Since the January 12, 2010 earthquake in Haiti the Quixote Center has been working closely with the newly formed Haiti Response Coalition. Within days the HRC was able to get supplies and medical teams in Jacmel ahead of much larger NGOs and developed a distribution system in Port-au-Prince (PAP) to deliver food and supplies to 19 camps in the area.

Below is a press release from a two-day meeting in PAP where over 100 Haitian leaders developed a plan known as "Initiative for a New Haiti".

Check back at quixote.org as more reports from this important meeting are available.

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After the great and incomparable earthquake hit the country of Haiti, on January 12, 2010, more than three hundred thousand (300,000) people, from all areas and of all ages, died.  State infrastructure and all its institutions have been destroyed.  Many have been wounded or have become handicapped.  Many are hopeless.  People have lost family members, their possessions, money, and work. 

When we look at the absence of the state, the inadequate manner in which aid is being distributed, it has diminished our sense of dignity even more as people.  Where only strangers who do not fully share our interests are managing emergency aid, where many Haitians are not confident in the people and the manner in which aid is being distributed, a coalition gathered a group of Haitians from all social aspects and from all organized sectors, who desire to become one, to reconstruct their country.  On February 23 and 24, 2010, at the historic park “Parc Historique de la Canne A Sucre,” these individuals met to come up with good solutions and answers, which will be good for all those in the country for the moment, for the days to come, and the future.
 

This is a very strong letter, expressing serious concern regarding the deteriorating human rights situation in Honduras under the recently installed Lobo.

Since the November elections in Honduras which resulted in the installation of Porfilio Lobo as President on January 27, 2010, the human rights situation in Honduras has continued to deteriorate. According to human rights organizations, there is a marked increase in selective targeting of people and communities active in the resistance movement. Despite a public discourse of reconciliation on the part of Lobo, partners in Honduras are experiencing increased levels of state terror. 

On February 3, Vanessa Zepeda, a 29 year old nurse and SITRAIHASS union leader (Honduran Social Security Institute) left her home at 2pm. At approximately 6:30 pm, her lifeless body was dumped out of a vehicle in Loarque, a neighborhood well known for resistance movement activities.  Vanessa had received repeated death threats linked to her activism in the resistance movement which had been registered by human rights organizations. She was the mother of three children; the youngest is 4 months old.

The Committee of the Families of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH) are denouncing that today, Sunday, February 7 at 8 am, Caniel Martinez, who was in the offices of our organization received a phone call from the number 222-71-44 in which a woman told him, “Be careful there will be an attack against you, especially those of you who are in the street”.  Martinez states that when he asked the women who was calling she hung up the telephone.

Feb. 5, 2010 COFADEH

IQALUIT, Canada (Reuters) – Group of Seven countries have told earthquake-ravaged Haiti that any debts it owes them needn't be repaid and international lenders should do the same, Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said on Saturday.

"The debt to multilateral institutions should be forgiven and we'll work with these institutions and other partners to make this happen as soon as possible," Flaherty said at press conference closing a two-day gathering of finance ministers from the G7 industrialized nations.

Read the entire article here.