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Guatemala President Faces Arrest as Business Interests and U.S. Scramble to Contain Uprising
In Guatemala, a judge has ordered that former Vice President Roxana Baldetti must remain in prison while her corruption trial takes place. The ruling comes on the heels of the Guatemalan Supreme Court’s decision Tuesday to lift the immunity from prosecution for President Otto Pérez Molina, clearing the way for his impeachment. The court passed the impeachment recommendation along to Congress. A general strike has been called in Guatemala for today. We are joined by Allan Nairn, longtime journalist who has covered Guatemala since the 1980s.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: In Guatemala, a judge has ordered former Vice President Roxana Baldetti must remain in prison while her corruption trial takes place. The ruling comes on the heels of the Guatemalan Supreme Court’s decision Tuesday to lift the immunity from prosecution for President Otto Pérez Molina, clearing the way for his impeachment. The court passed the impeachment recommendation along to Congress. Miguel Pineda is a spokesperson for the Guatemalan Supreme Court.
MIGUEL PINEDA: [translated] Today, all Supreme Court judges met for an extraordinary session regarding a request for the impeachment of President Otto Pérez Molina. Because of this, they met with the head magistrate of the Second Chamber of the Criminal Court of Appeals, Magistrate Gustavo Dubón. They then studied the case, and after their respective analysis, they established that there exists the possibility of transferring the case to the republic’s Congress. Consequently, the request has been passed on to the republic’s Congress for its resolution.
AMY GOODMAN: A general strike has been called in Guatemala for today. Well, for more, we’re joined by Allan Nairn, longtime journalist who has covered Guatemala since the 1980s.
Allan, welcome back to Democracy Now! Can you talk about what is engulfing Guatemala today, the significance of what’s happening to the president, the general strike that’s called for today?
ALLAN NAIRN: Well, it’s an uprising, and it could lead to the fall of Pérez Molina. They’re calling for a general strike, mass demonstration today. The issue is corruption. But if the movement develops further, if it spreads more fully to the Mayan heartland of the country, then the issue could move from corruption to justice, because the reason the Guatemalan elite, like General Pérez Molina and Vice President Baldetti, have been able to loot the treasury to the tune of more than $100 million, been able to steal for themselves cash which was used for Jaguar cars, plantations, villas, yachts, airplanes, helicopters, was because they took and have maintained themselves in power through mass murder. Pérez Molina was a commander in the northwest highlands during the '80s. He personally helped implement the Ríos Montt program of mass murder—effectively, genocide—against the Mayan population. And that's what the Guatemalan system has been built on.
So if this uprising spreads, if it becomes an even broader, deeper movement, and you move from the question of corruption to the question of justice for mass murder, that can only be resolved by implicating not just Pérez Molina personally, but also the Guatemalan army as a whole institution, also the U.S. government, which has armed, trained and financed that army, backed that program of slaughter, which the American CIA had Pérez Molina on the payroll when he was head of G-2, the intelligence unit. And it also can’t be resolved without implicating CACIF, the association of the oligarchy, which backed the army during the slaughter and which, individually, ran its own death squads. The oligarchs, the young men, would go through what was kind of a ritual of bloodying their own hands, and if there was a union-organizing drive at their fathers’ factory, some of the boys would get together, and they’d go out and kill the unionists. And those young men who did that in the '80s are now in their fifties and sixties, and they're the leaders of the Guatemalan oligarchy. So the last thing they want to see is a true investigation and bringing to justice of perpetrators. That’s the last thing Washington wants to see.
And the situation is basically out of control right now. The U.S. is trying to prop up Pérez Molina. They’re trying to keep him in office. CACIF is trying to co-opt and wind down the movement, the demonstrations. But no one knows if they’ll succeed, and no one knows where this will lead. And it could lead to fundamental change in Guatemala. There’s already talk of postponing the elections, which are due for September 6th, of rewriting the electoral law, of rewriting the constitution. So it’s a question of whether popular power prevails or whether the same old perpetrators continue to run the country, and nobody knows what will happen.
AMY GOODMAN: Allan, I want to go back to 1982, when you interviewed Otto Pérez Molina in the area of Quiché of Guatemala during the height of the massacres targeting indigenous communities. At the time, Otto Pérez Molina was known as Tito. This is part of your exchange.
ALLAN NAIRN: [in Spanish, translated] The United States is considering giving military help here in the form of helicopters. What is the importance of helicopters for all of you?
MAYOR OTTO PÉREZ MOLINA: [translated] A helicopter is an apparatus that’s become of great importance not only here in Guatemala but also in other countries where they’ve had problems of a counterinsurgency.
ALLAN NAIRN: [translated] Like in Vietnam?
MAYOR OTTO PÉREZ MOLINA: [translated] In Vietnam, for example, the helicopter was an apparatus that was used a lot.
AMY GOODMAN: Allan Nairn, you were speaking to Otto Pérez Molina. Can you explain what it is he said and who you understood he was at the time?
ALLAN NAIRN: Well, he was using the alias "Mayor Tito," Major Tito. He was the commander working out of the town of Nebaj of the Ixil zone, where he was implementing the Ríos Montt program of massacre. The soldiers below him described in detail how they would go into villages, strangle people, make them dig their own mass graves, bomb their houses.
Pérez Molina was telling me in that clip about the helicopters they had and were hoping to get more of from the United States, which they used to attack the villages. The U.S. and Israel armed that program of slaughter. After he did that in the highlands, he rose to become general, become head of G-2, the military intelligence unit, which did disappearances, torture. They even had their own crematorium in the town of Huehuetenango. And the CIA, the American CIA, gave funds to Pérez Molina. They placed North American CIA operatives inside the G-2 as those atrocities were being carried out. And the U.S. was fully behind this.
Now, there’s fear in Washington. There’s fear among the oligarchs that this whole Pandora’s box could be opened, because the people are in the streets. Now the people are in the streets talking about the corruption, but if they start more intensively talking about the blood, if they follow that trail of blood, it leads directly back to Washington. It leads directly back to the suites of CACIF, the oligarchs who own Guatemala.
