Below are excerpts from the International Forum on the Crisis of Housing, held in Port-au-Prince May 19-21, 2011. During the forum, hundreds of Haitians, plus allies from around the Americas, developed strategies to force a solution to Haiti’s greatest crisis: homelessness. Almost 17 months after the earthquake, more than one in nine remain displaced in camps and in other dangerous and inhumane lodging. Neither the government nor the international community has offered any viable plan for resettlement of this population. On the contrary, government officials and private landowners are stepping up violent evictions of people in camps.

• The Zan-7 (Ancestors) cultural group performs a piece about human rights at the International Forum on the Crisis of Housing. Photo: Ben Depp, www.bendepp.com. •

- We heard testimonies about the living conditions in IDP camps, wherein our basic rights as individuals and communities are violated every day. We heard of the many diseases contracted by people living under tarps, of the pain of women suffering from all kinds of violence, and of children who cannot attend school or plan for their futures;

- We discovered that most of us in the camps are living in fear. We live under the threat of eviction, as both the government and private landowners are maneuvering to force us out (even setting fire to some camps), even though we have nowhere else to go. According to an International Organization for Migration report published in March 2011, more than 47,000 people have already been evicted and 165,977 more face the threat of eviction. We resolve to fight against these evictions and to ask for reparations for victims of forced displacement, a human rights violation;

- We were pleased to hear the testimonies and analysis of friends from foreign countries like the United States (New Orleans and Miami), Dominican Republic, and Brazil on the struggle for housing rights. We salute the determination of our friends and the movements they represent;

- The Haitian government, ruling classes, and international institutions have not responded to the housing problems that millions of Haitians have long faced and that have become more serious since January 12, 2010. Sixteen months after the catastrophe, 700,000 people are living in the streets and many more families are living in horrible conditions in shantytowns. Many people had to return to damaged houses that could collapse at any time. We reject false solutions such as the distribution of tarps or building of temporary shelters;

- We resolve to continue the struggle to force the state to define a policy on housing that guarantees the right of all Haitians to have a home to live in that respects their dignity. The government should start housing construction projects to respond to our needs;

- The government must define a land use policy for the country. Before the earthquake, 80% of the population in Port-au-Prince was living in 20% of the land. We want housing discrimination to end. We reject all the wealth and infrastructure being concentrated in only some parts of the city. We also reject the reconstruction of the nation’s land only to create free trade zones;

- The Parliament must draft and vote on a law to guarantee the right to housing;
The government must look for and acquire land though expropriation [eminent domain] so that there is sufficient space for housing needs;

- The population must participate in decision-making. We have to say what Port-au-Prince we want to build. Those that come from other countries with plans already drawn up cannot determine this for us;

- We are ready to give our contribution (in financing, work, and materials) so we can create housing that respects people’s dignity. However, the government must finance construction projects to let us get housing as soon as possible, and immediately create a special fund to finance public housing. There is a lot of money being wasted that could be invested instead in housing;

- Homes and land are the source of life. The government and our communities must take all measures for these resources to remain this source of life, instead of turning them into a commodity;

- Institutions like BNC (National Bank of Commerce) and the commercial banks should establish special programs to help the population repair or build good houses, with particular attention paid to those with few economic means and those with disabilities;
The government must implement rent control, since rents have risen up to 17 times higher than before [the earthquake]. We must keep speculators from making millions off of our misery and despair;

- The government must guarantee security as to where we live. Land use must be based in prevention of the biggest risks (earthquakes, hurricanes, landslides, floods, tsunamis, etc). The government must develop education and training programs so we can prepare for these and other risks;

-The right to housing cannot be separated from our other rights: to work, health, education, leisure, a clean environment, etc. All house construction must be done in a way that facilitates our enjoyment of all of these rights;

- The Parliament should ratify the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as an important tool;

- The government must plan for public spaces that allow our communities to play sports, hold meetings and assemblies, and carry out cultural activities;

- We believe that cooperative housing is a viable alternative for those without great economic means;

- We want houses that respect our local architectural style and that use as much local material as possible, representing our culture. We want houses to have yards and gardens where we can grow vegetables and medicinal plants. We want houses that respect a bit of privacy that everyone needs. We want houses that provide space for us to live as families with neighbors in the lakou [traditional communal courtyard];

- Each neighborhood must have a cultural center to educate children and youth on the values of Haitian culture;

- In the houses we are building as in collective infrastructure, we must remember people with disabilities and facilitate their mobility and daily activities;

- Every housing construction project must give special attention to the rights of women. It is good, whenever possible, for the title to the house to carry the name of the husband and wife. In inheritance, men must not benefit disproportionately to women. In housing law, the government must protect the rights of women living alone or in a family where a husband has multiple wives. Women and men have the same right to housing. Our organizations must struggle against all forms of physical and moral violence that women are subjected to in the home. Work in the home must be shared equally between men and women. We request a special training program to allow women to be integrated into all levels of the construction work being carried out;

- We denounce the corruption scandals in the management of housing programs by the government, NGOs [non-governmental organizations], and the ICRH [Interim Commission for the Reconstruction of Haiti].

