Right of return and self-determination - in New Orleans

Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:35:25 -0700

Dear Friends and Allies,

Third World Majority ( http://www.cultureisaweapon.org) and Hard Knock Radio sent a joint delegation of woman of color journalists to the Gulf States on a Fact Finding mission to cover and document the struggles and heroic stories of survivals in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. This is our second report:

A dozen miles north of Baton Rouge, in a rural Louisiana town called Baker, a new city is being erected for Katrina evacuees.

The structures they will live in aren't the stylish, modernist prefab homes one might see in the architecture magazine, Dwell. They are airless metal trailers, poorly suited for 90-degree heat. In less than two weeks, 600 of these containers will be standing in a big field just off Groom Road. Rows of port-a-potties and showering facilities will complete the FEMA-funded trailer-home subdivision, swelling Baker's pre-Katrina population of 13,500 by 2,000 more.

Baker's trailer camp - and many others like it - are being developed by the Shaw Group, a politically well-connected Baton Rouge company that has received at least $200 million in FEMA funds for post-Katrina cleanup and reconstruction. The Shaw Group (link:www.shawgrp.com) is a client of former FEMA director, now lobbyist and Salon.com-dubbed "disaster pimp" Joseph Allbaugh who resigned in 2003 and arranged for the disgraced Michael Brown to become his replacement.

Last week, Shaw's CEO, Jim Bernhard, a close friend of Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, stepped down from his post as the state's Democratic Party chairman, allegedly to avoid the appearance of cronyism. The week before that, after the Shaw Group announced it had secured two FEMA no-bid contracts, its stock had surged to a three-year high.

Louisiana's Shawvilles provide the outlines of what New Orleans organizer and journalist Jordan Flaherty (link:  http://www.leftturn.org) has taken to calling "the Disaster Industrial Complex."

According to FEMA, some 300,000 displaced families in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are in need of "temporary housing." Those involved in the Baker project interpret "temporary" to mean anywhere from five months to five years. But a temporary house is not a home. And as FEMA attempts to meet President Bush's request to close most shelters by mid-October, small white rural towns in Louisiana are reporting outbursts of NIMBY-ism.

The bigger picture, many community activists argue, is a resettlement policy that looks like selective depopulation. In New Orleans and parts of the Gulf Coast, predominantly poor communities and communities of color are being dispersed, as families are scattered across the country with one-way tickets and no way to get back home.

At Houston's Reliant Center, Shawn, 34, waited in long FEMA lines for temporary housing. Like an overwhelming majority of evacuees we interviewed, he wanted to return home to New Orleans. Failing that, he wanted to go to Atlanta where he had a cousin. But he was resigned to accept wherever they would send him and his wife and children. "It's like if they show it to you, if you want it (that's good). If you don't,
you be waiting again. You'll be on the bottom of the list," he said. "So people are just going with whatever they could get. They just want get out of the Center."

Curtis Muhammad, a longtime New Orleans resident and a leader of Community Labor United (link:  http://communitylaborunited.net/), an eight-year old coalition that has swelled to include 49 Crescent City community-based organizations, captures the sentiment of many of the displaced. "150,000 (New Orleans residents) are walking around somewhere in these United States," he says. "They're walking around wondering why their government wanted them there."

At the same time, many fear that if the Bush Administration, FEMA, and the Red Cross don't accomplish the depopulation of their neighborhoods, human greed will.

Alice Britton, a 47-year-old nurse from Atlanta, returned to her birth home in Biloxi, Mississippi, near the Gulf to clear the wreckage from the family property and pick up her elderly mother, who had ridden out the storm. She feared for the future of that Black community.

"This is a depressed population, a population that has been taken advantage of for generations, a population that has not been used to or accustomed to much," she said. "Somebody comes in and talks their slick talk and the next thing you know there's going to be $200,000 condos or townhomes that they can't afford. Then they'll bus all of them over to a new ghetto."

The LA Times reported last week that Latter & Blum, one of New Orleans' largest real estate brokerages, was receiving 20 buy calls for every sell call. "Those who want to see this city rebuilt want to see it done in a completely different way: demographically, geographically and politically," James Reiss, a wealthy Uptown scion and New Orleans Regional Authority chairman, told the Wall Street Journal. "I'm not just speaking for myself here. The way we've been living is not going to happen again, or we're out."

Organizers worry that pro-developer efforts such as the city's pre-Katrina "Hollywood South" campaign, which sought to lure filmmakers and tourism and real estate development through tax breaks, and its "urban renewal"-driven clearance of several large housing projects, may accelerate into a full-scale depopulation of poor, Black neighborhoods. Muhammad described seeing families in shelters hounded by real estate agents to sell their properties. Jordan Flaherty says, "I feel like the elites of New Orleans are moving very quickly on this, probably faster than we even know."

