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Haitian Earthquake: Made in the USA
Why the Blood Is on Our Hands
Gee, I wonder how that happened?
You'd think Haiti would be loaded. After all, it made a lot of people rich.
How did Haiti get so poor? Despite a century of American colonialism, occupation, and propping up corrupt dictators? Even though the CIA staged coups d'état against every democratically elected president they ever had?
It's an important question. An earthquake isn't just an earthquake. The same 7.0 tremor hitting San Francisco wouldn't kill nearly as many people as in Port-au-Prince.
"Looking at the pictures, essentially it looks as if (the buildings are of) breezeblock or cinderblock construction, and what you need in an earthquake zone is metal bars that connect the blocks so that they stay together when they get shaken," notes Sandy Steacey, director of the Environmental Science Research Institute at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland. "In a wealthy country with good seismic building codes that are enforced, you would have some damage, but not very much."
When a pile of cinderblocks falls on you, your odds of survival are long. Even if you miraculously survive, a poor country like Haiti doesn't have the equipment, communications infrastructure or emergency service personnel to pull you out of the rubble in time. And if your neighbors get you out, there's no ambulance to take you to the hospital--or doctor to treat you once you get there.
Earthquakes are random events. How many people they kill is predetermined. In Haiti this week, don't blame tectonic plates. Ninety-nine percent of the death toll is attributable to poverty.
So the question is relevant. How'd Haiti become so poor?
The story begins in 1910, when a U.S. State Department-National City Bank of New York (now called Citibank) consortium bought the Banque National d'Haïti--Haiti's only commercial bank and its national treasury--in effect transferring Haiti's debts to the Americans. Five years later, President Woodrow Wilson ordered troops to occupy the country in order to keep tabs on "our" investment.
From 1915 to 1934, the U.S. Marines imposed harsh military occupation, murdered Haitians patriots and diverted 40 percent of Haiti's gross domestic product to U.S. bankers. Haitians were banned from government jobs. Ambitious Haitians were shunted into the puppet military, setting the stage for a half-century of U.S.-backed military dictatorship.
The U.S. kept control of Haiti's finances until 1947.
Still--why should Haitians complain? Sure, we stole 40 percent of Haiti's national wealth for 32 years. But we let them keep 60 percent.
Whiners.
Despite having been bled dry by American bankers and generals, civil disorder prevailed until 1957, when the CIA installed President-for-Life François "Papa Doc" Duvalier. Duvalier's brutal Tonton Macoutes paramilitary goon squads murdered at least 30,000 Haitians and drove educated people to flee into exile. But think of the cup as half-full: fewer people in the population means fewer people competing for the same jobs!
Upon Papa Doc's death in 1971, the torch passed to his even more dissolute 19-year-old son, Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier. The U.S., cool to Papa Doc in his later years, quickly warmed back up to his kleptomaniacal playboy heir. As the U.S. poured in arms and trained his army as a supposed anti-communist bulwark against Castro's Cuba, Baby Doc stole an estimated $300 to $800 million from the national treasury, according to Transparency International. The money was placed in personal accounts in Switzerland and elsewhere.
Under U.S. influence, Baby Doc virtually eliminated import tariffs for U.S. goods. Soon Haiti was awash predatory agricultural imports dumped by American firms. Domestic rice farmers went bankrupt. A nation that had been agriculturally self-sustaining collapsed. Farms were abandoned. Hundreds of thousands of farmers migrated to the teeming slums of Port-au-Prince.
The Duvalier era, 29 years in all, came to an end in 1986 when President Ronald Reagan ordered U.S. forces to whisk Baby Doc to exile in France, saving him from a popular uprising.
Once again, Haitians should thank Americans. Duvalierism was "tough love." Forcing Haitians to make do without their national treasury was our nice way or encouraging them to work harder, to lift themselves up by their bootstraps. Or, in this case, flipflops.
Anyway.
