Salena Tramel's blog

Update on Gaza's Blockade

2008-11-14T23:12:01+00:00

Gaza is once again in a heightened state of emergency and panic as UN food aid has been unilaterally blocked by the Israeli authorities. According to UN and other sources, more than 80% of Gaza's 1.5 million residents are dependent on food aid. The Gaza Strip is completely sealed off from the outside world by the strictly manned borders with Israel and Egypt, and the Mediterranean waters patrolled by Israeli gun boats. Palestinian civilians are once again facing the threat of military incursions. On the other side of the border, some Palestinian rockets are reaching as far as the city of Ashkelon, terrifying the Israeli population as the cycle of violence intensifies. If the ceasefire is to continue to work at this point, Palestinians must be granted their fundamental right to food and health with food, electricity, water and fuel being restored, and the siege lifted.

Haiti is going from Catastrophe to Catastrophe

2008-10-10T20:42:58+00:00

As Haitian waters recede - at least for now - aid and relief efforts are also diminishing for the nearly one million people who are in desperate need of emergency food. The wounds of this reality are particularly raw in the countryside where the majority is struggling to survive.

Grassroots International and our partners on the ground are committed to bottom-up movement building and sustainable Haitian-driven development. However, emergency circumstances right now are too great to ignore. Will you join us in supporting the efforts of community-based organizations providing emergency relief to Haiti's peasant majority? It is not too late. Your gift will provide invaluable seeds, tools, food, and shelter for those who need it the most.

In a recent interview with the Inter Press Service News Agency, Grassroots International's partner Chavannes Jean Baptiste of the MPP (Peasants Movement of Papay) describes what is taking place in Haiti and what urgently needs to happen to alleviate some of the pain.

Two if by Sea: Overcoming the Siege in Gaza

2008-08-27T01:56:32+00:00

In a part of the world where hope is scarce, these past weeks have been one of those rare moments that have defied testing times in Gaza. More than 40 civilians from more than a dozen countries arrived on Gazan shores after a long sail from Cyprus on Saturday evening August 23, breaking the siege and bringing with them a powerful message of commitment to human rights for the Palestinian people.

Those on board the two vessels included Nobel Peace Prize nominee Jeff Halper of the Israeli Committee against Home Demolitions; Lauren Booth, British journalist and sister-in-law of Tony Blair; and Anne Montgomery, an American nun. When the boats approached the shore, several thousand Palestinians sang in celebration of their arrival, some of them setting out in fishing boats or swimming to meet and embrace them.

Many had feared the worst for the passengers, with the Israeli foreign ministry stating that the journey was a "provocation" and that "all options" were under consideration to deter the boats from reaching Gaza. And then in an unprecedented gesture, they were allowed to pass. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign affairs later publicly announced that humanitarian and human rights missions to Gaza will no longer be stopped or threatened by Israel.

In the days following their arrival, the internationals spent time with Palestinians, trying to understand the reality on the ground in Gaza. Some visited hospitals, witnessing the extreme need provoked by the lack of access to quality medicine and care. Others accompanied fisher folks out to sea, their presence dissuading fire from Israeli military boats and allowing them to bring food home to their families.

Nine of the activists remained in Gaza, permitting several Palestinians to take their place and sail to Cyprus. A ten-year-old boy will receive proper medical treatment for the first time since losing his leg due to an Israeli tank shell. Another family is being reunited with their relatives after having previously been denied exit visas. The Free Gaza Movement is already planning their next delegation which will travel to Gaza later this month.

This action has received significant press, a meaningful step in the direction of ending the siege on Gaza and creating a solid peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. As Free Gaza organizer Dr. Paul Larudee put it:

This endeavor has been a huge success, far more significant and wide-reaching than anyone ever dreamt it could be. It has had obvious beneficial effects on the Palestinian people, but also on Israel. In fairness, credit must go where credit is due - despite threats or obstacles, a responsible decision was made by Israeli authorities not to interfere with our mission and this is a model for the future.