In Uptown and the French Quarter, National Guardsmen have joined private security forces to secure and assist cleanup and reconstruction efforts. Things are going so well that even a Larry Flynt-owned strip club has reopened for business.

"We are watching them open up the white hotels already. We're watching them rebuild the casinos. We're watching them rebuild the oil rigs in the ocean. We see construction going on downtown. You wouldn't believe it," says Muhammad. "It's almost back to normal."

But last week, in largely poor and Black neighborhoods such as the Ninth Ward, there was almost no government presence. Instead, relief and rebuilding was being administered by groups like Community Labor United (link:  http://communitylaborunited.net/), the Common Ground Collective
(link:  http://commongroundrelief.org/), and Food Not Bombs (link:  http://www.foodnotbombs.net/katrina.html). With the second break of the Industrial Canal levee on Friday due to rains from Hurricane Rita, and the reflooding of the Ninth Ward, it was unclear how these grassroots operations would be affected.

In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, community organizations that had been working on issues such as police brutality, education, migrant workers rights, prisoners' rights, and hip-hop activism quickly retooled themselves into urgent relief agencies. At the same time, long-standing institutions, such as Black churches and mosques, the New Black Panther Party, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, the NAACP, and Buddhist and Hindu temples and migrant workers group Project Prep, sprang into action.

These efforts are likely to continue because FEMA and Red Cross shelters are under pressure to close. The Mississippi Coliseum in Jackson was recently cleared of displaced people so that a Disney on Ice "Finding Nemo" show could go on as planned.

At the same time, many evacuees of color increasingly feel patronized by shelter workers. "The volunteers are middle class and white, and folks coming out of these areas are poor Blacks and poor whites. There is already a problem there, because the volunteers have all these assumptions," says Tarana Burke, who helped coordinate the celebrated Selma, Alabama, hip-hop activist organization 21st Century Youth Leadership Project's relief efforts.

In many instances, FEMA and the Red Cross simply left African American populations unserved. In Biloxi, many African Americans remain camped outside of their demolished houses and apartments, and under highway overpasses, awaiting aid from FEMA and the Red Cross. In the poor, rural, still racially segregated Jefferson Davis County, the Red Cross set up at the single registered church, a white one, and African Americans watched as relief trucks drove past their towns and churches. "I can't tell you what I think the Red Cross needs to be doing more because I can't say that I have seen them," says Pastor Luther Martin of Mississippi's Crossroads Ministry.

Where FEMA and the Red Cross failed, the community organizations stepped in to provide food and shelter, medical aid, and family reunion information.

Across rural Mississippi, Black churches such as the Crossroads Ministry were the first responders to isolated residents. In Algiers, Louisiana, Malik Rahim's Common Ground Collective has fed, housed and provided medical care to tens of thousands of people. The 21st Century Youth Leadership Project opened its camp outside of Selma, Alabama, to a surge of 200 families. The evacuees found the process empowering. In a reversal of the provider-victim model of traditional emergency services, the evacuees at the 21st Century camp organized themselves into cooking and cleaning shifts.

But as Shawvilles rise and Gulf Coast residents continue to be dispersed far from home, many of those same organizations now believe they must transition from relief issues to return issues.

"At first we were overwhelmed with the magnitude of the problem. We were still in a state of shock," says Shana Sassoon of the New Orleans Network (link:  http://www.neworleansnetwork.org/), a federation of organizations now trying to map the community assets of the evacuated neighborhoods. "But now ideas like the right of return, the right to reconstruct the city ourselves—those terms are starting to become clearer to us."

Derrick Johnson, the State Conference President of the Mississippi NAACP, says the main question now is: "How is the government going to support these people it betrayed? What is going to do to make these cities and these peoples whole? We believe part of it is making sure our communities they betrayed are at the table for reconstruction, awarding of contracts, and the development of affordable housing."

On Sept. 8, with news reports that up to $50 billion in government aid might be released, Community Labor United convened dozens of activists in Baton Rouge to form the People's Hurricane Relief & Reconstruction Project. "The most fundamental demand," reads the Project's manifesto, "must be the right of people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast to return to their homes and their communities and participate in reconstruction."

Demands also included government funds for family reunions, including making the databases of FEMA and the Red Cross; a Victims Compensation Fund like the one created in New York after 9/11; representation on all boards that are making decisions on spending public dollars for relief
and reconstruction; public work jobs at union wages for the displaced workers and residents of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast; and transparency in the entire reconstruction process.

The lesson of Katrina, Curtis Muhammad says, is self-determination. "Those dollars that are being sent to the government, that are being sent to the Red Cross by the international community, all these stars raising money, giving it to this and giving it to that, they really still believe the government is going to help us," he said. "Maybe that's the blessing in all of this—that maybe we needed to know that we were alone and that we needed to look out for our own. Our self-determination comes from the realization that we're all we got."