The U.S. has been all about tough love ever since. We twice deposed the populist and popular democratically-elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The second time, in 2004, we even gave him a free flight to the Central African Republic! (He says the CIA kidnapped him, but whatever.) Hey, he needed a rest. And it was kind of us to support a new government formed by former Tonton Macoutes.
Yet, despite everything we've done for Haiti, they're still a fourth-world failed state on a fault line.
And still, we haven't given up. American companies like Disney generously pay wages to their sweatshop workers of 28 cents an hour.
What more do these ingrates want?
- Posted in
102 Comments so far
Show AllMammon is the Great Satan
Williams is there for his ratings. The background analysis of the situation we both know wont happen would include - if we really had a *watchdog* press - scalding commentary on how the elites who own this country can spend trillions on military Empire that instead could have gone a long way to helping people in this country and around the world transition to a sustainable and equitable global economy, but consistently have refused to do so.
I cant stand Brian and his fellow media whores.
Rall is incomplete.
The Problem started in 1804 with President Jefferson's Embargo & Blockade of Haiti after their successful fight for independence from their French Colonial Slaver Masters ! Nothing new in the U.S. it seems. Fresh from our own War of Independence, we quashed this one. Seems Jefferson, who believed strongly in the "inalienable" rights of his own Class, also believed that black Africans were incabable of higher-level thought and totally incabable of ruling themselves!
Let alone slave-revolts on his and his friends' Slave Plantations. So much for the high and mighty language of the Declaration of Independence.
In order to get where we Progressives want to go, we MUST know and accept where we come from. We are essentialy a Nation built on Slavery.
Get your facts together, Rall.
Very true friend. peace
Well said,
The brilliant general in Haiti that defeated Napoleon's army (the most powerful army in the world at the time) was a huge threat to White Supremacist Thomas Jefferson. The new Haitian republic was not recognized by the USA UNTIL 1862. Most of the cruel and merciless French slave holders that escaped Haiti during the revolt against France went to New York where our fine government gave them aid AND WEAPONS as our contribution to help put down the revolt. Yes, OUR FEDERAL GOVERNMENT of the founding fathers approved funds unconstitutionally for a non-government group of slave holders. Remember that when you hear all that fine rhetoric about our founding fathers and liberty, the constitution and other asorted bullshit.
Haiti also gave sanctuary and aid to Simon Bolivar, another "unpardonable" sin for our founding fuckers.
You guys miss the point. We on the far-left don't worship Jefferson. We USE him as a sledgehammer to smash contemporary elitevil. The question is about YOU. Why would you NOT want to use Jefferson as a sledgehammer to smash contemporary elitevil?
Because we have Martin Luthor King, William Jennings Bryan and Andrew Jackson quotes, among many others. This obsession with the founding fathers smacks of idol worship and some religious cult.
We on the left are not doing a fucking thing to hurt the elites by commenting here anyway. The only way to hurt the elites is to keep them from stealing from us. That takes frugality, physical action and physical inaction.
Attempting to motivate people with high flung rhetoric just doesn't accomplish anything now.
HOW BIG IS YOUR HOUSE?
WHAT IS THE SIZE OF YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT?
DO YOU SUPPORT OUR WARS?
DO YOU OWN STOCK?
IS YOUR MONEY IN A LARGE BANK?
THE REST IS BULLSHIT!
"Haitians were banned from government jobs."
But not so on the other half of the island. That's the difference.
33 billion "supplamental" for war,100 million to help some people that were put in this untenable position by the greed policy of the american gov.Not even 300 years old and this country has been running on words from mouth and on paper that have proven to contain no substance and without deeds."You shall pay every whit!!This means Karma is going to be a bitch.Tony
100 million to aid Haiti. What a great, generous country and our president, like all presidents before, is magnanimous to a fault.
