Genocide Here and There: Harvard Fellow calls for international community to starve Palestinian children

Via Electronic Intifada, this news that Martin Kramer of Harvard University's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs is calling for genocide of Palestinians as a solution to imperialism's hiccups in the Middle East.

Of course this kind of thinking is neither new, nor limited to the Middle East, nor in fact is it even escapable under imperialism. In other words, population control (either pro- or anti-natalist) is just something that folks in power do, whether they make the mistake of talking about it in the media or not. Check out recent comments by Republican Andre Bauer, South Carolina's Lieutenant Governor:

My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed.

You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that. And so what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to curtail that type of behavior. They don’t know any better.

As James Ridgeway tells us,

South Carolina is the 37th worst state when it come to child poverty, 45th worst for infant mortality, and 48th worst for low birth weight babies.

Lest you not have guessed, this of course comes with a clear national dimension: according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, 126,000 poor children in South Carolina - over half - are Black. (According to their lying censuses, less than a third of the SC population is Black.)

South Carolina, no less than Israel, is home to both oppressor and oppressed nations.

Here's that Electronic Intifada article:

A fellow at Harvard University's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Martin Kramer, has called for "the West" to take measures to curb the births of Palestinians, a proposal that appears to meet the international legal definition of a call for genocide.

Kramer, who is also a fellow at the influential Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), made the call early this month in a speech at Israel's Herzliya conference, a video of which is posted on his blog ("Superfluous young men," 7 February 2010).

In the speech Kramer rejected common views that Islamist "radicalization" is caused by US policies such as support for Israel, or propping up despotic dictatorships, and stated that it was inherent in the demography of Muslim societies such as Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip. Too many children, he argued, leads to too many "superfluous young men" who then become violent radicals.

Kramer proposed that the number of Palestinian children born in the Gaza Strip should be deliberately curbed, and alleged that this would "happen faster if the West stops providing pro-natal subsidies to Palestinians with refugee status."

Due to the Israeli blockade, the vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza are now dependent on UN food aid. Neither the UN, nor any other agencies, provide Palestinians with specifically "pro-natal subsidies." Kramer appeared to be equating any humanitarian assistance at all with inducement for Palestinians to reproduce.

He added, "Israel's present sanctions on Gaza have a political aim -- undermine the Hamas regime -- but if they also break Gaza's runaway population growth, and there is some evidence that they have, that might begin to crack the culture of martyrdom which demands a constant supply of superfluous young men." This, he claimed, would be treating the issue of Islamic radicalization "at its root."

The 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, created in the wake of the Nazi holocaust, defines genocide to include measures "intended to prevent births within" a specific "national, ethnic, racial or religious group."

The Weatherhead Center at Harvard describes itself as "the largest international research center within Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences." In addition to his positions at Harvard and WINEP, Kramer is "president-designate" of Shalem College in Jerusalem, a far-right Zionist institution that aspires to be the "College of the Jewish People."

Pro-Israel speakers from the United States often participate in the the Herzliya conference, an influential annual gathering of Israel's political and military establishment. This year's conference was also addressed by The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman and, in a first for a Palestinian official, by Salam Fayyad, appointed prime minister of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority.

Kramer's call to prevent Palestinian births reflects a long-standing Israeli and Zionist concern about a so-called "demographic threat" to Israel, as Palestinians are on the verge of outnumbering Israeli Jews within Israel, and the occupied Palestinian territories combined.

Such extreme racist views have been aired at the Herzliya conference in the past. In 2003, for example, Dr. Yitzhak Ravid, an Israeli government armaments expert, called on Israel to "implement a stringent policy of family planning in relation to its Muslim population," a reference to the 1.5 million Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Haiti’s Wounded Long to Heal

Scott Weinstein is a comrade, as well as being a registered nurse. Shortly after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans he traveled to New Orleans where he stayed for months, helping out at the Common Ground medical/community clinic.

Immediately following the earthquake, Scott made his way to Haiti to do what he could. The following is an email he sent on February 18th, giving a glimpse of what he has been seeing on the ground:

For Elisa Zlami, the burden of her fractured leg just got heavier, literally. The day before, Marc, an ortho-tech at the General Hospital in Port au Prince, came immediately to her tent, “Post Op 3”, after I asked him to "do something" about Elisa's old split cast that was causing her pain. Haiti's earthquake snapped her shin bone in two, and left an open wound that has finally healed.

