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Haiti Reborn Update - May 14, 2007

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Quixote Center/Haiti Reborn - May 14, 2007

Haiti Reborn Update - May 14, 2007

Dear friends,

Thanks to those of you who made calls in support of the Haiti Protection
Act (H.R. 522) and fairness for Haitian refugees. Two co-sponsors were
added last week, bringing the total to 36. We are hoping that people will
continue to be in touch with their legislators about this issue. Members
of Congress will be in their home districts the week of May 28- June 1.
This would be a good time to go visit them and talk to them about Haiti,
specifically the Haiti Protection Act, the debt resolution (more below),
and legislation mandating an investigation into the involvement of the
United States government in the coup of 2004.

Many people followed the events of May 4, when a boat carrying 160 Haitian
refugees capsized off the shore of Turks and Caicos ? a British
territory. At least 68 people died. The survivors of the attack have now
accused the naval police of ramming the boat.

The following is from an AP story, as published in the Miami Herald last
Thursday:

"PORT-AU-PRINCE --Survivors of the worst disaster to hit Haitian migrants
in years were ''angry and revolted'' as they accused a Turks and
Caicos police vessel of ramming their crowded boat twice before it
capsized, killing dozens in shark-infested waters, a senior official said
Wednesday.

The shocking allegation against the British territory's police
boat didn't come out until Tuesday because the 78
survivors of the disaster have been locked in a jail-like
detention center and barred from speaking to journalists.

Officials say about 160 migrants were jammed onto a rickety sailboat that
capsized before dawn last Friday, spilling most of them into the
Atlantic Ocean a half-mile off one of the islands in the Turks
and Caicos, 125 miles north of Haiti.

''They're very angry and revolted by what happened, because this is a
problem that we still can't clarify up until now,'' Jeanne Bernard Pierre,
director-general of Haiti's National Migration Office, told The Associated
Press from the Turks and Caicos, where she met with the detained
survivors. The Turks and Caicos government will not comment on the
allegations until two investigations into the incident are completed, said
Ben Boddy, an official with the governor's office. Britain's Foreign
Office also declined to comment pending the investigations."

We will be trying to keep up with this story and the promised
investigations on our web site.

National call-in Day - May 18

This coming Friday, May 18 is Haiti Flag Day. As part of the Jubilee USA
Network we will be taking part in a national call in day I support of
House Resolution 241, to cancel Haiti?s debts. There will be a separate
alert with more details on Wednesday evening. Telephone calls make a big
difference. The debt resolution now has 36 co-sponsors. 25 co-sponsors
have been added over the past few weeks with phone calls. If we can keep
the pressure up we can still make it over 60 co-sponsors by the end of
May, and thus add more pressure for a hearing on the resolution in House.

A related effort is the following sign-on letter that has been signed by
32 national and local organizations thus far. If your organization would
like to be added please e-mail me at tomr@quixote.org by Wednesday, May
16. This letter will be delivered to members of Congress this Friday.

Finally, we?ve had some difficult with the e-mail provider we send these
updates through related to the unsubscribe link. If you would like to
unsubscribe from this list and the link provided above does not work,
please just hit respond to this e-mail and tell us to take you off the
list.

Have a great week. Keep and eye out for the alert on Wednesday evening and
please forward it! Thank you,

Tom

****

Dear member of Congress:

We are writing today to encourage you to support House Resolution 241.
House Resolution 241 would direct the United States Executive Directors at
the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and the Inter-American
Development Bank to use the voice, vote, and influence of the United
States to immediately cancel Haiti?s debts to those institutions.

We note that the all of these institutions have already agreed to cancel
Haiti?s debts. They recognize that Haiti?s debt burden is unsustainable,
and that the funds used to service this debt would be better served being
used to save lives and educating Haiti?s future leaders. However, under
the processes that have been proposed Haiti will have to wait at least
three years before receiving this debt cancellation. A three-year delay
means that people will continue to suffer from lack of access to health
services and education budgets will be strained. The reason for the delay
is the insistence by these institutions that Haiti undergo further policy
and structural reform under the framework of the Heavily Indebted Poor
Countries (HIPC) Initiative. We ask you to consider the following:

Haiti has been undergoing market oriented structural reform for over
twenty years. Indeed, Haiti already has the lowest public sector
employment rate in the Western Hemisphere, as well as the lowest average
tariffs. Less than twenty percent of Haiti?s children are able to attend
public schools, and access to health services is seriously restricted.

The lowering of tariffs on agriculture have generated mass displacement in
rural areas, adding pressure on already under-funded public services,
particularly health and education, in urban areas. Since 1986, Haiti has
averaged annual growth rates of negative two-percent, so that today
eighty-percent of Haiti?s people live on less than $2 a day ? fifty
percent on less than $1 dollar a day. In other words the policy reforms
that have been mandated in Haiti over the last twenty years by these same
institutions have not worked. What can Haiti gain by three more years of
the same?

