Voice of Revolution

International Tribunal: August 29 - September 2

Join the Work to Defend Katrina Survivors

Numerous organizations are organizing an International Tribunal on the government crimes committed against the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast before, during and after hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The Tribunal will be an opportunity for survivors to speak out about the crimes committed against them and for all participants to join in holding the government accountable.

Almost two years after the government-organized disaster following Katrina and Rita, tens of thousands of families are still displaced, public housing and schools have not been restored and health conditions remain dangerous. Homeowners have not been compensated and many are being blocked from rebuilding. In many ways, the failure of the U.S. state is most clearly visible in the government-organized Katrina disaster. This failure and the open refusal by government at all levels to address the continuing crimes and defend rights have confirmed for many the necessity for new arrangements of governance, arrangements that empower the people themselves. People want and need a government that represents them and provides for their rights, a government where they are the representatives and their demands are implemented.

The International Tribunal is one such mechanism being built to represent the drive of the people to decide their own affairs and affirm the rights of all. It is taking place from August 29-September 2 and organizers are asking all concerned to join in popularizing it, participate in gathering testimony from survivors, assisting displaced survivors to return to the New Orleans, and joining in the event. Voice of Revolution will be sending a delegation and encourages all concerned to join in these efforts. Below we reprint materials from the Tribunal organizers (see www.peoples hurricane.org for more information).

The Charges

Hurricane survivors have serious charges against the federal, state and local governments for violating their human rights. The charges can be divided into three categories: (1) Pre-Katrina/Rita, (2) Katrina/Rita storm, flood, occupation, and removal (evacuation) related abuses, and (3) post-Katrina/Rita.

The charges include:
• Crimes against humanity
• Ethnic cleansing and genocide
• Racial discrimination
• Denial of the rights of displaced persons and the right to return

The Goals

• Hold the U.S. government accountable for its crimes against humanity
• Demand financial restitution and justice for the Survivors of Katrina and Rita;
• Advance the Katrina-Rita reconstruction movement
• Build a global campaign against the U.S. government’s program of ethnic cleansing
• Demand that the U.S. government adhere to UN guidelines on Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).

Why a Tribunal?

“They carried out a campaign of terror and genocide” - Displaced survivor

The charges are clear against the United States government by the people of New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast region displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. On August 29 through September 2, 2005, the world witnessed the monumental failure of the U.S. government to protect and respect the lives of the working people, the majority of whom were African American and poor. This failure is the direct result of race, class, and gender oppression inherent in the U.S. government throughout its 230-year history.

Since Katrina and Rita, the government has:
• Forcibly removed tens of thousands of New Orleans and Gulf Coast residents
• Disenfranchised tens of thousands of African American voters
• Refused to adhere to its own policies and procedures pertaining to the security and well being of internally displaced persons (IDPs)
• Grossly mismanaged resources for the reconstruction of the region, including awarding no-bid contracts to big corporations connected to the Bush administration
• Eliminated environmental and worker protection laws
• Unjustifiably criminalized thousands of Survivors, particularly the displaced
• Set up a reconstruction process that excludes effective input, oversight, and control over the process by the majority African American population
• Currently threatening to seize large portions of New Orleans owned and occupied by African Americans to ethnically cleanse the city to prevent the return of its historic majority.

Countless abuses were and still are being committed against African American, working and middle class communities of the Gulf Coast by the U.S. government. The U.S. government must be held responsible for these crimes against humanity. This is why we are calling for an International Tribunal for justice and restitution.

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2006 Anniversary of Katrina

Messages in Support of International Tribunal

On the first anniversary of the government-organized Katrina disaster in August 2006, organizers for the upcoming International Tribunal on Katrina and Rita organized an International Commission of Inquiry (ICI). Delegates from Brazil, Venezuela, South Africa, and France joined activists and survivors from New Orleans in investigating conditions at that time and gathering testimony from survivors. They visited the region from August 25-31, 2006, speaking with survivors in New Orleans, Biloxi, Gulfport and elsewhere, as wel as government officials. Statements in support of the Tribunal were also received from various political organizations and trade unions from 26 countries.

