planet. Nor will we
bring down the entire system, or build a new world, in a single day.
This day is a symbol, and symbols matter. This day is the unveiling of
the root causes of the climate crisis – capitalism. It is an
affirmation that – wherever you live and whatever your struggle – we
struggle against capital and for other worlds, together.
There’s only one crisis
But why focus on the fight for climate justice at a time when, all
around the world, people are losing their jobs, governments are
imposing austerity measures, all while the banks are once again
posting their exorbitant profits? Doesn’t the ‘economic crisis’ trump
the ‘climate crisis’? This perspective, however, looks at the world
from above and outside of it. Seen from above, there is a ‘climate
crisis’, caused by too much CO2 in the atmosphere, which is a threat
to future stability and future profit margins; seen from above, there
is an economic crisis, which is a threat to current stability and
current profit margins; seen from above, there is an energy crisis, a
food crisis, a water crisis… But from where we stand, there are no
separate crises. There are only threats to our livelihoods, our
reproduction – in short, our survival: it doesn’t matter whether it is
a physical tsunami that destroys our houses, or a tsunami of
destruction wrought by recession. Either way, we end up homeless.
The reason we can’t treat the apparently separate crises as separate?
They are all symptoms of the same sickness. They are, all of them, the
result of capital’s need for eternal growth, a cancerous growth that
is fuelled by the ever-expanding exploitation of social and natural
‘resources’ – including fossil fuels. Crisis is, in fact, the standard
mode of operation for this global system.
To struggle for climate justice, then, is to recognise that all these
crises are linked; that the climate crisis is as much as social and
economic crisis as it is an environmental disaster. To struggle for
climate justice is at the same time struggling against the madness of
capitalism, against austerity enforced from above, against their
insistence on the need for continued ‘growth’ (green or otherwise).
Climate justice isn’t about saving trees or polar bears – though we
probably should do both. It is about empowering communities to take
back power over their own lives. It is about leaving fossil fuels in
the ground and creating socialised renewable energy systems; it is
about food sovereignty against the domination of, and destruction
caused, by industrial agribusiness; it is about massively reducing
working hours, and starting to live different lives; it is about
reducing overproduction for overconsumption by elites in the North and
the South. Climate justice, in short, is the struggle for a good life
for us all.
Global movements for climate justice
In April this year more than 30,000 people came together in
Cochabamba, Bolivia, for the Conference on Climate Change and the
Rights of Mother Earth (CMPCC
). Together we produced a ‘Peoples’ Agreement’ which offered a
different way forward, a counterbalance to the failure of the
neoliberal market driven ‘solutions’ peddled in the COPs. Despite its
submission to the UN, it was completely ignored at the intersessional
meeting of the UNFCCC in Bonn, Germany.
The failure of the UNFCCC to respond to the Peoples Conference is of
no surprise to us, and as was perhaps the intention of its submission,
it has only further delegitimised the COP process. Perhaps most
importantly, it has once again shown that it is only ‘the movement’
that can bring about real changes for climate justice. But what is
this movement, and where are its edges? Movement is precisely that –
movement. The movement is all those moments when we consciously push a
different way of living into existence; when we operate according to
our many other values rather than the single Value of capital. And now
we are trying to make these moments resonate.
We invite all those who fight for social and ecological justice to
organise direct actions targeting climate criminals and false
solutions, or creating real alternatives. This means taking direct
responsibility for making change happen, not lobbying others to act on
your behalf, but through actively closing things down and opening
things up. This is an open callout, we are not picking targets. But it
is not a day for marches or petitions: it is time for us to reclaim
our power, and take control of our lives and futures.
http://climatejustice.posterous.com/
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Filed under Actions / Protest, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Copenhagen/COP-15, Independent Media, Media
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Cross-posted from UpsideDown World
Monday, 02 August 2010 20:15
“We’re mobilizing people in the camps and the shantytowns to let them know that getting housing is a right. Our vision is to make the problem of housing a focal point of people’s struggle,” said Reyneld Sanon of the Force for Reflection and Action on Housing (FRAKKA by its Creole acronym).
Haitian Shantytown Grassroots groups in Haiti are developing strategies to respond to one of the greatest lingering crises of many after the January 12 earthquake: homelessness for 1.9 million people whose houses crumbled or were too damaged to occupy. FRAKKA represents one initiative, though still fledgling, to unite grassroots groups and residents of internally displaced people’s camps to win their human right to housing. (For another initiative by the Support Group for the Repatriated and Refugees, see “ The Right to Housing in Haiti.”)
