To all our partners

On January 12^th 2010 an earthquake of unprecedented force struck our country
with dramatic consequences for the people of many areas in the west and
south east, and for the country as a whole. The tremor registered 7.3 on the
Richter scale, and the irreparable losses it caused have left our country in
mourning and unbearable pain. The tragedy we are facing today is certainly
one of the gravest in our history, and its traumatic effects will stamp
their mark on our 21^st century.

The partial accounts that have already been disseminated go some way to
expressing the dreadful, indescribable horror that we collectively lived
through during those endless 35 seconds on January 12^th, and which have left
so powerful a legacy of pain and tears. More than 150,000 dead, 500,000
injured, over a million homeless, tens of thousands who have lost limbs,
300,000 refugees who have fled into the countryside, more than 3 million
disaster victims who, from one minute to the next, saw their lives, their
homes and their society changed forever. A whole society is traumatised, and
lives in fear of probable aftershocks or of a second earthquake.

Our organizations have all been profoundly affected by this event. We have
lost close relatives, work colleagues, children, young people, professionals
with dreams full of promise and skills, buildings, equipment, tools, and a
huge body of documents embodying thirty years of the collective experience
of grassroots and community organizations. The losses are enormous and
irreplaceable.

Despite our pain, it is important that that we all pause to reflect on what
has happened and to draw from this tragic experience the lessons and the
guidance that will allow us to continue our tireless dedication to building
a different country, one that is capable of overcoming the cycle of
dependency and destruction and rising to the level of the dreams of
universal emancipation of its founders and of all the people of Haiti.

The extent of the disaster is certainly linked to the character of the
colonial and neo-colonial State our country has inherited, and the
imposition of neo-liberal policies over the last three decades. The extreme
centralization around the ‘Republic of Port-au-Prince’ imposed after the US
occupation of 1915-1934 is certainly one determining factor. In particular
the complete liberalization of the housing market has opened a space for
rampant speculation by every kind of opportunist.

We have been deeply moved by the extraordinary spirit of solidarity
displayed by the people of the metropolitan area who for the first three
days after the disaster responded with self-organization, helping to save
the lives of thousands of people trapped under the rubble and building 450
refugee camps which made it possible for 1.5 million people to survive
thanks the sharing out of the available resources (food, water, and
clothing). We honour and respect the people of Port-au-Prince! These
spontaneous organs of solidarity must now play a central role in the
reconstruction and reconceptualising of our national space.

We address this letter to our partners, and the national and international
networks in which we participate, to inform you of the actions we have taken
and our objectives for the short, medium, and long term.

For over a week now a group of organizations and platforms have been meeting
regularly to address the new situation, setting up new strategies and
methods of work. As representatives of the organizations and platforms who
are signatories to this document, and as a result of a number of meetings to
assess the new situation and define common strategies, we have adopted a
position based on the following guidelines:

To contribute to defending the main gains made by the popular and social
movements of Haiti now threatened by the new situation.

To help to respond to the urgent immediate needs of the people, by setting
up community service centres with the means to respond to the following
needs: food, primary health care, medical and psychological assistance for
those in shock as a result of the earthquake.

To take advantage of the presence of the international press in our country
to present a different image to that disseminated by the imperialist forces.

To establish new ways of overcoming the atomisation and dispersal which are
among the central weaknesses of our organizations.

This process of gathering our forces should begin with the creation of a
common space where our six teams can provisionally come together while they
continue to work independently, while at the same time putting in place
permanent mechanisms for mutual exchange and joint work. We will seek to
establish a collective approach in seeking common responses to our problems,
and to build a real and viable alternative based on popular democracy.

As far as the immediate emergency is concerned, we are in the process of
setting up centres in each area of the city. One is already operational at
59 Avenue Poupelard in the premises of a community school run by the
SAJ/VEYE YO (Solidarite Ant Jen) organization. It provides for nearly 300
people who are given two meals a day and accommodated in tents. The centre
offers them consultations, medicine, and psychological support. These
services are also offered to those living in the refugee camps that have
been spontaneously set up in the area. The centre functions thanks to the
generous support of a group of Haitian professionals (doctors, nurses,
psychologists, and social workers) with the support of the aid organization,
Deutsche Not Ärzte e.V. (German Emergency Doctors Union) - Cap Anamur. We
are trying to extend the centres into other metropolitan districts badly hit
by the earthquake and where no centres of this kind currently exist. We
anticipate that four more will be set up the districts of Carrefour
(Martissant, Fontamara) and Gressier. We would call upon the solidarity of
all our partners in helping to ensure that they function effectively.

