[PAA-Discuss] If you want to donate money to Hati, make it throught this labour movement in Hati - http://www.batayouvriye.org

[Zhaleh]

    “The workers... battle-cry must be: 'The Permanent Revolution.'” — Marx and Engels, 1850
    home | action | about us | sitemap | publications | recent | all | feed
    
      
Labour movement solidarity to the Haitian Labour movement
Resolution from Liverpool
TUC please see below:
 
Liverpool TUC
motion
 
Labour movement solidarity
to the Haitian Labour movement
 
A tragedy has deeply affected
Haiti. The epicentre of the worst earthquake in Haitian history was
near the capital of the country, destroying two thirds of
Port-au-Prince. The situation is dramatic, three million homeless,
over 100,000 dead, hundreds of thousands injured and dead bodies
everywhere. The entire population is sleeping in the streets and
waiting for replies to their pleas and more blows… We cannot remain
indifferent to the Haitian situation. The Black people of the
poorest country in the continent is facing a brutal tragedy. But
you cannot attribute the death and destruction only to the size of
the earthquake. A severe natural disaster has befallen a country
devastated by capitalism. The earthquake would not have had the
same effect if it was in a different social situation.
It is our duty as fellow trade
unionists and workers to support the labour movement in Haiti.
Unemployment in Haiti reaches 70-80% in Port-au-Prince. The few
employees live with a wage of £40. There is no national health care
structure. There are very few public hospitals across the country
which are able to play any effective role at this time. After the
earthquake, after watching their homes collapse, the survivors
groped to wrest others from the rubble who were buried. The wounded
are accumulated in the streets with no possibility of being
assisted by anyone.
The 9,000 UN troops are not
helping people in fact the UN has been used to suppress protests by
Haitian workers, as in August 2009, during the strike of textile
workers to improve their wages, the strike that ended with two
dead. They also suppressed the students who were demonstrating
against the troops and arrested twenty last November.
Batay Ouvriye is known in the
European labour movement and is a community centred, trade union,
one of the labour organisations that represent the factory workers
and the poor in Haiti. During the dock workers dispute a
representative of Batay Ouvriye met the Women of the Waterfront in
1997.
 
 
1)      We appeal to
the trade unions and labour movement organizations to make a
solidarity campaign in support of Haitian workers and collect
contributions to send to the Haitian labour movement.
2)      We
propose to send the money directly to the labour movement in
Haiti, for example Batay Ouvriye
(http://www.batayouvriye.org/)
3)      We urge the
British labour movement to send a delegation to Haiti to establish
direct links with Batay Ouvriye reciprocating the journey they made
in 1996 to support the Liverpool dock workers.
4)      We agree to
organize a labour movement meeting in order to deepen
support.
5)      We support
the ‘Trade Union and Community Seminers’ that are showing “The
Price of Sugar’ film in support of Haiti.
6)      We call on
the Trade Union movement to bring pressure on the government and
international movement to write off Haiti international debt of
£550 million. This will enable Haiti to at least attempt to
stabilize the dire financial crisis facing this devastated
country.
 
 
Note
We need to set up direct
relations with Batay Ouvriye that at this moment is difficult, but
a trade union federation in Brasil has had trade union exchanges
with Batay Ouvriye both going to Haiti in the last few years and
receiving visits from Batay.
The fastest way to get money
and messages of support to Batay at this moment is through CONLUTAS
(www.conlutas.org.br), Brasil. CONLUTAS will also guarantee to send
a letter of receipt from CONLUTAS and Batay.
As soon as is possible we will
establish direct relations with Batay.
 
Seamus Milne wrote in the
Guardian on Wednesday
 
There is no relief for the
people of Haiti, it seems, even in their hour of promised
salvation. More than a week after the earthquake that may have
killed 200,000 people, most Haitians have seen nothing of the
armada of aid they have been promised by the outside world.
Instead, while the US military has commandeered Port-au-Prince's
airport to pour thousands of soldiers into the stricken Caribbean
state, wounded and hungry survivors of the catastrophe have carried
on dying.
 
Most scandalously, US
commanders have repeatedly turned away flights bringing medical
equipment and emergency supplies from organisations such as the
World Food Programme and Médecins Sans Frontières, in order to give
priority to landing troops. Despite the remarkable patience and
solidarity on the streets and the relatively small scale of
looting, the aim is said to be to ensure security and avoid
"another Somalia" – a reference to the US military's "Black Hawk
Down" humiliation in 1993. It's an approach that certainly chimes
with well- established traditions of keeping Haiti under
control.
 
In the last couple of days,
another motivation has become clearer as the US has launched a
full-scale naval blockade of Haiti to prevent a seaborne exodus by
refugees seeking sanctuary in the United States from the desperate
aftermath of disaster. So while Welsh firefighters and Cuban
doctors have been getting on with the job of saving lives this
week, the 82nd Airborne Division was busy parachuting into the
ruins of Haiti's presidential palace.
 
There's no doubt that more
Haitians have died as a result of these shockingly perverse
priorities. As Patrick Elie, former defence minister in the
government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide – twice overthrown with US
support – put it: "We don't need soldiers, there's no war here."
It's hardly surprising if Haitians such as Elie, or French and
Venezuelan leaders, have talked about the threat of a new US
occupation, given the scale of the takeover.
 
 
 
Letter from
CONLUTAS
The Conlutas urges all as a
matter of urgency immediate financial contributions to our fellow
trade union Batay Ouvrier.
Our members report in a
concrete way the struggle for life that we have seen in the
press. The struggle of the people who seek care for their wounded
and ensure their survival. The collective operation, organization
and popular participation, the only way to counter the offensive of
imperialism hypocritical, disguising humanitarian aid to send more
troops to monitor and control the Haitian people. Now with U.S.
imperialism showing who's boss in fact. The sending of 10,000 U.S.
military personnel with the front mariners whose specialty was
never save lives anywhere in the world, is more than
symbolic.
We want to make a campaign on
the grounds of our organizations, of class solidarity. Calling the
contribution of Brazilian workers to the Haitian workers, who at
the same time call for the withdrawal of military occupation that
is increasing. But now, collections of contributions in companies,
universities or voted on at meetings, with an idea like "a day's
pay for the Haitian people," are absolutely necessary, it will take
to manage resources more immediate..
So we want every body,
movement and organization to discuss next week a direct
contribution of its normal resources so we can send.
To do this we open a bank
account for deposit of contributions to be sent to Batay Ouvriey.
This will allow us to further disseminate the extract from this
account to the contributors as well as accountability for the
campaign.
Below is the account
number.
Grantee: Coordination
Haiti
Bank of Brazil
Agency 4223-4
Account 8844-7
We ask the unions, opposition
movements and activists who may have made contributions to the
account of Conlutas, send us identify the deposit date and amount,
so we can give proper routing.
Conlutas
The National
Executive
São Paulo, January 19,
2010


The historic ascent of humanity, taken as a whole, may be summarized as a succession of victories of consciousness over blind forces - in nature, in society, in man himself. 

Leon Trotsky


      


      
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://paa-tx.org/pipermail/discuss_paa-tx.org/attachments/20100122/3b9b53c3/attachment.htm>