http://socialistviewpoint.org/julaug_16/julaug_16_03.html
No Water For You!
Forty percent of Detroit will be deprived of life sustaining water: the
UN investigates human rights violations
By Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo
May 10, 2016—Usually crimes against humanity take place behind closed
doors, in concentration camps, Abu Ghraib-like torture settings or Nazi
Germany; not so in 83 percent Black Detroit, Michigan. In the next few
weeks, the international community will witness with eyes wide open the
city of Detroit’s blatant violations of human rights. These crimes will
be condoned and executed by Detroit officials with the full knowledge of
the White House.
Access to water is considered a human right and access to safe and clean
water is a core mission of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),
however, 40 percent of the residents of Detroit will be deprived of the
basic element of life: water. Children will go to school without baths
and senior citizens will be deprived of water to take medicine. Having
lost confidence in a U.S. national commitment to saving the lives of
citizens, advocacy groups have begun to petition the United Nations for
an emergency response.
The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD), has begun shutting off
water to 3,000 people a week, and could soon cut off access to drinkable
water for 150,000 Detroit residents who have failed to pay recent water
bills.
Detroit was one of the cities hardest hit by international trade
agreements, such as NAFTA. Detroit is also a city targeted for ethnic
cleaning of its African population to make space for white
professionals. Once a thriving middle-class city, the union movement was
crushed by the government and business executives determined to drive
wages down. At the end of the day, these latest tactics are designed to
induce forced relocations; a component of ethnic cleansing that is
sometimes politely and inaccurately called gentrification.
The forced relocation tactics have changed over the years, with
contemporary methods eerily resembling Nazi-like strategies, such as
deliberately poisoning urban and domestic water supplies, depriving
children and households of life-maintaining and sustaining water and a
decent education. Black communities—already traumatized by the removal
and imprisonment of nearly one million African men and the murder by
police of thousands of unarmed young men and women—have become soft
targets for these unrelenting attacks.
The United Nations’ Human Rights council criticized the United States
for police violence and racial discrimination, the Guantánamo Bay
Detention Facility and the continued use of the death penalty. Member
countries criticized the U.S. and recommended that it strengthen
legislation and expand training to “eliminate racism and excessive use
of force by law enforcement.”
“I’m not surprised that the world’s eyes are focused on police issues in
the U.S.,” said Alba Morales, who investigates the U.S. criminal justice
system at Human Rights Watch. “There is an international spotlight
that’s been shone [on the issues], in large part due to the events in
Ferguson and the disproportionate police response to even peaceful
protesters,” she said.
The recommendations from the Council seem tepid and dismissive of the
scale of the violence towards African-Americans. These same atrocities
occurring in any other country outside the U.S., such as Bosnia or Syria
would cause an international uproar and calls to prevent deaths from
water deprivation and to provide international protections for the
targeted group. But, the U.S. is the major donor to the UN and plays a
leadership role on the UN Security Council, making it virtually
impossible for nations that would show solidarity to African-Americans
to act through this institution. Nevertheless, UN member states do have
a bully-pulpit to expose the human rights violations occurring in the U.S.
However, when one considers the war-like tactics deployed against an
unarmed civilian population, such as, deliberate state-sponsored
poisonings, murders of unarmed civilians, forced relocations and
imprisonment, one is left asking what part of genocide does the UN not
understand?
And the beat of genocide escalates.
The Detroit People’s Water Board, Food and Water Watch, Blue Planet
Project, and Michigan Welfare Rights Organization submitted a
comprehensive report to the U.N.’s special rapporteur that details the
dire situation facing the predominately Black population of Detroit:
“Sick people have been left without running water and working toilets.
People recovering from surgery cannot wash and change bandages. Children
cannot bathe, and parents cannot cook…” “(F)amilies concerned about
children being taken away by authorities due to lack of water and
sanitation services in the home have been sending their children to live
with relatives and friends, which has an impact on school attendance and
related activities.”
Activists claim the city has been unfairly overcharging Detroit
residents for water to compensate for its significant financial woes.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 38.1 percent of Detroit residents
are living below the poverty line. The Detroit City Council just
approved a nearly nine percent rate increase for water.
Three U.N. human rights experts issued a statement declaring that
“disconnection of water services because of failure to pay due to lack
of means constitutes a violation of the human right to water and other
international human rights.
“Despite the tough times many people are facing, they’ve been paying an
average of $64.99 a month, significantly higher than the national
average of about $40, and rates are only going up.”
“When I conducted an official country mission to the U.S. in 2011, I
encouraged the U.S. government to adopt a federal minimum standard on
affordability for water and sanitation and a standard to provide
protection against disconnections for vulnerable groups and people
living in poverty,” said Catarina de Albuquerque, who is the U.N.’s
special rapporteur on the right to safe drinking water and sanitation.
“I also urged the government to ensure due process guarantees in
relation to water disconnection.”
One of the experts, Leilani Farha, who focuses on the right to adequate
housing, also pointed out the racial implications of shutting off water
to the nearly 83 percent Black population. “If these water
disconnections disproportionately affect African Americans, they may be
discriminatory, in violation of treaties the U.S. has ratified,” said Farha.
These calls for justice are falling on deaf ears. While President Obama
concedes that the poisoning in Flint “was a man-made disaster; this was
avoidable, this was preventable,” the President did not deploy with all
due haste the full power of the federal government to solve this
situation. In fact, he primed the Flint community, in which over 8,000
children are suspected of being lead poisoned to expect that it may take
an additional two years before lead pipes are replaced. But, he left
Flint on a positive note, asserting that, “filtered water in the city
was safe for anyone over the age of six.”
But not everyone is feeling the pain of water deprivation in Detroit.
That kind of pain seems to be reserved for families and communities. The
Detroit Water and Sewerage Department has decided not to pull the plug
on businesses in the city. Although the city claims that it started
sending out notices about the disconnections in March, the report’s
authors write that they heard “directly from people impacted by the
water cutoffs who say they were given no warning and had no time to fill
buckets, sinks, and tubs before losing access to water.”
“We really don’t want to shut off anyone’s water, but it’s really our
duty to go after those who don’t pay, because if they don’t pay, then
our other customers pay for them,” department spokesperson Curtrise
Garner told Al Jazeera America. “That’s not fair to our other customers.”
Businesses owe hundreds-of-thousands of dollars but a decision was made
not to disconnect the corporate community:
“According to a department list, the top 40 commercial and industrial
accounts have past-due accounts totaling $9.5 million. That list
includes apartment complexes, the Chrysler Group, real estate agencies,
a Laundromat and even a cemetery.”
The only people who apparently are in denial regarding the blatant,
surgical and genocidal attacks against them are unfortunately the
targets of the attack. Perhaps, Black folks are hoping that U.S.
genocidal policy towards our community will be confined to Flint and
Detroit. How else can you explain the silence and inaction of Black
communities across the country?
—Black Agenda Report, May 10, 2016
http://www.Blackagendareport.com/detroit_human_rights_violations
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