Monday, September 5, 2005
Contacts:
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624, mclarty@greens.org
Starlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, cell phone 916-995-3805, starlene@greens.org
Romi Elnagar (Baton Rouge), Acting Secretary of the Green Party of
Louisiana,
225-767-5173, bluesapphire48@yahoo.com
Greens organize a campground shelter and send
buses for victims; 2004 Green V.P. candidate LaMarche heads to
Louisiana with the Red Cross; Greens warn that more destructive
hurricanes are likely to strike the U.S.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Green Party members
intensified their efforts to help in the relief effort for victims of
hurricane Katrina, and also called for the head of the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to be fired.
Greens urged an independent investigation into the
federal government's mismanagement of relief and rescue and failure to
heed numerous warnings of an impending hurricane disaster in the Gulf
region.
Greens across the U.S. have helped organize
numerous efforts to get aid to people in Louisiana, Mississippi, and
Alabama. Andrea Garland and other Louisiana Greens have set up web
pages to help provide shelter and other assistance and are heading to
New Orleans with a trailer full of food, water, and supplies.
Green Party of Florida co-chair Sarah
"Echo" Steiner established a comfortable and safe haven for
evacuees on a campground in Florida. The camp is also collecting
water, food and supplies for immediate delivery to the New Orleans
area. The Green-led Minnesota Coalition to Aid Hurricane Katrina
Survivors' first bus left Minneapolis to transport evacuees from and
provide vital supplies for survivors on Saturday evening.
Pat LaMarche, the Green Party's vice presidential
nominee in 2004 and co-chair of the Green Party of the United States,
will travel to New Orleans as a journalist and a first aid worker with
the Red Cross.
These and other Green-led efforts are listed and
linked at the bottom of this release.
Lethal negligence, ineptitude, and racism
Greens noted that in 2001, the same year in which FEMA called a major
hurricane hitting New Orleans one of the three "likeliest, most
catastrophic disasters facing this country," FEMA also announced
that it would downsized and privatize its services and the Bush
Administration and Congress began to scale back funding for FEMA and
flood control projects in New Orleans.
In 2003, FEMA was downgraded from a Cabinet level
position and folded into the Department of Homeland Security. In 2004,
FEMA denied funding requests from the state of Louisiana for dealing
with the growing likelihood of a hurricane disaster. In June, 2005,
funding for the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers was cut by $71.2 million.
"President Bush appointed two FEMA chiefs
with no experience in disaster management: first Joe Allbaugh, and
then Michael Brown, who has mismanaged the current emergency,"
said Leenie Halbert, acting co-chair of the Green Party of Louisiana.
"Mr. Brown, who proved his ignorance of conditions in New Orleans
during a Nightline interview on September 1, must be dismissed and
replaced immediately by someone with expertise. There was no way to
prevent Katrina, but the loss of life and devastation were surely
aggravated by the administration's willful negligence and
ineptitude." (More on Michael Brown: <http://business.bostonherald.com/businessNews/view.bg?articleid=100857&format=text>)
Greens were especially outraged that, after the
Bush Administration took five days to get the National Guard and
concerted relief efforts into New Orleans, the National Guard treated
the mission as "combat operation" -- as "Little
Somalia," according to Brigadier General Gary Jones, commander of
the Louisiana National Guard's Joint Task Force (Army Times, September
2 <http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1077495.php>).
"There are supplies sitting in Baton Rouge
for the folks in New Orleans, but the National Guard has the city
surrounded and is not letting anyone in or out," said Andrea
Garland of the New Orleans Green Party. "They are turning away
people with supplies, claiming it is too dangerous. If we have planes
that can drop bombs on people in Iraq, certainly we can air drop
supplies into the city.... [T]he people of the United States... need
to know that New Orleans is deliberately being denied food and water.
Perhaps if the people there had food and water, they might not be
shooting off guns."