We resolve to:

- Fight against forced evictions and all forms of intimidation on the part of the government and landowners, who inflict more misery on us when they force us to move without providing alternative sites for housing. We ask all communities to organize in order to rapidly circulate information regarding intimidation and threats;

- Strengthen our organizations and alliances amongst grassroots groups and social movements;

- Make the struggle for housing a priority, and support homeless people and those living in camps;

- Disseminate information and conduct trainings across the country, building organizational strength to force the government to respect these rights;

- Remain mobilized to change our society and our government, aimed at constructing a new state that gives more importance to people’s lives than to money, and that defends the interests of the exploited classes. Only this kind of government can respond to our demands for housing;

- Stop considering housing as an issue that can be resolved on an individual or familial basis. Only collective solutions can revolve the problem of access to land for us to build on, rent speculation, and environmental management;

- Create training programs on radios, in churches, temples, and schools. We will organize trainings and debates in the camps and in low-income neighborhoods. We will launch a special newsletter on what is happening in the camps and shantytowns;

- Participate in a week-long mobilization in October 2011. We ask for a national day each year to celebrate the right to housing for all;

- Ask all grassroots organizations and all other movements to mobilize with us on the housing issue so that we can achieve this dream of justice and liberty.

Signed by [hundreds of representatives from at least 40 grassroots and Haitian non-governmental organizations and at least 35 IDP camp committees in Haiti, plus ally organizations from Brazil, the Dominican Republic, the U.S., and Belgium].

May 21, 2011

Translated by Alexis Erkert and Monica Dyer, with help by Beverly Bell.

Copyleft Beverly Bell. You may reprint this article in whole or in part. Please credit any text or original research you use to Beverly Bell, Other World.

Beverly Bell has worked with Haitian social movements for over 30 years. She is also author of the book Walking on Fire: Haitian Women's Stories of Survival and Resistance. She coordinates Other Worlds, www.otherworldsarepossible.org, which promotes social and economic alternatives. She is also associate fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies. You can access all of her past articles regarding post-earthquake Haiti at http://www.otherworldsarepossible.org/haiti.

On May 23 and 25, police in the Delmas district of Port-au-Prince destroyed camps which sheltered people who were otherwise homeless since the earthquake. Police and other municipal workers beat and arrested residents, and physically threatened the lives of a human rights lawyer and an advocate who had come to investigate. The mayor of Delmas announced that this is part of a new campaign to evict internally displaced persons [IDPs] from public spaces.

• One of this week's many violent "cleanings" of public spaces. Throughout the Delmas district of Port-au-Prince, police and bulldozers smashed earthquake survivors' tent homes and all their possessions. Photo: Ben Depp, www.bendepp.com. •

Beverly Bell has worked with Haitian social movements for over 30 years. She is also author of the book Walking on Fire: Haitian Women's Stories of Survival and Resistance. She coordinates Other Worlds, www.otherworldsarepossible.org, which promotes social and economic alternatives. She is also associate fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies.

The decision by Egypt’s military rulers to open the Rafah border with Gaza will not only allow the movement of people and goods across the border. Perhaps more importantly, it will end the feeling of isolation the Gazans have had since the blockade was imposed by Israel –with Egypt’s collaboration- more than three years ago.

The blockade on Gaza has had a devastating effect on Gazans’ health and quality of life, despite a partial easing of the restrictions by Israel in recent months. “The situation in Gaza remains very serious from a humanitarian perspective. The blockade has been eased in some respects but it has been maintained in other respects, and it continues to put the population there under great psychological and physical stress,” stated last October Professor Richard Falk, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Professor Falk added that Israel’s continued refusal to allow export of goods from Gaza has destroyed its internal economy, and young people from Gaza continue to be denied the right to visit their families in the West Bank and East Jerusalem or attend universities in other parts of the territories.

The most vulnerable -old people and children- are the ones who suffer the most. Even the supply of paper is limited, for fear it may be used to print propaganda, making children unable to play and draw pictures with crayons.

Lacking raw materials and the chance to export, Gaza’s businesses are unable to compete with cheaper, imported goods. At the same time, inflow of construction materials is only 11% of pre-blockade levels. “What I see in Gaza is a reversal of development,” stated Joyce Dalgliesh, a Scots charity worker after a visit to Gaza.