AMY GOODMAN: When you say CACIF, talking about the oligarchy, what does CACIF stand for? Who are they, actually? Is it equivalent in the United States to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce?
ALLAN NAIRN: It’s much stronger than the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It would be as if all of the U.S. billionaires, all of the U.S. corporations came together in one entity and usually spoke with a single voice. For example, after the Ríos Montt genocide trial, in which he was, in an extraordinary achievement—I think a world historic civilizational breakthrough—Guatemala domestically brought to trial its own former dictator, convicted him of genocide, sentenced him to 80 years. The leaders of CACIF, the oligarchs, stood up and demanded, demanded on national TV in a press conference, that that verdict be annulled. They were giving orders to a court. And the High Court of Guatemala, as they usually do, responded to the bidding of CACIF, and they annulled the verdict.
But now the Ríos Montt trial is being renewed. It’s due to start again in January. But this is an oligarchy in Guatemala which kills its own unionists, which kills peasants who try to organize the plantations, which works hand in glove with Washington and is now trying to hold onto their power, because, for the first time, it’s under threat. I mean, this is a historic moment. It all began in 1954, when the CIA invaded Guatemala, overthrew a democratically elected government and put the army in power. And now, the people have risen.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Allan Nairn, a journalist and activist who has covered Guatemala for decades. Ríos Montt, the trial for Ríos Montt, it’s in the midst of happening now, is that right? We were just looking at images of Ríos Montt laid out on a gurney. Explain who he was in the 1980s, his relationship with the U.S. government. At the time, it was President Ronald Reagan, is that right?
ALLAN NAIRN: Yes. Ríos Montt was a dictator who seized power in a coup. He sent his army sweeping through the Mayan northwest highlands. Ríos Montt told me that for every one who is shooting, referring to guerrilla insurgents, there are 10 working behind them, meaning 10 civilians. He considered those civilians who had any feelings of opposition to the rich, to the army, to the government, as legitimate targets for extermination. And that’s what they did with—and that’s what he did with the help of field officers like Mayor Tito, Otto Pérez Molina.
After he fell, I interviewed Ríos Montt again. And I said to him, "Well, General, you were a big proponent of the death penalty. Do you think that you should be executed for your role in the slaughter of the Mayan population?" And when I asked him that question, Ríos Montt jumped to his feet, and he shouted—and this is Ríos Montt’s style of speaking—he said, "Yes! Put me on trial! Put me against the wall! Execute me! But if you’re going to try me, you also have to try the Americans, including Ronald Reagan."
And he had a point in that, because he had the full support of the U.S. Reagan personally embraced Ríos Montt, said he was getting a bum rap on human rights, and did everything he could to overcome resistance in the U.S. Congress to send weapons, arms and training. And there was a covert relationship through which the CIA sponsored one generation after another of G-2 assassins. And the G-2 leaders, like General Pérez Molina and also General Ortega Menaldo, General Godoy Gaitán, also received funds from the CIA. So this is a very—Guatemala has been one of the key projects of Washington for decades, one of the countries in the world most under the influence of the U.S. government and defense establishment and corporations, and also, not—I think not unrelated, one of the hungriest countries in the world. They have one of the highest indices of malnutrition in Latin America. The exploitation is as gross as it can get. That’s why so many Guatemalans are flooding into America as immigrants looking for work—and now possibly facing the prospect of expulsion at the hands of people like Donald Trump.
But now the system is coming under challenge from people on the ground in Guatemala, but no one knows how far it will go. CACIF, the oligarchs, and Washington are trying to implement a smooth transition, where, you know, one military man, one oligarch, is replaced by another, nothing basic changes. But this could get out of control, and it could lead to a rewriting of the constitution, of the electoral law, and perhaps the beginnings of a kind of popular government, like we see in parts of South America, that starts doing some kind of work for basic justice, for a basic redistribution of wealth, making it possible for workers in the fields who break their backs trying to support their families, making it possible for them to get enough to feed the kids, to give them some education, to get some healthcare.
AMY GOODMAN: Allan, The New York Times editorial today says, "The president [Otto Pérez Molina], whose term expires in January, [and] who enjoys immunity while in office, has refused to heed the calls for his resignation, even as the business establishment and many politicians have turned on him. Of course he deserves his day in court, but right now he is only delaying the inevitable—meaning, quite likely, a prison sentence, along with one for [former Vice President Roxana] Baldetti. That outcome would send a powerful message to Guatemalans who aspire to be governed by honest leaders. It should also be studied, and possibly emulated, in neighboring countries where justice is still too often administered arbitrarily or not at all." That from The New York Times today. Your response?
ALLAN NAIRN: Well, one neighboring country that needs justice is the United States. The United States has not yet reached the level of civilization of Guatemala. Guatemala put their own former head of state, their own former dictator, Ríos Montt, on trial and convicted him of genocide. When I was in the courtroom as that verdict was being read out, I was trying to imagine if you could be standing in a court in Texas and hearing a guilty verdict being read out against George W. Bush for the civilians he killed during the invasion of Iraq, or in a court in Illinois hearing a guilty verdict being read out against President Barack Obama for the civilians he killed with his drone strikes. And it’s just—I didn’t have enough imagination to reach that point. It’s inconceivable in the U.S. now. But Guatemala has done that.
Now, they’re going after the sitting president for corruption. This is being down with the initiative, the main initiative, of the special prosecutor’s office, that was created as a result of agitation by human rights activists in Guatemala who succeeded in getting a special statute implemented. That special prosecutor is backed by the United Nations, and the Attorney General’s Office of Guatemala has gone along with them. And now they have arrested the sitting vice president. They’re seeking to arrest the sitting president for corruption. But again, the question is if the movement spreads broadly enough, if it reaches the Mayan heartland, if people come into the streets and are not intimidated by CACIF, not intimidated by the army, and they start demanding justice for the years of mass murder, the ongoing economic exploitation at the hands of local oligarchs, but also at the hands of foreign corporations who they brought in—now there’s mass looting of the mineral wealth of Guatemala by American and especially Canadian mining companies, and activists who protested against that have been murdered. This could all face change now if the movement goes far enough. And Washington and the rich are desperately trying to stop it.
