{"id":218101,"date":"2010-01-14T14:14:23","date_gmt":"2010-01-14T19:14:23","guid":{"rendered":"tag:www.southernstudies.org,2010:\/\/5.12099"},"modified":"2010-01-20T10:10:41","modified_gmt":"2010-01-20T15:10:41","slug":"voices-10-things-the-u-s-can-and-should-do-for-haiti","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/218101","title":{"rendered":"VOICES: 10 things the U.S. can and should do for Haiti"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>         <i>By Bill Quigley<\/i><\/p>\n<p><b>1.<\/b> Allow all Haitians in the U.S. to work. The number one source of money<br \/>\nfor poor people in Haiti is the money sent from family and workers in the U.S. back home. Haitians will continue to help themselves if given a chance. Haitians in the U.S. will<br \/>\ncontinue to help when the world community moves on to other problems.<\/p>\n<p><!-- AddThis Button BEGIN --><br \/>\n<a class=\"addthis_button\" href=\"http:\/\/www.addthis.com\/bookmark.php?v=250&amp;username=xa-4b4f724018396c8b\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/static\/btn\/v2\/lg-share-en.gif\" alt=\"Bookmark and Share\" style=\"border: 0pt none ;\" width=\"125\" height=\"16\" \/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/js\/250\/addthis_widget.js#username=xa-4b4f724018396c8b\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- AddThis Button END --><\/p>\n<p><b>2.<\/b> Do not allow U.S.<br \/>\nmilitary in Haiti to point their guns at Haitians. Hungry<br \/>\nHaitians are not the enemy. Decisions<br \/>\nhave already been made that will militarize the humanitarian relief &#8212; but do<br \/>\nnot allow the victims to be cast as criminals. Do not demonize the people.<\/p>\n<p><b>3. <\/b>Give Haiti grants as<br \/>\nhelp, not loans. Haiti does not<br \/>\nneed any more debt. Make sure that the<br \/>\nrelief given helps Haiti rebuild its public sector so the country can provide its own citizens with<br \/>\nbasic public services.<\/p>\n<p><b>4. <\/b>Prioritize<br \/>\nhumanitarian aid to help women, children and the elderly. They are always moved to the back of the<br \/>\nline. If they are moved to the back of<br \/>\nthe line, start at the back.<br \/>\n<br \/><b><br \/>5. <\/b>President Obama<br \/>\ncan enact Temporary Protected Status for Haitians with the stroke of a<br \/>\npen. Do it. The U.S. has already done it for El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Sudan and Somalia. President Obama should do it on Martin Luther<br \/>\nKing Day.<\/p>\n<p><b>6.<\/b> Respect human rights from day one. The U.N. has enacted<br \/>\nGuiding Principles for Internally Displaced People. Make them required reading for every official<br \/>\nand non-governmental person and organization. Non governmental organizations like charities and international aid<br \/>\ngroups are extremely powerful in Haiti &#8212; they too must respect the<br \/>\nhuman dignity and human rights of all people.<br \/>\n[<i>Ed. Note: For more on the U.N.&#8217;s Guiding Principles, see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.southernstudies.org\/iss\/2008\/11\/hurricane-katrina-and-human-rights.html\">the Institute&#8217;s January 2008 report<\/a>.<\/i>]<br \/><b><br \/>7.<\/b> Apologize to<br \/>\nthe Haitian people everywhere for Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh.<br \/>\n<br \/><b><br \/>8.<\/b> Release all<br \/>\nHaitians in U.S. jails who are not accused of any crimes. Thirty thousand people are facing<br \/>\ndeportations. No one will be deported to Haiti for years to come. Release them on<br \/>\nMartin Luther King Day.<\/p>\n<p><b>9.<\/b> Require that<br \/>\nall the non-governmental organizations that raise money in the U.S. be transparent about what they raise and where<br \/>\nthe money goes, and insist that they be legally accountable to the people of Haiti.<br \/>\n<br \/><b><br \/>10.<\/b> Treat all<br \/>\nHaitians as we ourselves would want to be treated.<\/p>\n<p><i>Bill Quigley is legal director at the Center for Constitutional Rights and a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. A friend of the Institute for Southern Studies and longtime contributor to Facing South, Quigley is a Katrina survivor who has been active in human rights work for years with the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti.  <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Bill Quigley 1. Allow all Haitians in the U.S. to work. The number one source of money for poor people in Haiti is the money sent from family and workers in the U.S. back home. Haitians will continue to help themselves if given a chance. Haitians in the U.S. will continue to help when [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4084,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-218101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4084"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218101\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}