Over half of Haiti?s current debt to the World Bank, IMF, and
Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) was accumulated by the Duvalier
dictatorship and the military juntas that governed Haiti after his
departure. Less than 50 percent of IDB loans and only 35 percent of World
Bank loans that Haiti is currently being asked to pay off were actually
distributed to an elected government.

Haiti will pay $56-70 million a year to service debts to the IDB and World
Bank, a total of $170-200 million over the next three years. This is
equivalent to the annual budgets for education and health combined
(approximately $180 million a year). What does three years mean?

The most recent World Health Report (2006) estimated that Haiti?s
government spends $10 per capita on health ? or $83 million a year. (The
U.S. government spends $2,500 per capita on health.) With this budget,
Haiti has 25 doctors, 11 nurses, and 1 dentist per 100,000 people. Only
24%% of women are accompanied by a trained health provider during
childbirth and only 18%% of births happen in a health facility. Haiti has
the highest HIV/AIDS infection rate and the lowest coverage of potable
water in the Western Hemisphere. The low levels of public expenditures on
health also means that services nearly always require a fee ? which puts
even the most basic healthcare out of reach of the majority of Haitians.

As a result, between now and the end of fiscal year 2010 in Haiti
90-100,000 children will die before reaching the age of 11 months and
another 30-40,000 will die before reaching the age of 5 years. Haiti?s
under-five mortality rate is 1500%% higher than in the United States. Based
on the number of live births in the United States each year a comparable
under-five mortality rate would translate into 1.5-1.8 million children
dying over the same period of time ? 1,600 a day!

Approximately 6,000 women will die during childbirth in Haiti between now
and October 2010. In the United States, with 35 times the population, the
total number of deaths will likely be less than 2,000. At the same
maternal mortality rate as Haiti, nearly 100,000 women would die in the
United States during childbirth over a comparable period.

$180 million will not change all of this overnight. But it could have a
dramatic impact now in extending health services to thousands of people.

In conclusion, since the World Bank, IMF, and IDB have already agreed to
cancel Haiti?s debt, and considering that remaining debt service is
largely on debts accumulated by former dictators, we ask you to support
House Resolution 241 and work to ensure that the people of Haiti are not
forced to wait three more years to receive this debt cancellation.
Sincerely, Alliance for Global Justice Chuck Kaufman, Director

Delaware County Pledge of Resistance,
Ronald Coburn, MD and Paula Bronstein

Democracy for Haiti
Jean Yves Point-du-Jour, Co-Director,

East Timor Action Network / Madison (Wis.)
Eric Piotrowski, co-coordinator,
Ecumenical Program on Central America and the Caribbean
Scott Wright, Director

Fondasyon Mapou
Eugenia Charles, Executive Director

Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA
Marty Jordan, Co-Director

Haiti KONPAY
Melinda Miles and Joe Duplan, Co-Directors

Haitian Priorities Project
Jacob Francois, Co-Founder

Haiti Rights Vision (VIDWA)
Anne Sosin, Coordinator

Human Rights Accompaniment In Haiti
Tom Luce, President

Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti
Brian Concannon, Director

Jubilee Northwest Coalition, Seattle, WA.
Betsy Bell, Chair and Alice Woldt, Treasurer

Jubilee USA Network
Karen Joyner, Communication and Advocacy Coordinator

Madison Women for Peace: a CODEPINK affiliate (Madison, Wis.)
Diane Farsetta, co-founder,

Marin Inter-Faith Task Force on the Americas
Dale Sorenson, Director

Mothers on the Move, Bronx, NY
Wanda Salaman & Taleigh Smith

NY Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador
Wendy Vasquez

Nicaragua Network
Katherine Hoyt, National Co-Coordinator

Nicaragua-US Friendship Office
Rita Clark, Director

Pax Christi Maine and Pax Christi Portland (ME)
William Slavick

Philadelphia Buddhist Peace Fellowship,
Karen A. Wisniewski and Dom Roberti

Portland Peaceful Response Coalition
William R. Seaman

Project 2000 International
Majolie Zephirin, President

Quixote Center/Haiti Reborn
Tom Ricker, Co-director

St. Joseph Worker Foundation, Inc.
Jane A. Wildeman, , Founding Administrative Director,

Sustainable Organic Intergrated Livelihoods.
Sarah Brownell, Sasha Kramer, and Kevin Foos, directors

Global Ministries - Wider Church Ministries (UCC) and the Division of
Overseas Ministries (Christian Church Disciples of Christ)
Rev. Callie Rogers - Witte and Rev. David Vargas, Co-executives

Venezuela Solidarity Network
Banbose Shango, Regional Coordinator

Voices for Global Justice

Washington Office, Presbyterian Church, (USA)
Rev. Elenora Giddings Ivory, Director

World Mission Ministries, Archdiocese of Milwaukee
Rosemary Huddleston, OP

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