AMY GOODMAN: Allan, I want to thank you for being with us. Allan Nairn, journalist and activist, has long covered Guatemala. We’ll link to your many articles on the Central American country.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, it’s 10 years since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast. We’ll go to New Orleans. Stay with us.
Remembering Hurricane Katrina 10 Years Later: Voices from the Storm
President Barack Obama is in New Orleans today to mark the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. According to prepared remarks, Obama will declare: "What started out as a natural disaster became a man-made one—a failure of government to look out for its own citizens." In 2005, Democracy Now! was on the ground in the days following the storm that devastated the Gulf Coast, killing more than 1,800 people and forcing more than 1 million people to evacuate. We turn now to excerpts of Democracy Now!’s coverage of Hurricane Katrina.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: President Barack Obama is heading back to New Orleans to mark the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the 2005 storm that devastated the Gulf Coast, killing more than 1,800 people, forcing more than a million people to evacuate. According to excerpts of his remarks released by the White House, Obama will say, quote, "What started out as a natural disaster became a man-made one—a failure of government to look out for its own citizens."
Well, we spend the rest of the hour looking back at Hurricane Katrina, looking at where New Orleans is today. Later in the broadcast, we’ll speak with Malik Rahim, founder of Common Ground Relief, as well as the civil rights attorneys Tracie Washington and Bill Quigley. But first we turn back to some of our coverage of Katrina from 10 years ago. It begins with then-New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin.
MAYOR RAY NAGIN: Ladies and gentlemen, I wish I had better news for you, but we are facing a storm that most of us have feared. … Every person is hereby ordered to immediately evacuate the City of New Orleans, or, if no other alternative is available, to immediately move to one of the facilities within the city that will be designated as a refuge of last resort.
AMY GOODMAN: New Orleans and the Gulf region remain in a state of catastrophe following the devastating Hurricane Katrina. At least 80 percent of New Orleans is underwater. The city has no electricity and little drinkable water. Officials say New Orleans will be uninhabitable for weeks. On Tuesday, two levees broke, flooding areas of the city that had appeared to survive the storm.
MAYOR RAY NAGIN: This is a national disaster. Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their asses moving to New Orleans. That’s—they’re thinking small, man, and this is a major, major, major deal.
BILL QUIGLEY: You’re talking about tens of thousands of people who are left behind, and those are the sickest, the oldest, poorest, the youngest, the people with disabilities and the like. And the plan was that everybody should leave. Well, you can’t leave if you’re in a hospital. You can’t leave if you’re a nurse. You can’t leave if you’re a patient. You can’t leave if you’re in a nursing home. You can’t leave if you don’t have a car.
CROWD: Help! Help! Help! Help! Help! Help! Help! Help! Help! Help! Help! Help! Help! Help! Help!
TAMER EL-GHOBASHY: There are throngs of people, easily in the tens of thousands, maybe 40,000 to 50,000 people, in my estimation, standing on this plaza trying to get to a very narrow area where they’re being escorted to the buses. I haven’t seen one bus leave yet.
SURVIVOR 1: These babies. Six and eight months. The people just walking past us.
SURVIVOR 2: No food, no water, no nothing. Whatever we have, we’ve been taking it. That’s the only way we can survive.
SURVIVOR 3: We got the food right here. Let me show you, right here. All of it, look. Right here, look. City won’t give us nothing! Nothing!
SURVIVOR 4: Gotta help ourselves, right? Open the gate right there.
SURVIVOR 3: Look, look, look! Look, they won’t give us nothing! We ain’t drinking no ice water! Nothing!
SURVIVOR 5: It’s not about low income. It’s not about rich people, poor people. It’s about people! Nobody wants to hurt anybody in this city! Nobody wants to hurt these people who have these businesses! We want a little air and a little food and water, for God’s sake! That’s it!
SURVIVOR 6: There’s nobody in charge—the National Guard. There’s the police. There is nobody. Somebody needs to come take charge and put organization and get these people to safety, to get them clothes, the basic things that they need to live from day to day.
OLIVIA JOHNSON McQUEEN: Well, we’re hearing people been killed down here. People were saying that bodies was just lying out in the street. They were shooting each other. The military was shooting. One of my neighbors said the military guy shot at him. So that’s what made me not want to come down here.
AMY GOODMAN: Federal relief officials have played almost no role. The head of FEMA, Michael Brown, admitted on CNN last night his agency didn’t even know that thousands of hungry refugees were inside the Convention Center. Residents continue to break into stores in search of everything from food and water to guns, to luxury items.
HENRY ALEXANDER: Nobody here but us. And we just have to look out for one another. All your politicians, they want to get on TV, talking about they’re feeding this person, feeding that person. We ain’t seen nothing over here yet.
AMY GOODMAN: The White House announced it would have zero tolerance for looters, even for those taking essential items needed to stay alive.
DAMU SMITH: Well, I want zero tolerance for that kind of language being used by leaders of our government to discuss poor people, poor black people, who are trying to survive in the—under the most desperate, insane circumstances. I want zero tolerance for thousands of our troops being sent to Iraq when we need them here.
KANYE WEST: I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family, it says they’re looting. If you see a white family, it says they’re looking for food. … George Bush doesn’t care about black people.
AMY GOODMAN: In Biloxi, Mississippi, the first federal aid arrived only yesterday, three full days after the storm wiped out entire sections of the city. In smaller towns in Mississippi, help has still not arrived.
TUTI SHEIBAN: We left for the hurricane and came back Monday night, hoping that we could help some people because, I don’t know, looking at the response to this storm, particularly initially, there wasn’t a lot of outside help. So we decided that really it was up to the people of Jefferson Parish to take the parish back.
JOHN HAMILTON: What I saw from the federal government was a grand total of three boats, Border Patrol agents on three boats: two airboats and one flat-bottom boat. And I saw far more of a response from citizens who had just taken it upon themselves to go and pluck people out of their homes. And they plucked about a dozen out on Saturday.
