Haiti and Mud Cakes
Haiti and Mud Cakes
If you were as incensed as I at the recent article on the making of mud cakes to alleviate the pain of starvation then here is what you can do! Included are internet sites for more info. (This bill has 66 co sponsors, only 4 from Florida, only one of whom is Caucasian.) Do our central Florida representatives even know about this??? I bet not.
Rita Lucey
To reach your congressman 1 202 225 3121 in DC.
Locally:
Ric Keller 407 872 1944
John Mica 407 657 8080
Tom Feeney 407 208 1106
Script!
My name is XXX and I live in YYYY. I support debt cancellation to release resources to fight poverty in Haiti. I am calling to encourage Representative XXX to sign on to the bi-partisan letter to the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, urging the immediate cancellation of Haiti’s debt.
Haiti is the most impoverished country in the Western hemisphere. Close to one in four children are chronically malnourished. People are forced to eat cakes made of dirt, because they have nothing else. At the same time, the government is forced to send almost $1 million per week to the World Bank and other banks that were set up to fight poverty.
The bi-partisan letter was issued by Representatives Spencer Bachus and Maxine Waters. To sign on or for more information, please contact Kathleen Sengstock in Representative Maxine Waters’ office at (202) 225-2201.
Haitians need you too: recent headlines remind us of Haitians eating cookies made of salt, butter and dirt, because they cannot afford food. While Haitians are forced to eat dirt, their government is forced to send almost $1 million each week in debt service to wealthy banks that were established to fight poverty. Over half of Haiti’s outstanding loans went to dictators like Francois “Papa Doc” and Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, who spent the money on fur coats, fast cars and death squads. Haiti’s poor are now repaying the loans, by eating dirt and by foregoing elementary education and basic healthcare.
The International Financial Institutions (IFIs) recognized that Haiti’s debt is unjust when they accepted Haiti into their debt cancellation programs last year. But these programs would only cancel about half of Haiti’s debt, after more waiting (a year or more) and only if Haiti makes changes to its economy that could exacerbate hunger (see Debt Cancellation for Haiti: No Reason for Further Delays, by the Center for Economic Policy Research).