Tag Archives: earthquake

U.S. Must Stand Up to Unlawful Eviction of Haitians from Displacement Camps

Posted 16 June 2011 | By | Categories: Caribbean | 2 Comments

An epidemic of forced evictions that began shortly after the earthquake is making life even harder for the countless Haitians that remain in displacement camps. The International Organization for Migration estimates that 233,941 Haitians have been evicted from camps, and that 166,000 of the 680,000 people remaining in camps face an ongoing threat of eviction. They say that the “rapid pace of eviction” is causing people to leave the camps even though they have nowhere else to go. Of the more than 180,000 residential buildings destroyed in the earthquake, only 4,100 have been repaired. Only a fraction of the needed temporary shelters have been built.

Beyond the Blue Helmets: Stability in Haiti Requires New Elections

Beyond the Blue Helmets: Stability in Haiti Requires New Elections

Posted 13 January 2011 | By | Categories: Caribbean, Citizen Action, Integration & Trade | 2 Comments

long Avenue John Brown in Port-au-Prince, freshly painted graffiti reads aba seleksyon! — down with the undemocratic selection process.

It is a key message in a visual protest against the failure of democracy in Haiti. It has been added alongside older messages that read aba MINUSTAH, aba okipasyon, calling for an end to the commonly perceived foreign occupation by the United Nations stabilization mission, known by its intitials as MINUSTAH.

Earthquake and Tsunami in Chile: The Militarization of Natural Disasters

Posted 30 April 2010 | By | Categories: South America | 1 Comment

Earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, and other natural disasters shed light on social cracks and fissures invisible in everyday life. These disasters provoke social crises that states tend to resolve with militarization, which in turn shows the profound crises that our societies have been undergoing. “The epicenter is in the ground, therefore there shouldn’t be a tsunami,” [...]