They Kissed New Orleans And Its Poor Good Bye!
Part 1:
An Incomplete Timeline Of The Silence and Cancer of Betrayal!
September 8, 2005
Parts 2 to 6:
African And Poor People Are Dying And Being Displaced, Worldwide!
The U.S. Government Is Responsible For These Crimes Against Humanity!
African And Poor People are Powerless And Disorganized, Worldwide!
African And Progressive Leadership Is Powerless And Disunited, Worldwide!
We Demand An African United Front, And The Unity Of Progressive Forces, Worldwide!
By Bob Brown
co-director of Pan-African Roots
As I see and hear the spectacle of another human tragedy, a man and woman-made tragedy, of genocidal proportions unfold in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and as I am bombarded by CNN with streaming video of and 30-second sound bites from an endless procession of vultures and beggars circling over our people’s watery graves, the prophetic voices of Dr. Lerone Bennett Jr., Kwame Ture, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Amilcar Cabral reverberate in my mind’s eye and my heart’s ear.
Dr. Bennett, in his book The Negro Mood, warned our ‘leadership,’ over forty years ago, that they are on trial, not just for the things they said and did, but also for the things they did not say and did not do. This statement is as prophetic today, as it was forty years ago when first published; and permit us to also suggest that it applies to all of our ‘leadership’, democrat or republican; governmental or non-governmental; black or white; elected, anointed or self-appointed.
In his article titled “What We Want,” which was published in the New York Review of Books on September 22, 1966, Kwame Ture, formerly known as Stokely Carmichael, suggested that:
“One of the tragedies of the struggle against racism is that up until now there has been no national organization which could speak to the growing militancy of young black people in the urban ghetto. There has been only a civil rights movement, whose tone of voice was adapted to an audience of liberal whites. It served as a sort of buffer zone between them and angry young blacks. None of its so-called leaders could go into a rioting community and be listened to. . . .”
On April 4, 1967, in his speech against the Vietnam War, which he gave at Riverside Church in New York, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. warned us that:
"A time comes when silence is betrayal. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men [and women] do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. .. But we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. For we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.”
”We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation, for those it calls "enemy," for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers [or sisters]… [We must] think of them, too, because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution until some attempt is made to know them and hear their broken cries.”
One year and four days later, on April 8, 1968, Dr. King was murdered by the U.S. government; and two hundred and twenty-two cities became his funeral pyre—a people’s memorial to a principled and nonviolent man.
In April 1972, at Osagefyo Kwame Nkrumah’s funeral in Guinea-Conakry, Amilcar Cabral, a founder of the PAIGC in Guinea-Bissau and an architect of the national liberation, Pan-African and socialist revolution, correctly said that Osagefyo did not die of cancer, he died of the “cancer of betrayal!”
Permit us to suggest and prove in this and subsequent papers, that the victims of Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. coup in Haiti, of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, of the resource wars in Rwanda and the Congo, Sierra Leone and Liberia, of Darfur and the Horn of Africa, the Middle East (Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan), and countless other areas around the world, are the victims of the cancer of silence and betrayal as well!
The victims of Katrina were not killed or displaced by the hurricane or floods; they were knowingly and maliciously killed and displaced by the silence and cancer of betrayal by every branch and level of the U.S. government, especially the White House and Congress; the states, counties and cities that were hit by Katrina; the states, counties and cities who received and shelter Katrina’s victims; the Democratic and Republican Parties; the Red Cross and the emergency relief community--governmental, non-governmental and for-profit; Greyhound and Trailways Bus; the 6 Class 1 Railroads and the American Association of Railroads; the travel and hotel industry; the media and communications industry; the food, apparel and pharmaceutical industry; and a litany of other forces who silently stood by while New Orleans and its poor drowned and dispersed.
African and progressive “leadership,” especially those in position of influence and power, must and will be held accountable as well, for the things they said and did, and for the things they did not say and did not do!