The blockade has predictably had a detrimental impact on the health of the people living in the Strip. On average, two patients die every month waiting for Israeli permits so the sick can leave Gaza for treatment, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO also stated that a shortage of required medicines poses a threat to the working of hospitals in the Strip.

According to the WHO, 38 percent of basic medicines in the Strip were out of stock in early 2011, while 40 percent of primary health care services and 80 percent of general services offered by hospitals suffered as a result. Out of 260 cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy in Shifa, Gaza’s largest hospital, 100 are not able to receive treatment because several medicines are required and are not available.

Many times, several basic illnesses such as diarrhea, pneumonia and skin infections cannot be treated due to lack of antibiotics. Even drugs needed for asthma treatment are not easily available in the Strip’s central warehouses.

Former UK Prime Minister and United Nations envoy to the Middle East Tony Blair stated in June of 2010, “The policy of Gaza is counter-productive and what [Israel] should be doing is allowing material in to rebuild homes and sanitation and power and water systems and allow business to flourish. Nor do we in fact do damage to the position of Hamas by harming people in Gaza. People are harmed when the quality of service is poor and people cannot work.”

The permanent opening of the Rafah border crossing by Egypt will bring new hope to Gazans of surviving a brutal occupation. In the poem “Silence for the Sake of Gaza” Mahmoud Darwish, Palestine’s greatest poet, said:

The enemy may defeat Gaza. (The stormy sea might overwhelm a small island.)
They may cut down all her trees.
They might break her bones.
They might plant their tanks in the bellies of her women and children, or they might toss her into the sand, into the sea, into blood.
But:
Gaza will not repeat the lies.
Gaza will not say yes to the conquerors.
And she will continue to erupt.
It is not death, it is not suicide, it is Gaza’s way of announcing she is worthy of life.

Dr. Cesar Chelala, a co-winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award for an article on human rights, is a contributing editor for The Globalist.

by Cesar Chelala and Alejandro M. Garro

For a relatively slight margin, the US Congress rejected an amendment by Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D) to declassify files on Argentina’s 1976-1983 military dictatorship. The refusal to declassify files on Argentina is likely to have momentous consequences on the fate of hundreds of babies stolen or “disappeared” during those years. Many of those babies were born in clandestine torture centers, while others were adopted or given in adoption by the same members of the military or police personnel responsible for their parents’ disappearance.

It is not altogether clear whose interests are sought to be protected, but one can hardly imagine that national security, or the work of US spies fighting Al Qaeda, as suggested by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers (R), may be put in jeopardy by keeping these files in secret. It is not even clear whether President Cristina Kirchner’s administration is interested in having these files in the open. However, if an official request from the Argentine government were submitted, the U.S. government would be hard pressed, as a matter of international comity, not to reveal at least a redacted text of those files.

Aside from governmental interests and politicians’ desires to keep secrets, what is at stake are human lives, victims, and the administration of justice. In 1999, during the Clinton administration, Rep. Hinchey presented a similar amendment for declassifying documents related to General Augusto Pinochet’s administration. Declassification resulted in the publication of 24,000 documents that proved to be crucial in the prosecution of crimes committed during the Chilean dictatorship. It provided clear evidence of Pinochet’s connections to the 1976 assassination, in Washington, D.C., of Chilean foreign minister Orlando Letelier, along with his secretary Ronni Karpen Moffitt. Also disclosed was Pinochet secret police’s plans to assassinate former Chilean president Patricio Aylwin, the presidential candidate of the coalition that ultimately defeated General Pinochet in 1988.

In December of 2009, President Obama signed an executive order entitled “Classified National Security Information,” stating: “I expect that the order will produce measurable progress towards greater openness and transparency in the Government’s classification and declassification programs while protecting the Government’s legitimate interests, and I will closely monitor the results.” Failure to disclose information on Argentina’s brutal reign of terror cannot be in the interest of the U.S. Government and, to the extent that it may in the interest of some members of the Argentine Government, it is unlikely that those interests may qualify as “legitimate”.

Both the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo and the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo have been searching for decades for their disappeared children and grandchildren. This decision by the U.S. Congress only adds to their difficulties in finding their loved ones. As Representative Hinchey stated, “The United States can play a vital role in lifting the veil of secrecy that has shrouded the terrible human rights abuses of the despotic military regime that ruled Argentina.” It is about time.

Dr. Cesar Chelala is a co-winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award for “Missing or Dead in Argentina: The Desperate Search for Thousands of Abducted Victims,” a cover story for The New York Times Magazine.

Alejandro M. Garro teaches Comparative Law at Columbia Law School and sits at advisory board of Human Rights Watch/Americas, the Center for Justice and International Law, and the Due Process of Law Foundation.

Damascus is not what it used to be. Over the past two months, we can see the rich go shopping, have dinner, and enjoy the holidays. There are no traffic snarls any more. We have gotten rid of broken, ugly, and noisy vehicles. You see nice, modern cars now. Suddenly, everybody has a car.

