World Can’t Wait Statement on Katrina Anniversary

One Year Later And
So Far Behind:

Remember Katrina!
Drive Out the Bush Regime!

What a difference a year makes“or not.  Hurricane
Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast
region one year ago.  We were outraged to
see Black people stranded on roof tops. 
Without the adequate supply of food and water, they were herded like
animals into the convention center and the Superdome.  Treated like criminals with shoot-to-kill
orders placed on them, and displaced from their homes, thousands were killed by
the effect of the storm or at the hands of officials sent in to “restore order.”

And now, one year later, not much has changed.  Instead of being stranded on roof tops, the
majority of Black people displaced are stranded in cities, spread across the
country and unable to return home. 
Evacuees are treated like animals in their new cities by police officers
who are following the mantra put forward by government officials, and
regurgitated by the mainstream media that in various cities where Katrina
survivors have been displaced, the rise in crime has been caused by New Orleans” evacuees.

It is an outrage that residents in various housing projects
are not allowed a Right to Return.  Their
homes, still standing and fixable, are surrounded by fences and barbed
wire.  It is outrageous that residents,
staying in FEMA issued trailers, are not allowed to talk to the press without a
FEMA official with them.  It is
outrageous that there are bodies that are still being found in abandoned homes,
that there are people who are still missing, and the Find Family
Assistance Center
is shutting down regardless of that fact.

The biggest outrage is the treatment of the poor and Black
people of New Orleans
by this government.  HUD secretary,
Alphonse Jackson, said that, “New
Orleans is not going to be as black as it was for a
long time, if ever again.”  Then you
have Louisiana Congressman Richard Baker saying, “We finally cleaned up
public housing in New Orleans.
We couldn’t do it, but God
did.”  As well as Brig. Gen. Gary
Jones, commander of the Louisiana National Guard’s Joint Task Force, saying that, “This place is going to
look like Little Somalia. This will be a combat operation to get this city
under control.”  Take these quotes
and add them to the actions of Sec. Of State, Condoleezza Rice, who shopped for
shoes in New York,
and George Bush, who stayed on vacation and played guitar with a country singer
while thousands died.  This is not
government ineptitude, it is the beginning of genocide, colored with racism and
excused by religion.

Thus, we cannot allow the criminal response of the Bush
regime to be swept under the rug of time. 
They knew that the levees would not stand a hurricane of Katrina’s proportions yet did nothing about
it.  No evacuation plans were made and
certainly no plans to deal with the aftermath. 
The response to hurricane Katrina is just one part of the whole program that
Bush is trying to implement into society and on October 5th, we are bringing it
to a halt.  We must let the country, the
world and the Bush regime know that this is unacceptable.    One year later, the correct response to the
Bush regime’s criminal response
to hurricane Katrina would be to drive it out of power.