FLOYD SIMEON: We don’t have any government response here. Everything that’s taken place has taken place by volunteers and citizens in the area. Why aren’t there 50 inflatable boats in the water working a grid, making sure all these people are out of here? Why is it just volunteers? That’s the only people you see around.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: FEMA Director Mike Brown is in charge of all federal response and recovery efforts in the field.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job!
REPORTER: Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi has called for your resignation, and I’m wondering if you have a response to that?
MICHAEL BROWN: The president’s in charge of that, not me.
JUDD LEGUM: Well, right at the top you have Michael Brown, and, as you mentioned, he was the commissioner of judges at the International Arabian Horse Association. To give you an idea of what he did there, he spent a year investigating whether a breeder performed liposuction on a horse’s rear end.
SCOTT McCLELLAN: This is an attempt by some in this room to engage in finger pointing and blame game, and I’m just not going to do that. I’ve made it very clear—I’ve made it very clear, and the president spoke about him last week. And his comments stand in terms of what he said about the great work that they’ve been doing around the clock, 24 hours a day, to help people on the ground.
AMY GOODMAN: That was the former spokesperson for George W. Bush, Scott McClellan, excerpts of Democracy Now!’s coverage of Hurricane Katrina 10 years ago.
New Orleans After Katrina: Inequality Soars as Poor Continue to Be Left Behind in City's "Recovery"
Ten years after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans has become a different city. The population of New Orleans is now approximately 385,000—about 80 percent of its pre-Katrina population. The number of African Americans has plunged by nearly 100,000 since the storm. According to the Urban League, the income gap between black and white residents has increased by 37 percent since 2005. In 2013, the median income for African-American households in New Orleans was $25,000, compared to over $60,000 for white households. Thousands of homes, many in African-American neighborhoods, remain abandoned. We speak to civil rights attorneys Tracie Washington of the Louisiana Justice Institute and Bill Quigley of Loyola University.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: The 2005 storm devastated the Gulf Coast, killing 1,800 people, forcing more than a million people to evacuate. Well, 10 years later, New Orleans has become a different city. The population is now about 385,000—about 80 percent of its pre-Katrina population. The number of African Americans has plunged by nearly 100,000 since the storm. According to the Urban League, the income gap between black and white residents has increased 37 percent since 2005. In 2013, the median income for African-American households in New Orleans was $25,000, compared to over $60,000 for white households. Thousands of homes, many in African-American neighborhoods, remain abandoned.
We’re joined now by two attorneys who have fought for the poor, elderly and the displaced, who have yet to find their way back to the Crescent City. Tracie Washington is a civil rights attorney in New Orleans, founder and president of the Louisiana Justice Institute, which works with impoverished communities and communities of color. And Bill Quigley is a professor and director of the Stuart H. Smith Law Clinic and Center for Social Justice and the Gillis Long Poverty Law Center at Loyola University in New Orleans. He led the fight for residents of New Orleans’ public housing when activists attempted to occupy a building to prevent its demolition.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! And, Bill, I wanted to start with you. When we talked to you just after Katrina hit 10 years ago, you were trapped at Memorial Hospital Tenet with your wife, who is a nurse, and many hundreds of patients. I want to go back to part of what you had to say that day.
BILL QUIGLEY: Who’s left behind in New Orleans right now, you’re talking about tens of thousands of people who are left behind, and those are the sickest, the oldest, poorest, the youngest, the people with disabilities and the like. And the plan was that everybody should leave. Well, you can’t leave if you’re in a hospital. You can’t leave if you’re a nurse. You can’t leave if you are a patient. You can’t leave if you’re in a nursing home. You can’t leave if you don’t have a car. All these things. They didn’t have—there’s no plan for that. And so, we’re talking about somewhere in the neighborhood, I think, of 100,000 people probably in the metropolitan New Orleans area.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Bill Quigley 10 years ago. Bill, talk about that day 10 years ago in the hospital and where your city, New Orleans, is today.
BILL QUIGLEY: Well, thank you, Amy. And first, I think it’s important to recognize that Democracy Now! was really the first voice of the people who were left behind, those of us who were trapped back in New Orleans. As you noted, you know, there were nursing homes full of people, a lot of deaths in those nursing homes; hospitals full of people, a lot of deaths in those hospitals. The jail was full, 7,000 or so prisoners there without electricity, water, everything, that—people stranded on house tops, etc., etc. And the whole thing was—we heard the mayor say mandatory evacuation, but there were no buses, there were no trains. There was no—anything like that. And the disaster that befell the people who were left behind, I think, was obvious to most people who could watch TV. Unfortunately, I was in a hospital, didn’t have electricity, so I didn’t get to see it, but all my friends and family saw it.
And I think it’s important to recognize who was left behind 10 years ago because, in fact, the same people have been left behind in the 10 years of the recovery. There has been a recovery of New Orleans. It just has been some parts of the city and some people in the city who have recovered. The tourist community has recovered to some extent, and we certainly want people to come and visit New Orleans. It’s safe. The hotels are up. The restaurants are up. But, you know, 100,000 of our sisters and brothers in the African-American community have never made it back, ever. And of the people who have made it back, many of them are economically worse off than they were beforehand. We had 5,000 units, good, solid units, of public housing that were bulldozed as a social experiment, part of the ongoing social experiment to get the government out of the area of housing. We have privatized our public housing. We have privatized our healthcare. We had a big Charity Hospital system that has been broken down into lots of parts, a lot of which are under private management. And we have been privatized in terms of our entire public education system. As a result, you know, we had 7,000, mostly African-American, but mixed, as well—7,000 teachers, administrators, teachers’ aides, cafeteria workers and the like who were fired, just like the 5,000 families who were in public housing, who said, "We don’t want you back. We don’t want you to come back to do your job in public education."