The ICI has continued its work and will be presenting its findings at the Tribunal in New Orleans August 28-September 2, 2007. We reprint below several of the statements received on the first anniversary, August 2006.

Brazil: National Union of Workers of Brazil (CUT)
Dear Comrades:
Please receive our heartfelt greetings from Brazil.

We are proud that our trade union sister, Comrade Edenice Santana de Jesus from Salvador in Bahia, has been able to be with you in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast as part of the efforts of the International Tribunal on Katrina promoted by the Peoples Hurricane Relief Fund and its coalition partners.

We in Brazil support this Tribunal effort wholeheartedly. The policies of ethnic cleansing of the U.S. government must be exposed before working people the world over. This will be a powerful call to action against the very same policies which in our own countries are dismantling all our social gains and rights.

Please know that we in Brazil will disseminate very widely all your documents aimed at building this International Tribunal on Katrina in 2007. We are planning to organize a tour of Sister Edenice all across Brazil to build support for your Tribunal.

In solidarity,

Julio Turra,
National Executive Director,
National Union of Workers of Brazil (CUT)
Representing more than 9 million organized union members

Mexico: National Committee Against Fraud and in Defense of National Sovereignty
Dear Sisters and Brothers:
We send you greetings from Mexico, where in the past month millions upon millions of people have taken to the streets to demand a full vote recount, precinct by precinct, of the July 2, 2006 presidential election.

The Mexican people witnessed a massive election fraud in 1988, and we will not allow the U.S. government and its political cronies in Mexico to deny us our rights in this latest election. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was elected president on July 2, and we will continue to mobilize until justice prevails, until the fraud is defeated.

We send you greetings on the first anniversary of the man-made Katrina disaster. We know that you in the Gulf Coast region, particularly the African American majority, face the full wrath of the government and all its institutions and political parties. We support the right of return of the black majority to New Orleans, with full rights, jobs, decent and renovated housing and fully restored quality public services for all.

We are also aware of how the U.S. government and the corporations are seeking to pit black workers against the Latino immigrant workers by providing H2B visas to hundreds of thousands of Latino workers in the Gulf Coast region, while the majority black population has been expelled from their homes and their jobs, yearning to come back home.

We cannot allow them to divide us. We must build a united movement of black and Latino workers that demands the right of return for the black majority and that also demands amnesty and full legalization for all Latino workers in the United States. A massive public works program could be instituted in the Gulf Coast region to put everyone, Blacks and Latinos, to work on a true reconstruction program. The funding exists for such a program. This could be done by dismantling the military machine that is oppressing peoples and nations the world over.

As we mobilize to defend the sovereignty of the Mexican people and nation, demanding an end to the privatization of all our public services and enterprises and the re-nationalization of everything that has been privatized, we are at your side in your difficult struggle for justice and a genuine reconstruction in the Gulf Coast, beginning with the right of return.

In solidarity,

Luis Vasquez,
On Behalf of the National Committee Against the Fraud and in Defense of National Sovereignty

Spain, FES-UGT Trade Union -Federation
Dear Sisters and Brothers:
We send you greetings on the occasion of your commemoration march and rally in New Orleans on August 29. We also wish you to know that we in Spain support fully the International Tribunal on Katrina that was launched by the People’s Assembly in Jackson, Mississippi, on December 5-6, 2005.

It is important that your Tribunal pinpoint incontrovertibly all those who are responsible for the tragedy that befell black people and the working poor of the Gulf Coast.

In solidarity,
Angel Campabadal Solé
Nacional Executive Comité
FES-UGT trade union federation
Spain

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New Orleans Demonstration

“Housing is a Right! That is Why We Have to Fight!”