Yes, Damascus has become so beautiful now without people frantically rushing for their jobs and businesses. Falafel shops, a traditional food, are closed as today’s Syrians have lately discovered its ill effect on their stomachs. In Bashar al-Assad’s land, meat and neo-western salads have replaced the old-fashioned Syrian cuisine. We don’t see vendors selling Tamer hindi, juice, or coffee. Such unhygienic drinks are history.

Foreigners speaking other languages and bringing other cultures to our street are also extinct. Neither foreign journalists nor human rights observers can be seen to undermine our great republic where emergency laws have been lifted. The government does not let noisy youth disturb business in the name of peaceful protests and young girls can shop easily as handsome Syrians don’t bother them. The nuisance of eve-teasing has been eliminated too.

Schools, colleges and universities really needed a break from hectic and boring classroom routines. Classes in schools, universities, and in foreign institutes were cancelled after brave Syrian soldiers came to save people from foreign terrorists spoiling our peaceful atmosphere. Now is the time to travel to other countries, even if it is as refugees to Lebanon and Jordan. Finally Syrians can travel too!

Syrians were sick and tired of social relationships. Now is our chance to watch our favorite series on television. We cannot resist tempting soap operas on Arabic channels. These dramas entertain us 24 hours a day and seven days a week.

It is true that everything is more expensive but it is important to know our limits while spending. The rich and the poor in cities should not buy same stuff, as class difference is a beauty of Arab society.

The same is true for the landlords and poor farmers in villages. The poor should not improve their lifestyle, as it is not good for their bodies or mind.

Just wait a second here! Who brings milk to the city and who produces all kinds of cheese? And what about vegetables destroyed this year because of the military operation “Kill-and-Cover” in Duma, Mouadmiehya, Dariaa, Latakiya , Banyias, Homs and Daraa. Military General Maher al-Assad’s tanks leveled vegetable fields and orchards while ensuring “security” of Syrian people.

Daraa municipality has started to discover mass graves. The taste of vegetables in this agrarian town will never be the same again. The men, brutally killed by the Syrian military and disgracefully dumped in pits, were working hard for a better harvest to feed their countrymen.

Dariaa might have enjoyed the repute for the best meat at affordable prices. Today, its people are starving to death after military besieged the city a month ago to eliminate “the agents of Israel and America.” The impressive and all-purpose commercial hub of Duma does not exist anymore.

Homs has been home to well-educated and intelligent men for centuries. Jealous compatriots always cracked jokes about them. Over the last eight weeks, amusement has turned into tearful mourning after losing unaccounted genius Syrians there. If you are heading to Homs for cheese, cancel your plans. The “terrorists” have not spared our cheese makers.

Latakiya and Banyias used to offer jobs to the poor in harvest season to pick fruits. In armored action against “foreign agents” the military could not protect the orchard. Even if the miscreants are nipped, unemployment would flourish.

Over 1,000 Syrians have been killed. Tanks, shells, and straight fire of automatic weapons killed them as they gathered after Friday prayers. We don’t hear voices of children, who always played in streets, as they are either in homes or in graves.

Prior to the unrest, Syrians needed more policemen on roads to manage traffic and control crime. Their prayers are being answered as no one can move without carrying his or her identity card and we have to prove our identity at each turn and in every square.

Damascus may look empty these days but it shows the real face of today’s Syria. After all Syria belongs to the Assad’s who have been running it like a fiefdom since 1970. 'Long live' the King. Welcome to Bashar’s Syria!

Aloosh Devrim is a young social media activist whose family struggled against Hafiz Al-Assad's rule and policies. She has traveled to the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East for her work.

Better education, particularly among mothers, is widely associated with better health. Experiences in several countries have shown the power of education to increase the nutritional levels and the health status of the poor. Girls’ education is one of the most effective investments a nation can make toward development and better health.

In urban India, for example, it has been found that the mortality rate among the children of educated women is almost half than that of children of uneducated women. In the Philippines, primary education among mothers has reduced the risks of child mortality by half, and secondary education reduces that risk by a factor of three. A study in rural Ghana on health-protective behaviors related to HIV/AIDS infection among adults found that individuals with more education practiced more protective health behaviors, thus decreasing the risk of contracting the infection.

In addition, those living in poverty and suffering from malnutrition have an increased propensity to a host of diseases, a lower learning capacity, and an increased exposure and vulnerability to environmental risks. Poor children frequently lack stimuli critical to growth and development.

Poverty cannot be defined solely in terms of lack of income. Little or no access to health services, lack of access to safe water and adequate nutrition, illiteracy or low educational level and a distorted perception of rights and needs are also essential components of poverty. Poverty is one of the most influential factors for ill health, and ill health –in a vicious cycle — can lead to poverty. Education has proven to be critical to breaking this cycle.

