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Katrina report to UN

U.S. violated international laws

Published Mar 16, 2006 10:01 PM

The following is from a Hurricane Katrina Human Rights Violations Summary of Concerns to be brought to the United Nations Human Rights Committee Meetings March 13, 2006 in New York prepared by Rev. Daniel A. Buford and retired Judge Claudia Morcom.

The U.S. government’s response to Hurricane Katrina failed to comply with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the Convention on Elimination of Racial Discrimination; and the Convention on Torture. Widespread human rights violations against displaced African-American residents in New Orleans and against displaced poor people of all races in the Gulf Coast region continue to be systemic and pervasive. The continued displacement of African-Americans from states like Louisiana and Mississippi (covered by the enforcement provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act) undermines years of civil rights legislation and court decisions (Chisom v. Roemer). 111 S. Ct. 2354, June 20, 1991.

The U.S. government has shown depraved indifference to the human and civil rights of displaced African-Americans in New Orleans and has neglected its responsibilities for all poor people living in the region. The U.S. government delayed decisions and cut critical funding from the federal government’s responsibility to maintain a safe levee system around the Greater New Orleans metropolis.

Prior to the catastrophe the U.S. government ignored up-to-the- minute warnings from FEMA about the impending disaster and made no concerted effort to protect or evacuate citizens or support state and city evacuation plans with federal assets. The U.S. government has ignored its own laws, regulations, responsibilities and has failed to meet the United Nations treaty obligations to protect the lives of displaced persons.

The U.S. government ignored its treaty obligations to protect the inherent right to life and to take action to preserve the lives of its own citizens. The Congress of the U.S. Government has ratified three treaties with the United Nations that protect poor people from human rights violations. The United Nations guiding principles on internally displaced persons apply to all persons in the gulf coast region who were forced from their homes as a result of Hurricane Katrina.

The United States House of Representatives has published a report on Feb. 15, 2006 entitled “A Failure of Initiative” that details the state government’s handling of the disaster as well as systemic problems within the government’s bureaucracy. The Black Congressional Caucus has expressed concern over the slow federal response in bringing aid and support before and after the storm made landfall and the levees were destroyed by the storms surge.

The Government Accounting Office (GAO) has published a report in Feb. 1, 2006 entitled “Preliminary Observations Regarding Hurricane Preparedness, Response” that cites a fragmented government response that slowed down the evacuation, rescue and recovery process. The U.S. government failed to implement the recommendations of a 1993 GAO report regarding FEMA’s role in disaster preparedness. The mandates of the U.S. government’s bipartisan 9/11 Committee were not integrated into preparedness or recovery activities for displaced persons in the Gulf Coast region.

Aid, volunteers and donations from the international community and domestic NGOs were not integrated into the response and recovery process at times of critical need. All these failures to take initiative resulted in the loss of life and violations of human rights and civil rights for all displaced persons in the region. The report of the GAO released after an independent investigation found that despite ample warning of an impending catastrophe, the federal government bungled its response to Hurricane Katrina, because of a void in leadership and confusion about who was in charge, and faulted both Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and his designee former FEMA Chief Michael Brown for not filling a crucial leadership role during “Hurricane Katrina”. The report of the GAO and its findings were consistent with, and gave added credibility to the earlier report given by this representative of the Meiklejohn Institute to this U.N. Committee on Oct. 17, 2005 in Geneva, Switzerland, and the “Resolution on U.S. Government Violations of Human Rights of Katrina Victims, adopted by the National Lawyers Guild Convention in Portland Oregon on Oct. 29, 2005. (Both documents are attached to this report.)

The lack of a well known, enforceable evacuation plan created thousands of displaced persons and led to a continually mounting death toll six months after the initial disaster. Displaced persons were left injured on rooftops, trees and were stranded on public highways with no food, water, or transportation. Children were separated from parents and guardians, senior citizens were airlifted to other states without prior family notification. Families were not allowed to stay together in transportation out of the flood. Displaced persons were forced from their homes at gunpoint only to be corralled into the convention center and athletic stadium and left for days without support, aid, or transportation provided by the U.S. Government.

Displaced persons who were peacefully assembled to carry out the mandated evacuation order were turned back at gunpoint by Gretna police with gunshots fired on the Crescent City Bridge between Gretna, LA and New Orleans, LA. The U.S. government failed to protect the civil rights, human rights and lives of everyone on the Gretna Bridge who were forced to return to New Orleans at gunpoint. White supremacist vigilante groups offered rewards and bounties on the internet for ‘confirmed kills of black looters.’

Wards of the state including juvenile and adult jail inmates were abandoned behind bars and left in water. Elderly residents of numerous senior care facilities and hospitals were abandoned, left to die, or euthanized prompting criminal charges and investigations. The U.S. government has demonstrated consistent negligence in protecting the human dignity of persons deceased in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans regarding dead body removal and identification.

Conclusion

Prior to Hurricane Katrina structural racism could be seen in the U.S. government’s public policies toward internally displaced poor people from the African-American community. Institutional practices and cultural representations that negatively stereotype have created a permissive climate of discrimination. Many lives have been lost; all races and classes have suffered. The U.S. government has failed to eliminate actions or policies that have historically had a discriminatory impact. The lives of poor people were not considered worth saving by the U.S. government as no evacuation plan was envisioned with them in mind. Race and poverty continue to be intertwined in that displaced persons do not have equal protection of law and continue to be discriminated against in post-Katrina funding in the areas of housing, education, employment, insurance, and health care access.