Common Ground Collective

Finding housing in New Orleans is like parking a car in the French Quarter on a Friday night. You will look for a long time, and whatever you find will be inconveniently located and probably have a bad smell. Alphonso Jackson, federal Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), is like a suspect valet that claims he will find you a spot cheap.

Jackson and the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) have responded to the housing shortage by keeping more than 5,000 units of public housing gated and locked, forcing thousands to remain displaced. Those lucky enough to return to the city and find a home pay rents up to 300 percent higher than pre-Katrina rates.

Jackson recently traveled to New Orleans for the ribbon cutting ceremonies at the new Desire Housing Development. Jackson did not talk about the end of the Disaster Voucher Program that currently houses more than 30,000 Gulf Coast families across the country. Recent letters from HUD instruct recipients to contact the places they were living prior to Katrina. Thousands of former residents of public housing are being blocked from coming home. They will face homelessness when the September 1, 2007 deadline arrives. Instead of discussing the 30,000 displaced families, three families were given keys to their newly renovated homes.

More than forty protestors — both residents of the city and housing advocates — gathered nearby to demand public housing, including support for the Gulf Coast Hurricane Housing Recovery Act (HR 1227). Chanting, shouting, carrying signs, the demonstrators quickly garnered attention. “Housing is a right! That is why we have to fight!” rang out repeatedly.

“You Can Not Hide the Truth”

Protestors were not permitted inside Jackson’s press conference, which was attended by Mayor Ray Nagin, City Council president Oliver Thomas, and the Council member for the District, Cynthia Willard-Lewis, but instead were kept on the opposite side of a locked fence. In the half hour before the official speakers began, several members of the press inside the development attempted to approach the demonstrators and speak with them. Each of them individually were stopped by HANO police and prohibited from approaching the group.

Although they were outside the locked gate, demonstrators were only 50 feet from the ribbon cutting ceremony. Shouted statements from residents were easily heard. HUD organizers eventually tried to quell the sound of those rallying with a brass band, moving the 4-man band from a grassy area in front of the new brightly-colored homes to a spot directly in front of the gate holding the protestors outside.

The band never played from that spot. The demonstration continued. Reopen St. Bernard! Just Say No to Alphonso! And Jackson, swarmed by television cameras, did approach the rally spot. St. Bernard Housing Development resident Sharon Jasper, a member of the organizing group Survivor’s Village, spoke out for rights.

Jasper challenged Jackson’s plans to demolish New Orleans’ largest housing developments, St. Bernard, LaFitte, B.W. Cooper and C.J. Peete. “Our people are dying, because they can not come home,” Jasper said. Chants and shouts continued as the unveiling ceremony began, climaxing when Jackson cut the ribbon on two of the new houses in Desire.

Standing on public property, behind a locked gate, also garnered the attention of local law enforcement officials. Two Humvees, four New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) cruisers, and more than 10 NOPD officers and National Guardsmen gathered behind protestors. From inside a police cruiser, one officer used his public address system to threaten to remove anyone who was “blocking” the street. The same street made into a dead end by a chain-locked section of fencing stretching across it erected by HANO.

As he prepared to cut the ribbon, Jackson commented, “We are not going to resign people, because they are low income and black, to live in those kinds of conditions again.” He added, “We believe that public housing residents deserve something better than they left. They deserve new homes in an economically integrated environment, where their children can play safely and the families can thrive, not in row houses that were built 30 years ago to house people to keep them away from everyone else.”

Jackson’s comments are in direct conflict with information provided on the website, Greater New Orleans Community Data Center — information for the site gathered by the city of New Orleans (see www.gnocdc.org/orleans). It describes the site picked for Desire as “completely isolated from the rest of the city. Surrounded by the Industrial Canal, Florida Canal and railroad tracks on all four sides, this isolation hampered residents’ participation in economic activities in other parts of the city.”

The New Desire is being built in the exact location, and neither the railroad tracks nor the canals have been relocated.