Marc expertly rewrapped her leg in a new plaster cast. Despite a day of drying, the new cast must weigh 20 lbs. Yet her leg still hurts along the fracture point. A summoned orthopedic doctor inspects Elisa, and tells her the pain should go away, and Elisa need not stay in the hospital. But Elisa has lost her home, and her family too.

A few weeks after the earthquake, Rea is desperately trying to get food for her community of children and their families from the school she ran before the earthquake. It now is a community center and clinic. Baz, an American medic, has told her that there might be food from the UN. But it is very confusing. The Italian Navy is also promising food in a few days. The prospect of being able to participate in that food distribution system seems daunting for Rea, whose English is not very good and whose Italian is nil.

A new French doctor, Michelle, breezes into Post Op 3 and cuts away the dressings from Mrs. Wintour’s heel. Mrs. Wintour's wounds are now green with infection. I changed her dressing two days ago and there was no green then, so daily dressing changes are now mandatory. Better nutrition is essential too, since malnourishment is preventing healing.

At the sprawling, busy United Nations compound, there are no hungry people. Not many are Haitians either, who are being stopped at the gates while whites like me are waved through. I have no business there really; I am wandering around looking to book a flight to Miami. I see many cheerful foreigners working for NGOs, governments, militaries and businesses, because Haiti is now a boomtown. The opportunities for aid and development work are enormous thanks to the disaster and the millions or billions of dollars being pledged. Foreigners, especially Americans, are flocking to Port au Prince to pursue this offshore opportunity. Many are earnest, believing sincerely in their humanitarian mission. Of course, the thousands of mostly U.S. soldiers didn't exactly come by choice.

When deposed popular Haitian President, Aristide told the UN in 1991, “Everyone must have a place at the table,” he was referring to Haiti’s hungry dispossessed. But it is the international community that has invited itself to feast. Little has changed since Columbus first colonized Haiti, including blaming the Haitians for their poverty.

Post Op 3 tent is a small community where Elisa and Mrs. Wintour live with 18 other patients, their families and friends. The young girl who often tends Elisa is a friend, the healthy sister of another girl living outside the tent, who also has a painful broken leg. Food brought in by the families to supplement the meager daily hospital meal is often shared. Nearby, the Haitian Adventist hospital sponsored by US Adventists and an evangelical food mission provides two large vegan meals a day with food mostly bought from neighbouring Santo Domingo.

I asked Mr. Abelard, Elisa’s older neighbour in the next bed, to make sure Elisa gets to X-Ray. He knows how the informal system works - you flag down someone walking by in Transport, hand them your paper note saying "Radiograph - jambe droit", and they put you on a stretcher and carry you to and from X-Ray.

Emmanuel has extensive injuries, including an amputated right arm, and is fighting an infection to hip and leg wounds that have been repeatedly surgically cleaned. He also has two sisters jealous of his neighbour, Mrs. Wintour’s new experimental mechanical wound suction device that aspirates draining fluid from her foot wound into a corrugated blue squeeze bottle. The sisters want one for Emmanuel. The device is being developed by a Boston medical team who work with Partners In Health based here in Haiti. Kristine, their engineer, thinks when the kinks are worked out, they can provide the molds for the plastic bottles to businesses in third world countries that can stamp out bottles for a few dollars. They hope each system will cost less than $75. In the U.S., a more efficient electrical system called a Wound Vac costs $25,000; its manufacturer made $1.4 billion from it in 2008. The next day, Emmanuel gets the blue bottle wound suction for his hip.

Shekhar, an Edmonton Red Cross volunteer called me the other night after assisting with food distribution that day. He can't understand why food distribution is run so badly in Haiti. After all, Shekhar and the international agencies have done this successfully around the world. The Haitians are prepared to do anything they can to help. Those of us who have had the good fortune to hang out with Haitians or wander around Port au Prince’s poor neighbourhoods, remark to each other how kind and gracious these Haitians have been to us. This is in contradiction to their sinister portrayal by our media and governments.