Permit us here and now also, to remind you about and invite you to:
The International Tribunal On Haiti
Friday, September 23, 2005 - 7 pm - 10 pm
George Washington University
Elliott School of International Affairs
1957 E St. NW
Washington, DC
lasolidarity.org/haiti.shtml
The Joint Anti-War Rally and March
To End The War On Iraq
Saturday, September 24, 2005 – 11:30 am
The White House
Washington DC
http://www.internationalanswer.org/
The 10th Anniversary Commemoration of the Million Man March
Saturday, October 15, 2005
Washington, DC
May we humbly and respectfully suggest that it would be another act of betrayal if these events were postponed or canceled. We must push forward, inspite of, if not because of the unfolding tragedies in the Gulf States and countries of the United States and the Caribbean, in Africa and in the Middle East.
[Note: This timeline was taken from the Wikipedia online free encyclopedia, and other pages found on the internet. Time does not permit us to edit it properly, so whole sections, passages and paragraphs have bee taken as published. We apologize for any and all copyright and intellectual property rights violations. We are not motivated by money, never have been and never will be. We simply want the truth known in ever corner of the globe!]
An Incomplete Timeline
From the 1720s to 1920, the initial levee system, and the City and Port of New Orleans, was built by slave and convict-lease labor, mostly African, under the direction of the state, city, the US Corp of Engineers, and the predecessor entities of the 6 Class 1 railroads that use, own and/or control it today.
In the 1920s, the US Corps of Engineers started building the levees (aka dikes), with convict-lease labor, mostly African, to withstand category 3 hurricanes, and Katrina was a strong category 4. Scientific and engineering studies have long predicted that New Orleans would be eventually washed away by hurricanes and the Mississippi River, although the likelihood of this event happening in the near future was low.
The Dutch have long had experience of coping with flooding and below sea level cities. As U.S. military engineers struggled to shore up breached levees, experts in the Netherlands expressed surprise that New Orleans' flood systems failed to restrain the raging waters. With half of the country's population of 16 million living below sea level, the Netherlands has been preparing since floods in 1953 that killed 2,000 people. The nation installed massive hydraulic sea walls known as the Delta Works.
"I don't want to sound overly critical, but it's hard to imagine that (the damage caused by Katrina) could happen in a Western country," Ted Sluijter, press spokesman for Neeltje Jans, the public park where the Delta Works are exhibited. "It seemed like plans for protection and evacuation weren't really in place, and once it happened, the coordination" was poor.
After heavy rains several times in the 1990s nearly caused Dutch rivers to overflow their banks, the Netherlands instituted a new policy of "room for the rivers", involving the maintenance of flood plains and nomination of a few smaller settlements on these plains which if necessary would be sacrificed to protect major cities. It also created financial incentives and regulations to encourage the depopulation of these flood plains over time.
This environmental-based flood plain approach is directly opposed to the longstanding engineering-based approach, common throughout the Western world, of creating ever higher and stronger artificial flood defenses, concreting river banks, straightening river courses and reclaiming flood plains for development. In the US, the importance of wetlands as natural flood defenses had been increasingly recognized, but there were other priorities.
In 2004, the U.S. Census revealed that 27% of New Orleans households, amounting to approximately 120,000 people, were without privately-owned transportation; that it was 20% white and 67% percent African; and had one of the highest poverty rates in the United States at about 38%.
During the 41 years prior to Hurricane Katrina, no less than three category 4+ hurricanes had passed within ten miles of New Orleans: Hilda, Betsy and Camille.
It was known by all concerned, that the poor, the elderly, and the sick--African, Native American and white--barely survived day to day, and could not survive a major disaster or evacuate from harms way on their own resources.
In early 2001, FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency of the US Government, listed a major hurricane hitting New Orleans as one of the three most serious threats to the nation. The other two were a terrorist attack in New York City and a large earthquake hitting San Francisco. As of today, two out of three has occurred.