In comparison the big four — the collective reference to St. Bernard, Lafitte, B.W. Cooper, and C.J. Peete — are all located in the centers of neighborhoods and along major access roads. Lafitte is in the heart of the city, standing alongside Claiborne and Orleans Avenues. All of these places provide far more opportunity that the isolated Desire site.

The message from HUD and HANO is clear: stick-built, supposedly mixed-income neighborhoods will replace today’s public housing — historic, brick and concrete structures that withstood the worst Katrina had to offer and have been praised by architects and historic preservationists.

In the mean time displaced residents and low-income families in search of decent, affordable housing should just keep circling the block. Alphonso Jackson and HANO will find a place for you. It just may take 5-10 years. Activists refuse to accept this destruction. Common Ground and many others continue organizing on the basis that housing is a right and that all the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast have the right to return and rebuild.

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Lessons from Katrina, Two Years Later

How to Destroy an African American City in 33 Steps

Bill Quigley

Step One. Delay. If there is one word that sums up the way to destroy an African American city after a disaster, that word is delay. If you are in doubt about any of the following steps — just remember to delay and you will probably be doing the right thing.

Step Two. When a disaster is coming, do not arrange a public evacuation. Rely only on individual resources. People with cars and money for hotels will leave. The elderly, the disabled and the poor will not be able to leave. Most of those without cars — 25 percent of households of New Orleans, overwhelmingly African American — will not be able to leave. Most of the working poor, overwhelmingly African American , will not be able to leave. Many will then permanently accuse the victims who were left behind of creating their own human disaster because of their own poor planning. It is critical to start by having people blame the victims for their own problems.

Step Three. When the disaster hits, make certain the national response is overseen by someone who has no experience at all handling anything on a large scale, particularly disasters. In fact, you can even inject some humor into the response — have the disaster coordinator be someone whose last job was the head of a dancing horse association.

Step Four. Make sure that the president and national leaders remain aloof and only slightly concerned. This sends an important message to the rest of the country.

Step Five. Make certain the local, state, and national governments do not respond in a coordinated, effective way. This will create more chaos on the ground.

Step Six. Do not bring in food or water or communications right away. This will make everyone left behind more frantic and create incredible scenes for the media.

Step Seven. Make certain that the media focus of the disaster is not on the heroic community work of thousands of women, men and young people helping the elderly, the sick and the trapped survive, but mainly on acts of people “looting.” Also spread and repeat the rumors that people trapped on rooftops are shooting guns, not to attract attention and get help, but at the helicopters. This will reinforce the message that “those people” left behind are different from the rest of us and should not be helped.

Step Eight. Refuse help from other countries. If we accept help, it looks like we cannot handle this problem ourselves. This cannot be the message. The message we want to put out over and over is that we have plenty of resources and there is plenty of help. Then if people are not receiving help, it is their own fault. This should be done quietly.

Step Nine. Once the evacuation of those left behind actually starts, make sure people do not know where they are going or have any way to know where the rest of their family has gone. In fact, make sure that African American s end up much farther away from home than others.

Step Ten. Make sure that when government assistance finally has to be given out, it is given out in a totally arbitrary way. People will have lost their homes, jobs, churches, doctors, schools, neighbors and friends. Give them a little bit of money, but not too much. Make people dependent. Then cut off the money. Then give it to some and not others. Refuse to assist more than one person in every household. This will create conflicts where more than one generation lives together. Make it impossible for people to get consistent answers to their questions. Long lines and busy phones will discourage people from seeking help.

Step Eleven. Insist the president suspend federal laws requiring living wages and affirmative action for contractors working in the disaster areas. While local workers are still displaced, import white workers from outside the city for the highest-paying jobs like crane and bulldozer operators. Import Latino workers from outside the city for the lowest-paying dangerous jobs. Make sure to have elected officials, black and white, blame job problems on the lowest wage immigrant workers. This will create divisions between black and brown workers that can be exploited by those at the top. Because many of the brown workers do not have legal papers, those at the top will not have to worry about paying decent wages, providing health insurance, following safety laws, unemployment compensation, workers compensation, or union organizing. These become, essentially, disposable workers — use them, then lose them.