I happened to have been in Washington when the quake struck down Haiti. I'm not a bad schmoozer, so with a little luck and effort, I found myself connecting with people and agencies that were to be some of the players in the emergency medical response.

Last week, Christine, a trauma surgeon in Washington told me that I should tell the director of the General Hospital that if he wants medical materials, he should go to the US A.I.D. web site. "Like a bridal registry," Christine texted. I presented the message to Director Dr. Lassegue, who responded skeptically, "Oui, perhaps something will come of it."

Many experienced in disaster response, label the beginning organization "a cluster fuck". I bumped into David, a young tattooed American at the UN campground walking to a health-cluster meeting. David griped that the scheduled meeting times were often changed, and tended to be useless because the decisions had already been made overseas.

Like so many of the people sharing the Post Op tents, Elisa’s losses are more profound than her wounds. It's not their crooked or missing limbs that will be their biggest impediment. It is the prospect of trying to make a home and a life out of their shattered country that again is being occupied - and is now run by a coalition of a post-coup regime, foreign governments, militaries, religious charities, NGOs and aid agencies - all under the umbrella of humanitarian relief.

Three weeks after the quake, the French-run Handicap International organization set up shop at the hospital with a plain green military tent and a team of about a dozen French physical therapists and Haitian trainees. The French will leave eventually, but they understand that the work must continue with the Haitian staff. This model has yet to be adopted by most aid agencies that have no plan to sustain their programs without their presence.

Most charitable aid to “take care of Haiti’s poor” spends little actual money inside Haiti. We long to hear announcements that there will be substantial aid for Haiti’s peasant farmers to provide credit and resources to plant sustainable crops for local consumption, and to help Haitian businesses produce essential local goods.

Back at the trauma ward, we have to figure out who will be operating on the patients now that after a month, the Red Cross Norwegian orthopedic surgeons have left to another health facility, and the Medecins du Monde surgeons are leaving this weekend. The rapid turnover of many volunteers is maddening. In the operating room, I ask the Haitian surgeon in charge, who says, "When you need a surgeon, just come in and grab one of us." Sounds like a plan.

The staffing at least during the dayshift at the hospital is much better now than three weeks ago when I first arrived. Many more Haitians are able to work. Even the Israelis just sent in a half dozen Mogen David staff, while they are still busy blocking medical aid to Gaza after destroying hospitals and ambulances there last year.

Diana is an American nurse running a clinic inside a tent community of 2,500 homeless and hungry people. Talking with worker at the airport where supplies are being delivered, she found out that his friend has a quadriplegic child who needs a wheelchair with a head support. With the help of a Mr. Fix-It friend, Diana presents the worker a retrofitted wheelchair with a headrest, and drives back to the tent community with four pallets of food. But two weeks later, Rea still has not been able to tap into a food pipeline for her community.

The informal networking ways of getting things done described above can only work on an international scale if the Haitian people are included and are allowed to be masters of their destiny.

International businessmen are urged take advantage of the new manufacturing climate in Haiti. Foreign aid earmarked for security will also revitalize Haitian security forces who historically have been its death squads, attacking labour and community organizers who might reduce profits from such sweatshops.

The Toussaint Louverture Airport was being run by the US Military when I arrived yesterday evening, despite the handful of Haitians who stamp our passports before we walk out onto the tarmac. Homeland Security's immigration police and border agents then check our passports as we board. Three weeks previously when I arrived, no one asked for my passport - in fact, no one asked me for any identification or professional license during my entire stay. On the tarmac are Canadian soldiers, RCMP officers, CIDA aid employees and diplomatic personnel waiting to board their military transport plane to Ottawa. There is also a tent for the US soldiers, and the US State Department processing civilians for their humanitarian transport to the U.S. in military C-130s.

The aid response is not so confusing after all. The Montreal Meeting of international donors, the Davos Forum, the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund, US A.I.D., the UN, and the various security forces in Haiti all seem to be navigating the humanitarian response ship to further their interests in Haiti. Most NGOs and religious missions have found a niche to plug into.

Humanitarian aid is perceived as just and moral. But until Haitians like Elisa, Mr. Abelard, Mrs. Wintour and Rea are permitted at their own table and given the chance to build a sustainable infrastructure, so-called aid becomes another weapon to exploit these good people who liberated themselves from slavery, and are still paying the price.

