21 January 2010
 
We, the undersigned, are outraged by the scandalous delays in  
distributing essential aid to victims of the earthquake in Haiti. Since the US Air  
Force seized unilateral control of the airport in Port-au-Prince, it has
privileged military over civilian humanitarian flights. As a result,  
untold numbers of people have died needlessly in the rubble of Port-au-Prince,
Leogane and other abandoned towns.
 
If aid continues to be withheld, many more preventable deaths will  
follow. We demand that US commanders immediately restore executive control of  
the relief effort to Haiti's leaders, and to help rather than replace the  
local officials they claim to support.
 
We note that obsessive foreign concerns with 'security' and 'looting'  
are largely refuted by actual levels of patience and solidarity on the  
streets of Port-au-Prince. The decision to avoid what US commanders have called
"another Somalia-type situation" by prioritizing security and military
control is likely to succeed only in provoking the very kinds of unrest they
condemn.
 
In keeping with a longstanding pattern, US and UN officials continue to
treat the Haitian people and their representatives with wholly misplaced
fear and suspicion. We call on the de facto rulers of Haiti to facilitate, as the  
reconstruction begins, the renewal of popular participation in the determination of
collective priorities and decisions.
 
We demand that they do everything possible to strengthen the capacity  
of the Haitian people to respond to this crisis.
 
We demand, consequently, that they allow Haiti's most popular and most
inspiring political leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide (whose party won  
90% of the parliamentary seats in the country's last round of democratic
elections), to return immediately and safely from the unconstitutional  
exile to which he has been confined since the US, Canada and France helped  
depose him in 2004.
 
If reconstruction proceeds under the supervision of foreign troops and
international development agencies it will not serve the interests of  
the vast majority of Haiti's population.
 
Neoliberal forms of international "aid" have already directly  
contributed to the systematic impoverishment of Haiti's people and the undermining of  
their government, and in both 1991 and 2004 the US intervened to overthrow the
elected government and attack its supporters, with devastating effects.
 
This is why we urgently call on the countries that dominate Haiti and  
the region to respect Haitian sovereignty and to initiate an immediate
reorientation of international aid, away from neo-liberal adjustment,
sweatshop exploitation and non-governmental charity, and towards  
systematic investment in Haiti's own people and government.
 
We demand a much greater international role for Haiti's genuine allies  
and supporters, including Cuba, South Africa, Venezuela, the Bahamas and  
other members of CARICOM.
 
We demand that all reconstruction aid take the form of grants not loans.
We demand that Haiti's remaining foreign debt be immediately forgiven,  
and that the money that foreign governments still owe to Haiti — notably the
massive sums extorted by the French government from 1825 through to  
1947 as compensation for the slaves and property France lost when Haiti won its
independence — be paid in full and at once.
 
Above all, we demand that the reconstruction of Haiti be pursued under  
the guidance of one overarching objective: the political and economic
empowerment of the Haitian people.

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