In September 2001, Popular Mechanics ran a story called “New Orleans Is Sinking” discussing what might happen if a severe hurricane landed on New Orleans.
In October 2001, Scientific American published an article by Mark Fischetti called “Drowning New Orleans.” This article begins,
"A major hurricane could swamp New Orleans under 20 feet of water, killing thousands. Human activities along the Mississippi River have dramatically increased the risk, and now only massive reengineering of southeastern Louisiana can save the city… New Orleans is a disaster waiting to happen."
On December 1, 2001, the Houston Chronicle published a story, “Keeping its head above water: New Orleans faces doomsday scenario” which predicted that a severe hurricane striking New Orleans "would strand 250,000 people or more, and probably kill one of 10 left behind as the city drowned under 20 feet of water. Thousands of refugees could land in Houston."
In June 2002, the New Orleans Times-Picayune published an award-winning five-part series called “Washing Away” by John McQuaid and Mark Schleifstein. “Washing Away” covered various scenarios, including a Category 5 hurricane hitting the city from the south. The series also explored the various environmental changes that have increased the area's vulnerability. One article in the series concluded,
"Hundreds of thousands would be left homeless, and it would take months to dry out the area and begin to make it livable. But there wouldn't be much for residents to come home to. The local economy would be in ruins."
"100,000 people without transportation will be especially threatened," the paper wrote. "A large population of low-income residents do not own cars and would have to depend on an untested emergency public transportation system to evacuate them."
According to the state's evacuation plan for southeast Louisiana, the primary means of evacuation was to be personal vehicles, but 27 percent of the city's households don't own a car -- a problem that doesn't appear to have been addressed in advance planning models.
The "untested" emergency response system was supposed to be a system of public buses that would transport people out of the city in the event of a disaster.
From June 23 – 27, 2002, the New Orleans Times-Picayune ran a series on “Hurricane preparedness for New Orleans,” in which it wrote:
"It's only a matter of time before South Louisiana takes a direct hit from a major hurricane. Billions have been spent to protect us, but we grow more vulnerable every day."
"If enough water from Lake Pont-Chartrain topped the levee system along its south shore, the result would be apocalyptic. Whoever remained in the city would be at grave risk. According to the American Red Cross, a likely death toll would be between 25,000 and 100,000 people, dwarfing estimated death tolls for other natural disasters and all but the most nightmarish potential terrorist attacks. Tens of thousands more would be stranded on rooftops and high ground, awaiting rescue that could take days or longer. They would face thirst, hunger and exposure to toxic chemicals."
In September 2002, in an article titled “Hurricane Risk to New Orleans,” Daniel Zwerdling reported that Walter Maestri, the czar of public emergencies in Jefferson Parish, the county that sprawls across a third of New Orleans metropolitan area, conducted an “exercise where they brought a fictitious Category Five Hurricane into the metropolitan area.” The computer model mapped “how the fictitious hurricane crossed Key West and then smacked into New Orleans. When the computer models showed Maestri what would happen next, he wrote big letters on the map, all in capitals.”
"KYAGB—kiss your ass good bye!"
"Because," says Maestri, "anyone who was here when that storm came across was gone—it was body-bag time. We think 40,000 people could lose their lives in the metropolitan area."
And some scientists say that figure is conservative.
In September 2002, the American RadioWorks aired a documentary, “Hurricane Risk for New Orleans,” describing the modeling efforts at LSU, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Jefferson Parish Emergency Management Center, the results, and possible long-term solutions. The official budget was highlighted as being far below requirements and is already being considered for increase.
In October 2002, in an article titled "Preparing for the 'Big One',” severe weather expert Warren Faidley, a journalist who specializes in the coverage of severe weather, predicted an epic hurricane disaster that would devastate the U.S. Gulf Coast. Faidley's severe weather survival handbook, entitled "How to Survive Any Storm," warned of a similar "unprecedented hurricane disaster."