Ojore Lutalo to Sue Amtrak for Bogus Bust

As detailed previously on this blog, a month ago Ojore Lutalo was arrested and accused of making terrorist threats while traveling home on the train from an anarchist bookfair on the west coast where he was speaking. The story floated was that someone had overheard him having a suspicious phone conversation on the train, so the cops were called.

The details of this can be viewed on this blog here, and there was a good follow-up article on the liberal Huffington Post here. Ojore was released within a couple of days after supporters raised thousands of dollars to pay his bond, and subsequently the District Attorney declined to pursue the case, citing insufficient evidence.

It stinks of harassment. Ojore is a former prisoner of war with the Black Liberation Army. He spent decades in prison, much of it subjected to isolation-torture, and was only finally released last fall. He has been "free" for just a few months, and this certainly looks like someone sending him a message that he's being watched, and the state is none too pleased that he has jumped into political activity.

Ojore has decided to pursue a lawsuit against Amtrak. The following from the Philly Anarchist Black Cross Federation gives the details,. and details how you can help:

On January 26th, while returning home from the Los Angeles Anarchist Bookfair on Amtrak, Ojore was detained at gun point and charged with endangering public transportation in La Junta, Colorado after several passengers allegedly heard Ojore make threatening remarks against the train while talking on his cell phone.

After 2 days in jail, Ojore was released on bail, after $4,500 was raised from people from all over the country, who rose to the occasion and donated funds and property to secure his release.

The ensuing investigation revealed that the steward on the train never heard Ojore make any threatening remarks and the passengers, after being reinterviewed said they never heard him make any specific threats. In light of this information, the district attorney dropped the charges against Ojore.

Throughout this week long ordeal Ojore and his comrades were steadfast in refuting the charges and media smear campaign. Many threats were made online against him on various news websites.

While Ojore is free and back home in New Jersey, he intends to pursue a civil liability suit against Amtrak. He will be seeking monetary compensation for all the expenses incurred such as the bail, which was non refundable, the cost of having to fly home after Amtrak denied him the right to return home on the train and other legal expenses. In pursuing this lawsuit, more funds are needed for legal and travel expenses.

Please donate whatever you can!

You can send checks or money orders (payable to Tim Fasnacht) to:

Tim Fasnacht
Philadelphia ABCF
P.O box 42129
Philadelphia, pa 19101

Or paypal donations to: timabcf@aol.com

Thank you for your support!

Philadelphia ABCF

Balaclava! VMC Olympic Broadsheet Issue 5

The daily newspaper of the 2010 Anti-Olympic Convergence, a project of the Vancouver Media Co-op.
The Vancouver Media Coop is releasing a broadsheet every day of the Anti-Olympics Convergence.
Today's issue includes reports and photos about Saturday's actions in Vancouver, including a legal update and a round-up of absurd Police behaviour


Download a pdf of the Balaclava! Broadsheet here.

and check out past issues of Balaclava!:

• Issue 1
• Issue 2
• Issue 3
• Issue 4

(thx to Mostly Water for this)

Spartacist (ICL) Theory of Anarchism

The International Communist League, represented in (english) Canada as the Spartacist League, have a theory of anarchism emerging specifically as a result of the "low tide" or "movement interregnum" that followed the last cycle of struggle. In other words, in pissing-contest fashion, the line is put forth that because the left is weak, well-intentioned people are drawn towards anarchism. (In so doing, they seem to draw on Lenin's accusation that "Anarchism was not infrequently a kind of penalty for the opportunist sins of the working-class movement.")

For instance:

The emergence of anarchism as a prevalent ideology among radicalized youth today is a reflection of what we Marxists understand as a global retrogression in political consciousness following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991-92 and the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet degenerated workers state and the deformed workers states of East Europe.

Yippedy doo daa!

The implication being that a strong and vibrant left would see the decline of anarchist ideology.

Now i'm not an anarchist, nor am i a Trotskyist, so in the pissing-contest sense of this discussion i can say "i don't have a dog in that fight." But as a member of the radical left, as a post-anarchist leftist, i am interested in what evidence supports or contradicts this theory.

Ideas, anyone?

Space Aliens Against Zionism

It's tempting to make some snide comment about the colonizer needing the colonized to explain to them the meaning of their own movies.

