On April 14th 2010, the United Methodist Church publicized on their website how they help the people of Haiti.
Church plans $10.4 million project for Haiti
They also have other articles on the site about clinics and other good works in Haiti.
However, three days after the above announcement, I received this message:
Dear Friends,
The forced eviction of “Camp Methodiste de Frere” is scheduled for this morning in Delmas 95. This involves the removal of over 200 households (~1000 people) against their will, without any options provided for alternative sites for them to reside and with threats of force if they do not comply. These people were displaced from their homes just three months ago by the earthquake and now are being redisplaced religious and academic direction of the Freres Methodist Church and School in the Centre Pedagogique Rural Protestant, Ecole Normale de Freres, at Delmas 95 #15.
A team of national and international media, humanitarian and development workers plans to be on site at 7am in order to witness, document and be stand-in human rights observers at this forced eviction, as an official monitoring system has not been put into place to protect the rights of Haiti’s Internally Displaced People during camp evictions.
This is one of many forced evictions that have gone on in the past weeks and due to observed trends in state violence and rights violations, there is great cause for concern.
Please call on all responsible parties, including the Haitian Ministry of Social Affairs, OCHA Protection Cluster, OCHA Camp Coordination and Camp Management Cluster, the Human Rights Section of MINUSTAH, the donor community, the United Methodist Church, to ensure that the rights of these people and ALL IDPs are upheld, even if it is too late to stop this eviction, which is scheduled to occur only hours from the time this email is being sent.
To prevent this violation of rights from being committed against others, we call for:
1. Moratorium on forced removals: We request that the governments, OCHA, NGOs, all those whose mandates and activities relate to the needs of the internally displaced in Haiti, and all those with interest in the protection of international recognized human rights organize and apply the appropriate pressures necessary to suspend the forced removal of the Haitian IDPs from their camp communities until a time when alternative options are presented and agreed upon. This pressure needs to come from the highest offices of the decision making bodies in support of the IDPs stated intentions. We request these agents make the decisions to defend the rights of the Haitian IDPs, and to do so before the next IDP camp community is forcefully evacuated against their will.
2. Independent monitoring system: We request the immediate development of a collaborative system for the dispatch of independent monitors to the locations where IDPs of Haiti are facing removal from their communities, both voluntary and forced. Given the level of efforts and resources expended in order to create and maintain the various means of responding to this disaster, the development of a means of monitoring that integrates into the already functional OCHA regulated and supported systems should be able to occur immediately and with the upmost efficiency.
3. Community consultation: The only way to determine a safe, viable and just solution to the complex issues of relocation is to let those relocating determine the most appropriate course of action in conjuction with the Haitian state, the UN mechanisms designated to protect their rights and the NGOs that have taken on the responsibility for assisting with satisfying their basic needs during this extremely difficult period in Haitian history.
For the foreseeable future, I will be blogging at Haiti Rewired instead of here. You have to be a member to comment, but it’s free to join.
I just finished watching three short videos that are three segments of an interview with Didier Dominique, a Haitian trade unionist and prominent spokesperson for 
For the past few days, people on Twitter who tweet mostly about Haiti have been discussing the fact that very near the new Corail tent camp (which some call the “desert”) exists a development of 92 mostly unoccupied houses. Twitterers @mirizon, @pierrecote and @Just_my2cents have been key in providing the information below.
