Haiti

HAITI -- (House of Representatives - September 15, 2008)

Ms. CLARKE. Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus and its members, we are presenting this evening during our message hour a call to action, that is Haiti, country in crisis.

We have witnessed this year, so far in the hurricane season, tremendous distress, death and destruction. I want to start by expressing the sympathies of myself and the members of the Congressional Black Caucus, our condolences and support for the people of Texas and the Gulf Region, who have been toiling under storm after storm after storm and dealing with the destruction that comes from nature's wrath, as some would place it.

In this context, I wanted to speak a bit this evening with my colleagues and with the public about the need to actually look at what happens, not at the point at which the hurricane ends on our shores, but also its path and the death and destruction that it leaves in the wake of its path.

I am speaking of the Caribbean region in our hemisphere, and the many nations in those waters that have been devastated by the series of hurricane activity this year, be it the island nation of Turks and Caicos or the island nation of Jamaica, the island nation of the Dominican Republic, the island nations in the Caribbean region have been rocked by this year's hurricane season thus far. I have had the opportunity to join with Congressman KENDRICK MEEK and Congresswoman DONNA EDWARDS from Maryland on an emergency codel to destination, Haiti.

The devastation that we witnessed firsthand on that nation is truly a call to action. As you can see here, this year we have had a number of storms from Category 1 to Category 5 in their strength. The nation of Haiti in just 3 weeks was struck by four storms, Tropical Storm Fay, which hit on August 16; Hurricane Gustav, which hit on August 26; Tropical Storm Hanna, which hit on September 1; and then Hurricane Ike, which hit on September 7.

It is estimated that over 850,000 people have been affected by this storm on the island nation of Haiti, and almost half of those affected were children. It is estimated that over 500 people have been killed and rescuers and aides are only beginning to reach some of the hardest-hit areas, as I speak to you right now. It is also estimated that over 150,000 people are internally displaced, and only about half of those people are in shelters.

You will notice that I have been saying, as has been estimated, and this is the case, because Haiti has lost its ability to communicate across its island. The destruction that has rocked that nation has eight of Haiti's 10 geographic departments, which have been flooded. All of the major roads and bridges granting access to many of the hardest-hit areas have been washed away.

Haiti's prime minister says that 1 million people or more may be homeless. The storms have crippled Haiti's already delicate infrastructure, and most of the City of Gonaives, which is the second-largest city on the island, is damaged so badly that it cannot be repaired. Local officials are considering moving the entire city to another part of the island that is on higher ground.

We had an opportunity to meet with President Rene Preval on our codel, and he said to us, this is the Katrina of an entire nation, but we are suffering without a fraction of the means that Louisiana had. A lot of infrastructure that was destroyed by Hurricane Jean in 2004 was recently rebuilt and recently destroyed by this latest series of storms.

This includes the hospital in Gonaives. Radio NPR reports that in the Grand Ravine neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, 700 people are living in a school where there is no running water, no electricity, no beds and often no food. People have been packed in there for weeks, but all is not lost. I was proud to see that, very swiftly, the United States has moved into action to aid our neighbors and our friend known as the island nation of Haiti.

Upon arriving in Port-au-Prince, we saw a lot of helicopter activity and were informed that the USS Kearsarge is in port in Port-of-Spain providing needed humanitarian assistance and aid.

As I said earlier in my presentation, all of the major roads and bridges have collapsed. That has isolated many of the communities and the cities that have historically been connected in commerce and in bringing foods and goods and services across the island. So the only way that people can be fed, can be given water, can be administered medicine is through the air, and we are proud to know that our aircraft carrier is there, as we speak, administering that much needed aid and support.

I want to thank the young men and women I met there who sought not robbery but, rather, to change their mission, to move along with their admiral and captain and crew into the Caribbean Sea from Latin America and over to Haiti where they're working night and day to try to preserve as much life as possible. I can tell you that, from my observations, this is a mammoth task. The mammoth task exists because Haiti remains flooded out.

In Gonaive, we did a flyover, and we were able to see in the streets where people live. There was rushing water, like rivers, flowing past people's homes, flowing over all of their planting grounds, and making it so that people were actually risking their lives in simply trying to get from point A to point B. Many of the residents have taken to their rooftops to live. In other areas, we witnessed the levels of mud that have accumulated as the waters have receded. In some areas, there are as much as 2 to 4 feet of mud before people's homes, in the roadways, in the byways of the communities in which people live.

We had an opportunity to pass over Haiti's breadbasket, an area in Haiti where new harvesting was taking place--the planting of rice. That entire area is completely flooded out, having basically killed off this planting season for Haiti, and so we have a nation in crisis. The crisis is one of a magnitude that I, personally, have never witnessed before. The circumstances become more and more dire with each passing moment.

Haiti is the poorest country in our hemisphere, and it is one of our closest neighbors, just a little over 700 miles away from Miami, Florida. Many in Haiti were looking forward to the harvest of rice crop. Unfortunately, much of it, if not all of it, has been destroyed by these storms just as the food crisis in that country was beginning to abate.

The USAID has moved in. They are providing as much as they possibly can in terms of response. They have allocated $7.5 million in humanitarian assistance. The total value of U.S. Government humanitarian assistance is currently $20 billion. According to the USAID, Haitian Government officials have stated that these recent storms have caused an estimated $265 million in damage, particularly affecting their housing stock, agriculture, public infrastructure, and education.