Dotting almost every street and open space in Port-au-Prince, and stretching as far as two hours’ drive out of town, are 1,300 formally recognized camps and many more unrecognized ones. Shelter for this nation of refugees occupy even the most unlikely spots, such as median strips on highways and fields near former dumping grounds of dictators’ bodies. At times, camps comprises no more than a few shaky lean-to’s overtaking a sidewalk; at other times, they cover vast terrain and contain tens of thousands of survivors. The shelters are built with whatever people can find, from cardboard boxes to Styrofoam trays, from plastic advertising banners to strips of imitation Arabic rugs. They offer little to no protection from the pounding night rains, thieves, or rapists.
Sanitary conditions are all but nonexistent. Some offer no latrines at all, while others provide putrid port-o-potties. Standard ‘bathroom’ procedure involves plastic buckets which are then emptied in communal spaces. When it is available at all, getting water with which to wash can involve standing in a long line in the tropical sun. Flies, mosquitoes, and other health risks are ubiquitous.
Loune Viaud, the Haiti Operations Coordinator of Partners in Haiti, told me, “Fortunately, we haven’t had any of the epidemics we’ve all been expecting. We’ve had a few cases of diphtheria, which are normally very rare.” She leaned over to knock on the wood of a window sill. When I asked about a spike in post-earthquake HIV rates, she said, “We don’t yet know, but with all the rape and promiscuity in the camps, there’s no way there couldn’t be.”
Violence and physical insecurity are endemic. The State Department renewed a travel advisory after four Americans were killed in Haiti in three months (though almost as many Americans, 3.6, are killed in a typical week in my town of New Orleans,[1] where the population is only about 5% of the island nation’s). Yet the violence primarily impacts those living in camps and on the streets. The cause of the spike in crime can be found in the proximity and vulnerability of victims, since everything the displaced own is in their makeshift shelters, which have no locks or often even walls. Surrounding families in the camps are as many as thousands of strangers. Women’s and girls’ bodies are similarly unprotected and easily accessed, aggravating high preexisting levels of gender-based violence. The spike in crime can also be traced to growing poverty, frustration, and alienation.
One unemployed woman living in a tent in the shantytown of Carrefour told me, “On the street, in the tent, there is no security. Only God.”
In interview after interview I’ve conducted over six months, people have regularly cited the following priorities for their security: a functioning national judicial system, responsive Haitian police, and fulfillment of basic needs. (The responses do not include, notably, greater U.N. ‘security’, as those troops have been involved in many acts of violence against the population. See “ United Nations Attacks Refugee Camp, Protests Mount”). But more than anything, they report, they want and need permanent, secure housing.
Two months into hurricane season, no national or international agency appears to have any plan; except for some 28,000 temporary shelters donated by aid agencies – usually just a fancier tent – the only response has been to move Haitians from one tent city to another. A rainstorm on July 12 provided just one indicator of what might happen in the case of a hurricane. Ripping through camp Corail, a bleak desert plain at the foot of a denuded mountain, hundreds of tents were flattened. Corail is one of the few sites where the government and international agencies took any action around internally displaced people, relocating them form their home-made tents elsewhere to commercial tents there.
Here’s another example of emergency preparedness. Amidst current conditions of desperation, tents and other emergency supplies are being withheld and stockpiled for a future humanitarian crisis – at least by international NGOs like Concern International, if not the United Nations itself. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, in its Weekly Facts and Messages for June 22, wrote “Contingency planning: Plans for the hurricane season already in place by the international response in Haiti include pre-positioning of emergency supplies.”
Over and over in my conversations with camp residents, they ask, “Do they think we’re animals?”
The question can’t be conclusively answered, but some indicators reveal negligence at best, and high disdain at worst. Food aid has been suspended since the end of March, except for ‘food for work’ programs whose benefits typically flow to friends and family of insiders. Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive is reported to have called for the closure of some camps. Forcible governmental removal of residents from camps is on the upswing. The U.N. apparently tried to negotiate a three-month moratorium on expulsions with the Haitian government, but the government only held off for three weeks.
Cheryl Mills, chief of staff for Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, said on May 10, “We’ve been trying to incentivize people to return to their homes, particularly if their homes have been adjudicated as safe. But people seek to remain in the temporary communities because, as surprising as that might seem outside of Haiti, life is better for many of them now.”[2]
It’s hard to miss the parallel between Mills’ comment and that of former First Lady Barbara Bush when she visited evacuees from New Orleans in the Houston Astrodome just after Hurricane Katrina. “What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary, is that they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this – this is working very well for them.”
