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Last Updated: Oct 21st, 2007 - 09:55:08 |
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More than $10 million in aid has poured into Perú since an 8.0 earthquake devastated the country on Aug. 15. Agustín Haya de la Torre, director of the Agencia Perúana de Cooperación Internacional (Perúvian Agency of International Cooperation) says that financial assistance is pouring in. And the nation’s president, Alan García Pérez, has vowed to quickly rebuild the fallen buildings and cracked roadways in cities and towns along the southern coast of Perú.
But the relief effort has been slow and Afro Perúvians, in particular, are crying out for assistance. Many say the president and news media have visited and spoken about some communities hit by the quake but few are pointing to those suffering in poorer regions. And, in Perú, many of the poor are Black.
At this writing, the death toll from the quake is more than 540, with thousands wounded. Fallen buildings litter entire cities, leaving them looking like war zones. Many structures are so damaged that residents are now sleeping in tents and even on the street – and this during the months of August through October, which is Perú’s winter season.
The cities of Pisco, Ica, Cañete and Chincha Alta, have been featured in news reports as those hardest hit by the earthquake.“But you haven’t seen any news reports showing that many of our Black communities were destroyed by the earthquake,” notes Carlos O. López Schmidt, head of the Afro Perúvian activist group CIMARRONES (www.cimarrones-Perú.org). “You haven’t read anything about the town of La Quebrada, which was completely destroyed, as were the towns of San Luis, Alto Larán, El Carmen and so many others. I tell you, you won’t see or read about these places, because our plight continues to be ignored."
Schmidt added that the ignored villages are old communities where many poor people live and where there are "hundreds of dead."
A note left by a woman on the message board created by CIMMARONES points out that one person died of a heart attack in San Luís during the earthquake: “The local church fell to the ground, many Black families are now living in the streets because their homes of adobe and quincha [a combination of wood and cane covered by mud and plaster] could not sustain the quake, and the local government has only recently re-established water, light and electrical services.”
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The woman added that El Carmen – Chincha “looks like it was bombed; people have moved into the local sports stadium and into the central Plaza de Armas De el Carmen” to establish places to sleep.
Carlos and other Afro Perúvian activists have resorted to reaching out to the international Black community for help. Through phone calls, and especially emails, activists are pleading for assistance.
“The situation for our Afro Perúvian communities following this earthquake is truly chaotic,” Jorge Ramirez Reyna, president of the Lima-based Asociación Negra de Defensa y Promoción de los Derechos Humanos (Association of Blacks in Defense and Promotion of Civil Rights/ASONEDH), complained in an email. “There are over 500 dead yet there is no aid for those who need it, there is no water, and their homes have crumbled, there’s no electricity, the markets and stores are all closed, and any assistance from the government is simply extremely slow and inefficient (although I’m certain if we were talking about a place that didn’t have so many Black residents, the aid would be much more effective -- at all levels).”
Afro Perúvian activist Mónica Carrillo, founder and director of the Centro de Estudios y Promocion Afro-Perúano (Center for Afro-Perúvian Studies and Advancement/LUNDU; www.racismonuncamas.com) in Lima, Perú, has been partnering with the international women's human rights group MADRE for years, to promote the civil rights struggles of Afro Perúvians.
MADRE sent out an “Urgent Aid Request,” to appeal for funds for LUNDU: “When we spoke with Mónica Carrillo, LUNDU's Director, she asked for immediate help. She told us that some families suffered the horrors of watching everything crumble around them. As parents opened the door of their house to rescue their children, the walls collapsed. This is a serious emergency,” the request stated.
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MADRE notes that communities are in need of clothing, blankets, food, clean water and water purification tablets, medicines (broad spectrum antibiotics, anti-fungals, anti-diarrheals) and tents for temporary housing.
The lack of attention to the plight of Black neighborhoods has spurred some activists to form their own Comité de Solidaridad Afro, or Black Solidarity Committee. Carlos López Schmidt said the Comité. which is also known as the Comisión de Ayuda AfroPerúana/Afro Perúvian Aid Commission, will use its funds to help Afro Perúvians and indigenous people who live very close to each other and often share familial roots.
The Comité is a union of various Black Perúvian groups, including CEDET, Todas Las Sangres, Makungu, Mujer Negra y Desarrollo, REFIAP, CIMARRONES and others. “We formed this Comité because we not only need to get food to our people, we also need to begin to help burying the dead, getting medical aid for the wounded, reconstructing homes brick by brick so that people will have some place to sleep, and building schools so that our children can study," Schmidt said.
"We have to do all of this ourselves because the aid organizations and the other institutions that are supposed to help us, which are receiving the national and international aid funds, as always, are only to be found in the major cities," he added. "They forget about the poorest of the poor who don’t live in the central cities and who don’t own expensive properties. We Afro Perúvians are always on the periphery here, our people only live in poorly made houses. They are the real reason we’ve formed this Comité. We pray to God that you can help us.”
To send donations in care of the Afro Perúvian organizations mentioned in this article, contact them below:
ASONEDH, Jr. Nazca 179 Lima, Perú 11. Email: asonedh@asonedh.com or asonedh@infonegocio.net.pe. To donate directly to ASONEDH’s earthquake aid account, send to: Banco Scotiabank, c/o Jr. Garzón, Jesús María. Account name: Asociación Negra de Defensa y Promoción de los Derechos Humanos, Account no. 001-0226004, IBAN, BIC/SWIFT Code BSUDPEPL
LUNDU - Centro de Estudios y Promoción AfroPerúano, Av. Cuba 249 interior C, Jesus Maria, Lima, Perú 511. Email: cartas@racismonuncamas.com. To donate to LUNDU with a credit card, please visit: http://www.iwhc.org/getinvolved/action/peruearthquake.cfm.
To donate through MADRE, please visit: http://madre.org/articles/lat /Perúearthquake.html
Comisión de Ayuda AfroPerúana, ONG Centro de Desarrollo Etnico [CEDET], Av. Bolivia 569, Lima, Perú 05; Telephone: (511) 330-2653. Email: cimarrones1@gmail.com. Funds can be donated via the Banco de Credito del Perú to account number 191-1581362-1-62.
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