14998: Haiti Reborn: Miles: Let Haiti Live events in Bay Area, CA (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Haiti Reborn <haiti@quixote.org>

For Immediate Release
March 3, 2003
Contact: Melinda Miles (240)432-7414 or
Eugenia Charles-Mathurin (301)537-8162

THOUSANDS OF HAITIANS DYING DUE TO U.S. POLICY OF WITHHOLDING
HUMANITARIAN AID DURING  A HEALTH CRISIS

Haitian leaders will address audiences in San Rafael and San Francisco
demanding international funding for Haiti

What: Leaders of the popular movement in Haiti will share the concrete
results of the deadly U.S. policy of withholding humanitarian aid from
the Haitian government. Haiti, the poorest country in our hemisphere,
recently ranked 147 out of 147 for access to clean drinking water. Yet
today the U.S. continues to lead the international community in blocking
desperately needed funds to improve Haiti’s water, health and education
sectors.

Where and When: March 7, 6pm, First United Methodist Church, 9 Ross
Valley Drive in San Rafael. March 8, 7:30pm, New College, 766 Valencia,
San Francisco.

Who: Coordinated by the Let Haiti Live: Coalition for a Just U.S.
Policy. The Coalition unites organizations and individuals to advocate
for U.S. policies which respect the independence and self-determination
of the Haitian people and their Republic. The coalition includes Haiti
Reborn/Quixote Center, Haiti Action Committee, East Bay Sanctuary Haiti
Committee, Office of the Americas, Partners In Health, TransAfrica
Forum, Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, Marin Interfaith Task Force on Central
America, and many others.

Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, a psychologist who works among the poorest
Haitians in the capital’s Cite Soleil slums will speak. He will be
joined by Jean Gabriel Fils, a community activist and organizer. Fils
works in the Zanmi Lasante (Partners in Health) complex in Haiti’s
Central Plateau. Partners in Health is the first hospital to ever treat
HIV/AIDS patients with anti-retrovirals in a developing country.

Why: Haiti is facing a critical moment with rapidly increasing cost of
living and an unparalleled decrease in access to water and health care
for the majority of Haitian people. Multilateral humanitarian assistance
from the Inter-American Development Bank was not disbursed due to
intervention from the U.S. At the same time bilateral funding from the
U.S. Government dramatically dropped and all funding to the Haitian
Government came to a halt. The democratically elected government of
Haiti must have immediate access to international humanitarian
assistance – the lives of eight million people depend on it. Solidarity
activists in the Bay Area want to raise the consciousness of their
communities and create a groundswell against the U.S.’s deadly policy
for Haiti.

Caroline Dutton, San Francisco resident, recently returned from
investigating the effects of withheld humanitarian aid in Haiti. “The
embargo (on humanitarian assistance) violates human rights and increase
poverty, disease and death, as well as preventing Haiti, the poorest
nation in this hemisphere, from solving its own economic and social
problems,” Dutton states.

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