In meeting with the newly installed Prime Minister for Haiti, Madam Michele Pierre-Louis, we were informed that the children's school has been postponed until the month of October, somewhere around October 3. My observations are that we will have to move with all deliberate speed to help and to assist in the recovery and in the rescue of those people in the various departments residing in the nation of Haiti in order for that part of their lives to be resumed.

We are not in this alone. I was very glad to see that the international community has responded as well. The U.N. troops and peacekeepers are on the ground, helping with the civil society, and the embassies of many of their partner nations--namely Canada, France and Brazil--are also collaborating with their local relief NGOs to bring as much to bear in this forward movement to get Haiti back on its feet, and it's going to take a coordinated effort to make sure that this is done in a timely and in a coordinated manner.

It is my hope that, through tonight's discussion, through tonight's presentations, we will see the need as a Nation to respond and to keep our response going and that when the TV cameras and the press crews have left Haiti that we will remember that this is a nation that is struggling to stand on its feet and that its civil society is extremely fragile. These storms have compounded what has been an ongoing challenge for Haiti to feed its own people.

So, this evening, I wanted to just share some of what I witnessed in the emergency codel commission by the Congressional Black Caucus, and I want to express gratitude to Speaker Pelosi and to Congressman KENDRICK MEEK for being so expedient in putting this codel together so that we could bring back the relevant facts to this body and to make sure that we're able to do all that we can do as we rebuild here in our own Nation and to make sure that, as to the hemisphere that we reside in, we are good neighbors and that, for our own sakes and for the sakes of the people who reside in Haiti, we do all that we can to make sure that they are on a safe road to recovery.

Having said that, I'm joined by a number of my colleagues this evening, all of whom have had longstanding ties to the nation of Haiti, all of whom have worked very hard in this body to make sure that we remain true to our values as a Nation. They have been there throughout many crises in Haiti.

I'd like to acknowledge Congresswoman Donna Edwards of Maryland, Congresswoman Barbara Lee of California and Congresswoman Maxine Waters of California to make their statements.

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Ms. CLARKE. Thank you very much, Congresswoman BARBARA LEE, for your leadership, your commitment as a remember of the CBC, and a Member of the House of Representatives. You have been very outspoken and a real leader in addressing these challenges that are before our international community, our friends, and our allies.

So this evening, if I didn't see it for myself, I would not believe it. Haiti is in crisis. As we stand here today, lives are tenuous. And what Haiti needs immediately we've been able to identify. Haiti needs as much support as we can give from this body, as much as we can orchestrate through our Department of Defense.

There is a need for watercraft that can travel across the waters to get to very remote areas that have been cut off by land; there's a need for assessment to take place as quickly as possible about the structural soundness of the infrastructure that currently exists, any modern technology that can be utilized to pump waters back into the seas to help dry out those areas.

Certainly food products are very important. We see a hunger crisis coming down the pike of a magnitude that I don't think we every witnessed in this hemisphere. We need clean water. The waterways of Haiti have been contaminated by the death and destruction around them, the death of humankind, the death of livestock. They need clean drinking water, they need medication and medical support because we are anticipating and trying to get ahead of any outbreaks of airborne diseases, of mosquito-borne diseases.

They need support for those who are struggling with their own health conditions currently.

We've asked the President of the United States to move forward with temporary protected status for Haitians, to halt the deportation of Haitians from the U.S. To send individuals into that environment right now is cruel and unusual punishment. We hope that the administration will heed this call at this time.

There are immigration issues, but there's an unprecedented international relief effort going on right now in Haiti, and the last thing that the Nation can do right now is provide for those who are returning deportees.

Despite the frequent report of drowning caused by unsafe refugee boats collapsing, the current conditions and crisis in Haiti may trigger an exodus of Haitian immigrants to the United States. Desperate times call for desperate measures. You have desperation climbing each and every day.

Since fiscal year 1998, the Coast Guard has interdicted well over 1,000 Haitians each year. Over 1,000 Haitians have already been interdicted in 2008.

Temporary protected status is the most inexpensive, immediate form of aid the President can single-handedly provide, and we ask that he make this possible as soon as possible.

There are currently six countries that are protected under TPS provisions: Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Burundi, Somalia and Sudan. And while other countries under similar circumstances have been afforded relief through TPS, Haiti has been overlooked time and time again.

Remittances are currently one-third of Haiti's gross national product. If we indeed want to underpin and undergird this country in its recovery, it is critical that we look at every vehicle and instrument we have at our disposal to help the people of the island nation of Haiti.

So we've put some recommendations forward. We look forward to further debate and conversation here in the House of Representatives. Haiti is a country in crisis. I've seen it. I know it. It is our time now to act upon it.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for giving us this time as the Congressional Black Caucus. I want to thank our chairwoman, CAROLYN KILPATRICK, for her vision and leadership and her insistence upon us traveling on this emergency codel.

I'd like to thank again my colleagues Congressman KENDRICK MEEK for his leadership in this codel and his ability to get things moving and done through his affiliation and work as a member of the Armed Services Committee.

And I'd like to thank our newest Member, DONNA EDWARDS, for her leadership. She is a rising star. She is a part of making things happen here on the Hill, and it's just a source of pride and inspiration to work with her on this very important endeavor.

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