Accoring to the defense spending clock I just checked out
http://www.angelfire.com/ok5/pearly/htmls/gop-debtclock.html
The Pentagon spends $589,802 a minute on war and destruction, and in the process has created a violent, brutal criminal ruling class in America- but I digress; so if our magnanimous president promises $100,000,000 for aiding and rebuilding Haiti, that will come to exactly 169 minutes of defense spending. What a great country. Always has been, always will be.
USan "disaster aid" is in reality trap bait for the wounded, designed to churn dollers in the USA, and get people addicted to USan production that usually spells long-term trouble. Those who set traps for and predate on the dead or wounded are called scavengers. Only the human scavengers have the ethical/cognitive capacity to know there are better ways, and thus have no excuse. The responsibility for the US government's scavenging belongs to all US citizens. But let's not get bogged down in the details. Scavenging is simply one mode of exploitation. All exploitation of our peers is wrong, as is exploitation of nature beyond serving a limited set of our needs.
hey, they're making bras in granada for 45 cents an hour!
If individuals could have afforded rebar in their houses, they might have heeded the warnings of geologists. Unfortunately there aren't any geologists trained in Haiti. Nor are there even houses for many people. People died from poverty.
Tomorrow a Haitian will get up and make you a shirt or grow some cane sugar for you. Her mother made a shirt for your mother, and her grandmother the same, and her great-grandmother. The differences between this and generational slavery are subtle.
Besides the economic exploitation and thuggery in Haita, Americas and rest of the world, the US is currently creating the biggest ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL EARTHQUAKE for itself with endless lost wars and fiscal bankruptcy.
What precipitated the U.S. occupation of Haiti five years ago was the audacity of democratically elected President Bertrand-Jean Aristide's government to raising the minimum wage. This infuriated the various sweat shop owners (Haiian as well as foreign), such that the U.S. had no recourse but to invade and resubjugate. Otherwise, who knows but that neighboring countries such as Honduras and....wait a minute, didn't the CIA only six months ago stage a military coup d'etat in Honduras for the very same reason - President Manuel Zelaya's government had increased the minimum wage? For heaven's sake, why don't governments in such desperately poor nations stop thinking about the common good and, instead, pay attention to the good and welfare of the many exploiters who are attracted to these nations for one reason and one reason alone, namely, greed. When will they learn, when will they ever learn?
In spite of all the lousy things the US has done to Haiti, an analysis that blames Haiti's troubles on the United States is too simplistic. The country did massacre its French settlers after Toussaint L'Ouverture was imprisoned in the early nineteenth century, thereby getting rid of the few educated people that lived there and making the place off limits for tourists and other visitors. The country's birthrate has been extremely high for decades and the ecosystems that support humans and wilderness have been demolished--satellite photos of Haiti show a devastated landscape in comparison to the rich forests of the Dominican Republic. It is fair to say that Haitians have made some bad choices and are now suffering the consequences. That is not to say the the US and European powers should get off blameless; they could have changed some of the most horrendous outcomes, but not all the misery of Haiti is due to the remnants of European and US colonization.
After the farming industry collapsed due to the neo-libral trade rules, and the US ordered all their livestock exterminated(i.e. the creole pig) all they could sell was charcoal. they cut down all the forests to make charcoal or starve. now that they are out of trees they have found a way to eat dirt.
no, I think the Haitians are responsible for very little of the misery there. And what little responsibility there may be belongs to the Duvaliers and Tonton Macoute.
Well said. Drosera needs to do some serious digging into history. It is he that is beng reductionist and simplistic. If your daddy sexually abused your sister but made sure you had enough to eat, I guess he wasn't "all bad", right?