To support the People's Hurricane Relief & Reconstruction Project, go to
 http://communitylaborunited.net.
Thenmozhi Soundararajan and Anita Johnson are reporting from the Gulf Coast for Hard Knock Radio (Pacifica Radio) and  http://thirdworldmajority.org.
Jeff Chang reported from Berkeley, California and wrote this article.
Additional reporting done by Macho Cabrera Estévez.


Private Security in New Orleans

 http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20051010&s=scahill

Blackwater Down
by JEREMY SCAHILL

[from the Nation, October 10, 2005 issue]

The men from Blackwater USA arrived in New Orleans right after Katrina hit. The company known for its private security work guarding senior US diplomats in Iraq beat the federal government and most aid organizations to the scene in another devastated Gulf. About 150 heavily armed Blackwater troops dressed in full battle gear spread out into the chaos of New Orleans. Officially, the company boasted of its forces "join[ing] the hurricane relief effort." But its men on the ground told a different story.

Some patrolled the streets in SUVs with tinted windows and the Blackwater logo splashed on the back; others sped around the French Quarter in an unmarked car with no license plates. They congregated on the corner of St. James and Bourbon in front of a bar called 711, where Blackwater was establishing a makeshift headquarters. From the balcony above the bar, several Blackwater
guys cleared out what had apparently been someone's apartment. They threw mattresses, clothes, shoes and other household items from the balcony to the street below. They draped an American flag from the balcony's railing. More than a dozen troops from the 82nd Airborne Division stood in formation on the street watching the action.

Armed men shuffled in and out of the building as a handful told stories of their past experiences in Iraq. "I worked the security detail of both Bremer and Negroponte," said one of the Blackwater guys, referring to the former head of the US occupation, L. Paul Bremer, and former US Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte. Another complained, while talking on his cell phone, that he was getting only $350 a day plus his per diem. "When they told me New Orleans, I said, 'What country is that in?'" he said. He wore his company ID around his neck in a case with the phrase Operation Iraqi Freedom printed on it.

In an hourlong conversation I had with four Blackwater men, they characterized their work in New Orleans as "securing neighborhoods" and "confronting criminals." They all carried automatic assault weapons and had guns strapped to their legs. Their flak jackets were covered with pouches for extra ammunition.

When asked what authority they were operating under, one guy said, "We're on contract with the Department of Homeland Security." Then, pointing to one of his comrades, he said, "He was even deputized by the governor of the state of Louisiana. We can make arrests and use lethal force if we deem it necessary." The man then held up the gold Louisiana law enforcement badge he wore around his neck. Blackwater spokesperson Anne Duke also said the company has a letter from Louisiana officials authorizing its forces to carry loaded weapons.

"This vigilantism demonstrates the utter breakdown of the government," says Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. "These private security forces have behaved brutally, with impunity, in Iraq. To have them now on the streets of New Orleans is frightening and possibly illegal."

Blackwater is not alone. As business leaders and government officials talk openly of changing the demographics of what was one of the most culturally vibrant of America's cities, mercenaries from companies like DynCorp, Intercon, American Security Group, Blackhawk, Wackenhut and an Israeli company called Instinctive Shooting International (ISI) are fanning out to guard private businesses and homes, as well as government projects and institutions. Within two weeks of the hurricane, the number of private security companies registered in Louisiana jumped from 185 to 235. Some, like Blackwater, are under federal contract. Others have been hired by the wealthy elite, like F. Patrick Quinn III, who brought in private security to guard his $3 million private estate and his luxury hotels, which are under consideration for a lucrative federal contract to house FEMA
workers.

A possibly deadly incident involving Quinn's hired guns underscores the dangers of private forces policing American streets. On his second night in New Orleans, Quinn's security chief, Michael Montgomery, who said he worked for an Alabama company called Bodyguard and Tactical Security (BATS), was with a heavily armed security detail en route to pick up one of Quinn's associates and escort him through the chaotic city. Montgomery told me they came under fire from "black gangbangers" on an overpass near the poor Ninth Ward neighborhood. "At the time, I was on the phone with my business partner," he recalls. "I dropped the phone and returned fire."

Montgomery says he and his men were armed with AR-15s and Glocks and that they unleashed a barrage of bullets in the general direction of the alleged shooters on the overpass. "After that, all I heard was moaning and screaming, and the shooting stopped. That was it. Enough said."

Then, Montgomery says, "the Army showed up, yelling at us and thinking we were the enemy. We explained to them that we were security. I told them what had happened and they didn't even care. They just left." Five minutes later, Montgomery says, Louisiana state troopers arrived on the scene, inquired about the incident and then asked him for directions on "how they could get out of the city." Montgomery says that no one ever asked him for any details of the incident and no report was ever made. "One thing about security," Montgomery says, "is that we all coordinate with each other--one family." That co-ordination doesn't include the offices of the Secretaries of State in
Louisiana and Alabama, which have no record of a BATS company.

