Oil companies eyeing St Bernard Parish ...

[imaginary girl]

For years. And now they may get it. Anybody else hear that mentioned on ABC news tonight? Catch any other details (or have links to some)?

[Digit]

1. My radar went up about bulldozing all of St Bernard's Parrish...

I just heard this tonight on CNN. My first thought was that someone wants that area for some reason. For everything this administration does, there is someone who is gonna get big bucks.

[Sven77]

2. supreme court enables this

all the local info on property ownership has been destroyed even though its a 8 story city building. the corporates cant wait to take over land for cheap. theres talk of hotels and resorts. the people will get nothing for their land.

[justabob]

3. Big Oil will be the biggest winner in NO rebuilding I suspect nt

[...of J.Temperance]

4. See this enclosed link for a thread that might give us a bit of HOPE

A lot of the New Orleans property records can be salvaged and are indeed being salvaged:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4749349

In that thread I also asked a question on how this would work with the Eminent Domain evil law and a good fellow responded and made quite a bit of sense, so I hope you read that part as well.

So, Orleans Parish has salvaged a lot of their property records. But unfortunately, St. Bernard Parish has had a lot of their property records destroyed.

[justabob]

6. thanks

That's good news about the records.... and thanks for the link.

[imaginary girl]

8. Yes, I have been concerned about the use of Eminent Domain as well

Unfortunately for many of the affected individuals, they didn't actually own the houses they lived in, so will get nothing ... Others, of course, may not get what the house is worth to them ...

[NorthernSpy]

5. schemes such as this may violate the Right of Return!

From the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement:

SECTION V - PRINCIPLES RELATING
TO RETURN, RESETTLEMENT AND REINTEGRATION
Principle 28

1. Competent authorities have the primary duty and responsibility to establish conditions, as well as provide the means, which allow internally displaced persons to return voluntarily, in safety and with dignity, to their homes or places of habitual residence, or to resettle voluntarily in another part of the country. Such authorities shall endeavour to facilitate the reintegration of returned or resettled internally displaced persons.

Using eminent domain proceedings to seize and bulldoze the homes of Internally Displaced Persons may be a violation of human rights.

The Guiding Principles were adopted in a consensus decision by the UN Commission on Human Rights in 1998, at a time when the United States of America was represented on the Commission.

[imaginary girl]

7. The key may be "resettle voluntarily"

If the costs and dangers are exaggerated and the returns prolonged, the chances of people resettling "voluntarily" will rise. Besides, the pattern of this administration is to bend (or break) the rules and then cover it up or divert attention elsewhere ...

[NorthernSpy]

9. without a good faith effort on the part of the authorities...

... in facilitating the process of return -- and in protecting the returnees from all sorts of predation (such as the oil companies' schemes re St. Bernard Parish) -- then no resettlement could ever be "voluntary".

Of course, we'll have our work cut out in getting this point across. But this country was apparently part of the consensus that approved the Guiding Principles, and that ought to mean something.

For all our official rhetoric about human rights, our political culture is not particularly used to thinking about human rights in any but the most rudimentary sense. We can change that. I think that people have an instinctual understanding of the right to return to ones home, and we can build on that instinct.

[imaginary girl]

10. Thanks for your optimism!

It's both refreshing and encouraging.

[NorthernSpy]

13. this is a situation in which we really may be able to do some good

And it's always great to see another person who is concerned about all this!

:)

[SoCalDem]

11. "internally displaced"... um LOTS have been sent OUTSIDE~the state

whether they wanted to go or not:(

[NorthernSpy]

12. yes, but the evacuees haven't crossed a national border...

... so our "refugees" are still technically Internally Displaced Persons, even those who are now outside of Louisiana. Evacuation doesn't cause the displaced to lose their right of return. For government, corporations, and elites to take advantage of the displaced people's absence by freezing them out of their homes and communities is to violate their human rights.

Doesn't it feel weird to be talking about Internally Displaced Persons in America? I guess that many Americans are not used to thinking about our own country as a place where mass displacement can happen. And yet it has happened here before -- repeatedly.

:think: