For Immediate Release: August 26, 2010
Contacts: Attorney Mario Joseph 3701-9879
Internally Displaced Haitians Faced with Forced Expulsions and Looming Hurricanes
will Beat Pots and Pans to Protest Horrific Conditions in Camps
At 12:00 noon (1pm EST), Friday 27 August 2010, fifteen camps threatened with forced expulsion all over Port-au-Prince will simultaneous beat pots and pans, or “bat teneb,” to demand a moratorium on expulsions and an immediate solution to inadequate shelter while hurricanes loom. Prominent human rights attorney, Mario Joseph, invites the national and international press to meet at the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux at 11:00am (12pm EST) to visit Camp Barbancourt II where residents are under immanent threat of expulsion in violation of Haitian and international law. The government must immediately provide humane alternatives to the muddy, dangerous, unsanitary and brutal living conditions by verifying ownership titles, and nationalizing by decree all empty and idle lands in the hands of large landowners.
The fifteen camps are calling for international solidarity according to their press release: “Tomorrow we will raise our hands in the air and call out loudly, sound the trumpet to wake up the authorities, unblock the cotton deafening their ears. We will make a concert of noise in the camps, strike and beat and sound the trumpet loudly to ask the Preval / Bellerive government to respect our constitutional right to housing, food, health, school, work, water, electricity.”
“We refuse to participate in your election while under tarps, while being evicted from tents, without respect for our basic rights. We’re asking for houses, towhich we have a right. This is no gift, it is our right under article 22 of the March 29, 1987 Constitution, which guarantees the Haitian state provide decent lodgings to all its citizens.”
“The law is perfectly clear,” according to human rights attorney Mario Joseph. “There is a problem of political will and a problem of exclusion. The poor have been excluded from their land for years, and are now excluded from the process determining their rights to lodgings.”
Organized by: Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) Camp Barbancourt II on route de l’aéroport, Camp Immaculé in Cité Soleil, Camp Toussaint Louverture in Carreduex, Camp Dival 33 in Croix des Bouquets, Camp Movi in Delmas 60, Camp Alexis Emmanuel on the rout to the Airport, Camp Mesiane in the Village Solidarité, Camp Litan Breton in Fontamara 27, Saint Priere Eddy Francois in Carrefour, Camp Cannan on the rout to Cité Militaire, Camp Village Lagras in Carrefour, Camps Romelus Julio Don Bosco in To, Camp Notredame Mont Carmel in rue frère Simon, OVS in Carrefour and Solidarity with all other camps faced with forced expulsion.
Meet Friday 27 August 2010, 11am at the BAI 3, 2nd Impasse Lavaud, B. P. 19048