So, the recovery that we’ve had in the last 10 years, there has been recovery, primarily in the white community, primarily in the higher economic areas, primarily among homeowners—not all in homeowners. But the people left out: renters, the disabled, the elderly, children. We have thousands and thousands of fewer children in the community. We have thousands of less of older folks. I don’t want to say senior citizens, because I’m a senior citizen myself, so... But the recovery has been a tale of two cities. And we have a lot, a lot of work to do. And we’re fighting right now as a community over this, the story of who has recovered and who hasn’t.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back to August of 2010, when President Obama spoke at Xavier University in New Orleans to commemorate the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. This is part of what he said.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I don’t have to tell you that there are still too many vacant and overgrown lots. There are still too many students attending classes in trailers. There are still too many people unable to find work. And there are still too many New Orleans folks who haven’t been able to come home. So while an incredible amount of progress has been made, on this fifth anniversary I wanted to come here and tell the people of this city directly: My administration is going to stand with you and fight alongside you until the job is done, until New Orleans is all the way back. All the way.
AMY GOODMAN: After President Obama spoke in 2010—by the way, he’s there in New Orleans today, as well, and will be speaking—we interviewed our next guest, civil rights attorney Tracie Washington, for a response.
TRACIE WASHINGTON: That snippet, and part of the speech by President Obama, while on the one hand is encouraging, on the other hand is also frustrating to me. We heard a promise from the government five years ago that we were supposed to be able to recover. We’ve continued to hear promises that have been broken. ... When you continue to make these promises, federal government, at this time, this fire next time, this five years, I want you to put in accountability measures so that we don’t have the theft and graft, and people rich in Manhattan and Long Beach, and us still suffering in New Orleans because of disaster profiteers, that you ensure that our folks here in Louisiana state and locally—make sure that the people who were directly victimized by inaction, by the failure of the Army Corps of Engineers to protect us, now get remedy, and finally, that those folks who are still stuck in the diaspora, who are in almost every zip code in the United States of America, are truly guaranteed the right and given free passage back to New Orleans, because, remember, we put them—we gave them a one-way ticket out. We need to make sure folks not only are welcome back, but are given a plane ride back, given a bus ride back, and ensured that they have housing when they get back here. So that’s my impression. That’s my frustration five years from now. I say this: I will continue to work, because this is my home. And I love this city. But let’s not put the "mission accomplished" banner out now, because we’ve got a lot more work to do.
AMY GOODMAN: So that was Tracie Washington five years ago when President Obama came to town. It is now 10 years after Hurricane Katrina. Tracie Washington, what is your assessment? What say ye today?
TRACIE WASHINGTON: Good morning, Amy, and thank you for inviting me on the show. Well, before we were—excuse me—on air, I joked with Bill that maybe we should all have these shirts that have "mission accomplished" and the sort of Ghostbusters circle with the X inside of it. The mission has not been accomplished to my satisfaction, and most certainly not to the satisfaction of those individuals who are still 100,000 in the diaspora. Look, at this point, at this point 10 years down the road, I think it’s—it’s almost cynical to go to Atlanta and go to Houston and say, "Well, y’all come on back. We want you back now," still offering no free passage, still saying to those folks that, "You know, you can come back, but you come back on your own." The $71 billion that the government put into New Orleans for recovery has already been spent. We’ve had recovery, yes, but the recovery that was promised should have been guaranteed, and there is no guarantee to recovery—that’s number one.
And number two, the recovery that was promised was supposed to be equitable, not equal. We didn’t need equal recovery. Those people who had cars, we knew they were going to get more cars. Those people who had American Express cards, they were going to have another American Express cards. But what President Bush said was he acknowledged that in the city of New Orleans—in the city of New Orleans, we had poverty that should not have been here, that we had economic growth and development that wasn’t reaching a whole segment of our community. And he said when we rebuild, we’re going to rebuild these streets and these communities better, so that everyone can take part. That doesn’t mean equal; that means you start with rebuilding that says, "I’m going to have to give certain communities more." That’s equitable recovery. We didn’t get it. And that’s why, Amy, the rich have gotten richer. And that’s why the French Quarter looks better and smells better than it ever did. That’s why the Sliver by the River has recovered, but not the Lower Ninth Ward, you know, Venetian Isles. That’s what equitable recovery is supposed to look like.
AMY GOODMAN: And that’s where—
TRACIE WASHINGTON: And we didn’t get it.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s where President Obama is going today, right? To the Lower Ninth Ward. A recent rating was done of 300 American cities around economic inequality. New Orleans is number two after Atlanta on the economic inequality rating.
TRACIE WASHINGTON: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: What would you say to President Obama today? Will you actually see him?
TRACIE WASHINGTON: I’m supposed to be there, along with a whole lot of other people in the city of New Orleans. And I hope to see him.
I would say to him, number one, "No mission accomplished. You were right five years ago. Don’t come here today and say, 'Mission accomplished,' because while you’re at a beautifully rebuilt Sanchez Center, if you go three blocks in from Claiborne Avenue, you’ll see that our mission is far from accomplished." The lots aren’t overgrown in many instances; they’re just bulldozed over, right? And so, we still need the rebuild. We still need the equitable recovery.
And again, it’s about accountability. It’s about accountability. And 15 years from now, when we do this on the 25th anniversary, we need to be able to go back and say, "President Bush, you know, President Obama, you failed us." And they need to—and who’s ever in government at that time needs to be able to accept that. I’m still here. I am still hopeful that we won’t be in that situation. But, Amy, I don’t want him to come here and say to that community in the Lower Ninth Ward, "Hercules is all done. Great."
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Tracie Washington, Bill Quigley, I want to thank you both. Tracie Washington, civil rights attorney, founder of the Louisiana Justice Institute; Bill Quigley, law professor and director of the Long Poverty Law Center at Loyola University, speaking to us from New Orleans. When we come back, we’ll be joined by Malik Rahim, a former Black Panther, founder of Common Ground. Stay with us.
