New Orleans: Gentrification by Genocide
The following and other stories at: www.sfbayview.com/Katrina, capitalism and continuing Black crisis in America
In fact, the main reason so many poor Black women and children died in New Orleans was because they had no cars or money to flee the city on their own.
In a pretense of offering the un-evacuated citizens "hurricane relief," the city government told them to go to the Convention Center and the Superdome. Thousands of mostly Black residents walked or waded to these locations from miles away expecting to find help, food, water and medical care. What they found instead was cruel indifference, unpreparedness and chaos. Surrounded by disease contaminated water, there was nothing to drink and no food as they were jammed into these darkened arenas without sanitary toilet facilities.
When the desperate, abandoned people began to obtain basic necessities from abandoned stores - certainly doing no worse than the Cadillac-stealing police - orders came down to "shoot to kill looters." The mainstream media blatantly described whites and police as "finding" food and water from abandoned stores and Blacks as "looting" these things. Martial law was declared, and the actual relief and rescue operations being organized by the people were shut down by armed mercenaries - hired by FEMA - and the military and police.
Eviction moratorium stalls ethnic cleansing in New Orleans
According to National Low Income Housing Coalition, 140,000 units were destroyed in New Orleans, many of them affordable housing. Since Hurricane Katrina, the housing market has risen dramatically, causing a housing crisis.
Tenants who want to move back cannot afford the high rents. "People cry to go home. They tell us there is no place to go, but there is housing for us," said Sam Jackson, a displaced resident. "They don't want us to come back. They want to kick low-income people out of New Orleans."
Tender mercenaries: DynCorp and me
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As a journalist, I'm afraid I have to judge DynCorp not on the spin of its CEO but on its record. Here are just a few of the reasons for serious concern about DynCorp forces operating on U.S. soil:
- DynCorp employees in Bosnia, where the company plays a major policing role, have engaged in organized sex-slave trading with girls as young as 12, and DynCorp's Bosnia site supervisor was filmed raping a woman. A subsequent lawsuit, filed by a company whistleblower, alleged that "employees and supervisors from DynCorp were engaging in perverse, illegal and inhumane behavior [and] were purchasing illegal weapons, women, forged passports and [participating in] other immoral acts."
The whisteblower, with whom DynCorp eventually settled, "witnessed co-workers and supervisors literally buying and selling women for their own personal enjoyment, and employees would brag about the various ages and talents of the individual slaves they had purchased." The company's initial response was to fire the whistleblowers.
The employees involved in the sex ring were transferred out of the country. Some were eventually fired, although none were ever criminally prosecuted. One of the whistleblowers told Congress, "DynCorp is the worst diplomat our country could ever want overseas.''
- In Afghanistan, where DynCorp guards President Hamid Karzai, the company has a reputation for brutality and recklessness, including serious complaints from internationals of intimidation. It has even been rebuked by the State Department for its "aggressive behavior" in interactions with European diplomats, NATO forces and journalists. A BBC correspondent also witnessed one of the guards slapping an Afghan government minister.
- In Haiti earlier this year, DynCorp bodyguards on the detail of interim president Boniface Alexandre beat at least two journalists trying to cover a presidential event. DynCorp has had a checkered past in Haiti, where it "trained" the national police force after the original coup against President Aristide, bringing several feared Tonton Macoutes leaders back into prominence.
- The company is facing a major lawsuit filed by 10,000 Ecuadoreans forced to live - and die - with the impact of DynCorp's toxic crop spraying, which it does in several Latin American countries, including Colombia, as part of Plan Colombia. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat, charges that "DynCorp's employees have a history of behaving like cowboys." A leading Colombian newsweekly called them "lawless Rambos."
Misery on Every Corner
From: Truthout.org
The 'devastation tour' is New Orleans' newest attraction. Even locals ride the bus, saying it traverses a sadness that must be seen and shared.
They might have been mourners in a hearse, so somber were the passengers in the small bus on Mirabeau Avenue. Theresa Sandifer shook her head sadly as the bus crawled along. House after ruined house was spray-painted with an "X" and numbers denoting how many people had been found there, dead or alive, after Hurricane Katrina. Sue Stein stifled a gasp at floodwater marks that grazed the roofs of a block of one-story homes. William Thompson glued his gaze to a trim beige house impaled by an oak tree.
No one spoke until the bus rounded a corner onto St. Bernard Avenue, in the Gentilly area. The roof of a wood-frame house from the 1960s sat askew, as if it had been picked up and tossed down at all the wrong angles. The chimney was missing; the doors and windows were blown out. A plywood sign carried a message from a family who had left for good.
"Goodbye, N'awlins, We'll Miss You," read Brad Dupuy, the guide on this city's newest bus excursion.
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February 9, 2006 | Mary Howard of Lake Charles, La., joins about 400 others displaced by Hurricane Katrina in marching to the US Capitol. "We want to go home" and "Where is the money?" were the chants of storm victims who will continue their rally and protest in the District today.
www.truthout.org
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