The US intends to depopulate New Orleans and as much else of the
Mississippi Delta/Gulf Coast region as it can. This is part of long
standing plans for "spatial deconcentration" of Black and other poor and
colonized people, and flows directly out of the disenfranchisement of
Black
people carried out in 2000 and ratified in 2004. Bush is quite aware
that
but for Black people, David Duke would be Senator from or Governor of
Louisiana (Duke got 60% of the white vote in two statewide
elections). So
is Duke, whose headquarters were destroyed and is already fundraising
intensively to get rebuilt.
The call for bringing the National Guard "back" was hopelessly naive, as
ARA-LA/PART said in out editorial. The National Guard is not a relief
agency -- it is a military operation and in this case, it is carrying
out
the occupation, pacification and DEPOPULATION of New Orleans -- a
military
task identical to its role in Fallouja!
Here's what the Red Cross has to say about why it's not being allowed
into
New Orleans:
Disaster FAQs
Hurricane Katrina: Why is the Red Cross not in New Orleans?
http://www.redcross.org/faq/0,1096,0_682_4524,00.html#4524
* Access to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and
local
authorities and while we are in constant contact with them, we simply
cannot enter New Orleans against their orders.
* The state Homeland Security Department had requested--and
continues
to request--that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans
following the hurricane. Our presence would keep people from
evacuating and
encourage others to come into the city.
* The Red Cross has been meeting the needs of thousands of New
Orleans
residents in some 90 shelters throughout the state of Louisiana and
elsewhere since before landfall. All told, the Red Cross is today
operating
149 shelters for almost 93,000 residents.
* The Red Cross shares the nation’s anguish over the worsening
situation inside the city. We will continue to work under the
direction of
the military, state and local authorities and to focus all our
efforts on
our lifesaving mission of feeding and sheltering.
* The Red Cross does not conduct search and rescue operations.
We are
an organization of civilian volunteers and cannot get relief aid into
any
location until the local authorities say it is safe and provide us with
security and access.
* The original plan was to evacuate all the residents of New
Orleans
to safe places outside the city. With the hurricane bearing down, the
city
government decided to open a shelter of last resort in the Superdome
downtown. We applaud this decision and believe it saved a significant
number of lives.
* As the remaining people are evacuated from New Orleans, the most
appropriate role for the Red Cross is to provide a safe place for
people to
stay and to see that their emergency needs are met. We are fully staffed
and equipped to handle these individuals once they are evacuated.
Here's part of the report from the Army Times:
September 02, 2005
Troops begin combat operations in New Orleans
By Joseph R. Chenelly
Times staff writer
http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1077495.php
NEW ORLEANS — Combat operations are underway on the streets “to take
this
city back” in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
“This place is going to look like Little Somalia,” Brig. Gen. Gary
Jones,
commander of the Louisiana National Guard’s Joint Task Force told Army
Times Friday as hundreds of armed troops under his charge prepared to
launch a massive citywide security mission from a staging area
outside the
Louisiana Superdome. “We’re going to go out and take this city back.
This
will be a combat operation to get this city under control.”
Jones said the military first needs to establish security throughout the
city. Military and police officials have said there are several large
areas
of the city are in a full state of anarchy.
Dozens of military trucks and up-armored Humvees left the staging
area just
after 11 a.m. Friday, while hundreds more troops arrived at the same
staging area in the city via Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters.
“We’re here to do whatever they need us to do,” Sgt. 1st Class Ron
Dixon,
of the Oklahoma National Guard’s 1345th Transportation Company. “We
packed
to stay as long as it takes.”
While some fight the insurgency in the city, other carry on with
rescue and
evacuation operations. Helicopters are still pulling hundreds of
stranded
people from rooftops of flooded homes.
Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and police helicopters
filled the city sky Friday morning. Most had armed soldiers manning the
doors. According to Petty Officer 3rd Class Jeremy Grishamn, a spokesman
for the amphibious assault ship Bataan, the vessel kept its
helicopters at
sea Thursday night after several military helicopters reported being
shot
at from the ground.
As others have written from eyewitness testimony, the military forces
are
bringing supplies only for themselves, not for the residents! They are
preventing people in dry and unaffected parts of New Orleans from
reaching
out to and sheltering people from the flooded areas. They have
established
fixed positions protecting private property from further "looting."
It is essential that the truth be exposed, denounced and countered. The
Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, among other forces such as the Camp Casey
Vets for Peace are attempted to carry out their own rescue
operations. But
the political context must be addressed. Just as the US occupation of
Iraq
PRODUCED the Iraqi "insurgency" -- resistance to occupation -- the
military
occupation and depopulation of New Orleans and the Mississippi Delta is
producing an African insurgency among poor Black people with nothing
left
to lose but their ancestral homeland, their roots, and their lives. This
will NOT "end the chaos and violence" or "save lives." Militaries do not
save lives (not imperialist ones), they TAKE them. Bush and his racist
regime are quite content to see and to show "chaos," to portray Black
people as either pitiful and helpless or vicious and dangerous, and the
media collaborate with this effort.
Relief efforts are vital, but they will be increasingly impeded by the
Guard and the rest of the military, and by the plans, already
underway for
the "national security" reconstruction of New Orleans -- naval bases,
petroleum refineries and pipelines, port facilities -- to which the
living
population of New Orleans is now seen by Bush et al as a deadly threat.
We need to listen -- and to hear from -- Black liberation forces in the
historic territory of the Black nation about what forms of struggle and
solidarity are needed now. But it seems clear to me that the
September 24
anti-war rally in DC, certainly -- another majority Black and poor
city in
the south -- must address itself to the war at home. This is beyond
demanding that Bush provide relief. This is about building the
capacity of
the people to expose and defy imperialism as the deadly, death-dealing
system that it is.
--Michael [EMAIL PROTECTED]
