Working and Poor in the USA

by Bill Quigley. 

“Our nation, so richly endowed with natural resources and with a capable and industrious population, should be able to devise ways and means of insuring to all our able-bodied men and women, a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.” 

                                                                                              --Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1937

Millions of people in the US work and are still poor.  Here are eight points that show why the US needs to dedicate itself to making work pay.

One.  How many people work and are still poor?

In 2011, the US Department of Labor reported at least 10 million people worked and were still below the unrealistic official US poverty line, an increase of 1.5 million more than the last time they checked.  The US poverty line is $18,530 for a mom and two kids.  Since 2007 the numbers of working poor have been increasing.  About 7 percent of all workers and 4 percent of all full-time workers earn wages that leave them below the poverty line.

Two.  What kinds of jobs do the working poor have?

One third of the working poor, over 3 million people, work in the service industry.  Workers in other occupations are also poor: 16 percent of those in farming; 11 percent in construction; and 11 percent in sales. 

Three.  Which workers are most likely to be working and still poor?

Women workers are more likely to be poor than men.  African American and Hispanic workers are about twice as likely to be poor as whites.  College graduates have a 2 percent poverty rate while workers without a high school diploma have a poverty rate 10 times higher at 20 percent. 

Four.  What about benefits for low wage workers?

Ten percent of US workers earn $8.50 an hour or less according to the US Department of Labor.  About 12 percent have health care and about 12 percent have retirement benefits.  Nearly one in four get paid sick leave and less than half get paid vacation leave.

Five.  What rights do the working poor have?

Most workers have a right to earn at least the federal minimum wage of $7.50 an hour.  Tipped employees are supposed to get at least $2.13 each hour from their employer and if the worker does not earn enough in tips to make the $7.50 minimum wage, the employer must make up the difference.  People who work more than 40 hours in a workweek are entitled to one and one-half of their regular pay for each hour of overtime.

Six.  What about wage theft from the working poor?

Many low wage workers have part of their earnings stolen by their employers.  Examples include not paying people the full minimum wage, not paying required overtime, stealing from tipped employees, or fraudulently classifying workers as independent contractors.   A survey of over 4000 low wage workers in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York conducted by university and non-profit researchers found: 26 percent of the workers were paid less than the minimum wage in the previous week, a majority were underpaid by more than $1 an hour; a significant number worked overtime the previous week and were not paid the legally required overtime; many were required to come early or stay late and work “off the clock” and were not paid for it; almost a third of the tipped workers were not paid the minimum wage and more than 1 in 10 tipped workers had some of their money stolen by their employer or supervisor. 

Seven.  What is a living wage in the US?

Dr. Amy Glasmeier of Penn State University has created a Living Wage Calculator that estimates the hourly wage needed to pay the cost of living for low wage families in the US.  It breaks down the cost of living by state and locality across the nation.  In New Orleans, a mom with one child needs to earn $17.52 to make ends meet.  In New York, the mom with one child should earn $19.66 to make it.   If we now realistically calculate the number of people who work and do not earn a living wage, the numbers of working poor in the US skyrocket to several tens of millions.

Eight.  What about jobs for the unemployed and underemployed?

The US Labor Department estimated recently that 13 million people were unemployed.  Another 8 million people were working part-time but wanted full-time work.  Even more millions who are not working are not counted in those numbers because they have been unemployed so long. 

A study by Northeastern University found that in the poorest families, unemployment is nearly 31 percent. Underemployment is also much more of a problem in poor homes, with over 20 percent of those workers reporting they are working part-time but seeking full-time work. 

Our nation can do so much more.  We say our country values work.  It is time to do something about it.

If the US truly values work, we need to support the millions of our sisters and brothers who are low wage workers.  Steps needed include: raising the minimum wage to a living wage; protecting workers from getting ripped off; making it easier for workers to organize together if they choose to; and creating jobs, public jobs if necessary, so that everyone who wants to work can do so.  Many are already working on these justice issues. 

For those interested in learning more about this, see the websites of Interfaith Worker Justice, the National Employment Law Project, and the National Jobs for All Coalition.

Bill Quigley teaches at Loyola University New Orleans, is the Associate Legal Director at the Center for Constitutional Rights and volunteers with the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti.    Bill can be reached at quigley77@gmail.com.  

Ten Steps for Radical Revolution in USA

by Bill Quigley

“I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values.” 

                                                                                       --Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  1967

One.  Human rights must be taken absolutely seriously.  Every single person is entitled to dignity and human rights.  No application needed.  No exclusions at all.  This is our highest priority.

Two.  We must radically reinvent contemporary democracy.  Current systems are deeply corrupt and not responsive to the needs of people.   Representatives chosen by money and influence govern by money and influence.  This is unacceptable.  Direct democracy by the people is now technologically possible and should be the rule.  Communities must be protected whenever they advocate for self-determination, self-development and human rights.  Dissent is essential to democracy; we pledge to help it flourish.

Three.  Corporations are not people and are not entitled to human rights.   Amend the US Constitution so it is clear corporations do not have constitutional or human rights.   We the people must cut them down to size and so democracy can regulate their size, scope and actions.

Four.  Leave the rest of the world alone.  Cut US military spending by 75 percent and bring all troops outside the US home now.  Defense of the US is a human right.  Global offense and global police force by US military are not.  Eliminate all nuclear and chemical and biological weapons.  Stop allowing scare tactics to build up the national security forces at home.  Stop the myth that the US is somehow special or exceptional and is entitled to act differently than all other nations.  The US must re-join the global family of nations as a respectful partner.  USA is one of many nations in the world.  We must start acting like it.

Five.  Property rights, privilege, and money-making are not as important as human rights.  When current property and privilege arrangements are not just they must yield to the demands of human rights.  Money-making can only be allowed when human rights are respected.  Exploitation is unacceptable.  There are national and global poverty lines.  We must establish national and global excess lines so that people and businesses with extra houses, cars, luxuries, and incomes share much more to help everyone else be able to exercise their basic human rights to shelter, food, education and healthcare.  If that disrupts current property, privilege and money-making, so be it.

Six.  Defend our earth.  Stop pollution, stop pipelines, stop new interstates, and stop destroying the land, sea, and air by extracting resources from them.  Rebuild what we have destroyed.  If corporations will not stop voluntarily, people must stop them.  The very existence of life is at stake.

Seven.  Dramatically expand public spaces and reverse the privatization of public services.  Quality public education, health and safety for all must be provided by transparent accountable public systems.  Starving the state is a recipe for destroying social and economic human rights for everyone but the rich.

Eight.  Pull the criminal legal prison system up and out by its roots and start over.  Cease the criminalization of drugs, immigrants, poor people and people of color.  We are all entitled to be safe but the current system makes us less so and ruins millions of lives.  Start over.

Nine.  The US was created based on two original crimes that must be confessed and made right.  Reparations are owed to Native Americans because their land was stolen and they were uprooted and slaughtered.   Reparations are owed to African Americans because they were kidnapped, enslaved and abused.  The US has profited widely from these injustices and must make amends.

Ten.  Everyone who wants to work should have the right to work and earn a living wage.  Any workers who want to organize and advocate for change in solidarity with others must be absolutely protected from recriminations from their employer and from their government.

Finally, if those in government and those in power do not help the people do what is right, people seeking change must together exercise our human rights and bring about these changes directly.  Dr. King and millions of others lived and worked for a radical revolution of values.  We will as well.  We respect the human rights and human dignity of others and work for a world where love and wisdom and solidarity and respect prevail.  We expect those for whom the current unjust system works just fine will object and oppose and accuse people seeking dramatic change of being divisive and worse.  That is to be expected because that is what happens to all groups which work for serious social change.  Despite that, people will continue to go forward with determination and purpose to bring about a radical revolution of values in the USA. 

Bill Quigley is a law professor and human rights lawyer at Loyola University New Orleans and with the Center for Constitutional Rights.  

You can reach him at quigley77@gmail.com.

Remembering Martin Luther King, Jr.

‎"We have moved from the era of civil rights to the era of human rights, an era where we are called upon to raise certain basic questions about the whole society. We have been in a reform movement...

But after Selma and the voting rights bill, we moved into a new era, which must be the era of revolution. We must recognize that we can't solve our problem now
until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power...

this means a revolution of values and other things. We must see now that the evils of racism, economic exploitation and militarism are all tied together... you can't really get rid of one without getting rid of the others... the whole structure of
American life must be changed.

America is a hypocritical nation and (we) must put (our) own house in order."

                                                                                                         Martin Luther King, Jr.

Pentagon Witness Reflection

Day 7- Witness Against Torture "Fast For Justice"

by Art Laffin

Art Laffin, far left, participates in 2012 Witness against Torture,
photo by Justin Norman

Mindful that the Pentagon is the center of warmaking on our planet, and outraged over the recent National Defense Authorization Act which allocates $662 billion for the Pentagon and codified into law indefinite detention for suspected terrorists and their supporters, both foreign and domestic, members of Witness Against Torture joined the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker weekly Pentagon vigil this morning to call for the closing of Guantanamo, Bagram and all secret detention and torture sites, to demand an end to the sinful practices of torture and indefinite detention, and to call for the abolition of war and all weapons. As soon as we arrived in the designated "protest zone," which is located outside the Pentagon metro station, those who were wearing orange jumpsuits and black hoods were ordered by Pentagon police to remove their hoods in compliance with a law which prohibits protesters from covering their face. People complied by partially removing that part of the hood covering their face. As we held the huge "Close Down Guantanamo" banner and other signs, we read from the scripture and called the prisoners into our presence by offering poems they have written and accounts of their torture and brutal confinement. We concluded our vigil by reading a "Prayer To End Torture" by Sr. Dianna Ortiz, founder of TASSC, and having a closing circle.

The scripture reading I offered was from the Gospel of Luke where Jesus quotes the prophet Isaiah in the synagogue in Nazareth at the onset of his public ministry. As I have reflected on this passage, it has occurred to me that this mandate was not only meant for Jesus but for all believers. Thus at our witness this morning, I adapted the original text and substituted "us" for "me."

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me [us]

because God has anointed me [us]
to bring glad tidings to the poor.
God has sent me [us] to proclaim liberty to captives
and recovery of sight to the blind
to let the oppressed go free,
and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord." (Lk. 41: 8-19)

As we begin this New Year, the best way I know to proclaim an acceptable year to the Lord is by acting with others to resist violence and injustice in all its guises, and to help create the "Beloved Community." In the case of Guantanamo and Bagram, our mandate is clear: "proclaim liberty to captives and to let the oppressed go free."

As we vigiled and shared the stories and poems of the prisoners, over a dozen Pentagon police kept watch over us as hundreds of workers passed by. The more I read and hear the stories of Shaker Aamer and other prisoners, the more I become aware that these men are my brothers, and that it is my responsibility to do for them what I would want them to do for me if I was in their situation. As we read the account of Shaker Aamer, 45, a British resident and father of four who has never been charged with any crime and who has been brutally tortured and held mostly in solitary confinement for almost ten years, I wonder how I or anyone could ever endure such suffering. Moreover, Shaker has never seen his youngest child Faris, who was born after his imprisonment. Renowned human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, who visited Shaker this past November, related that Shaker's physical ailments include, serious asthma, acute prostate, kidney and rectal pain, problems with his ears and loss of balance and dizziness.

Shaker Aamer

Although Shaker was cleared to be released in 2007, it is believed by those close to his case that he is still being held so he won't be able to expose the cover-up around the death of three men who allegedly committed suicide at Guantanamo on June 10, 2006. On January 18, 2010, attorney and journalist published an article in Harper's magazine asserting that these three men did not hang themselves in their cells, but rather died during their interrogations at "Camp No." He wrote that Shaker had also been brought to a secret interrogation site, about near Camp Delta, with the other three men, and subjected to interrogation methods that included asphyxiation. Horton wrote that Aamer's repatriation was being delayed so he could not testify about the use of this technique upon his return to the United Kingdom.

And so Shaker waits and waits in an isolated cell, in failing health, not knowing his fate, not knowing if he will ever see his family again.

And so we pray, vigil, and engage in acts of solidarity and nonviolent resistance. We build and create community. We Fast for Justice. We Witness Against Torture. We proclaim liberty for all those held captive and demand that the oppressed go free!

Art Laffin <artlaffin@hotmail.com>

Dorothy Day CW House

503 Rock Creek Church Road, NW

Washington, D.C. 20010

Phone: 202.882.9649 or 202.829.7625

http://dccatholicworker.wordpress.com/

A Guantanamo prisoner has his day in court

by Frida Berrigan 

The defendants file in—some looking neat and upstanding, some in their best approximation of the same. They all look tired. Sleeping on the floor of a church can do that to a person.

Shaker Aamer

The white haired, slightly amused and always alert judge, the white noise machine when the lawyers confer with the judge, the stern and fit marshals, the wall to wall carpet and wood paneling. Yes—we are in a DC court. Take off your hats, gentlemen and ma’am, no knitting allowed in the court.

 The matter before the court is unusual. The defendants are representing themselves, with legal advisors on hand. They stakes are high—if convicted, they could face up to a year in jail.

On June 23, 2011, a day the House of Representatives was scheduled to debate provisions that would eventually become the National Defense Authorization Act just signed into law by President Barack Obama that included a measure to strip funding from any efforts to repatriate Guantanamo detainees, fourteen activists stood one by one and addressed the men and women elected to represent their interests. Here is part of what they said:

Today the House of Representative is in the process of contemplating not the passage of a bill but the commission of a crime. Provisions in the proposed Defense Appropriations Bill grant the United States powers over the lives of detained men fitting of a totalitarian state that uses the law itself as an instrument of tyranny. The law would make the prison at Guantanamo permanent by denying funds for the transfer of men to the United States, even for prosecution in civilian courts.

Spread throughout the Gallery, the fourteen were able to complete their statements before being led away by Congressional guards. Many of the Representatives on the floor listened intently, while others jeered derisively. Everyone within hearing range understood that the activists were objecting to the continued abuse and detention of men at Guantanamo—many of whom have been cleared for release under President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama and continue to be held largely because of the political cowardice of Congress.

Only four completed the trial. The government failed to identify the other ten. One of the ones who went through the trial was Shakir Ami aka Brian Hynes.

Shakir Ami is not a name you hear every day in DC court. It is not exactly right, either. But its genesis is in an action Witness Against Torture did a few years ago at the Supreme Court, when 80 of us occupied those hallowed halls—shutting it down for (what we think is) the first time. None of us brought identification, opting to go through the system with the names of men at Guantanamo.

Thus, we symbolically brought them into the U.S. court system. For most of us, it meant just a very long processing through the DC jails and an opportunity to say the name of “our” defendant in a court of law. For some men at Guantanamo, it was the first (and some perhaps only) time their names were heard in the U.S. justice system. For Brian Hynes, it meant more—the correctional officers who processed Brian misspelled and garbled Shaker Aamer, rendering it Shakir Ami—but the symbolism remains striking and is pervasive. In the DC system, Shakir Ami is Brian Hynes’ alias and every time he is arrested, he’ll have an opportunity to talk about Shaker Aamer.

Aamer remains at Guantanamo. He is the last remaining British resident at Guantanamo. The rest were released years ago and have made documentaries, written books and become active in the international movement to shut down Guantanamo. Aamer is an educated man, born in Saudi Arabia but a legal resident of the United Kingdom who is married to a British national. He had been in Guantanamo for nearly ten years, and from early on was a leader amongst the prisoners, encouraging them to demand better conditions and organizing protests and hunger strikes in response to abuses. For this leadership, Aamer has been singled out for harsh treatment and remains in solitary confinement. In September, the BBC reported that Aamer was on hunger strike and being forcibly fed through a tube. In a letter quoted in the article, Aamer wrote that:

Inhumane treatment is taking place at the [Guantanamo] hospital among other areas, especially affecting the sick and those who are on (hunger) strike and our deprivation of real treatment, health, diet and appropriate clothing which are not provided to us, nor we are allowed to provide them for ourselves.