There is a two-way link between poverty and health. Illness impairs learning ability and quality of life, has a negative impact on productivity, and drains family savings. Poor people are more exposed to environmental risks (poor sanitation, unhealthy food, violence, and natural disasters) and less prepared to cope with them.

Because they are also less informed about the benefits of healthy lifestyles, and have less access to them as well as to quality health care, the poor are at greater risk of illness and disability. It is estimated that one third of deaths worldwide –some 18 million people a year or 50,000 a day- are due to poverty-related causes.

More than 1.5bn people in the world live in extreme poverty, 80% of which live in developing countries. Poor people have little or no access to qualified health services and education, and do not participate in the decisions critical to their day-to-day lives.

Those who live in extreme poverty are five times more likely to die before age five, and two and a half time times more likely to die between 15 and 59 than those in higher income groups. The same dramatic differences can be found with respect to maternal mortality levels and incidence of preventable diseases. Level of education in relation to health is particularly important among women. In addition, education for women is closely associated with later marriage and smaller family size.

Increased income alone cannot guarantee better nutrition and health because of the impact of other factors, notably education, environmental hygiene and access to health care services, which cannot necessarily be bought with increased income in the developing world.

Several strategies can be used to improve the access of mothers and children to educational opportunities as a way of improving their health status. At the national level governments, particularly in developing countries, have to establish education -– including the education of the parents — as a priority, and provide necessary resources and support. Interventions should be targeted to vulnerable groups such as those with lower income or with less access to adequate food.

At the international level, lending institutions have to implement debt-reduction policies for those countries willing to provide increased resources for basic education.

Although an important goal is to reduce economic inequity to improve the health status of populations, emphasis on education can provide substantial benefits in the health of populations even before reducing the economic gap between the rich and the poor.

Dr. Cesar Chelala is a public health consultant for several international organizations.

By practically any criteria it is now time to end Gilad Shalit’s ordeal. Although both Hamas and the Israeli government are to blame for the delay in the negotiations, a new Egyptian initiative should be embraced by both sides and stop punishing the Israeli soldier and his family. Freedom for Shalit would not only be a needed humanitarian action. It would contribute to bring hope to a hopeless region.

According to Al Jazeera television, there is a new Egyptian initiative aimed at bringing an agreement from both Israelis and Palestinians for Shalit’s release. At the same time Netanyahu has recently appointed David Meidan as his negotiator on this issue. He will be presented with a new Egyptian draft for an agreement in the next few days.

Hamas’s leader, Khaled Meshaal, has indicated that he hoped to see soon the release of Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, which could be a roundabout acknowledgement of Hama’s willingness to reach an agreement on Shalit based on new terms.

Speaking at a special Memorial Day address, Israel’s prime minister said that efforts are constantly being made to return kidnapped and missing soldiers, including actions that may be hidden from view. “We will not rest until they are returned,” he stated.

Netanyahu has two main objections to demands Hamas made in the past. One objection is that the most dangerous among the Palestinians should not be allowed to return to the West Bank, where they could send out attacks against Israel, but instead should go to Gaza or abroad. However, three former heads of Shin Bet, Israel’s security service, declared, “Israel is strong enough, both from an intelligence perspective and a military perspective to deal with murderers who decide to return to their bad habits.” Netanyahu’s second objection is that “arch murderers” should not be released.

It is possible that Hamas may now agree to the first point. As regards the second, included in those called arch murderers by Netanyahu is Marwan Barghouti, who is regarded as a leader of the First and Second Intifadas. It is difficult to think that the Palestinians will agree on Barghouti not being part of the agreement.

Marwan Barghouti has been accused by Israeli authorities of directing numerous attacks and suicide bombings against civilians. He was tried and convicted on charges of murder, and he was sentenced to five life sentences. He refused to present a defense to the charges against him, claiming that the trial was illegal and illegitimate. His detention and transference from an occupied territory to the territory of the occupier violates the tenets of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

He is one of the most admired Palestinian leaders, and has been called “Palestine’s Mandela” by Uri Avnery, a leading Israeli peace activist. In an op-ed piece in the Washington Post Barghouti stated, “Let us not forget, we Palestinians have recognized Israel on 78 percent of historic Palestine. It is Israel that refuses to acknowledge Palestine’s right to exist on the remaining 22 percent of land occupied in 1967. And yet it is the Palestinians who are accused of not compromising and of missing opportunities.”

As with the peace process, where Netanyahu refused to stop the building of settlements for peace talks to resume, Netanyahu has been firm in refusing Palestinian’s demands that could lead to Shalit’s release. He may find out that buying time doesn’t lower the price.

