IJDH has received $13,000 in response to its end-of-the-year fundraiser. Thank you for your gen­eros­ity. But we need to raise $17,000 more to meet the $30,000 match chal­lenge by IJDH’s Board of Direc­tors, led by Paul Farmer, Ira Kurzban and Laura Flynn, and to keep our pro­grams run­ning. Our orig­i­nal cut­off for the match was Decem­ber 15, but we’ve heard from many of you that that period was too short. So the Board agreed to extend the dona­tion match dead­line to the end of the year. To con­tribute, send a tax-deductible check to IJDH, PO Box 745, Joseph, OR, 97846, or con­tribute online by click­ing the — click to con­tribute online — but­ton on the top right-hand cor­ner of our web­site.

Our Wash­ing­ton D.C.-based friends work­ing on the Haiti Debt Can­cel­la­tion Res­o­lu­tion, H.Res. 241, led by the Jubilee USA Net­work, met with staff of the House Finan­cial Ser­vices Com­mit­tee. They were told there’s a good chance that the bill could come up for a vote early next year. But we need to demon­strate more sup­port through more co-sponsors, espe­cially Finan­cial Ser­vices Com­mit­tee Mem­bers, espe­cially Repub­li­can mem­bers. Click for the list of cur­rent co-sponsors, and the list of Finan­cial Ser­vices Com­mit­tee mem­bers. Con­gress is in recess, and your leg­is­la­tors are in their dis­tricts. Now is a great time to con­tact them.

A good exam­ple of local action comes from a group of South Florida activists, led by Hait­ian Women of Miami, who met with Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen last week. Rep. Ros-Lehtinen did not com­mit to co-sponsoring, but did agree to seri­ously con­sider it. The group’s Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Mar­lene Bastien, wrote an excel­lent Op-Ed for the Miami Her­ald, To Help Haiti Recover, Can­cel Its Debt. If you need more infor­ma­tion before con­tact­ing your Rep­re­sen­ta­tive, let us know. One valu­able resource that just came out is a report by the Cen­ter for Eco­nomic Pol­icy and Research, titled Debt Can­cel­la­tion for Haiti: No Rea­son for Fur­ther Delays.

No news: the Court of Appeals has not issued its deci­sion in the case of Fr. Ger­ard Jean-Juste, heard three weeks ago. For more infor­ma­tion, read IJDH’s Op-Eds: Base­less Deten­tion Con­tinue in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and Dis­turb­ing the Peace in Haiti and New Orleans on CommonDreams.org.

The New York State Court post­poned Emmanuel Con­stant’s sen­tenc­ing until Jan­u­ary 9. Thanks to every­one who con­tacted Judge Gerges in response to our Novem­ber 29 alert. If you have not done so, there is still time to let Judge Gerges know what you think.

Human rights activist Lovin­sky Pierre-Antoine, abducted on August 12, is still miss­ing, but the fight for his safe return con­tin­ues. Yes­ter­day, Amnesty Inter­na­tional issued an urgent action on behalf of Lovin­sky and his col­lab­o­ra­tor at the Sep­tem­ber 30^th Foun­da­tion, Wil­son Mesilien (who has received death threats). If you have not con­tacted the Hait­ian author­i­ties, please respond to the urgent action from Amnesty, or IJDH’s alert or the Peti­tion to Save Lovin­sky.

Damn­ing the Flood: Our apolo­gies to every­one who strug­gled with our sys­tem for order­ing Peter Hallward’s Damming the Flood: Haiti and the Pol­i­tics of Con­tain­ment. Despite those prob­lems, we sold out our stock. Another ship­ment is in the mail, so if you have placed an order and not received the book, we ask you for more patience– we should have all orders out by the end of the week. If you want to place an order, click here for prices and order­ing infor­ma­tion. You can pay by send­ing us a check, made out to IJDH, PO Box 745, Joseph, OR, 97846, or pay online by click­ing the — click to con­tribute online — but­ton on the top right-hand cor­ner of our web­site. That’s our ordi­nary dona­tions page– if it is a book order we can tell from the amount, but to make sure we don’t miss it, send us an email at info@ijdh.org to let us know you’ve pur­chased books (we don’t treat book pur­chases as char­i­ta­ble con­tri­bu­tions). If you have any prob­lems, call us at 541–432-0597. For more on the book, see http://www.HaitiJustice.org, or see the WBAI Inter­view with Peter Hall­ward. The book will not be avail­able in book­stores in North Amer­ica until April, but is avail­able now from IJDH.

We wish you a happy, healthy and peace­ful hol­i­day season!