Step Twelve. Whatever you do, keep people away from their city for as long as possible. This is the key to long-term success in destroying the African American city. Do not permit people to come home. Keep people guessing about what is going to happen and when it is going to happen. Set numerous deadlines and then break them. This will discourage people and make it increasingly difficult for people to return.

Step Thirteen. When you finally have to reopen the city, make sure to reopen the African American sections last. This will aggravate racial tensions in the city and create conflicts between those who are able to make it home and those who are not.

Step Fourteen. When the big money is given out, make sure it is all directed to homeowners and not to renters. This is particularly helpful in a town like New Orleans that was majority African American and majority renter. Then, after you have excluded renters, mess up the program for the homeowners so that they must wait for years to get money to fix their homes.

Step Fifteen. Close down all the public schools for months. This will prevent families with children in the public school system, overwhelmingly African American , from coming home.

Step Sixteen. Fire all the public school teachers, teacher aides, cafeteria workers and bus drivers and de-certify the teachers union — the largest in the state. This will primarily hurt middle class African American s and make them look for jobs elsewhere.

Step Seventeen. Even better, take this opportunity to flip the public school system into a charter system and push foundations and the government for extra money for the new charter schools. Give the schools with the best test scores away first. Then give the least flooded schools away next. Turn 70 percent of schools into charters so that the kids with good test scores or solid parental involvement will go to the charters. That way, the kids with average scores, or learning disabilities, or single parent families, who are still displaced, are kept segregated away from the “good” kids. You will have to set up a few schools for those other kids, but make sure those schools do not get any extra money, do not have libraries, nor doors on the toilets, nor enough teachers. In fact, because of this, you better make certain there are more security guards than teachers.

Step Eighteen. Let the market do what it does best. When rent goes up 70 percent, say there is nothing we can do about it. This will have two great results: it will keep many former residents away from the city and it will make landlords happy. If wages go up, immediately import more outside workers and wages will settle down.

Step Nineteen. Make sure all the predominately white suburbs surrounding the African American city make it very difficult for the people displaced from the city to return to the metro area. Have one suburb refuse to allow any new subsidized housing at all. Have the Sheriff of another threaten to stop and investigate anyone wearing dreadlocks. Throw in a little humor and have one nearly all-white suburb pass a law that makes it illegal for homeowners to rent to people other than their blood relatives! The courts may strike these down, but it will take time and the message will be clear — do not think about returning to the suburbs.

Step Twenty. Reduce public transportation by more than 80 percent. The people without cars will understand the message.

Step Twenty-One. Keep affordable housing to a minimum. Instead, use the money to reopen the Superdome and create tourism campaigns. Refuse to boldly create massive homeownership opportunities for former renters. Delay re-opening apartment complexes in African American neighborhoods. As long as less than half the renters can return to affordable housing, they will not return.

Step Twenty-Two. Keep all public housing closed. Since it is 100 percent African American , this is a no-brainer. Make sure to have African American s be the people who deliver the message. This step will also help by putting more pressure on the rental market, as 5000 more families will then have to compete for rental housing with low-income workers. This will provide another opportunity for hundreds of millions of government funds to be funneled to corporations when these buildings are torn down and developers can build up other less-secure buildings in their place. Make sure to tell the 5000 families evicted from public housing that you are not letting them back for their own good. Tell them you are trying to save them from living in a segregated neighborhood. This will also send a good signal — if the government can refuse to allow people back, private concerns are free to do the same or worse.

Step Twenty-Three. Shut down as much public health as possible. Sick and elderly people and moms with little kids need access to public healthcare. Keep the public hospital, which hosted about 350,000 visits a year before the disaster, closed. Keep the neighborhood clinics closed. Put all the pressure on the private healthcare facilities and provoke economic and racial tensions there between the insured and uninsured.