At the same time, the two platforms and four organizations involved have set
up a meeting and coordination centre at the offices of FIDES-Haiti, in
Impasse Gabriel-Rue de Fernand in Canapé Vert. This space is open to other
platforms and organizations of the popular and democratic movement. We are
committed to mobilizing the different elements of that movement with a view
to, on the one hand, extending emergency help to the disaster victims, and
on the other, to lead to the formulation of a joint plan designed to rebuild
our organizations and institutions. We will communicate this plan, and the
concrete projects associated with it, to our partners as soon as possible.

The emergency aid effort we are involved in is alternative in character and
we expect to advocate a method of work which will denounce the traditional
practices in the field of humanitarian aid which do not respect the dignity
of the victims and which contribute to the reinforcement of dependency. We
are advocating a humanitarian effort that is appropriate to our reality,
respectful of our culture and our environment, and which does not undermine
the forms of economic solidarity that have been put in place over the
decades by the grassroots organizations with which we work.

Finally, we would like to salute once more the extraordinary generosity of
spirit which has moved public opinion across the world in the wake of the
catastrophe we have suffered. We acknowledge it and we believe that this is
the moment for creating a new way of seeing our country that will make it
possible to build an authentic solidarity free of paternalism, pity, and the
taint of inferiority. We should work to maintain this spirit of solidarity
as against the momentary impact of fashion and media exaggeration. The
response to the crisis has proved that in certain situations the people of
the world can move beyond hasty judgments based on sensationalism and
stereotypes.

Massive humanitarian aid is indispensable today, given the scale of the
disaster, but it should be deployed in terms of a different vision of the
reconstruction process. It should connect with a break from the paradigms
that dominate the traditional circuits of international aid. We would hope
to see the emergence of international brigades working together with our
organizations in the struggle to carry out agrarian reform and an integrated
urban land reform programme, the struggle against illiteracy and for
reforestation, and for the construction of new modern, decentralised and
universal systems of education and public health.

We must also declare our anger and indignation at the exploitation of the
situation in Haiti to justify a new invasion by 20,000 U.S. Marines. We
condemn what threatens to become a new military occupation by U.S. troops,
the third in our history. It is clearly part of a strategy to remilitarise
the Caribbean Basin in the context of the imperialist response to the
growing rebellion of the peoples of our continent against neo-liberal
globalization. And it exists also within a framework of pre-emptive warfare
designed to confront the eventual social explosion of a people crushed by
poverty and facing despair. We condemn the model imposed by the U.S.
government and the military response to a tragic humanitarian crisis. The
occupation of the Toussaint Louverture international airport and other
elements of the national infrastructure has deprived the Haitian people of
part of the contribution made by Caricom, by Venezuela, and by some European
countries. We condemn this conduct, and refuse absolutely to allow our
country to become another military base.

As leaders of the organizations and platform who have set this process in
motion, we are writing to share our initial analysis of the situation. We
are certain, and you have already shown this to be true, that you will
continue to support our work and our struggles in the framework of the
construction of an alternative from which our country can rise again from
this terrible catastrophe and struggle to break free of the cycle of
dependency.

For the Coordinating Committee:

Sony Estéus
Director of SAKS

Marie Carmelle Fils-Aimé
Programme officer for ICKL

Camille Chalmers
Director of PAPDA

On behalf of the organizations and platforms taking part in this initiative:

Marc Arthur Fils-Aimé, Institut Culturel Karl Léveque (ICKL);

Maxime J. Rony, Programme alternatif de Justice (PAJ);

Sony Estéus, Sosyete Animasyon ak Kominikasyon Sosyal (SAKS);

Chenet Jean Baptiste, Institut de Technologie et d’animation (ITECA);

Antonal Mortimé, Plateforme des Organisations Haïtiennes de Droits Humains
(POHDH) composed of:

Justice et Paix (JILAP), Centre de recherches Sociales et de Formation pour
le Développement (CRESFED), Groupe Assistance Juridique (GAJ), Institut
Culturel Karl Léveque (ICKL), Programme pour une Alternative de Justice
(PAJ), Sant Karl Lévèque (SKL), Réseau National de Défense des Droits
Humains (RNDDH), Conférence haïtienne des Religieux (CORAL-CHR)

Camille Chalmers, Plateforme haïtienne de Plaidoyer pour un Développement
Alternatif (PAPDA) composed of:

Institut de Technologie et d’animation (ITECA), Solidarite Fanm Ayisyèn
(SOFA), Centre de Recherches Actions pour le Développement (CRAD), Mouvman
Inite Ti Peyizan Latibonit (MITPA), Institut Culturel Karl Léveque (ICKL),
Association Nationale des Agroprofessionnels Haïtiens (ANDAH)

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Details of how to make donations to support this initiative to follow.

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