Writing to Netanyahu last April Zvi Shalit, Gilad’s grandfather, stated, “A year ago a deal to secure Gilad’s release was all but signed but you thwarted it in a last minute decision….Your refusal then and today to comply with the request of former defense officials to free Gilad at the said price is tantamount to Gilad’s death sentence.”

Dr. Cesar Chelala is a co-winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award.

He has been called “a real Jew hater” and a “real anti-semite” by former Israel’s Minister of Education Limor Livnat. However, few musicians have done as much for peace between Israelis and Palestinians as Daniel Barenboim, the noted Argentine-born Israeli orchestra conductor. It is only through efforts like his that peace can eventually be reached in the Middle East.

On May 3, 2011, Barenboim conducted a concert in the Gaza Strip. The orchestra, that had musicians from European countries such as Germany, Austria, France and Italy, played the concert “…as a sign of our solidarity and friendship with the civil society of Gaza,” said Barenboim in a statement released by the United Nations, which coordinated the concert.

In 1999, together with the Palestinian-American professor Edward Said, one of the most prominent Palestinian intellectuals worldwide, Barenboim founded the West-Eastern Divan orchestra, a youth orchestra based in Sevilla, Spain, with musicians from countries in the Middle East of Egyptian, Iranian, Syrian, Lebanese Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian background.

Talking to The Guardian about the ensemble Barenboim said, “The Divan is not a love story, and it is not a peace story. It has very flatteringly been described as a project for peace. It isn’t. It’s not going to bring peace, whether you play well or not so well. The Divan was conceived as a project against ignorance. A project against the fact that it is absolutely essential for people to get to know “the other,” to understand what the other thinks and feels, without necessarily agreeing with it. I am not trying to convert the Arab members of the Divan to the Israeli point of view, and I am not trying to convince the Israelis to the Arab point of view. But I want to –and unfortunately I am alone in this now that Edward [Said] died a few years ago-…create a platform where the two sides can disagree and not resort to knives.”

Barenboim is certainly no stranger to controversy. On July 7, 2001, Barenboim led the Berlin Staatskapelle in part of Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde at the Israel Festival in Jerusalem, despite the fact that Wagner’s music had been unofficially taboo in Israel’s concert halls.

Originally, Barenboim had been scheduled to perform the first act of Die Walküre. However, facing strong opposition from Israel Festival’s Public Advisory board, which included some Holocaust survivors, Barenboim agreed to substitute Wagner’s music by music by Robert Schumann and Igor Stravinsky.

At the end of the concert he regretted his initial decision and decided to play Wagner as an encore, inviting those who opposed it to leave the concert hall. After a strong debate, 50 attendees walked out and 1,000 remained, applauding enthusiastically after the performance.

Barenboim has performed before in Palestinian territory. In 1999, he performed at Palestinian Birzeit University. In January of 2008, after a concert in Ramallah, Barenboim accepted honorary Palestinian citizenship, a decision strongly criticized by Israeli authorities. Following these events, the leader of the Shas party stated that Barenboim should be stripped of his Israeli citizenship. Barenboim, however, declared that it was a big honor for him to have been given the Palestinian passport.

Barenboim’s visit to Gaza had been conducted in clear defiance of Israeli law, which bans Israeli citizens from visiting the Strip. With this concert, Barenboim and his orchestra had done more than bring hope to hundreds of thousands of people who felt neglected by the world. They have proved the power of music to triumph over war, the power of music to exalt life.

Dr. Cesar Chelala is a co-winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award for an article on human rights.

Cross-posted from the Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet.

Global fish production has reached an all-time high, according to Nourishing the Planet’s latest research for the Worldwatch Institute’s Vital Signs Online publication. Aquaculture, or fish farming—once a minor contributor to total fish harvest—increased 50-fold between the 1950s and 2008 and now contributes nearly half of all fish produced worldwide.

• We need to sustainably manage global fisheries to secure livelihoods and protect ecosystems. (Photo credit: Bernard Pollack). •

Increased farming of large predators, such as salmon and tuna, has led to overfishing of prey fish—including anchoveta and herring, which are commonly used as fishmeal. It generally takes at least three kilograms of feed to produce one kilogram of salmon. The shrinking of the numbers of prey species threatens the entire food chain, putting further stress on large predator stocks.

Depleting fisheries also negatively affect the economies of developing countries, home to the nearly 60 percent of the world’s fishers that are classified as small-scale commercial or subsistence fishers. In Africa, an estimated 100 million people depend on fish from inland sources, such as lakes and rivers, for income as well as protein and much-needed micronutrients like vitamin A, calcium, iron, and zinc. But coastal fisheries across West Africa have declined by up to 50 percent in the last 30 years due to significant pressure from large industrial fleets.

Fisheries also provide important ecosystem services, such as storing and recycling nutrients and absorbing pollutants. We need to make ecological restoration as much a goal as meeting the growing global demand for seafood. And we must move away from mainstream approaches that focus narrowly on short-term profit and boosting production to more sustainable strategies that help meet demand and support fishing communities.

Around the world, fisheries co-managed by local authorities and fishers themselves are emerging as a promising solution to replenishing depleting fish stocks.

In 2007, a group of Gambian women oyster harvesters formed the TRY Women’s Oyster Harvesting Association. They collectively agreed to close one tributary in their oyster territories for an entire year and to shorten their harvest season by two months. These practices may seem difficult in the short run, but they pay off over time, securing incomes and nutrition in their communities.

Focusing on fisheries can help boost incomes and strengthen food security, while protecting the ecosystems on which millions of people worldwide depend.

To purchase your own copy of State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet, please click HERE. And to watch the one minute book trailer, click HERE.

Have you ever seen an Afghan doll come down the stairs of a private jet? Circulate and hob-nob at a fancy dinner event? How about belt out one of Aretha’s best into a tiny microphone (AKA a tube of lipstick)? Neither had we, until we met Homa!

And so it goes for Homa, the Afghan doll who is traveling the world. She’s on an exciting journey; being hosted along the way by a network of friends and supporters. She’s poses a question to us all: How far can a woman go? How far can a woman go with an opportunity? With an education? Health Care? Gender equality? Hope?

• The Afghan dolll, Homa, disembarks from a private jet in Napa, California. Photo courtesy of Rising International. •

The idea to send Homa, the doll, off into the world began in April 2011 at the Women's Funding Network Conference in Brooklyn. The WFN is one of the largest collaborative philanthropic networks in the world. Rising International's Executive Director, Carmel Jud, brought Homa to the conference where she was a huge hit. Carmel took photos of Homa on her first New York cab ride, on the subway, on the Brooklyn Bridge, and with various conference participants. At the conference, she met Laurel Parker West, Executive Director of the Long Island Fund for Women and Girls. Laurel offered to take Homa next, and from there the idea of Homa traveling the world was born.

I think the concept that a widow in Afghanistan can potentially transport herself up and out of her given circumstances through creative work is nothing less than breath-taking. This is one way in which art, craft, and creative thought becomes transformational. Starting with the personal experience of the artisan, and flowing onward with the purchasing power of the buyer, empowerment travels. Fair trade and socially conscious spending have become global game-changers; underscoring the concept that the creativity of the human spirit can be collectively transformational, personally and politically.

• Homa with Brian Boitano at Pebble Beach Food and Wine. April, 2011. Photograph courtesy of Rising International. •

Homa’s official bon voyage party takes place in Santa Cruz, California on the afternoon of May 7th. Homa’s fans and followers will equip her with a GPS device (so she can be tracked on Google Maps).

Directly support the artisan women in Afghanistan by “adopting” a doll of your very own.

Imagine what inspiration, hope, and opportunity can mean to a widow in Afghanistan.

How far can a woman go?

Jean Bathke is project manager for the Homa Rising project at Rising International. She is a Rising International volunteer with a background in Women’s Studies, art and textile design.

As the transition from a harsh winter to a still reluctant-to-appear spring is on the works, I feel the need to visit Washington Square Park. The park is the Village’s lung, its historic frame of reference, a tourists’ Mecca, a place of encounter for lovers, musicians, gymnasts and equilibrists.

• Washington Square Park, New York. Photograph by flickr user fussy onion and used under Creative Commons licenses. •

We may soon look back on this period in Haiti with greater appreciation. Amidst the world-historic levels of death and suffering from last January’s earthquake, citizens have at least been spared the scale of government violence that has marked much of their nation’s past (not-with-standing attacks against internally displaced persons during forced evictions, and occasionally against street protestors.)

• Funeral of Samuel Georges, 18-year-old who died eight hours after contracting cholera. Cholera is on the rise in Haiti. Ben Depp, www.bendepp.com. •

Forces are already readying for violence, which will likely be exerted both through the army and through gangs. Journalist Isabeau Doucet filed this eyewitness report last month: “For over a year, on a hillside south of Port-au-Prince, around 100 former soldiers and young recruits train three times a week. They claim to have a network of camps all over the country where Haitian men meet and exercise, learn military protocol and martial arts and receive basic training... The black-and-red flag of Jean-Claude Duvalier’s party hangs in their tarpaulin dressing room… Somebody is paying for this, even though they claim that it’s all-volunteer, and the current government is turning a blind eye, if not giving tacit support.”