If You are Poor, It's Like the Hurricane Just Happened: Malik Rahim on Katrina 10 Years After
We continue our coverage of the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina by speaking to Malik Rahim, co-founder of the Common Ground Collective and one of the founders of the Louisiana chapter of the Black Panther Party. In 2005, he and the Common Ground Collective helped bring thousands of people from all over the world to assist in the rebuilding of New Orleans. Just weeks after Hurricane Katrina hit the city, Malik took us around the neighborhood of Algiers, where he showed us how a corpse still remained in the street unattended, lying right around the corner from a community health center. Malik returns to Democracy Now! to talk about the storm a decade later.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We continue our coverage of the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. In a moment, we’ll be joined by Malik Rahim, co-founder of the Common Ground Collective, which helped bring thousands of people from all over the world to help rebuild New Orleans after the storm. But first, I want to rebroadcast a part of the interview that we did with Malik on Democracy Now! just days after Katrina hit in 2005, when we went down to New Orleans and the community, the neighborhood of Algiers. Malik took us around to the corner at a community health center, a multi-service center, and he showed us how a corpse still remained on the street unattended. Let’s go back to that day.
MALIK RAHIM: You could basically smell it from right here. You know, and the police, they pass by. They look at it, and they ain’t gonna do nothing, you know, to pick it up.
AMY GOODMAN: Malik then walked us down the driveway next to the health center and lifted up a sheet of corrugated metal marked with an X, revealing the dead body underneath.
MALIK RAHIM: Now, his body been here for almost two weeks. Two weeks tomorrow. All right. That this man’s body been laying here. And there’s no reason for it. Look where we at? I mean, it’s not flooded. There’s no reason for them to be—left that body right here like this. I mean, that’s just totally disrespect. You know? And I mean two weeks. Every day, we ask them about coming and pick it up. And they refuse to come and pick it up. And you could see, it’s literally decomposing right here. Right out in the sun. Every day we sit up and we ask them about it. Because, I mean, this is close as you could get to tropical climate in America. And they won’t do anything with it.
AMY GOODMAN: Malik, do you know who this person is?
MALIK RAHIM: No. But regardless of who it is, I wouldn’t care if it’s Saddam Hussein or bin Laden. Nobody deserve to be left here, and the kids pass by here and they’re seeing it. I mean, the elderly. This is what’s frightening a lot of people into leaving. We don’t know if he’s a victim of vigilantes or what. But that’s all we know is that his body had been allowed to remain out here for over two weeks.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re standing right outside the health clinic. Its doors are chained. The building is not seriously damaged. Have you reached people there? What authorities have you talked to to pick up this body?
MALIK RAHIM: We done talked to everyone, from the Army to the New Orleans police to the state troopers to—I mean, we done talked to everybody who we can. I even talked to Oliver Thomas, who is the councilman-at-large, yesterday about this body. He said he was surprised to see that this body is still there. But it’s two weeks, two weeks that this man been just laying here.
AMY GOODMAN: As Malik Rahim was speaking, as if on cue, every level of authority he mentioned drove by. There’s a dead body right here. Is—who are you with?
SOLDIER: We’re with Bravo 15.
AMY GOODMAN: Which is?
SOLDIER: The Cav.
AMY GOODMAN: Army?
SOLDIER: Army, yes. Regular Army.
AMY GOODMAN: There’s a dead body right here. Can you guys pick it up?
SOLDIER: I don’t think we can pick it up, but we can call the local authorities to come and pick it up.
AMY GOODMAN: This gentleman who lives in the neighborhood said that they have been trying to get—here, let me ask these guys, too. Excuse me. Excuse me. Hi. There’s a dead body right here. Can Louisiana state troopers, can you pick it up?
LOUISIANA STATE TROOPER: You need to talk to our public information officer, Ma’am.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s been here for two weeks. We filmed it last week, and gentleman over here said he’s been trying to get it picked up for two weeks. And Louisiana state troopers, the police, the Army, no one has responded. We’re looking right over at it right there.
LOUISIANA STATE TROOPER: You need to talk to our public information officer and contact him at the troop.
AMY GOODMAN: Your name is?
LOUISIANA STATE TROOPER: You need to talk to our public information officer.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you know about the body?
LOUISIANA STATE TROOPER: You need to talk to our public information officer.
AMY GOODMAN: Sir, do you know about the body over there?
LOUISIANA STATE TROOPER: Ma’am, you talk with our public information officer.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you know what they should do to get this body removed?
ROBERT GONZALEZ: I have no idea. I can’t tell you. I don’t know. There’s been several people over here looking at it.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Homeland Security that just went by. Sir, what were you saying?
ROBERT GONZALEZ: There’s been several people over here looking at it, but, you know, like I said, I haven’t seen anybody take it.
AMY GOODMAN: Several Army guys?
ROBERT GONZALEZ: Army. I’ve seen police over here looking at it. Seen ambulances looking at it. That’s about it.
AMY GOODMAN: That was a part of our coverage 10 years ago in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. That last speaker, Robert Gonzalez, was with the Army National Guard, one of the many different levels of law enforcement that drove by within minutes of us going near that corpse. The body had been there for 13 days at that point.
Well, for more, we go back to New Orleans, Louisiana, where we’re joined by Malik Rahim, co-founder of the Common Ground Collective, one of the founders of the Louisiana chapter of the Black Panther Party before that.
Malik, it’s hard to ever forget that day. Talk about what happened to that body and also what’s happened to your city, New Orleans, in this past 10 years.
MALIK RAHIM: Well, first of all, it’s an honor to be on your show once again.
What happened to the body, I would say the next day after it was viewed on Democracy Now!, they picked him up. They picked up that one and other bodies that was laid out in Algiers. All of a sudden, it was like you had waved a magic wand, you know, by bringing awareness to the tragedy of Katrina, that they started making a move.
Over the 10 years, you know, New Orleans is still a story of two cities. You know, if you’re white or if you’re part of that privileged black class or free people of color class, then, you know, I mean, it’s recovered. But if you’re poor and part of that African or Maroon class, then it’s like the hurricane just happened last year.
Right now we’re in the midst of some of the most violent times in the history of this city. And it’s only because of the fact that that 10-, that eight-year-old, that six-year-old child, that 12-year-old child, that was in the Convention Center and abandoned in that Superdome, now they are 22, 16, full of rage, because we did not deem—have any trauma counselors there with them through this.