As a former teacher, I could see many reasons for the failures of my students: schools that make no allowance for kids that do not speak English, a curriculum that is irrelevant to the needs of young people, poor preparation in earlier grades--but in the end, you cannot ignore the actions--or lack of action--of the student, him/herself. That is like Haiti, isn't it? You can talk about policies of Western countries that impacted the lives of Haitians negatively, but in the end you cannot discount the importance of personal responsibility. There are decisions Haitians made that created misery: a high birthrate, teen-age pregnancies, the spread of AIDS, and the failure to protect fragile ecosystems to name a few. None of this excuses culpability of Western nations and the United States in particular, but it does recognize the idea of individual responsibility (which is the foundation of our ethical system).
You are looking at only one side of the logic in the ethical basis for responsibility. If you are a rich person, no one questions your "responsibility" for obtaining said riches. The riches are "yours", eh? The "responsibility" for using your riches and power are "yours". You are responsible for your riches even as a poor person is "responsible" for his poverty AND the perpetuationn of his poverty and misery by having lots of kids, eh?
So let's see now, the rich causes untold misery but he is a "responsible" person because he has money...
The poor lives and perpetuates his own misery and that of his offspring because he is "irresponsible" because he doesn't have money...
Think, man! Blaming the victim is a logical fallacy. The truth is that the level of irresponsibility is a force multiplier of misery and the production of harm to society according too how much money you have. Do you think George W. Bush is a responsible person? Look at all the misery that bastard caused. Yet I don't see you railing at the monied elite moron trust fund children that sail through life wreaking havoc on the rest of us. Try to use the an appropriate "responsibility" yardstick on everyone, please.
What we are has to do both with who we are and what we do. Both. Rich and poor. Some rich people achieved their wealth through hard work, good ideas, and luck. Some inherited it all. Some got totally lucky. Some had connections. Some committed crimes. Every case is different. Same with the poor. But always there is the element of individual decision, that always enters in.
Feeling you're a victim all the time is not productive. It's just a lousy excuse, too often an excuse for sitting on your ass and whining about injustice. I don't see MLK doing that, or Harriet Tubman or Fredrich Douglass or Caesar Chavez--they were too busy trying to change things.
As for Abuelo, below, seems like if you don't agree with someone, the best thing to do is to put them down. I wouldn't stoop to that.
From your post it is painfully obvious that you have never missed a meal in your life. You have no understanding of the condition of poverty other than as a vague and distant concept.
In your mind, you probably equate starvation with being hungry. and poverty with being unable to go somewhere nice for dinner.
"I don't see MLK doing that, or Harriet Tubman or Fredrich Douglass or Caesar Chavez"
King's dead, so obviously you don't see him doing that. Ever read King's Riverside Church speech when he came out, very strongly, against the war and said that the economic system and imperialism was a major cause of the war? That people had to be on the side of social revolution (he literally said that) if we are to take a moral position? He didn't SAY explicitly the word "victim" but what the hell WERE the Vietnamese since Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnamese Independence? Do you think, for a second, that he didn't see his people as victims?
Rosa Parks worked with and was trained by an activist group run by leftists and communists. She wasn't a tired woman who finally had enough like she is sometimes portrayed. She was an activist and she knew that the system in the south was exploiting her people and depriving them of basic rights. Again, the word "victim" wasn't used. You give a word instead, if you so hate the word "victim".
The other examples are the same, and obviously so. People like you don't like it when people are called victims because they have to be harmed by organizations and people, they have to be victims of policies, YOU are in favor of. So you deny them of this and you talk nonsense about personal responsibility.
"Some inherited it all. Some got totally lucky."
Actually, the facts show that majority of the Fortune 500 inherited a large sum of money. People like Laurence Summers, who is in favor of "neo-liberalism" which is nothing more than more savage capitalism, says that about 50% of ALL wealth is inherited. That number has increased and will greatly increase in coming years thanks to the last 30 years of economic policy. You forgot the people, and there are large amounts of these people, who made boat loads of money by playing around on a computer screen with some currencies. They add nothing to the world, outside of debt, and make hundreds of thousands, millions and billions. Thanks to "financial liberalization", or more pro-Wall Street capitalist nonsense.