But you don't need to have your ear to the ground to hear that that's (one half of) the buzz around Avatar.

More true would be the sad fact that the colonizer would prefer to ignore the colonized unless they can tie their existence into the latest hollywood blockbuster or some other spasm in the collective imperialist psyche. Media studies and discourse analysis being far more sexy than history or political economy.

All Charges against Ojore Lutalo Have Been Dropped

It's official - all charges against Ojore Lutalo have been dropped. Details will follow.

Confronting a Killer Cop: this Wednesday, February 3rd in Montreal

from The Jean-Loup Lapointe Welcoming Committee:

Wednesday, February 3, 2010
12:30pm-1pm
Palais de Justice de Montreal
corner of St-Laurent and St-Antoine

The Coalition Against Police Abuse and Repression is organizing a 30-minute gathering at 12:30pm sharp at the exit of Montreal's Court House (corner of St-Antoine and St-Laurent). Jean-Loup Lapointe, who shot four bullets at unarmed youth, killiing Fredy Villaneuva and severely injuring two other youths, will be testifying.

If you can, please attend the hearing in room 5,15 from 9:30am onwards. Please come with very few items in your pockets because you will be searched by the Court House security services. After the lunch break, the hearing will resume at 2pm.

The committee explains:

Jean-Loup Lapointe: Fredy’s executioner

Executioners still exist, but they’ve changed their appearance.

During the Middle Ages executioners did their dirty deeds in front of an impotent crowd. They didn’t decide who they would execute, or for what reasons, and that’s why we couldn’t hold them responsible for their death tolls. They also wore masks to hide their identities, and carried a weapon to protect them from the people. Their impunity was complete.

Today, it’s police officers that are modern-day executioners. They wear a blue uniform and carry guns – with bullets or electric shocks. They also enjoy impunity, but they don’t need a mask. They don’t need a judge either, nor a king or a Committee of Public Safety to decree the death penalty. No, these days it’s simple constables who’ve taken over. And with a bang, another death!

On August 9, 2008, Fredy Villaneuva, 18, was killed by Jean-Loup Lapointe’s bullets, but the courts prevent us from showing you the face of this killer cop. Jean-Loup doesn’t even need a mask to hide because the entire court machinery makes sure that the public won’t recognize him on the street and judge him at sight.

A cop that kills a youth and wounds two others by shooting at unarmed individuals should not escape justice. If a civilian had done the same thing, we all know that criminal charges would have been made without delay. What more needs to happen before the SQ decides to undertake a serious investigation, beginning with questioning the two officers involved? But the problem of police investigating police is a predictably incestuous investigation that always defends the interests of the executioners.

The impunity that Jean-Loup enjoys is double: there’s the decision to mask his physical identity that adds to the usual legal whitewash. It all confirms the power of the police to kill -- encouraged by the State that gives Jean-Loup all kinds of privileges. He’s given the right to carry his weapon everywhere, even off-duty. He gets expensive paid lawyers. He gets bodyguards during his public outings. The hangman Lapointe is overprotected, and at our cost.

Police officers have become street judges: they are both judges and executioners since they have the right to summarily kill a suspect. And so the death penalty, supposedly abolished, takes a new form, more arbitrary and insidious. It is hypocritical and protected by the police brotherhood and its long arm. These murders are normalized and the authorities are not ashamed to drag the reputations of the loved ones of the victims into the mud. Police violence is a reflection of social inequality and intolerance that is fed by creating fear in certain neighborhoods. It goes without saying that Jean-Loup would have been less quick to the trigger if he were intervening with young white youth near a tennis court in Outremont.

We refuse to be, once again, an impotent crowd in front of modern-day executioners who kill with impunity. On Wednesday, February 3, let’s welcome the witness Jean-Loup Lapointe who -- one year later -- will be questioned for the first time.

Adoptees of Color: Statement on Haiti

The following is an important statement from Adoptees of Color, regarding the current hype about [mostly white] people in imperialist countries rescuing Black and Brown people in the neocolonies, in the current instance Haiti.

