The Latin American Solidarity Centre (Ireland) calls for solidarity with the Haitian people

national | miscellaneous | press release Thursday January 14, 2010 16:51 by LASC - LASC research at lasc dot ie 5 Merrion Row, Dublin 2 01-6760435

At this terrible time, LASC stands with the Haitian people. We offer our solidarity and we call on our members and supporters to donate generously to the humanitarian organisations that have sent appeals to bring some relief to the Haitian people living through these dramatic moments.

Tragedy strikes Haiti once again. This time, it was a fierce 7 degree earthquake which devastated the country and turned it into rubble. We have yet to know the exact number of victims, but the Red Cross is talking about 3 million affected and the number of dead could well go up to 100,000 –an enormous amount if we take into account that the country has a population of only 8 million. The images of survivors crushed under the rubble begging for help, of wounded children, of people breaking up in tears for their dead relatives give a much more accurate sense of the horror of this tragedy than anything we could say.

At this terrible time, LASC stands with the Haitian people. We offer our solidarity and we call on our members and supporters to donate generously to the humanitarian organisations that have sent appeals to bring some relief to the Haitian people living through these dramatic moments.

The "international community” has expressed its sorrow for Haiti’s unspeakable drama; however, we cannot forget the double standards of some of the players in this community who fail to recognize its own share of responsibility in this catastrophe. This earthquake was all the more devastating because of a global system that has reduced most of Port-au-Prince population to living in shacks in slums, with precarious infrastructure and no facilities, hence increasing the prospect of a fearful death toll.

The devastation we witness today was preceded by a century of military interventions, of shameless plunder, of extortionist external debt, of abusive economic agreements with the leading world powers (including the EU), of US-backed and France-backed autocratic regimes and of international financial institutions’ policies aimed at benefiting a few at the expense of the majority of Haitian people. This country has been turned into an enormous sweatshop, where the majority of its people survive thanks to charity. Once again, we call for your solidarity in the face of this latest tragedy . But we also call for your solidarity in helping us re-think the relations of the great world powers with Haiti. Real solidarity should make us question the purpose served by the current UN-sponsored military occupation of Haiti which has had as much of a devastating effect on the Haitian population as this earthquake.

We hope our Haitian brethren will benefit from the solidarity of people from all over the world. We call our members and supporters to donate generously to LASC partners carrying out relief tasks in Haiti:

To donate to Trocaire please visit https://www.trocaire.org/make-a-donation

Donate to Christian Aid online at http://www.christianaid.ie/emergencies/current/haiti-ea....aspx, by calling their Dublin office on 01 611 0801, or by post to: Haiti earthquake appeal, Christian Aid, 17 Clanwilliam Terrace, Dublin 2.