Shaker is the father of four. His youngest son Faris was born after he was in Guantanamo. They have never met or touched. Shaker was cleared for release from Guantanamo by the U.S. government in 2007, and yet he remains in Guantanamo.

None of the details about Shaker Aamer were admissible in the trial. Brian Hynes was interrupted and silenced every time he mentioned Shaker’s name. But the facts of Aamer’s case bear repeating as President Barack Obama used the New Year’s holiday to sign into law the National Defense Authorization Act, a piece of legislation that codifies into law a set of dangerous and controversial policies and protocols that have evolved over the last ten years of the global war on terror.

In response, the Center for Constitutional Rights wrote that it:

strongly condemns the U.S. Congress for passing, and President Obama for signing, the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which effectively endorses war without end and makes indefinite military detention without charge or trial a permanent feature of the American legal system. This is the first time since the McCarthy Era that Congress has written indefinite detention into law.

We had hoped that President Obama—a constitutional law professor and believer in the aspirational course of American justice—would uphold his promise to veto this radical law that threatens to roll back both decades-old legislation enacted to combat McCarthy-era excesses and 19th-century limitations on domestic military policing. At the same time that heroic activists in the Arab world are risking their lives to rid themselves of the remnants of their authoritarian and militaristic regimes, the United States is embracing practices contrary to the basic aspirations of any constitutional democracy.

Brian Hynes and the three co-defendants rested their case on Wednesday. On Thursday they were found guilty. On Friday, the judge sentenced Mike Levinson to two days in jail and then suspended it, gave him 6 months unsupervised probation, told him not to engage in illegal activities on Capitol grounds or buildings for 6 months, and—in lieu of a fine—granted his wish to make a $150 charitable contribution to the organization of his choice. The rest of the defendants will be sentenced on Thursday, January 12.

This is not the end. It is the beginning. Opposition to the NDAA is coming from all quarters, and manifesting itself in flashmobs in Grand Central, arrests at the White House, and trials in Superior Court.

Our work continues in DC, as Witness Against Torture’s Hungering for Justice fast enters its fourth day and we gear up for “Ten Years Too Many: National Day of Action Against Guantanamo” on January 11.

We only wish the real Shaker Aamer and his family could join us.

Source:

http://wagingnonviolence.org/2012/01/a-guantanamo-prisoner-has-his-day-in-court/

Frida Berrigan serves on the Board of the War Resisters League and is a columnist for Waging Nonviolence.

Haiti: Seven Places Where the Earthquake Money Did and Did Not Go

by Bill Quigley and Amber Ramanauskas

Haiti, a close neighbor of the US with more than nine million people, was devastated by earthquake on January 12, 2010.  Hundreds of thousands were killed and many more wounded. 

The UN estimated international donors gave Haiti over $1.6 billion in relief aid since the earthquake (about $155 per Haitian) and over $2 billion in recovery aid (about $173 per Haitian) over the last two years.

Yet Haiti looks like the earthquake happened two months ago, not two years. Over half a million people remain homeless in hundreds of informal camps, most of the tons of debris from destroyed buildings still lays where it fell, and cholera, a preventable disease, was introduced into the country and is now an epidemic killing thousands and sickening hundreds of thousands more.  

It turns out that almost none of the money that the general public thought was going to Haiti actually went directly to Haiti.  The international community chose to bypass the Haitian people, Haitian non-governmental organizations and the government of Haiti.  Funds were instead diverted to other governments, international NGOs, and private companies.   

Despite this near total lack of control of the money by Haitians, if history is an indication, it is quite likely that the failures will ultimately be blamed on the Haitians themselves in a “blame the victim” reaction.   

Haitians ask the same question as many around the world “Where did the money go?”

Here are seven places where the earthquake money did and did not go.

One.  The largest single recipient of US earthquake money was the US government.  The same holds true for donations by other countries.