“It is my belief that an unprecedented storm disaster is drawing near for the United States. Studies conduced in several coastal cities concluded that tens of thousands of people could be in “extreme risk” if a serious hurricane hit before high-density coastal areas could be evacuated.”
“Statistically, we are quite overdue for an epic disaster. In recent years, several intense and potentially devastating hurricanes have formed and approached the U.S. coastline. Fortunately, they diminished right before landfall."
In 2003, Walter Williams produced a one-hour interactive DVD called "New Orleans: The Natural History." The summary notes:
"What few people realize is that the very forces that created New Orleans now threaten its very existence. The eco-system is incredibly fragile and volatile, and if no action is taken, the city could be wiped out in the next hurricane or gradually swept into the sea from the current course of things."
Starting in 2003, federal spending on the SELA, the ‘Southeast Louisiana Project, was substantially reduced. In 2004, the Army Corps requested $11 million. Bush requested $3 million. Congress approved $5.5 million. In 2005, the Army Corps requested $22.5 million. Bush request $3.9 million. Congress approved $5.7 million. In 2006, Bush request: $2.9 million.
In June 2003, Civil Engineering Magazine, published an article titled “The Creeping Storm,” which criticized the funding for hurricane preparedness of New Orleans.
"The design of the original levees, which dates to the 1960s, was based on rudimentary storm modeling that, it is now realized, might underestimate the threat of a potential hurricane. Even if the modeling was adequate, however, the levees were designed to withstand only forces associated with a fast-moving hurricane that, according to the National Weather Service’s Saffir-Simpson scale, would be placed in category 3. If a lingering category 3 storm — or a stronger storm, say, category 4 or 5 — were to hit the city, much of New Orleans could find itself under more than 20 ft (6 m) of water"
In February 2004, Al Naomi, the Army Corps of Engineers senior project manager in New Orleans stated that
"I've got at least six levee construction contracts that need to be done to raise the levee protection back to where it should be (because of settling). Right now I owe my contractors about $5 million. And we're going to have to pay them interest”
A copy of the most recent comprehensive formal evaluation by the Army Corps of Engineers of the state of the levees has yet to be made public.
On February 16, 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Army Corps of Engineers said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to an article published in the New Orleans City Business.
On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune:
"It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."
On June 18, 2004, Al Naomi, Army Corps of Engineers project manager, requested $2 million for urgent work repairing levees from a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority. Naomi needed to request the funds locally because the federal government had cut back on funding for needed projects. According to the Times-Picayune, Naomi said,
"The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don't get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can't stay ahead of the settlement...The problem that we have isn't that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can't raise them."
In October 2004, National Geographic magazine published an article titled “Gone With the Water.” The article's primary focus is on the destruction of the Mississippi delta's wetlands and the effects that this has on the region's ability to withstand a hurricane, in addition to ecological and social impacts. The article begins with a haunting hypothetical worst-case scenario. [10]
"The Federal Emergency Management Agency lists a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation, up there with a large earthquake in California or a terrorist attack on New York City. Even the Red Cross no longer opens hurricane shelters in the city, claiming the risk to its workers is too great."
In that article National Geographic predicted with eerie accuracy that more than a million people would evacuate, but some 200,000 would remain, including "the carless, the homeless, the aged and infirm."
In October 2004, senior US Army Corps of Engineers project manager, Al Naomi submitted a proposal before the U.S. Congress requesting 4 million dollars to fund a preliminary study for a plan to augment the New Orleans levy system to be capable of withstanding a category 4+ hurricane. Congress tabled the proposal, never addressing it on the floor, citing budgetary concerns resulting from the Iraq War. Naomi's off-hand estimate was that this project would require approximately $1 billion dollars and would take 20 years. Naomi had stated,
"It's possible to protect New Orleans from a Category 5 hurricane.... we've got to start. To do nothing is tantamount to negligence," genocide
[Note: The reported cost of Katrina so far is $10 to 25 billion (insured damages only.) The poor, and people of Color, have little or no insurance. The projected cost is $20 to $100 billion, making Hurricane Katrina the most expensive Atlantic hurricane of all time). The U.S. government has earmarked only $40 billion thus far. $195 billion has been spent for the War in Iraq thus far, and the cost is rising.]