Besides, most wealth is gained in capitalism by monopolizing the work of other people. If you invest in a company and the company makes large profits, you receive dividend payments and make a profit on your investment, YOU didn’t do anything to deserve that money. Someone ELSE did. You received the equivalent of a welfare payment, thanks to the system that allows capitalists to monopolize the value workers create.
"As for Abuelo, below, seems like if you don't agree with someone, the best thing to do is to put them down."
You don't seem to realize how immoral, illogical and a-historic the things you are saying are. There is no doubt that you are a sheltered suburbanite who doesn't know true struggle. I doubt you've seen the world, I don't mean a five star in Cabo or talked to people (the majority of the world) who ARE victims of things outside of their control and I’m sure even if you did you’d rationalize away their situation to something that doesn’t make you re-think your positions on these issues.
I think what drosera is getting at is that the Haitians should have taken out the World Trade Center many years ago.
Their lack of personal initiative in this regard cost them dearly.
At least I hope this is what he is suggesting. Otherwise, drosera is looking at a dead,decapitated cyclist under his SUV and drunkenly slurring, "He should have worn a better helmet."
this is the greatest comment of the entire thread.
drosera you have got to be the most ignorant and stupid commenter here today
Interesting, but skew.
Of course genetic endowment is a factor in anyone's life, and of course individual variety in this exists.
But on what basis would you imagine that the entire population of an island would have radically different genetic endowment than any other large population of humans?
I suspect that you believe nothing of the sort, but if not, how could you not find "decisions Haitians made that created misery" to be part of the circumstances imposed by poverty and ignorance rather than the results of any errors intrinsically/genetically Haitian.
---{This seems to me an error of a kind I have often made. While I tend to see my own actions as contingent on circumstance and occasion, I may regard others' occasional actions as deriving from Essential Character. }--
"it is fair to say that Haitians have made some bad choices and are now suffering the consequences"
by chance are you Pat Robertson, the evangelical christian maniac commenting on commondreams?
Bullshit! You should be ashamed of yourself for being so goddamn ignorant to say something like that.
Upon gaining their independence during a revolt against their french oppressors (the ones you call the French settlers) they became the first free black nation in the world. in a time when slavery was rampant in the world. Europe and America hated them for it and made them pay. France made them pay for the slaves they lost during that revolution (incredibly enough) for the next 100 years forming an economic embargo around the island. Then the U.S. came into fuck them for another 100 years, which america does so well, and you say "they" made bad choices.
Shut the $%# up you asshole.
French settlers. Is that what you call them? How about French invaders? You fucking racist jerk. They were brought there as slaves from Africa (by their friendly French settlers) and revolted to gain their independence. If you were brought to another country as a slave and then revolted would you tell your "nice French settlers" to go stand over in the corner while you decide whether to send them back to france on today's boat or tomorrows? No. You'd fucking kill them because thats what they'd deserve!
racist bigot.
"an analysis that blames Haiti's troubles on the United States is too simplistic."
You say this then say that Haiti, despite centuries of militaristic and economic imperialism, made decisions that caused a lot of their misery. You don't think that is simplistic and giving far too much weight to “personal responsibility”. That’s like saying the Jews in Nazi concentration camps were partially responsible for their bad health because they could have exercised more.
Haiti has been tortured by the West for centuries. It has been bled dry and given few options. When it had glimmers of hope, like in 1990, the reactionary right wing in Haiti (with help and support form the US) stepped in and took out a president who was supported by the VAST majority of the population. Bush sidestepped an OAS resolution isolating Haiti after the coup and Clinton only allowed Aristide to return after he accepted economic terms that 90% of the people voted him into office to oppose. The scene was repeated a few years ago and the US, France, the UN, amongst others, have been brutally suppressing Haiti and continuing (with the help of the usually more light skinned Haitian elite) to use Haiti as a source of cheap labor.