Right after the earthquake, the US allocated $379 million in aid and sent in 5000 troops.  The Associated Press discovered that of the $379 million in initial US money promised for Haiti, most was not really money going directly, or in some cases even indirectly, to Haiti.  They documented in January 2010 that thirty three cents of each of these US dollars for Haiti was actually given directly back to the US to reimburse ourselves for sending in our military.  Forty two cents of each dollar went to private and public non-governmental organizations like Save the Children, the UN World Food Program and the Pan American Health Organization.  Hardly any went directly to Haitians or their government.

The overall $1.6 billion allocated for relief by the US was spent much the same way according to an August 2010 report by the US Congressional Research Office: $655 million was reimbursed to the Department of Defense; $220 million to Department of Health and Human Services to provide grants to individual US states to cover services for Haitian evacuees; $350 million to USAID disaster assistance; $150 million to the US Department of Agriculture for emergency food assistance; $15 million to the Department of Homeland Security for immigration fees, and so on.

International assistance followed the same pattern.  The UN Special Envoy for Haiti reported that of the $2.4 billion in humanitarian funding, 34 percent was provided back to the donor’s own civil and military entities for disaster response, 28 percent was given to UN agencies and non-governmental agencies (NGOs) for specific UN projects, 26 percent was given to private contractors and other NGOs, 6 percent was provided as in-kind services to recipients, 5 percent to the international and national Red Cross societies, 1 percent was provided to the government of Haiti, four tenths of one percent of the funds went to Haitian NGOs. 

Two.  Only 1 percent of the money went to the Haitian government. 

Less than a penny of each dollar of US aid went to the government of Haiti, according to the Associated Press.   The same is true with other international donors.  The Haitian government was completely bypassed in the relief effort by the US and the international community.   

Three.   Extremely little went to Haitian companies or Haitian non-governmental organizations. 

The Center for Economic and Policy Research, the absolute best source for accurate information on this issue, analyzed all the 1490 contracts awarded by the US government after the January 2010 earthquake until April 2011 and found only 23 contracts went to Haitian companies.  Overall the US had awarded $194 million to contractors, $4.8 million to the 23 Haitian companies, about 2.5 percent of the total.  On the other hand, contractors from the Washington DC area received $76 million or 39.4 percent of the total.  As noted above, the UN documented that only four tenths of one percent of international aid went to Haitian NGOs.

In fact Haitians had a hard time even getting into international aid meetings.  Refugees International reported that locals were having a hard time even getting access to the international aid operational meetings inside the UN compound.  “Haitian groups are either unaware of the meetings, do not have proper photo-ID passes for entry, or do not have the staff capacity to spend long hours at the compound.”  Others reported that most of these international aid coordination meetings were not even being translated into Creole, the language of the majority of the people of Haiti! 

Four.  A large percentage of the money went to international aid agencies, and big well connected non-governmental organizations (NGOs). 

The American Red Cross received over $486 million in donations for Haiti.  It says two-thirds of the money has been contracted to relief and recovery efforts, though specific details are difficult to come by.  The CEO of American Red Cross has a salary of over $500,000 per year.

Look at the $8.6 million joint contract between the US Agency for International Development (USAID) with the private company CHF for debris removal in Port au Prince.  CHF is politically well-connected international development company with annual budget of over $200 million whose CEO was paid $451,813 in 2009.  CHF’s connection to Republicans and Democrats is illustrated by its board secretary, Lauri Fitz-Pegado, a partner with the Livingston Group LLC.  The Livingston Group is headed by the former Republican Speaker-designate for the 106^th Congress, Bob Livingston, doing lobbying and government relations.  Ms. Fitz-Pegado, who apparently works the other side of the aisle, was appointed by President Clinton to serve in the Department of Commerce and served as a member of the foreign policy expert advisor team on the Obama for President Campaign.  CHF “works in Haiti out of two spacious mansions in Port au Prince and maintains a fleet of brand new vehicles” according to Rolling Stone.