We have unemployment is over 50 percent. And the ones who are blessed with a job, the disparity of wages is that they make three times less than their white counterpart. Public housing is no more. They displaced everyone. The only equal opportunity employer is the drug dealer. So now we’ve been in the midst of a drug war. And the tails of it is just in the last two days there has been maybe six shootings. So, again, you know, by the fact that our administrations—and I’m talking about on all levels—refused to address the real, pertinent issues of the aftermath of Katrina is the reason why we are in this way, in this dilemma now.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you a question. Kristen McQueary of the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board recently wrote a piece about Chicago’s financial crisis titled "In Chicago, Wishing for a Hurricane Katrina." She writes, quote, "I find [myself] wishing for a storm in Chicago—an unpredictable, haughty, devastating swirl of fury. A dramatic levee break. Geysers bursting through manhole covers. A sleeping city, forced onto [the] rooftops." She later apologized for offending the entire city of New Orleans and beyond. Your response in this last minute we have with you, Malik?
MALIK RAHIM: Well, again, I think that it was totally disrespectful for a person to say that, because, I mean, as an African American, more of my people was killed in the aftermath of Katrina than at any time in the history of this nation. Never at one time have we lost over a thousand lives. And we lost almost 1,200 just in the Lower Ninth Ward. So I feel offended with it.
AMY GOODMAN: And what would you say to President Obama today as he makes his way to the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans?
MALIK RAHIM: I wouldn’t know what to tell him, because of the fact that, you know, our people have seen over six years of President Obama administration, and nothing have changed.
AMY GOODMAN: But they’re hailing New Orleans as a great victory, a remarkable trajectory of progress.
MALIK RAHIM: Yeah, again, that’s among that white and that privileged black class. But that’s only part of this population. And it’s not even the majority. That’s that 40 percent.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you for being with us, co-founder of the Common Ground Collective, and for being there for these 10 years since Hurricane Katrina, not to mention before—Common Ground Collective, which helped bring thousands of people from around the world to help rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina—speaking to us from New Orleans.
Headlines:
Virginia: Vigils Held for Two Journalists Shot Dead on Live Broadcast
In Virginia, vigils have been held for two journalists who were fatally shot on live television during the morning broadcast Wednesday of the local news station WDBJ in Roanoke. Twenty-four-year-old broadcast journalist Alison Parker and 27-year-old cameraman Adam Ward died after suspected gunman Vester Flanagan opened fire. Flanagan was a former journalist at the station who was fired two years ago. He also went by the name Bryce Williams. After the shooting, he allegedly faxed a 23-page letter to ABC News saying, "I’ve been a human powder keg for a while...just waiting to go BOOM!!!!" Flanagan is African-American. The letter cited racial grievance at WDBJ and several other stations. The letter also said the Charleston shooting was "the tipping point" and that he had put down a deposit for a gun two days after the massacre. Police say Vester Flanagan shot himself later Wednesday as they closed in on his car on the Virginia Parkway. He died in the hospital soon after. President Obama, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and other politicians called for increased gun control in the wake of the shooting.
Wal-Mart Will Stop Selling Assault Rifles, Will Still Sell Shotguns
Meanwhile, retail giant Wal-Mart has announced it will no longer sell assault rifles in its stores, although it will continue to sell shotguns. The move, confirmed Wednesday, will end the sale of sporting rifles, which are similar to the military’s AR-15 assault rifle. Wal-Mart said the decision was not impacted by gun politics.
Jorge Ramos to Megyn Kelly: Trump "Has to Answer" on Immigration
Univision new anchor Jorge Ramos has spoken out about being removed from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s press conference Tuesday after he attempted to ask Trump how he would deport 11 million undocumented immigrants. In an interview with Megyn Kelly of Fox News, Ramos, known as the Walter Cronkite of Latino America, said he is still waiting for an answer to his question.
Jorge Ramos: "I’ve been a journalist for 30 years, and I’ve never been ejected from any press conference anywhere in the world. Those are the things that you see in dictatorships, not in the United States of America. And it is very important that he answers the question. He hasn’t answered the questions on how is he going to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants from this country. Can you imagine, Megyn, what would it be? It will require the Army. Is he going to put thousands of immigrants in stadiums and then use buses and airplanes to deport them? That’s not the United States that I know, and he has to answer those questions."
Ricky Martin on Trump: "Xenophobia is Lowest You Can Go"
Meanwhile, Latin superstar singer and actor Ricky Martin has blasted Donald Trump. "The fact that an individual like Donald Trump, a candidate for the presidency of the United States for the Republican party, has the audacity to continue to gratuitously harass the Latin community makes my blood boil. ... Xenophobia as a political strategy is the lowest you can go in search of political power," he wrote in an op-ed for Univision.
Guatemala: Judge Orders Former VP to Remain in Prison Pending Trial
In Guatemala, a judge has ordered that former Vice President Roxana Baldetti must remain in prison while her corruption trial takes place. The ruling comes on the heels of the Guatemalan Supreme Court’s decision Tuesday to lift the immunity from prosecution for President Otto Pérez Molina, clearing the way for his impeachment. The court passed the impeachment recommendation along to Congress. A general strike has been called for today. We’ll have more on Guatemala after headlines.
Honduras: Protesters Demand Resignation of President for Corruption
Meanwhile, in neighboring Honduras, protesters demanding the resignation of President Juan Orlando Hernández flooded into the streets Wednesday, as a $200 million corruption scandal continues to rock the country.
Saudi Ground Troops Cross into Northern Yemen, Escalating Crisis
In news from Yemen, Saudi ground troops have crossed into northern Yemen. The ground offensive comes after months of U.S.-backed, Saudi-led airstrikes. The ongoing fighting between Houthi rebels and pro-government forces backed by the Saudi-led coalition has killed at least 4,000 people and sparked a humanitarian crisis. Saudi Arabia has denied previous reports that it deployed special operations ground troops to Yemen earlier this spring.
China: 12 Arrested for Explosion at Chemical Facility that Killed 139
In China, 12 people have been arrested following a series of explosions that killed 139 people at a chemical storage facility in the port city of Tianjin 10 days ago. The chairman and senior managers of the company that owned the storage facility are among those arrested. At least 500 people remain in the hospital with injuries associated with the blasts.