By the way, people who know what the hell their talking about realize that Haiti is no different than other poor countries or communities. An ecological economist named Herman Daly studied the problem of overpopulation in Brazil in the early 70’s. He wrote an article about it called “Marx and Malthus in Northeast Brazil”. He found that rich women had about 2 babies on average and poor women had between 6 and 7. Why? Lack of education, access to contraception, amongst other things. This is the same across the entire world, without exception. Is it a case of personal responsibility or is far more complicated (not simplistic like your claims) and ALWAYS due to economic standing? Poor people in Brazil are being driven off of the land and going into the rain forest, cutting down the trees, in order to grow food and to survive (thank god for the landless peasant movement there). Is it THEIR fault that they have no choice? It can’t be imperialism, capitalism, exploitation, a lack of land reform, economic autonomy, the financialization of the economy, large and growing differences in wealth or militarism supported by the largest and most violent military in the world. Nope, it’s THEIR fault. Logic and history be damned, you imperialist stooge.
Well put!
"It is fair to say that Haitians have made some bad choices and are now suffering the consequences."
Exactly...imagine the black slaves choosing freedom...I suppose you think it serves em right.
Precisely Right you are! and your historical information is very helpful.
Just before reading your comment I posted this on Facebook:
The Global Marshall Plan put out by the Network for Spiritual Progressives would be a great place for our government to start to truly make the world a safer and more equitable place. (Just think of what a massive earthquake retrofit program throughout the world would do toward making the world more truly secure and what economic uplifting the work to do it would be.)
Karita Hummer
San Jose, CA
The fact that US progressives are considered as inconsequential little flies on the fringe of the political system is roughly the same thing as the fact that in countries like Haiti only right wing pro international corporation politicians are allowed to govern without being assassinated or deposed (thus for example the Aristide episode). Never think that what goes on in "that dirt poor country" has no corollary in much wealthier countries.
In one of my numerous Internet travels I within the last year stumbled on a Jamaican forum which was dominated by right wing, well off Jamaicans. One thread I looked at was where the right wingers were making light of and belittling Michael Manley, who in the first of his two terms as Jamaican Prime Minister (separated by an interim) during the 1970's dabbled with policies that would rein in the corporations somewhat in favor of ordinary Jamaicans. About 30 years later, all these right wingers could do was make petty fun of Manley's efforts toward and belief in protecting the common people from the ravages of international corporations.
Ha ha ha, that's really funny, someone wanting to help ordinary people, only a small fraction of which in Jamaica (or Haiti) have ever benefitted from the huge corporations that make the right wingers well off. That’s very, very amusing.
Today, the main reasons why Jamaica is somewhat better off than Haiti are:
(a) International corporations (and of course small business people looking for an exotic place to invest) prefer English speaking countries with half way decent infrastructure to a Creole French speaking country with bad infrastructure, so Haiti has simply not gotten all that much investment by the corporations even though financial and trade policies were rammed through in their favor. It seems that the corporations reserve the right to say: "Thanks, but no thinks." And
(b) Jamaica has stubbornly retained a small but functioning public sector which prevents the corporations that operate in Jamaica from achieving total control and domination over the Jamaican government and the Jamaican people. The corporations and the international organizations that do their bidding have to settle for relative control in Jamaica because total control is denied to them there. This prevents Jamaicans from being as dirt poor as Haitians.
The trend over the last 50 years is clear: generally speaking, the more control corporations have over a country, the poorer it is, and vice versa.
Meanwhile, in Cuba, probably the most important long term result of the Revolution of all was that the international corporations have been for over 50 years now very restricted there. Ironically today, corporations are itching to operate without restrictions in Cuba because Cuba has a reasonably good infrastructure and a well educated population. Corporations can only benefit so much from dirt poor wages alone, thus their hesitation with respect to Haiti and other dirt poor countries with poor infrastructure.