Rolling Stone, in an excellent article by Janet Reitman, reported on another earthquake contract, a $1.5 million contract to the NY based consulting firm Dalberg Global Development Advisors.  The article found Dalberg’s team “had never lived overseas, didn’t have any disaster experience or background in urban planning… never carried out any program activities on the ground…” and only one of them spoke French.  USAID reviewed their work and found that “it became clear that these people may not have even gotten out of their SUVs.”

Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton announced a fundraising venture for Haiti on January 16, 2010.  As of October 2011, the fund had received $54 million in donations.  It has partnered with several Haitian and international organizations.  Though most of its work appears to be admirable, it has donated $2 million to the construction of a Haitian $29 million for-profit luxury hotel. 

“The NGOs still have something to respond to about their accountability, because there is a lot of cash out there,” according to Nigel Fisher, the UN’s chief humanitarian officer in Haiti.  “What about the $1.5 to $2 billion that the Red Cross and NGOs got from ordinary people, and matched by governments?  What’s happened to that?  And that’s where it’s very difficult to trace those funds.”

Five.  Some money went to for profit companies whose business is disasters. 

Less than a month after the quake hit, the US Ambassador Kenneth Merten sent a cable titled “THE GOLD RUSH IS ON” as part of his situation report to Washington.  In this February 1, 2010 document, made public by The Nation, Haiti Liberte and Wikileaks, Ambassador Merten reported the President of Haiti met with former General Wesley Clark for a sales presentation for  a Miami-based company that builds foam core houses.

Capitalizing on the disaster, Lewis Lucke, a high ranking USAID relief coordinator, met twice in his USAID capacity with the Haitian Prime Minister immediately after the quake.  He then quit the agency and was hired for $30,000 a month by a Florida corporation Ashbritt (known already for its big no bid Katrina grants) and a prosperous Haitian partner to lobby for disaster contracts.  Locke said “it became clear to us that if it was handled correctly the earthquake represented as much an opportunity as it did a calamity…”  Ashbritt and its Haitian partner were soon granted a $10 million no bid contract.  Lucke said he was instrumental in securing another $10 million contract from the World Bank and another smaller one from CHF International before their relationship ended.

Six.  A fair amount of the pledged money has never been actually put up. 

The international community decided it was not going to allow the Haiti government to direct the relief and recovery funds and insisted that two institutions be set up to approve plans and spending for the reconstruction funds going to Haiti.  The first was the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC) and the second is the Haiti Reconstruction Fund (HRF).  

In March 2010, UN countries pledged $5.3 billion over two years and a total of $9.9 billion over three years in a conference March 2010.  The money was to be deposited with the World Bank and distributed by the IHRC.  The IHRC was co-chaired by Bill Clinton and the Haitian Prime Minister.   By July 2010, Bill Clinton reported only 10 percent of the pledges had been given to the IHRC.

Seven.  A lot of the money which was put up has not yet been spent. 

Nearly two years after the quake, less than 1 percent of the $412 million in US funds specifically allocated for infrastructure reconstruction activities in Haiti had been spent by USAID and the US State Department and only 12 percent has even been obligated according to a November 2011 report by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The performance of the two international commissions, the IHRC and the HRF has also been poor.  The Miami Herald noted that as of July 2011, the $3.2 billion in projects approved by the IHRC only five had been completed for a total of $84 million.  The Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC), which was severely criticized by Haitians and others from its beginning, has been effectively suspended since its mandate ended at the end of October 2011.  The Haiti Reconstruction Fund was set up to work in tandem with the IHRC, so while its partner is suspended, it is not clear how it can move forward.

What to do

The effort so far has not been based a respectful partnership between Haitians and the international community.   The actions of the donor countries and the NGOs and international agencies have not been transparent so that Haitians or others can track the money and see how it has been spent.  Without transparency and a respectful partnership the Haitian people cannot hold anyone accountable for what has happened in their country.  That has to change.

The UN Special Envoy to Haiti suggests the generous instincts of people around the world must be channeled by international actors and institutions in a way that assists in the creation of a “robust public sector and a healthy private sector.”  Instead of giving the money to intermediaries, funds should be directed as much as possible to Haitian public and private institutions.  A “Haiti First” policy could strengthen public systems, promote accountability, and create jobs and build skills among the Haitian people. 