In November 2004, the Natural Hazards Observer carried an article entitled “What if Hurricane Ivan Had Not Missed New Orleans?,” which suggested
"The potential for such extensive flooding and the resulting damage is the result of a levee system that is unable to keep up with the increasing flood threats from a rapidly eroding coastline and thus unable to protect the ever-subsiding landscape."
On January 25, 2005, the Louisiana Sea Grant forum at Louisiana State University discussed the results of several simulations of strong hurricanes hitting New Orleans. The presentations and animations from the forum are accessible to the public at the forum's website.
In January 2005, the PBS science show Nova aired an episode on the hurricane threat to New Orleans, including interviews with New Orleans officials and scientists involved in the LSU study. The episode is available for online viewing here.
In the spring of 2005, the federal government, executive and legislative, the White House and Congress, proposed the steepest reduction in hurricane and flood-control funding for New Orleans in history. Because of the proposed cuts, the Army Corps of Engineers office imposed a hiring freeze. Officials said that money targeted for the SELA project was reduced to $10.4 million, down from $36.5 million.
In May 23, 2005, the American Prospect carried "Thinking Big About Hurricanes". That article described the likely aftermath of a major storm surge. "Soon the geographical "bowl" of the Crescent City would fill up with the waters of the lake, leaving those unable to evacuate with little option but to cluster on rooftops — terrain they would have to share with hungry rats, fire ants, nutria, snakes, and perhaps alligators. The water itself would become a festering stew of sewage, gasoline, refinery chemicals, and debris."
In June 2005, the FX docudrama Oil Storm depicted a category 4 hurricane hitting New Orleans and forcing residents to evacuate and hide out in the Superdome. The docudrama went on to speculate about a national economic meltdown caused by the decreased oil supply.
On July 24, 2005, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported that :
"In scripted appearances being recorded now, officials such as Mayor Ray Nagin, local Red Cross Executive Director Kay Wilkins and City Council President Oliver Thomas drive home the word that the city does not have the resources to move out of harm's way an estimated 134,000 people without transportation."
"City, state and federal emergency officials are preparing to give the poorest of New Orleans' poor a historically blunt message: In the event of a major hurricane, you're on your own."
At 11:00 pm on August 25, 2005, Katrina strengthened from a tropical storm to a hurricane in one day, and struck southern Florida.
On August 26, 2005, the possibility of "unprecedented cataclysm" was already being considered. Some computer models were putting New Orleans right in the center of their track probabilities, and the chances of a direct hit were forecast at nearly 10%. Calls for evacuation were growing louder.
On August 26, 2005, Governor Blanco of Louisiana declared a state of emergency.
On August 27, 2005, after Katrina crossed southern Florida and strengthened to Category 3, President Bush declared a state of emergency in Louisiana, two days before the hurricane made landfall. This declaration allegedly activated efforts by Federal Emergency Management Agency to position stockpiles of food, water and medical supplies throughout Louisiana and Mississippi, more than a day before Katrina made landfall.
On August 28, 2005, the National Weather Service issued a bulletin predicting "devastating" damage rivaling the intensity of Hurricane Camille.
At 10:00 am on August 28,2005, shortly after Katrina was upgraded to a Category 5 storm, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, calling Katrina "a storm that most of us have long feared", ordered the first ever mandatory evacuation of the city; and established several "refuges of last resort" for citizens who could not leave the city, including the massive Louisiana Superdome.
Mandatory evacuations were also ordered for Assumption, Jefferson (Kenner, Metairie, as well as Grand Isle and other low lying areas), Lafourche (outside the floodgates), Plaquemines, St. Charles and St. James parishes and parts of Tangipahoa and Terrebonne parishes in Louisiana; for parts of Mobile and Baldwin counties (including Gulf Shores) in Alabama; and for parts of Hancock, Harrison and Jackson counties in Mississippi.