Comparing on the one hand the huge corporations' relative reluctance to invest in dirt poor Haiti despite there being no restrictions on their doing so to on the other hand their licking their chops at the thought of investing in Cuba if and when they ever are allowed to, it seems that corporations don't know what is good for them. They would be better off in the long run if they refrained from crushing indigenous governments and industries.
Priors and links to key CD articles and the Romney clown:
http://www.unity-progress.blogspot.com
American meddling in Haiti over the years has cost that devastated place plenty. When Bush's US Marines removed Aristide; that signaled the current decline of that country.
Of course the French did in the country earlier.
Sadly , the US is not good at nation building,--which is what Haiti needs.
Bring back Aristide, allow Haiti to tariff sugar and other commodities that the IMF doesn't want Haiti to tariff --and get France and the US to pony up trillions to rebuild this destroyed county.
Some comments from Ashley Smith
January 14, 2010
Before and After the Quake
The Incapacitation of Haiti
By ASHLEY SMITH
(SNIP)
First the Bush administration and now the Obama administration have used the coup and social and natural crises to expand the U.S.'s neoliberal economic plans.
Under Obama, the U.S. has granted Haiti $1.2 billion in debt relief, but it hasn't canceled all of Haiti's debt--the country still pays huge sums to the Inter-American Development Bank. The debt relief is classic window-dressing for Obama's real Haiti policy, which is the same old Haiti policy.
In close collaboration with the new UN Special Envoy to Haiti, former President Bill Clinton, Obama has pushed for an economic program familiar to much of the rest of the Caribbean--tourism, textile sweatshops, and weakening of state control of the economy through privatization and deregulation.
In particular, Clinton has orchestrated a plan for turning the north of Haiti into a tourist playground, as far away as possible from the teeming slums of Port-au-Prince. Clinton lured Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines into investing $55 million to build a pier along the coastline of Labadee, which it has leased until 2050.
>From there, Haiti's tourist industry hopes to lead expeditions to the mountaintop fortress Citadelle and the Palace of Sans Souci, both built by Henri Cristophe, one of the leaders of Haiti's slave revolution. According to the Miami Herald:
The $40 million plan involved transforming the now quaint town of Milot, home to the Citadelle and Palace of Sans Souci ruin, into a vibrant tourist village, with arts and crafts markets, restaurants and stoned streets. Guests would be ferried past a congested Cap-Haïtien to a bay, then transported by bus past peasant plantations. Once in Milot, they would either hike or horseback to the Citadelle...named a world heritage site in 1982...
Eco-tourism, archaeological exploration and voyeuristic visits to Vodou rituals are all being touted by Haiti's struggling boutique tourism industry, as Royal Caribbean plans to bring the world largest cruise ship here, sparking the need for excursions.
So while Pat Robertson denounces Haiti's great slave revolution as a pact with the devil, Clinton is helping to reduce it to a tourist trap.
At the same time, Clinton's plans for Haiti include an expansion of the sweatshop industry to take advantage of cheap labor available from the urban masses. The U.S. granted duty-free treatment for Haitian apparel exports to make it easy for sweatshops to return to Haiti.
Clinton celebrated the possibilities of sweatshop development during a whirlwind tour of a textile plant owned and operated by the infamous Cintas Corp. He announced that George Soros had offered $50 million for a new industrial park of sweatshops that could create 25,000 jobs in the garment industry. Clinton explained at a press conference that Haiti's government could create "more jobs by lowering the cost of doing business, including the cost of rent."
As TransAfrica founder Randall Robinson told Democracy Now! "That isn't the kind of investment that Haiti needs. It needs capital investment. It needs investment so that it can be self-sufficient. It needs investment so that it can feed itself."
One of the reasons why Clinton could be so unabashed in celebrating sweatshops is that the U.S.-backed coup repressed any and all resistance. It got rid of Aristide and his troublesome habit of raising the minimum wage. It banished him from the country, terrorized his remaining allies and barred his political party, Fanmi Lavalas, the most popular in the country, from running for office. The coup regime also attacked union organizers within the sweatshops themselves.