A few miles away from the French Quarter, another wealthy New Orleans businessman, James Reiss, who serves in Mayor Ray Nagin's administration as chairman of the city's Regional Transit Authority, brought in some heavy guns to guard the elite gated community of Audubon Place: Israeli mercenaries dressed in black and armed with M-16s. Two Israelis patrolling the gates
outside Audubon told me they had served as professional soldiers in the Israeli military, and one boasted of having participated in the invasion of Lebanon. "We have been fighting the Palestinians all day, every day, our whole lives," one of them tells me. "Here in New Orleans, we are not guarding from terrorists." Then, tapping on his machine gun, he says, "Most Americans, when they see these things, that's enough to scare them."

The men work for ISI, which describes its employees as "veterans of the Israeli special task forces from the following Israeli government bodies: Israel Defense Force (IDF), Israel National Police Counter Terrorism units, Instructors of Israel National Police Counter Terrorism units, General
Security Service (GSS or 'Shin Beit'), Other restricted intelligence agencies." The company was formed in 1993. Its website profile says: "Our up-to-date services meet the challenging needs for Homeland Security preparedness and overseas combat procedures and readiness. ISI is currently an approved vendor by the US Government to supply Homeland Security services."

Unlike ISI or BATS, Blackwater is operating under a federal contract to provide 164 armed guards for FEMA reconstruction projects in Louisiana. That contract was announced just days after Homeland Security Department spokesperson Russ Knocke told the Washington Post he knew of no federal plans to hire Blackwater or other private security firms. "We believe we've got the
right mix of personnel in law enforcement for the federal government to meet the demands of public safety," he said. Before the contract was announced, the Blackwater men told me, they were already on contract with DHS and that they were sleeping in camps organized by the federal
agency.

One might ask, given the enormous presence in New Orleans of National Guard, US Army, US Border Patrol, local police from around the country and practically every other government agency with badges, why private security companies are needed, particularly to guard federal projects. "It strikes me...that that may not be the best use of money," said Illinois Senator Barack Obama.

Blackwater's success in procuring federal contracts could well be explained by major-league contributions and family connections to the GOP. According to election records, Blackwater's CEO and co-founder, billionaire Erik Prince, has given tens of thousands to Republicans, including more than $80,000 to the Republican National Committee the month before Bush's victory in 2000. This
past June, he gave $2,100 to Senator Rick Santorum's re-election campaign. He has also given to House majority leader Tom DeLay and a slew of other Republican candidates, including Bush/Cheney in 2004. As a young man, Prince interned with President George H.W. Bush, though he complained at the time that he "saw a lot of things I didn't agree with--homosexual groups being
invited in, the budget agreement, the Clean Air Act, those kind of bills. I think the Administration has been indifferent to a lot of conservative concerns."

Prince, a staunch right-wing Christian, comes from a powerful Michigan Republican family, and his father, Edgar, was a close friend of former Republican presidential candidate and antichoice leader Gary Bauer. In 1988 the elder Prince helped Bauer start the Family Research Council. Erik Prince's sister, Betsy, once chaired the Michigan Republican Party and is married to Dick DeVos, whose father, billionaire Richard DeVos, is co-founder of the major Republican benefactor Amway. Dick DeVos is also a big-time contributor to the Republican Party and will likely be the GOP candidate for Michigan governor in 2006. Another Blackwater founder, president Gary Jackson, is also a major contributor to Republican campaigns.

After the killing of four Blackwater mercenaries in Falluja in March 2004, Erik Prince hired the Alexander Strategy Group, a PR firm with close ties to GOPers like DeLay. By mid-November the company was reporting 600 percent growth. In February 2005 the company hired Ambassador Cofer Black, former coordinator for counterterrorism at the State Department and former director
of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, as vice chairman. Just as the hurricane was hitting, Blackwater's parent company, the Prince Group, named Joseph Schmitz, who had just resigned as the Pentagon's Inspector General, as the group's chief operating officer and general counsel.

While juicing up the firm's political connections, Prince has been advocating greater use of private security in international operations, arguing at a symposium at the National Defense Industrial Association earlier this year that firms like his are more efficient than the military. In May Blackwater's Jackson testified before Congress in an effort to gain lucrative Homeland
Security contracts to train 2,000 new Border Patrol agents, saying Blackwater understands "the value to the government of one-stop shopping." With President Bush using the Katrina disaster to try to repeal Posse Comitatus (the ban on using US troops in domestic law enforcement) and Blackwater and other security firms clearly initiating a push to install their paramilitaries on US soil, the war is coming home in yet another ominous way. As one Blackwater mercenary said, "This is a trend. You're going to see a lot more guys like us in these situations."