Statement on Haiti
January 25, 2010

This statement reflects the position of an international community of adoptees of color who wish to pose a critical intervention in the discourse and actions affecting the child victims of the recent earthquake in Haiti. We are domestic and international adoptees with many years of research and both personal and professional experience in adoption studies and activism. We are a community of scholars, activists, professors, artists, lawyers, social workers and health care workers who speak with the knowledge that North Americans and Europeans are lining up to adopt the “orphaned children” of the Haitian earthquake, and who feel compelled to voice our opinion about what it means to be “saved” or “rescued” through adoption.

We understand that in a time of crisis there is a tendency to want to act quickly to support those considered the most vulnerable and directly affected, including children. However, we urge caution in determining how best to help. We have arrived at a time when the licenses of adoption agencies in various countries are being reviewed for the widespread practice of misrepresenting the social histories of children. There is evidence of the production of documents stating that a child is “available for adoption” based on a legal “paper” and not literal orphaning as seen in recent cases of intercountry adoption of children from Malawi, Guatemala, South Korea and China. We bear testimony to the ways in which the intercountry adoption industry has profited from and reinforced neo-liberal structural adjustment policies, aid dependency, population control policies, unsustainable development, corruption, and child trafficking.

For more than fifty years “orphaned children” have been shipped from areas of war, natural disasters, and poverty to supposedly better lives in Europe and North America. Our adoptions from Vietnam, South Korea, Guatemala and many other countries are no different from what is happening to the children of Haiti today. Like us, these “disaster orphans” will grow into adulthood and begin to grasp the magnitude of the abuse, fraud, negligence, suffering, and deprivation of human rights involved in their displacements.

We uphold that Haitian children have a right to a family and a history that is their own and that Haitians themselves have a right to determine what happens to their own children. We resist the racist, colonialist mentality that positions the Western nuclear family as superior to other conceptions of family, and we seek to challenge those who abuse the phrase “Every child deserves a family” to rethink how this phrase is used to justify the removal of children from Haiti for the fulfillment of their own needs and desires. Western and Northern desire for ownership of Haitian children directly contributes to the destruction of existing family and community structures in Haiti. This individualistic desire is supported by the historical and global anti-African sentiment which negates the validity of black mothers and fathers and condones the separation of black children from their families, cultures, and countries of origin.

As adoptees of color many of us have inherited a history of dubious adoptions. We are dismayed to hear that Haitian adoptions may be “fast-tracked” due to the massive destruction of buildings in Haiti that hold important records and documents. We oppose this plan and argue that the loss of records requires slowing down of the processes of adoption while important information is gathered and re-documented for these children. Removing children from Haiti without proper documentation and without proper reunification efforts is a violation of their basic human rights and leaves any family members who may be searching for them with no recourse. We insist on the absolute necessity of taking the time required to conduct a thorough search, and we support an expanded set of methods for creating these records, including recording oral histories.

We urge the international community to remember that the children in question have suffered the overwhelming trauma of the earthquake and separation from their loved ones. We have learned first-hand that adoption (domestic or intercountry) itself as a process forces children to negate their true feelings of grief, anger, pain or loss, and to assimilate to meet the desires and expectations of strangers. Immediate removal of traumatized children for adoption—including children whose adoptions were finalized prior to the quake— compounds their trauma, and denies their right to mourn and heal with the support of their community.

We affirm the spirit of Cultural Sovereignty, Sovereignty and Self-determination embodied as rights for all peoples to determine their own economic, social and cultural development included in the Convention on the Rights of the Child; the Charter of the United Nations; the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The mobilization of European and North American courts, legislative bodies, and social work practices to implement forced removal through intercountry adoption is a direct challenge to cultural sovereignty. We support the legal and policy application of cultural rights such as rights to language, rights to ways of being/religion, collective existence, and a representation of Haiti’s histories and existence using Haiti’s own terms.

We offer this statement in solidarity with the people of Haiti and with all those who are seeking ways to intentionally support the long-term sustainability and self-determination of the Haitian people. As adoptees of color we bear a unique understanding of the trauma, and the sense of loss and abandonment that are part of the adoptee experience, and we demand that our voices be heard. All adoptions from Haiti must be stopped and all efforts to help children be refocused on giving aid to organizations working toward family reunification and caring for children in their own communities. We urge you to join us in supporting Haitian children’s rights to life, survival, and development within their own families and communities.