Although much work remains, perhaps for the first time in recent history, the hope for a better future is thriving in Gaza.

For more information and photos and videos of these groundbreaking developments, visit The Free Gaza Movement.

Dispatch from Haiti: War on Rice

2008-08-22T02:29:36+00:00

The Artibonite region is Haiti's rice bowl, and it could not be clearer as I traverse this lush valley. The rice fields rival those of Southeast Asia, spanning a breathtaking distance and then finally dissolving into a steep ring of mountains. A peasant working the fields is an understandably common sight around here. The more disturbing (and even more common) sight, however, is the rice imported from the US ("Miami rice") that is sold to Haitians in local marketplaces. It is unthinkable that Haitians would be forced to buy rice from the North at prices that they cannot afford in the very place they grow it.

This has not always been the case in the Artibonite. Like many countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, Haiti was subjected to a trade liberalization and privatization in the mid 1980's by international financial institutions like the World Bank and donor countries like the US. During this time, U.S. agribusinesses flooded the local market with massive quantities of cheap subsidized rice with which Haitian peasants couldn't compete. After the large-scale imports had succeeded in paralyzing local production, prices skyrocketed. A kilo of imported rice is now worth an average day's salary in the Artibonite.

I am spending the day with MOREPLA (Mouvman Revandikatif Peyizan Latibonit-Peasant Movement for Justice in the Artibonite), a local movement of rice producers that works with the coalition of Grassroots International's partner PAPDA (The Haitian Platform to Advocate Alternative Development). Leaders from MOREPLA explained to me that rice producers in the Artibonite potentially could have the capacity to provide livelihoods for more than 200,000 people in a department (state) that suffers a 78% unemployment rate. While they focus on advocacy for food sovereignty through rice, they see their work as a part of the bigger struggle for Haitian human rights through self-determination.

In the midst of these hard times, peasants from MOREPLA recognize their role as the principal actors capable of bringing about social change in their country. They organize themselves through an intricate structure of committees and workgroups (gwoupmons), and bond together to create a chain of nonviolent resistance. "We cannot do this alone", a farmer tells me, "we have to put our differences aside, work very hard, and unite ourselves".

Out in the fields, MOREPLA's united challenge of the status quo through local rice production is in full swing, with women and youth taking key leadership positions. Once rice is harvested, it is sold or traded at small cooperatives and city stalls that support the sustainability of home-grown victuals.

In the last of many rice farms that I visit in the Artibonite valley, I meet with a female farmer whose return on her crops provides a source of income for her entire family. As I am leaving, she takes my hand and places a few grains of delicate rice in my palm, folding her fingers over mine. She smiles softly and looks back at the span of the field in which she works. She does not have to say anything. The green expanse behind us says it all.

To learn more about the politics of rice in Haiti, this short documentary featuring Grassroots International's partner Camille Chalmers from the Haitian Platform to Advocate Alternative Development is a great resource.

Dispatch from Haiti: "We are Forming Ourselves"

2008-08-14T02:03:53+00:00

"N'ap forme" are the first words that I hear after stepping into an open-air training center high in Haiti's Central Plateau after a nail-biting plane ride across the mountains in a four-seater Cessna. The training center is run by the Peasant Movement of Papay (MPP), a Grassroots International partner. N'ap forme is the Kreyol way of saying we are training, literally, we are forming ourselves.

Chavannes Jean Baptiste, the longtime leader of MPP and a fixture in the Haitian fight for resource rights, greets me as he would a member of his own family, even though it is the first time we have met face-to-face. The center is buzzing with activity – peasant leaders from all but two of Haiti's 10 departments have travelled long distances to bring their people's concerns to the table and figure out solutions to the root causes of economic hardship in their broken country.

