Update on Haiti

Dear IAI friends,

Yesterday, the day after the earthquake in Haiti, has been a day of a great deal of work and the relinquishing of individual work as well as social schedules in order for us to come to terms with reality. I am surprised at how positively my country, the Dominican Republic, has responded to the disaster of our brothers. Hundreds of rescuers have entered Haiti (no others came yesterday from other countries). The Dominican hospitals are very crowded.

In Haiti, not only the centre of Port-au-Prince, the part of the rich Pieton Ville,has collapsed, and the cathedral and governor’s palace, but also the government buildings hit hard while MINUSTAH was in session and many agency heads have died. The entire cupola of the church, including the archbishop, has collapsed. We know all this through testimonials on national channels, which have been there very early and have set up to transmit directly from there.

In the meantime, a group of friends from organizations went to Port-au-Prince because nothing was known of our brothers of PAPDA- Camille Chalmers, Mortimé, Carol and others from Port-au-Prince.

From Cape Haitian only Elvira from AFASDACAP, an IAI member, has written. They are well, totally unharmed, because as we know the earthquake covered an area of about 60 km. We sent proposals to her and await a reply.

What has been done in the Dominican Republic

1. Meeting convened in the morning of 13/1/10 by the Citizen’s Forum

The majority of NGO’s most active in the country have participated there, agencies, EU, WB, among others, and also some social movements. We have participated as Zero Evictions Campaign- the International Alliance of Inhabitants.

There they have put together a Centre of Coordination for humanitarian help which has created commissions (Stores,Information, 4 points of border contact, etc.).The Jesuit Centre Bonó will be the work place. We will participate as IAI in the Information Centre, and we will support the Popular Urban Network .

2. Meeting in the afternoon with the social movements

Decisions of the meeting of the social movements:

It was decided to work at two levels, one for humanitarian aid in Haiti, together with a group of organizations and from one single centre of coordination (that initiated by the Centre Bonó and the Citizen’s Forum) and another level more political.

1st level: One would start working with COPADEBA, the Urban Network, Coophabitat on the Commission of Volunteers initiated at the meeting organized by the Citizen’s Forum.

2nd level: The second level has to do with the role of social movements. It is not necessary that we coordinate this exclusively with the group of organizations we are working with-1st level-that is to say, with the humanitarian campaign. In this part, what stands out is the importance that social movements have in their intervention in specifying their opinion with regard to:

-Demanding that the border is held open so that we can give assistance to our affected Haitian brothers whose lives are in danger because of the situation (the so called want the border closed).

-Calling upon the Dominican government to lend all its facilities so that the help which comes or is collected for its fraternal Haitian nation can pass the border and go though customs without delay.

-To establish a position so that the reconstruction of Haiti does not add to the external debt, but on the contrary, it should serve to cancel the debt for different developing countries which asked to assume the reconstruction of Haiti. This major focus is a priority as articulated in the relationship with our brothers in Haiti in order to develop an alternative proposal regarding reconstruction.

- In this sense, we have to make an effort to contact social movements in Haiti, and to develop an alternative proposal to reconstruction.

What we need to do today

We have been on contact with Cesare Ottolini. This afternoon, the Antenna and the National Organizing Committee of the World Assembly of Inhabitants are meeting. We will put to a vote some matters which we have been discussing. We hope to have information now from Haiti, and we hope we can put forward a proposal we have worked out for concrete action…in Haiti it is not as easy as in Peru, because of the fragility of the organizations.

Pedro Franco
IAI Coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean
Santo Domingo, January 15th 2010