Mills’ statement is also akin to popular talk among some middle- and upper-class Haitians, and U.N. and NGO employees of ‘false victims.’ ‘False victims’ are those whose lives weren’t fully destroyed by the earthquake and who therefore, apparently, should not be entitled to any benefits. These are people who didn’t lose their own houses but who go hang out at the camps to get whatever aid might be distributed. As I’ve heard it described in an upscale Pétion-ville club and other places far removed from the suffering, these ‘false victims’ are making out like kings from the crisis.
What’s the standard for being a ‘real’ victim? That one lost everything but the clothes on one’s back? That one is a corpse still lying, flattened, in one of many buildings across town that now serves as a mausoleum?
And what would it mean if people’s daily lives were so devastated that they had to go to crowded, muddy, inhumane refugee camps for an upgrade?
Beyond Mills’ and other’s insensitivity around the tremendous needs that all destitute people in Haiti face today, she is flat wrong. Most cannot return home for one of at least three reasons. First, the sites that held most of the cement-block houses that were destroyed during the earthquake remain covered in hills of rubble, so much that no tent can be erected there. Hiring a crew to clear and cart away that rubble can cost upwards of US$50, an impossible figure for most. Second, of those houses that are left standing, many are seriously cracked or otherwise damaged. Third, many families who were renters were kicked out by landlords immediately after the earthquake.
“Aren’t we all Haitians? Is any one of us more a person than anyone else?” one former street vendor inquired. She lost her husband, one-room home, all belongings, and the merchandise through which she made her living in the earthquake, and now lives with three children and a niece in a tent made of four sapling trunks and a ripped blue plastic tarp.
“Since January 12, it’s gotten so serious that we have to make this the focus of our work. Even the Haitian Constitution, Article 22, says that the state has an obligation to provide good housing to people,” said Reyneld Sanon, one of the coordinators of the aforementioned housing advocacy group FRAKKA. Formed two months after the earthquake, FRAKKA is a coalition of about thirty groups, including youth, community, workers’ rights, popular education, and children’s right organizations, plus organizations and leadership committees from camps. While the coalition’s size and strength are still humble, it is representative of a new trend to organize around permanent lodging.
“We’ll take advantage of this moment to remind people that in 1985, Mexico had an earthquake. People organized themselves and forced the state to get them housing to live in,” Sanon continued.
“The problem of housing has always been there. If you look at the slums before January 12, those weren’t houses that anyone should have been living in. As the proverb says in Haiti, ‘These houses can fool the sun, but they can’t fool the rain.’ And the problem isn’t just in Port-au-Prince; it’s a national problem. Peasants need houses, too. If you travel around the county, you can see the status of peasants’ housing. You can see that everyone in the country need better housing.
“People know that we have a state that doesn’t work for them. Generally, the state in this country just works for a small sector who are sucking the people dry, that’s in the employ of the bourgeoisie. The people don’t know they have things like the right to free schooling and to health care, and that the state has to give that to them, since they’ve never gotten these things. But they’ve already paid for them with their taxes and even with foreign loans, because it’s the people who are going to pay those back.
“One of the activities we did on May 1 was a training session with about 30 representatives of different organizations. We gave them two documents, Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 22 of the Constitution. We went into the camps and did meetings with small groups and one-on-one to talk to them about their rights.
“Then we’re doing consciousness-raising on the necessity for people to unify and fight for housing. This leads us to mobilization, where people can take the streets on a regular basis to get their needs met. Sit-ins, too: we already have a calendar of days to do sit-ins in camps and shantytowns.
A press release by FRAKKA from July 27 recognized that, “The definitive solution to the problem of housing is tied to questions of decentralization, management of the nation, and agrarian reform.” I might add a commitment by the government and international community to meet the needs of all. But in the meantime, the statement reads, “We must mobilize… to demand our rights to get good housing and quality of life.”
Thanks to Mark Schuller, Melinda Miles, and Nicole Phillips.
Beverly Bell has worked with Haitian social movements for over 30 years. She is also author of the book Walking on Fire: Haitian Women’s Stories of Survival and Resistance. She coordinates Other Worlds, www.otherworldsarepossible.org, which promotes social and economic alternatives. She is also associate fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies.
1 Brendan McCarthy, “Despite drop in crime, New Orleans’ murder rate continues to lead nation,” Times-Picayune, June 1, 2009.