Respect, transparency and accountability are the building blocks for human rights.  Haitians deserve to know where the money has gone, what the plans are for the money still left, and to be partners in the decision-making for what is to come. 

After all, these are the people who will be solving the problems when the post-earthquake relief money is gone.

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 A more detailed version of this article with full sources is available by writing the authors.

Bill Quigley teaches at Loyola University New Orleans, is the Associate Legal Director at the Center for Constitutional Rights and volunteers with the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti.    Bill can be reached at quigley77@gmail.com.  

Amber Ramanauskas is a lawyer and human rights researcher. Amber can be reached at gintarerama@gmail.com.     

The Iraq War Is Over – Sort Of

by Tom Cornell

Captain James, the son of the Bellameys in the Upstairs Downstairs BBC series comes home from World War I disillusioned.  He knows the war is a massive criminal waste.  He is at his wits’ end to process his bitterness.  But when dear Rose, the upstairs maid, loses her fiancé and her only hope for a life of her own to the war, Captain James feels constrained to comfort her with the ancient lie.  She can be proud; her beloved died a hero’s death for king and country.  He can not tell her the truth.  It’s too hard for her to hear.

Imagine President Obama addressing the troops at Fort Bragg as US combat forces withdraw from Iraq.  Could he have told the truth: the invasion was the most grievous criminal act in international law, a crime against peace itself?  Can he tell more than four thousand families that buried a son or daughter or spouse or parent it was all in vain, and worse, a criminal plot to control the natural resources of another country?  Or the tens of thousands of families torn apart by PTSD suffering veterans?  And what of the Iraqi victims?  NPR and Reuters count the Iraqi dead in the tens of thousands.  For shame!  Multiply that by tens!  Hundreds of thousands Iraqi dead, more than a million if excess morbidity is factored in.  Between five and six million Iraqis have been driven into exile, many of them impoverished, unemployed in neighboring countries.  For them the war is not over. The Christian community, Chaldean Catholics in the majority, a church that traces its origins back to St. Thomas, has been drastically reduced. 

Iraqis were the best educated people in the Arab world.  The education and the health care systems, once among the finest (and free), are in shambles.  Professionals have fled in such proportion as to constitute a brain-drain.  Baghdad is in ruin, with neighborhoods cordoned off from each other by road-block and razor wire.  After the 1991 bombing, Saddam Hussein was able to get the electric grid up and running in six months.  After eight years of, the US leaves Baghdad with six hours electricity a day. Basra, Haditha, Fallujah will not soon forget the crimes committed against their civilian populations, nor quickly forgive.  For them the war is not over.   

It has been the Catholic Worker tradition to contrast the corporal works of mercy with the works of war: to feed the hungry as opposed to destroying farms and foodstuffs, to shelter the homeless as opposed to destroying cities, towns and villages, and so on.  Consider the spiritual works of mercy as well, again opposed to the works of war.  Instruct the ignorant?  No!  Lie, deceive them!  The first casualty of war is always truth.  Counsel the doubtful?  No!  Draft them, in the present instance through an “economic draft.”  Comfort mourners?  Only those on “our” side.  Reproach sinners, the perpetrators?  You might be fired, or even jailed if you put your body where your mouth is.   Bear wrongs patiently, forgive offenses?  Hardly!  Revenge!   And pray for the living and the dead victims of “our brave fighting men and women”?  Not to mention them!  If you must, pray for them but quietly, not out loud, not in the Prayers of the Faithful at Mass.  The Church thus becomes complicit.

Imagine President Obama making a clean breast of it all and calling for reparations and national repentance!  Imagine our bishops taking the Holy Father at his word and doing the same.  Meanwhile, the Afghan war goes on and the warlords now take aim at Iran.  Fast and pray! 

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Deacon Tom Cornell [tmcrnll@gmail.com] is a veteran of the Catholic Worker Movement, former national secretary of the Catholic Peace Fellowship, and a founder of Pax Christi, U.S.A.