I take long walks and motorcycle rides around the area, visiting some of the many projects that the MPP has pursued in their 35 years of organizing – during nearly half of which they have been a partner of Grassroots International. Even the land itself impresses me, with young forests and farms growing in what used to be a wasteland. Like much of Haiti today, the Papay region was so deforested that people were unable to live off the land and were defenseless in the face of natural disaster. Now Papay is rich with various fruit and forest cover, a humble paradise at the crossroads of hardship. A new friend from the MPP tells me, "It is us who have to undertake the work necessary to create such a place." His dream is to look out over the mountains in 10 years and see Haiti as it once was.

On the way to a local water source, where one of the projects supported by Grassroots International is in full swing, we stop to talk to the mayor. His Kreyol is thick and dense, but I understand the immediate importance of our solidarity with the community in conserving rainwater in this untypically arid corner of Haiti. Peasants come to work here, creating a sort of terracing with intricate rock walls in order to manage mountain runoffs. This allows rainwater to permanently pool, and fish are abundant. Trees are being planted everywhere. People tell me that while some international groups haphazardly plant random seeds, MPP agronomists are constantly studying which trees are native to Haiti and making every effort possible to recreate the natural landscape.

Back at the center, everything happens in the spirit of community and sustainability. We drink local coffee, eat from the plentiful gardens, and compost waste. Peasants grow vegetables in recycled tires and plastic tubes. Farmers come from far away to bring seedlings back to their lands that will both grow into trees and provide food for their families. A women's group busily harvests medicinal plants and a young people's group creates a new banana field. This is movement building and food sovereignty in action.

I join the training of peasant leaders for their afternoon meetings that run late into the night. Their analysis of the internal and external forces that plague Haiti is astonishing. We make lists on an old blackboard of macro-economic policies aimed at trade liberalization and privatization of resources that have sent Haiti on a downward spiral. It feels like one of my graduate-level seminars on the politics of globalization. The rain is so loud that we can barely hear one another. We huddle together and keep exploring – keep believing that another Haiti is possible. N'ap forme – We are forming ourselves.

The World Food Crisis in the Palestinian Context: Rising Prices under Occupation and a Call to Action

2008-06-05T03:22:45+00:00

As the heads of states meet with the Secretary General in Rome this week to discuss world food security in the light of climate change and bioenergy, Palestinians are experiencing a different dimension of the food crisis. Food is of the most basic of all human rights, and in much of the Palestinian context, is being systematically denied to civilians.

Our partners in the West Bank and Gaza recently released a call to action, which we have reproduced here. We have also posted a copy of the open letter to the conference organizers referenced below.

The Center for Democracy and Workers Rights (DWRC) will be making a contribution to the High Level Conference on the World Food Security: the Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy in the form of an open letter directed to the organizers of the conference, various heads of state who will be in attendance, and Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon. The conference was organized as a result of the recent thirty-fourth session of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Conference, held during November 2007, which called for a series of expert meetings and stakeholder consultations on climate change and bioenergy, to be followed by a High-Level Conference on World Food Security and the Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy.

DWRC asks for your solidarity in bringing the particular circumstances of the food insecurity problem in the Occupied Palestinian Territories to the attention of the organizers of this conference, which will be held in Rome, Italy on the 3rd–5th of June, 2008. We are sure that you are well aware that world food insecurity in light of the impact of climate change may be one of the biggest challenges we face in this century. For Palestinians, global food insecurity challenges are further complicated by the affects of Israeli occupation.

Attached, you will find a copy of the open letter addressing the particular plight of the Palestinian people in regards to the consequences of the current global food crisis, including how Israeli occupation has shaped the food insecurity issue within the Palestinian Occupied Territories. We ask that you please help us through widespread distribution of this letter, posting it on your websites, or distributing it to your members.

DWRC is most appreciative of your efforts to bring further attention to the unique situation facing the Occupied Palestinian Territories within the framework of the consequences of the global food crisis.

