More troops arrive, bringing coercion, not relief

By Deirdre Griswold

Sept. 4—As the world watches in horror, the life-and-death crisis continues to grow for thousands of distressed people, most of them African American, stranded in New Orleans. Enduring intense heat, they lack food, water and medical help and are surrounded by putrid water, garbage and corpses.

Detroit residents protesting the Iraq war at their own ‘Camp Casey’ condemn Washington for abandoning the people of New Orleans while spending billions to conquer Iraq.

CNN reports today from Louisiana: “Time is running out for thousands of people awaiting rescue six days after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, rescuers say. Officials say they do not have the manpower, the resources or enough time to save everyone.”

The report quotes a Coast Guard captain, Bruce Jones: “My guys are coming back and telling me, ‘Sir, I went into a house, and there are three elderly people in their beds, and they’re gasping, and they’re dying.’ And we got calls today, ‘We need you ... to go to a place in St. Bernard Parish. It’s a hospice, ... and there are 10 dead and there are 10 dying.’ But those people were probably alive yesterday or the day before.”

The CNN report concludes: “For every person plucked from the flood, there are hundreds still waiting, rescuers say.”

The authorities have released no figures on the death toll so far, but the Louisiana governor says it will be “in the thousands.”

Meanwhile, stories keep coming out about how the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other local and federal authorities have been turning back skilled volunteers who want to help in this worst disaster ever suffered in U.S. history.

A Virginia newspaper writes: “Loudoun Sheriff’s deputies and emergency personnel were on their way to hurricane-stricken Louisiana Thursday night but had to turn around when the federal government failed to come up with the required paperwork.” (Loudon Times-Mirror, Sept. 2)

The Daily News of Jacksonville, N.C., wrote today: “[Sherri] Gabel, an emergency medical technician from Jackson ville, is one of thousands of trained health-care providers and emergency personnel who have flocked toward the ruined Gulf Coast in hopes of helping the thousands who have been stranded without food, water or medical care in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

“But many are being turned away, said Gabel, a move she believes will cost more lives. In fact, she said the Federal Emer gency Management Agency [FEMA] tried to turn her away when she called them earlier this week. ...

“Gabel said she has watched authorities turn away both emergency workers and trucks loaded with supplies. ... ‘Everyone saw this storm coming in,’ she said. ‘Every one knew this storm was going to be a cata strophe. Here it is Friday and these people are crying and dying on the middle of the road because they don’t have a single bottle of water. There’s a lot of people not doing anything because they’ve been told not to.’ ”

Even people with the Red Cross are complaining that they cannot get into New Orleans. The organization’s website says this on its FAQ page: “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.’

“People are still trapped, starving and dying in New Orleans, but tragically, the Red Cross is not permitted to help them. Orders of Homeland Security.”

Venezuela’s offer of help

Offers of help from other countries are also getting a polite “Thank you, we’ll see about it” from Washington, even as hundreds are still dying every day. Venezuela was the first country to offer help to the afflicted in the Gulf area, saying it could imme diately send fuel and emergency workers.

CITGO, a company in the U.S. owned by the Venezuelan oil company PDVSA, has a network of refineries and gas stations in the United States. One of these is based in Lake Charles, La., and was opened to give shelter and aid to some 2,000 residents of the area. But the U.S. government has not given the go-ahead for this to happen. Its attitude toward the ongoing revolution in Venezuela is completely hostile.

Now there is a new flood: criticism of the government authorities who allowed this unprecedented disaster to happen. In response, the Bush administration is seeking every possible way to deflect that criticism away from itself and its costly war in Iraqhas drained money and resources from the budgets for flood control and disaster readiness—and turn it against the local authorities.

An internecine struggle has broken out over who will be in charge. Today’s Wash ing ton Post reports: “Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louis iana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state’s emergency operations center said Saturday.

“The administration sought unified control over all local police and state Nation al Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. ‘Quite frankly, if they’d been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals,’ said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.”

The racist attitude of Washington and the Pentagon to the besieged people of New Orleans can be seen in this report from the newspaper Army Times of Sept. 2:

“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.”

The reference to Somalia is a dead giveaway. Under the excuse of providing “humanitarian aid” during a food crisis, the U.S. military invaded the East African country of Somalia in 1993 in an outright colonial operation. But an uprising of the people drove them out.

Instead of rescuing dying people, the military has gone to New Orleans to “establish security.” The people are seen as “the enemy,” “the bad guys,” those who have to be “taken out,” in military jargon.

The hideous, racist character of the state apparatus, especially in this area where 150 years ago Black people were sold in slave auctions to be worked to death on the plantations of the South’s ruling elite, is all too evident.

Why was there no preparation for this disaster, which had been predicted by all the experts? Why was there no emergency mobilization until it was too late to save the people from the consequences of Hurricane Katrina?

Because the priority of this capitalist government, which has widened the gap between rich and poor in this country as never before, is first and foremost control, control and control over the working class, especially its most oppressed and potentially rebellious sections.

The Bush administration on Saturday met with representatives of the Con gres sional Black Caucus, the Urban League and the NAACP. It wanted to “dispel any kind of notions that the administration did not care about African American people—or anyone else,”said one participant.

But after this monumental disaster, no amount of posturing and media manipulation can hide the ugly truth.

After Bush’s much-publicized photo-op, where he played hero and hugged two young Black women in Louisiana, the German television station ZDF News reported that the president’s visit was a completely staged event. Their crew witnessed how the open-air food distribution point Bush visited in front of the cameras was torn down immediately after he and the herd of “news people” had left. Others that were allegedly being set up were abandoned at the same time.

The people in the area were once again left to fend for themselves, said ZDF.

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