Greens praised rapper Kanye West for departing
from his scripted remarks during a broadcast of the Concert for
Hurricane Relief on NBC Friday evening, when he condemned the
treatment of African Americans caught in the disaster, the racism of
the Bush Administration for its delayed response, and the bias of the
media for portraying blacks as looters while excusing whites
"looking for food."
"The federal government's response to the
disaster showed utter indifference to the fate of black people, poor
people, the elderly, and the sick who were caught in the hurricane's
path," said Malik Rahim, organizer of public housing tenants and
recent Green candidate for New Orleans City Council, who lives in the
Algiers neighborhood. "Property rights have been given greater
priority than the threat of starvation, disease, and death."
Positive steps and preparation for the next
calamity
The Green Party, which has condemned the invasion
of Iraq and called for an immediate end to the occupation and safe
return of U.S. troops, supports the redeployment of the National Guard
in noncombat relief and rescue operations in Louisiana, Mississippi,
and Alabama, and urges the National Guard and Armed Forces to prepare
for future hurricane disasters similar to Katrina and to open military
bases to people in need of shelter and medical attention.
"We have an opportunity right now to offer
unemployed young people jobs in relief and rebuilding damaged areas,
at livable wages," said Mark Dunlea, former chair of the Green
Party of New York State, who has helped coordinate emergency food
relief in New York for the last twenty years. "This would provide
an investment in America's future that would pay off over and over,
lifting people out of poverty and the hopelessness brought by
Katrina."
Greens also called for a reorientation of energy
policy: promotion of renewable sources and energy conservation, rather
than reckless consumption of fossil fuels that has made the U.S.
dependent on Middle Eastern oil, vulnerable to disruptions like
Katrina, with the resulting rise in gas prices.
"The Bush White House and Democrats and
Republicans in Congress should be held responsible for ignoring
countless published warnings of a likely hurricane disaster
threatening New Orleans and other population centers in Gulf
states," said Romi Elnagar, Acting Secretary of the Green Party
of Louisiana. "The Bush Administration has ignored and harassed
scientists and tampered with scientific findings, especially on
climate change. It's significant that Katrina and other hurricanes
that have struck Florida and other southeastern states recently were
intensified by a rise in ocean temperatures triggered by global
warming."
"The same evidence points to more destructive
hurricanes in coming years, perhaps even striking New Orleans
again," said Ms. Elnagar. "Will we be prepared the next
time? How long will Bush Administration officals and apologists
continue to accuse Americans who ask these urgent questions of
'politicizing' the disaster, instead of examining the reckless
policies that have cost so many lost lives?"
MORE INFORMATION
Green Party of the United States
http://www.gp.org
1711 18th Street NW
Washington, DC 20009.
202-319-7191, 866-41GREEN
Fax 202-319-7193
Radio interview with New Orleans Green Party leader Malik Rahim
http://radio.indymedia.org/uploads/lotus-malik-katrina.mp3
"This is Criminal": Account by Mr. Rahim (Green Party of
Louisiana press release, September 3, 2005) http://www.gp.org/press/states/la_2005_09_03.shtml
New Orleans Independent Media Center coverage of the hurricane
aftermath http://neworleans.indymedia.org/
RELIEF EFFORTS organized by Green Parties and Green Party members:
Green Party web page with information on aid for victims of the
hurricane http://www.gp.org/katrina2005/
Web page with information on relief efforts, set up by New Orleans
Greens Andrea Garland and Jeffrey Holmes http://www.getyouracton.com/
Discussion list set up by Green Party member Bart Everson from New
Orleans, for exchange of information (advice, requests for help and
offers of direct material, other assistance) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/katrina-refugees/
Minnesota Coalition to Aid Hurricane Katrina Survivors, set up with
the participation of Minnesota and Wisconsin Greens http://www.mncahs.org/
Shelter for Katrina evacuees in Florida
Contact: Sarah "Echo" Steiner, 561-389-2844
Green Party of New Jersey Katrina Disaster Community Support http://gpnj.org/Katrina%20relief