Sincerely,
Dr. Hamdi Al Khawaja
Coordinator of GCAP -Palestine Coalition

Gaza from Below

2008-05-02T16:43:19+00:00

No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.

- Fourth Geneva Convention, article 33

Nonviolence. Opportunity. Innovation. In the wake of the recent escalating violence and food insecurity in Gaza, our grassroots partners have redoubled their quest for social change and sustainability in one of the most troubled places in the world. We are humbled by their laudable tenacity in the face of massive obstacles.

Gaza's recent history has been a tragic testament to the experience of ongoing collective punishment. The Gaza Strip is about the same size as Chicago's O'Hare airport and the most densely populated place on earth. It is often described as an open-air prison between Israel, Egypt, and the Mediterranean. The people of Gaza have been wracked by violence from Israel's military occupation as well as due to Hamas' actions. Through Israeli missile and tank attacks, the death toll has reached an unprecedented height. Nightly sonic booms have shattered windows and terrified the civilian population- likewise citizens of Israel living near the border with Gaza are traumatized by rocket attacks. Water in Gaza has been restricted and power plants have been bombed, causing a wide-spread panic around the loss of resources. Whatever the intention, targeting civilians and collective punishment have both been prohibited by binding international law.

From Haiti to Bangladesh to Egypt, the reality of a global food crisis is quickly unfolding. In Gaza, the nature of the military blockade suggests dire consequences for the majority who are currently experiencing extreme poverty. At least 80% of Gaza's one and a half million residents are dependent on food aid to meet their basic needs. Within the last year, the Israeli government has tightened an already extremely strict closure on the area, allowing only about 15 basic items to reach Gazans via the tightly monitored international humanitarian community. This has crippled Gaza, and poverty has been skyrocketing ever since. So has the violence.

These past few months have seen some of the most Israeli military incursions since the 2005 unilateral Israeli disengagement. Alarmingly, an increasing number of children are dying as a result. In the first quarter of 2008, there were more child deaths than the entire year of 2007. On Monday, a woman and four of her young children were killed in their home by a missile as they ate breakfast.

This past week, the situation hit rock bottom as the United Nations has been forced to halt its food deliveries due to a lack of fuel. The Israeli authorities are responsible for allowing petrol to cross the checkpoints into Gaza. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, this has not been allowed for nearly six weeks. UN officials report having enough supplies on hand to feed 650,000 people and to perform crucial garbage collection services to a third of the population. At the current pace, hospitals will run out of fuel within the week. The people of Gaza need our support, perhaps now more than ever.

Through it all, our partners on the ground in Gaza are pursuing their goals of a just and self-sustaining society and tackling these challenges head on. They are offering real alternatives at the grassroots level to a humanitarian crisis that cannot be solved through food handouts alone. The Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committee (PARC) is engaged in an innovative urban garden program that promotes self-determination through food security for refugees and the urban populace. The project also creates job opportunities for rural women and contributes to environmental awareness and protection. Additionally, PARC has created an emergency farm to table program that is tackling food dependence at its root. Their three-tiered plan starts by compensating local export-oriented crop farmers who have lost their livelihoods. From there it moves on to benefit traditional farmers who have been put out of work by the larger export-led farmers and then filters through women cooperatives that process these agricultural products. The food is then bought for a fair price and distributed to those most in need.

Another organization actively engaged in promoting dignity and well-being is our partner the Gaza Community Mental Health Program (GCMHP). Their effective response to crisis continually sows seeds of hope in Gaza's traumatized population. One of their most dynamic programs is the Women's Empowerment Project, providing rehabilitation, psychological care and training, and other services in their three strategically located centers. GCMHP has also played a founding role in the Campaign to End the Siege of Gaza which has been a fundamental voice for peace and justice.

We commend our partners for denouncing increasing measures of collective punishment while taking a clear stance against militant violence on both sides of the conflict. These actions provide a voice of hope, reconciliation, and in the long run, a mutually beneficial non-violent relationship between Israelis and Palestinians.