2 From Lois Romano, “State Department’s Cheryl Mills on rebuilding Haiti,” Washington Post, May 20, 2010, p. A15, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/09/AR2010050903009.html
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Filed under Actions / Protest, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Earth Minute, Independent Media, Indigenous Peoples, Media
Dear Friends, Supporters, Comrades and Community,
As you may recall, a lively protest took place on the streets of Chicago’s financial district last November 30, on the 10th anniversary of the “Battle of Seattle” and a week ahead of the big UN climate summit in Copenhagen. Several groups from across the city had come together to demand just, equitable, and effective solutions to the climate crisis, starting with the shut-down of the Crawford and Fisk coal plants in Chicago’s Little Village and Pilsen neighborhoods. The November 30th (N30) event also targeted “false solutions” to climate change like carbon trading, nukes and agrofuels, and was part of a national day of action for climate justice.
Now, the city has decided to charge these folks $8,340, with a deadline of mid-August to pay the fines.
Following visits to several local “climate criminals,” including JP Morgan Chase (one of the leading funders of mountain top removal coal mining), Midwest Generation (the owner of Chicago’s two coal-fired power plants), and the Board of Trade (which trades in palm oil, one of the leading drivers of rainforest destruction), the N30 march arrived at the main target, the Chicago Climate Exchange.
The Chicago Climate Exchange is the first and largest carbon trading institution in North America. Carbon Trading is a system of trading in carbon that intensifies social injustice, does not reduce emissions in a meaningful way, results in more pollution and more displacement for communities on the ground, and acts as a dangerous distraction from the real climate solutions we urgently need. (It does succeed in making a bunch of money for big polluters and their cohorts.) Unfortunately, participation in this fraudulent market has become the primary way that governments, corporations, and mainstream environmental groups have attempted to “solve” the climate crisis.
To draw attention to carbon trading as a false solution, 12 people locked their arms together in lockboxes, formed a large circle, and took over the intersection of Adams and LaSalle, outside the offices of the Chicago Climate Exchange, for several hours, encircling a banner that read, “Chicago Climate Exchange – the Air is Not for Sale!” (Check out photos and video from the action at http://howgreenischicago.org.)
Now, the city has decided to charge these folks $8,340, with a deadline of mid-August to pay the fines. We need your support!! Please consider donating whatever you can to support the N30 defendants. Throw a benefit party, pass a hat, sell some cupcakes — it all adds up!
You can donate online below, or send a check payable to LVEJO with “N30 Legal Defense” in the memo line to:
LVEJO – Little Village Environmental Justice Organization
2856 S. Millard Ave.
Chicago, IL 60623
Thank you! All donations are much appreciated!!!
Love,
The Climate Exchange 12
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Filed under Actions / Protest, Bioenergy / Agrofuels, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Copenhagen/COP-15, Greenwashing, Independent Media, Media
This week’s Earth Minute discusses the San Francisco Peaks, a mountain range sacred to more than 13 tribes in the Southwest United States are threatened by a recent USDA decision that would allow the Arizona Snowbowl Ski Resort to use reclaimed sewage water for snowmaking.
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Filed under Climate Change, Climate Justice, Earth Minute, Greenwashing, Independent Media, Indigenous Peoples, Media, Posts from Anne Petermann, Water
By Brian Tokar
From Communalism Press in Porsgrunn, Norway
(cover photo by Global Justice Ecology Project’s Orin Langelle taken in Copenhagen at the 2009 UN Climate Talks)
Available now from Amazon.com
To be distributed by AK Press in the US and UK.
List Price: $14.95. Bulk discounts are available via http://www.communalism.net.
Toward Climate Justice explains the case for Climate Justice, challenges the myths underlying carbon markets and other false solutions, including the emergence of new nuclear and biofuel technologies. The book also dissects the events that shaped the diplomatic failure of the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit.
Drawing on more than three decades of political engagement with energy and climate issues, Brian Tokar shows how the perspective of social ecology can point the way toward a radically ecological reconstruction of society, in contrast to the grim, apocalyptic visions that underlie much of today’s popular climate activism.
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Brian Tokar is a long-time activist and author, and the current Director of the Institute for Social Ecology, based in Plainfield, Vermont. He is the author of The Green Alternative and Earth for Sale, editor of two books on the politics of biotechnology, Redesigning Life? and Gene Traders, and lectures widely on a variety of environmental and political topics.
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Contents:
Introduction, by Eirik Eiglad
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Filed under Climate Justice