Step Twenty-Four. Close as many public mental healthcare providers as possible. The trauma of the disaster will seriously increase stress on everyone. Left untreated, medical experts tell us this will dramatically increase domestic violence, self-medication and drug and alcohol abuse and, of course, crime.

Step Twenty-Five. Keep the city environment unfriendly to women. Women were already widely discriminated against before the storm. Make sure that you do not reopen day care centers. This, combined with the lack of healthcare, lack of affordable housing, and lack of transportation, will keep moms with kids away. If you can keep women with kids away, the city will destroy itself.

Step Twenty-Six. Create and maintain an environment where black on black crime will flourish. As long as you can keep parents out of town, keep the schools hostile to kids without parents, keep public healthcare closed, make only low-paying jobs available, not fund social workers or prosecutors or public -defend ers or police, and keep chaos the norm, young black men will kill other young black men. To increase the visibility of the crime problem, bring in the National Guard in fatigues to patrol the streets in their camouflage hummers.

Step Twenty-Seven. Strip the local elected, predominately African American government of its powers. Make certain the money that is coming in to fix up the region is not under their control. Privatize as much as you can as quickly as you can — housing, healthcare, and education for starters. When in doubt, privatize. Create an appointed commission of people who have no experience in government to make all the decisions. In fact, it is better to create several such commissions; that way, no one will really be sure who is in charge and there will be much more delay and conflict. Treat the local people like they are stupid; you know what is best for them much better than they do.

Step Twenty-Eight. Create lots of planning processes but give them no authority. Overlap them where possible. Give people conflicting signals whether their neighborhood will be allowed to rebuild or be turned into green space. This will create confusion, conflict and aggravation. People will blame the officials closest to them — the local African American officials, even though they do not have any authority to do anything about these plans, since they do not control the rebuilding money.

Step Twenty-Nine. Hold an election but make it very difficult for displaced voters to participate. In fact, do not allow any voting in any place outside the state, even though we do it for Americans in other countries and even though hundreds of thousands of people are still displaced. This is very important because when people are not able to vote, those who have been able to return can say, “Well, they did not even vote, so I guess they are not interested in returning.”

Step Thirty. Get the elected officials out of the way and make room for corporations to make a profit. There are billions to be made in this process for well-connected national and international corporations. There is so much chaos that no one will be able to figure out, for a long time, exactly where the money went. There is no real attempt to make sure that local businesses, especially African American businesses, get contracts — at best they get modest subcontracts from the corporations that got the big money. Make sure the authorities prosecute a couple of little people who ripped off $2,000 — that will temporarily satisfy people who know they are being ripped off and divert attention from the big money rip-offs. This will also provide another opportunity to blame the victims — as critics can say, “Well, we gave them lots of money, they must have wasted it, how much more can they expect from us?”

Step Thirty-One. Keep people’s attention diverted from the African American city. Pour money into the Iraq War instead of the Gulf Coast. Corporations have figured out how to make big bucks whether we are winning or losing the war. It is easier to convince the country to support war — support for cities is much, much tougher. When the war goes badly, you can change the focus of the message to supporting the troops. Everyone loves the troops. No one can say we all love African American s. Focus on terrorists — that always seems to work.

Step Thirty-Two. Refuse to talk about or look seriously at race. Condemn anyone who dares to challenge the racism of what is going on — accuse them of “playing the race card” or say they are paranoid. Criticize people who challenge the exclusion of African American s as people who “just want to go back to the bad old days.” Repeat the message that you want something better for everyone. Use African American spokespersons where possible.

Step Thirty-Three. Repeat these steps.

Note to readers. Every fact in this list actually happened and continues to happen in New Orleans, after Katrina.

Bill Quigley is a rights activist and law professor at Loyola University in New Orleans. See www.justiceforneworleans.org for more information

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