But, this evacuation order was difficult, if not impossible to implement, because fuel and rental cars were in short supply, and Greyhound bus, Amtrak service and cargo trains were halted well before the hurricane made landfall; and because the poor did not know where else to go, and had no resources to get there.
At 15:30 CT, on August 28, 2005, Canadian National Railway (CN) suspended all rail traffic on its lines south of McComb, Mississippi (lines owned by its subsidiary Illinois Central Railroad that extend into New Orleans, Louisiana). CN also issued an embargo with the Association of American Railroads against all deliveries to points south of Osyka, Mississippi.
On August 28, 2005, CSX Transportation suspended service south of Montgomery, Alabama until further notice.
On August 29, 2005, Amtrak, America's rail passenger carrier, announced that the southbound City of New Orleans passenger trains from Chicago, Illinois, would terminate in Memphis, Tennessee, rather than their usual destination of New Orleans; the corresponding northbound trains will also originate in Memphis. The southbound Crescent from New York, New York, for the same period terminated in Atlanta, Georgia, with the corresponding northbound trains originating in Atlanta as well. Amtrak's westbound Sunset Limited originated in San Antonio, Texas, rather than its normal origin point of Orlando, Florida. Amtrak announced that no alternate transportation options would be made available into or out of the affected area until after September 3rd.
On August 28, 2005, the Waterford nuclear power plant was shut down. That region of Louisiana is known as “toxic lane.” We are not aware of what steps were taken before and during this disaster, or even now, to prevent this tragedy from turning into a nuclear holocaust and environmental disaster.
On August 29, 2005, Katrina made landfall in Louisiana, in the early morning, while most of the people.
At or about 9:43 CT, on August 29, 2005, Kansas City Southern halted trains into and out of the affected area.
At or about 16:01 CT, on August 29, 2005, Union Pacific halted traffic into and out of the affected area.
At or about 15:07 CT, on August 30, 2005, Norfolk Southern halted traffic into and out of the affected area.
400,000 people, 80% of the population evacuated New Orleans on their own resources, and that of their families, churches and non-governmental agencies; and with no assistance from any branch of the U.S. government--federal, state or local, or the Red Cross.
The Louisiana State police reported that 18,000 vehicles per hour were streaming out of the city and the surrounding areas.
[Note: If this report is correct, then we estimate that it took at least 12 to 22 hours to evacuate 400,000 people.]
[Note: And this historic grassroots, mass movement has been and continues to be denounced or characterized by murderers, racists and fools as chaos.]
"The poor,” however, “were just left to fend for themselves," said Rep. Jose Serrano of New York.
On August 30, 2005, Katrina hit New Orleans, and later, as breaches in three places of the levee system on the Lake Pontchartrain side of New Orleans flooded 80% of the City, as was inevitable and predicted, 150,000 residents remained in the city.
The vast majority of those who stayed were reported to have been unwilling or unable to leave because they did not have vehicles, money for gas and other transportation. Also, many residents were unable to travel because they were elderly or infirm; or had no place or family to go to, and no money to live on once they got there.
The reality of life for many of the city's poorest residents is that welfare and Social Security checks arrive at the beginning of each month, meaning that by the time the hurricane hit, money and food had run out.
Other residents, who live paycheck-to-paycheck, recalled previous hurricane evacuations where they had spent more than $1,000 on out-of-town hotel bills only to find that the storm had spared the city.
For these people, evacuating the city wasn't an option.
Yet they too were and continue to be denounced by the racist and insensitive media, and by public officials and hand-picked so-called “spokespersons,” black and white, as crazies and criminals.]
On August 31, 2005, the Newhouse News service reported that Feds' Disaster Planning Shifts Away From Preparedness."
On August 31, 2005, the Chicago Tribune reported that "funding cuts led way to lesser levees."