As a result, Clinton could state to business leaders: "Your political risk in Haiti is lower than it has ever been in my lifetime."
Thus, as previous U.S. presidencies have done before, the Obama administration has worked to aid Haiti's elite, sponsor international corporations taking advantage of cheap labor, weaken the ability of the Haitian state to regulate the society, and repress any political resistance to that agenda.
* * *
Excellent stuff.
It sickens me to see the Clintons feigning compassion for Haiti. They are just worried that their plans to exploit this poor country further might be delayed.
Thanks for the background details. Explains a lot.
Thank you for posting that. I googled the article and read the whole story. Good stuff.
"The debt relief is classic window-dressing for Obama's real Haiti policy, which is the same old Haiti policy."
But I am sure he gave the policy a really swell sounding new name.
Has to be all lies. This old Indian knows your Government would never purposely harm anyone.
Even the presidential palace, national cathedral, and big hotels collapsed. Evidently even those high profile buildings were not built to withstand earth quakes. Ironically the light weight buildings in the country side posed much smaller risk.
The UN and other international aid groups need to design and stockpile safe secure shelters that can be rapidly deployed for millions if necessary. Advanced designs appropriate to each different region of the world should use local materials and labor to the greatest extent possible.
Over a billion people live in fourth world conditions, lacking clean water, sanitation, food, and safe secure shelter. There needs to be an international competition to create the most advanced efficent, and practical designs and technologies possible to rapidly meet these basic human needs.
"designs appropriate to each different region of the world should use local materials and labor to the greatest extent possible.
sure... they are called "huts"
Starving people dont need no fancy high tech condos.
My son is in the seventh grade and studies Haiti ... he told me Columbus killed most of the original inhabitants looking for their gold mine. Columbus wouldn't believe the islanders when they told him the gold was all gone, so he used enhanced interrogation and killed them. My son also told me he would never step inside Disneyland. "Dad'" he said, "Disneyland makes a huge cloud of fireworks pollution every night, it's awful."
Bird-Brain Slick Willie Clinton who gave us Nafta, WTO, and outsourced our industrial base to China, and left us with
slave wage service industry has jumped on board in Haiti.
Clinton and Bush the Senior should be charged with treason.
Unless this country gets a wake up call we are doomed.
Obama who has circled himself with the Clinton Machine, is no better..
I agree with everything except your first adjective. WJC is very smart. And his ambition has more than made up for any mistakes he's made. Whitewater, Lewinsky-gate and Hillary not being president are all just bumps in the road. Otherwise, everything's gone exactly as intended.
Lucre never wealth but power
In Port au Prince backbroken
Servants lost to any bribe
Children of a falling tide
Assassins mourn the grift unmade
The living the unspoken.
- Crandall
from "Incomplete Poems."
But WE CARE about Haiti now, right?
At least until the weekend?
The big question is: what do Jay and Conan have to say about the disaster in Haiti?
It was only a matter of time before somebody would write an article trying to blame the earthquake in Haiti on the US.Yes, the US has done some nasty stuff down there, and all over the world, but some of you folks need to get a life, and dig into your pockets, and send Doctors Without Borders some money, or make a contribution to the AFSC or some one else whose relief efforts you can trust.There'll be plenty of time for 'mea culpas' later.
How LONG does it take you to donate money to such worthy social efforts?
Only took me five minutes to assist Medicins sans Frontiers (for Haiti, shouldn't we use the French?) in their work.
Now I have the time to scan CD and see what folks are thinking about the underlying causes of the situation.
What the heck is with all of the "get a life" and "stop ranting" and "don't comment, do something useful" and other versions of "don't post here" shout-downs on this site lately?
I'm away for a coupla months and now they're in every third thread!
-matti.