Just how the forces of violence may ally with various backers - some combination of Martelly and those surrounding the returned former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier - is one question. Another is how much they may tyrannize a citizens’ movement which is demanding solutions to widespread homelessness, unemployment, and extreme poverty. Two U.S.-based groups supporting community organizing in Haiti are already preparing emergency responses in case significant political violence should erupt.

Beyond Martelly’s plans for an army, his past associations raise concerns about what policies he may bring to office. Martelly was public in his support for the death squad-friendly regimes that reigned after coups d’état against Aristide (1991 and 2004). More recently, Martelly has made such public statements as "I would kill Aristide to stick a dick up his ass."

Martelly won in a run-off in which less than one in four registered voters bothered to turn out, meaning he was endorsed by 16.7% of all registered voters. If this sounds abysmally low for a mandate, it is lofty compared to the 4.6% who are believed to have supported Martelly in the first round. No one knows the figure for sure, because that round was so fraudulent that even the government’s Provisional Electoral Council refused to ratify it with a majority vote. While legally, this should have nullified the first round, the Organization of American States and the U.S. government intensively pressured the Haitian government to approve the elections and send Martelly to the run-offs. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton even traveled to Haiti to ensure these outcomes.

After Martelly was declared president, Clinton said, “Now he has a chance to lead and we are behind him. He is committed to results. He wants to deliver for the Haitian people. And we are committed to helping him do so.”

Other bad news dogs Haiti. The lives of those left displaced from the earthquake are growing more, not less, precarious, contrary to what one might expect with the passing of time and the many billions of aid dollars circulating.

A primary risk is cholera, which is due to spike once the imminent rainy season hits, because the near-daily storms will leave standing water and mud in most camps. The camps are already the perfect breeding ground for this disease of poverty, with their densely concentrated populations who are frequently weak and ill, often lack water – not just drinking water but often any water at all – and suffer from a dearth of hygiene options and medical care. A recent study in the medical journal The Lancet predicted 779,000 cases and 11,100 deaths from cholera by the end of November.

With all humanitarian and international agencies in Haiti aware of the dire risk of this illness which can result in death only a few hours after infection, 39% of ‘transitional shelters’ still do not receive water or basic sanitation services. Michelle Karshan, an American advocate engaged in anti-cholera efforts, reported: “There is a deadly shortage of available cholera prevention and treatment supplies. And the most important prevention of cholera transmission – creation of a water system infrastructure making treated water widely available – is still not off the ground, while distribution of water continues to reach only a minuscule number of camps. The majority of the resource-poor camps are left to fend for themselves.”# The U.N. Cholera Appeal for Haiti has only received 45% of the funds it needs.

The deeper worry is why, with up to 1.5 million people still homeless after 16 months, water purification tablets and port-o-potties are still being discussed as a solution. The only way to make people safe from this disease is to resettle them into decent housing. Yet still neither the international community nor the Haitian government has any workable plans. The government has yet to invoke its constitutional right to declare eminent domain and claim large plots of unused private land in order to relocate people. International aid has yet to be significantly employed in clearing rubble, 80% of which remains, rendering much of Port-au-Prince uninhabitable.

Another hazard that internally displaced persons (IDPs) face is being forced out of their camps, left in even greater precariousness. According to the International Organization for Migration, 820,000 of the original set of IDPs dwellers – more than half - have left the camps, but not because they have found a better situation. Only 4.7% have gone to new or repaired housing. The remainder, as reported by the International Organization for Migration and substantiated by many community watchdog groups in Haiti, have fled for two reasons. One is an anywhere-but-here response, in which families have escaped to dangerously earthquake-damaged structures, ravines, crowded rooms, or whatever they can find. Others have been evicted in a growing wave of expulsions – some violent, many illegal - by both government institutions and private landowners.

As they have since the earthquake, coalitions of progressive NGOs, community groups, and camp committees are trying to mount pressure to win gains in a broad-based agenda which includes democratic participation and socio-economic rights. Predominant strategies include popular education, legal support for camp residents, policy advocacy, and grassroots mobilization. A snapshot of some of the groups’ activities in the three-week period surrounding this article includes: a three-day May Day mobilization for workers’ rights; a three-day symposium critiquing disaster capitalism, “What Financing for What Reconstruction?”, and a three-day exchange to strengthen efforts to force resettlement of IDPs, “International Forum for the Right to Housing.”

These movements currently lack funding and cohesion. At many points in Haitian history, however, pressure from below has proven to be the critical variable in forcing change. Given the disappointing track record of the international community and development industry, and the ominous prospects of Martelly’s presidency, they may be Haiti’s best hope.

Beverly Bell has worked with Haitian social movements for over 30 years. She is also author of the book Walking on Fire: Haitian Women's Stories of Survival and Resistance. She coordinates Other Worlds, www.otherworldsarepossible.org, which promotes social and economic alternatives. She is also associate fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies.