Call for a Haiti Solidarity Committee

dublin | anti-war / imperialism | event notice Tuesday January 26, 2010 18:00 by LASC - LASC info at lasc dot ie 5 Merrion Row, Dublin 2 01-6760435

Dear friends, at this tragic moment in which at least 150,000 Haitian people have died in the recent earthquake, we would expect doctors and rescue brigades to have been sent urgently in order to help the victims. Instead, the US is taking advantage of the tragedy by sending a massive number of troops to occupy the country, while in the process boycotting the delivery of aid and occupying strategic ports and the national airport (See http://www.indymedia.ie/article/95572). The UN, which had 9,000 ocuppying troops in Haiti before the quake, is now sending more troops. As if Haiti was in the middle of a civil war! As a commentator said, seemingly Haitian people cannot be fed unless when looked down the barrel of a gun. Here in Ireland, Billy Timmins has been asking that the EU send troops as well (http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/0120/122....html). No one wants to be left out when it comes to the militarization of Haiti!

In the wider context, there is a US project to increase their military presence in all of Latin America and regain its power in the region. The UN and other powers in the region see Haiti in the same terms. They try to stabilise the country at gunpoint, rather than support the welfare and the democratic ownership of the country by its citizens. The only role they see for Haiti in the world is that of a sweatshop for transnational companies while its population is kept on line through sheer force.

Growing voices in Haiti have said "enough!" and we take their call as our own. Therefore, we are calling on everyone to join us in creating a Haiti solidarity committee in order to support the struggle of the Haitian people against the US-UN occupation of their country, against those who strangle it with the burden of the illegitimate debts and those who starve it through Neoliberal sponsored economics. We support the grassroots organisations in Haiti who want to rebuild a country with a future, a country owned by its people.

We invite you to take part on a planning meeting for this group in Seomra Spraoi (10 Belvidere Court, Dublin 1), Thursday 28th of January, at 19:00