South Sudan: President and Rebel Leader Sign Peace Deal
In South Sudan, President Salva Kiir has signed a peace deal with rebel leader Riek Machar that seeks to end the country’s civil war, although the president expressed reservations. Under the deal, Machar will return to his position as vice president. The fighting erupted in 2013 and has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
Austria: 50 Migrants Fleeing Violence Found Dead in Parked Truck
In news from Europe, as many as 50 people fleeing violence in their home countries have been found dead in a parked truck in eastern Austria. It appears that they suffocated during their trip north in efforts to seek asylum in northern European countries.
Mississippi: Judge Temporarily Blocks Executions over Drug Cocktail
A federal judge has temporarily shut down executions in Mississippi after he blocked the state from using the drugs pentobarbital and midazolam during executions. Prisoners say the use of these sedatives as part of a drug cocktail risks inducing excruciating pain and torture during the execution, a violation of the Eighth Amendment. The Mississippi Department of Corrections is appealing the ruling.
Civil Rights Pioneer Amelia Boynton Robinson Dies at 104
And civil rights pioneer Amelia Boynton Robinson died Wednesday at the age of 104. In 1965, she was beaten unconscious as she attempted to cross Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge on what became known as Bloody Sunday. She was a lifelong activist for voting rights. President Obama praised her Wednesday, saying, "For most of her 104 years, Amelia committed herself to a simple, American principle: that everybody deserves the right to vote." In March, Democracy Now! interviewed Amelia Boynton Robinson at the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday.
Amy Goodman: "What gave you the courage that day to face those state troopers?"
Amelia Boynton Robinson: "I was born that way. My mother was a civil rights activist back then, when I was born. And I worked with her at 11 years old. I worked with her when women’s suffrage become reality."
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WEB EXCLUSIVE
Civil Rights Activist Amelia Boynton Robinson, Survivor of Bloody Sunday, Dies at 104
FEATURED TOPIC
Hurricane Katrina: 10 Years Later
COLUMN
"The Iran Nuclear Deal: Give Diplomacy a Chance" by Amy Goodman & Denis Moynihan
A war with Iran would be a catastrophe, yet by opposing diplomacy, hundreds of members of Congress may be blundering into just such a conflict. The Iran nuclear deal, as the complex diplomatic arrangement is popularly called, was agreed upon on July 14 by a consortium of key powerful countries, the European Union and Iran. The goal of the agreement is to limit Iran’s nuclear activities to peaceful purposes, and to block Iran’s ability to construct a nuclear bomb. Despite what its critics say, this agreement is not based on trust. It grants the International Atomic Energy Agency the power to conduct widespread, intrusive inspections to ensure that Iran keeps its many pledges. In return, many, but not all, of the sanctions on Iran, which have been crippling its economy, will be lifted.
The alternative to diplomacy is to pour gasoline on a region of the world already on fire with intense, complex military conflicts. Iran’s military has more than half a million soldiers, no doubt with many more who could be mobilized if threatened with invasion. Iran shares a vast border to its west with Iraq, and to its east with Afghanistan, two nations with ongoing military and humanitarian disasters that have consumed the U.S. military since 2001, costing trillions of dollars and untold lives.
Gary Sick served on the National Security Council under Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, and was the principal White House aide for Iran during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis, when 52 Americans were held hostage in Iran for 444 days, between 1979 and 1981. “Basically, we’ve had two years of negotiation, which have been remarkably successful and produced something that is complicated but nevertheless solves the problem,” Sick said on the “Democracy Now!” news hour. “If that is turned down by the U.S. Congress, the United States is on its own.”
Sick makes a key point: Even if the U.S. Congress rejects the deal, and, after President Barack Obama vetoes that rejection (which he has promised to do), even if the Senate can then muster the 67 votes needed to overturn his veto, that doesn’t mean that the other signatories to the deal will go along with the rejection. China, France, Russia and the United Kingdom, along with other European Union countries, can accept the terms and remove sanctions on Iran. This would leave the United States isolated and alone (with its Middle East ally, Israel), on a war footing against Iran. “The chance of renegotiating it is very close to zero. As the situation evolves, there’s a very real chance of conflict,” Gary Sick said.
Another supporter of the deal is an American activist who was a prisoner in Iran. Sarah Shourd was held for more than 400 days in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, much of that time in solitary confinement. She, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal were the three American hikers who were arrested by Iranian border guards while hiking in Iraqi Kurdistan back in 2009. Much of the criticism of the current deal centers on its failure to secure the release of four other Americans, three of whom are known to be imprisoned in Iran, among them Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian. The fourth, Robert Levinson, is believed to be alive, but his whereabouts are unknown.
“Not only does it weaken the hard-liner position in Iran and ease tension between our two countries, it could lead to cooperation to combat ISIS,” Shourd said of the deal on “Democracy Now!.” “I also think that it is good for the Americans that are currently detained there. I think it actually gives the Iranian government less incentive to use hostage taking as a tactic.” When a deal was proposed in 2010, during her imprisonment, Shourd recalled: “I was dancing and laughing in my cell, because I had no doubt in my mind that my release and Shane and Josh’s release would be carefully calibrated with the temperature of U.S.-Iranian relations. So, if the temperature is good, it looks better for the hostages.”
On Wednesday, U.S.-based groups organized more than 225 public demonstrations at the offices of members of Congress, in a “No War With Iran” National Day of Action. Shourd joined scores of other prominent women, among them Gloria Steinem, Alice Walker, Jane Fonda and peace activist Medea Benjamin, under the banner of Codepink, declaring, “Women support the Iran nuclear deal; we say no to war and YES to diplomacy.”
When sealing a nuclear-arms deal with the Soviet Union in 1987, President Reagan repeatedly said, “Trust, but verify,” playing on a Russian proverb. Reagan clearly did not trust the Soviets, so he insisted on a thorough verification process. This deal with Iran has exactly that. Give diplomacy a chance.
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