On August 31, 2005, the Scientific American published an article titled "Drowning New Orleans."
As of August 31, 2005, 80% of the city was flooded up to the level of the lake. The only element missing from this scenario was that the Mississippi River was not also over pouring its banks and flooding the city.
On 31 August, the Mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, told reporters that the hurricane probably killed thousands of people in the city.
As of 7 PM CDT on September 1, 2005, more than 20,000 were still reported missing, including one-third of the New Orleans police department.
On September 1, 2005, U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu said "We understand there are thousands of dead people."
On September 3, 2005, US Senator David Vitter said that the death toll from Hurricane Katrina could top 10,000 in Louisiana alone. "My guess is that it will start at 10,000, but that is only a guess," Vitter said.
On September 3, 2005, US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff described the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina as "probably the worst catastrophe, or set of catastrophes" in the country's history:
Tens of thousands of people were killed.
More than 1 million poor and African people were displaced and will not return— a humanitarian crisis on a scale unseen in the United States since the abolition of slavery in 1863; the end of the Civil War in 1865; the mass migrations at the end of Reconstruction in the 1870s and 1880s; and the mass migration of the 1920s and 1930s; and the 1940s and 1950s.
The Gulf Coast of the United States was devastated, from New Orleans, Louisiana to Mobile, Alabama.
Extreme destruction occurred in Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana (especially Greater New Orleans).
Strong impact was felt in Florida, Texas, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, and many other eastern U.S. states, eastern Ontario and eastern Quebec, Canada, and the Bahamas.
Federal and state disaster declarations were issued blanketing 90,000 square miles (233,000 km²) of the United States, an area almost as large as the United Kingdom.
Five million people left were without power, and it may be up to two months before all power is restored.
More than twenty-two states are sheltering people displaced by this crime against humanity including Texas, Florida, Georgia, Arkansas, Alabama, Kentucky, New Mexico, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Colorado, Utah, Minnesota, California, Wisconsin, Arizona, Illinois, and the District of Columbia.
Baton Rouge sheltered over 250,000 people, doubling its size; and Texas over 230,000 people, with no plan, despite millions of dollars and hundreds of press, about how prepared they were thanks to Homeland Security.
International response to Hurricane Katrina, and to help its poor and oppressed victims, has poured in from over 50 countries and agencies, including: Afghanistan, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, the Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, the European Union, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, the International Energy Agency, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, NATO, Nepal, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Norway, the Organization of American States, Oman, OPEC, Pakistan, Paraguay, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, the UAE, the United Kingdom, the United Nations, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Venezuela and the World Health Organization.
Other countries not on this list have also offered aid, but the US State Department mentioned that they had not been asked. Later, the State Department, and Secretary of State Rice, said all offers were being examined. But, the offers from Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, and other countries the United States government is destabilizing and attempting to overthrow, have been turned down1
Permit us to suggest that this is a crime against humanity, against the humanity of the living and dead victims of Katrina. And the silence of our “leadership” on this issue is deafening and a crime against our humanity as well.
In Part 2 of our paper, we will document the fact that African and poor people are dying and being displaced in every corner of Africa, the African Diaspora, not just New Orleans, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama; and they are the victims of the silence and cancer of betrayal as well.
If you truly seek justice and peace, atonement, reconciliation, responsibility and reparations, you will be marching, standing and sitting in the front of the line and first row, with all of your family and friends, especially the victims of Katrina, at:
The International Tribunal On Haiti
Friday, September 23, 2005 - 7 pm - 10 pm
George Washington University
Elliott School of International Affairs
1957 E St. NW
Washington, DC
http://lasolidarity.org/haiti.shtml
The Joint Anti-War Rally and March
To End The War On Iraq
Saturday, September 24, 2005 – 11:30 am
The White House
Washington DC
http://www.internationalanswer.org/
The 10th Anniversary Commemoration of the Million Man March
Saturday, October 15, 2005
Washington, DC
© 2005, Bob Brown
Copyright © 2005
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