The myth of US humanitarian aid to Haiti

[Jimmie Higgins]

Appointing Bush to oversee aid to Haiti is like putting Nero in charge of the fire department.

Since it seems like there is a little bit of debate about US involvement in the Haitin relief efforts, here are a couple of articles from SocialistWorker.org that help put the US effort there in the context of US imperialism.

Humanitarian Aid or Military Occupation? (http://socialistworker.org/2010/01/19/humanitarian-aid-or-occupation)

The Humanitarian Myth (http://socialistworker.org/2010/01/25/the-humanitarian-myth)

Racism in the Portrayal of Haiti (http://socialistworker.org/2010/01/21/racism-in-portraying-haiti)


http://socialistworker.org/files/imagecache/330/files/images/Fox-news-racist-coverage.jpg

[chebol]

More here: http://links.org.au/taxonomy/term/215

[Yazman]

The USA clearly has strategic interests there which Chavez has echoed, and their corporate masters have their own interests they have been pursuing for a few years now. The US government has even admitted it will have a long-term stay in Haiti. I think this is effectively an occupation for now:

Source: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=116762&sectionid=351020706
Snippet from source: (Click link for full article):

Despite criticism for the US military presence in quake-stricken Haiti, Washington says it has a long-term plan to stay in the country.

"We are there for the long term, this is not something that will be resolved quickly and easily," US Ambassador to the UN Alejandro Wolff said on Thursday.

Just three days after a magnitude 7 earthquake jolted Haiti on January 12, the United States began to send military forces to the impoverished Caribbean nation.

The head of US Southern Command General Douglas Fraser said on Thursday that nearly 20,000 US troops are due to operate, both on land and offshore, by Sunday.

Currently over 2,676 US troops are operating on the ground in Haiti, Fraser said, adding the number is going to swell to 4,600 by the weekend and that another 10,445 are currently afloat aboard vessels offshore.

More than 4,000 other soldiers and Marines also left North Carolina late Wednesday.

This is while leading international aid organization, Medecins Sans Frontieres, blasted the US for putting the delivery of soldiers before medical supplies.


Here's an article on Haitian resources:

This one is translated from a Haitian source, dating to 2008:

Source: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.metropolehaiti.com%2Fmetropole% 2Ffull_une_fr.php%3Fid%3D13439
Snippet from source: (Click link for full article):


Haiti is full of oil say Daniel and Ginette Mathurin

Scientists Daniel and Ginette Mathurin indicate that under Haitian soil is rich in oil and fuel fossible which were collected by Haitian and foreign experts. "We have identified 20 sites Oil, launches Daniel Mathurin stating that 5 of them are considered very important by practitioners and policies.

The Central Plateau, including the region of Thomond, the plain of the cul-de-sac and the bay of Port-au-Prince are filled with oil, he said, adding that Haiti's oil reserves are larger than those of Venezuela. An Olympic pool compared to a glass of water that is the comparison to show the importance of oil Haitian compared to those of Venezuela, "he explains. Venezuela is one of the world's largest producers of oil.

Daniel Mathurin reveals that investigations of several previous governments have allowed to verify the existence of these large deposits of oil. It reminds a document of Lavalas party to power in 2004, had specified the number of sites in Haiti hydrocarbons.
If we look to 2007 we can see Haiti possesses even more resources:

Source: http://www.thestar.com/printarticle/238365
Snippet from source: (Click link for full article):

LA MIEL, Haiti–Keith Laskowski bounds up the freshly-cut dirt road like a child at an amusement park. He stops at a patch of reddish rock, whacks at it with his miner's pick and slips a chunk into his pocket.
"This road exposure's great," he says, then laughs almost giddily.

For 27 years, Laskowski has been searching for gold, from Mongolia to the Amazon. Now, the geologist says, he may have hit pay dirt in the hills above the town of La Miel in northeastern Haiti.
But Laskowski's optimism belies a minefield of potential problems awaiting his Vancouver-based company, Eurasian Minerals. Although Canadian mining companies weather stormy political climates around the world, they have largely stayed clear of crisis-torn Haiti.

Now, with the price of gold doubling in the last five years and a newly elected government establishing a degree of stability, geologists are scouring the hilltops of Haiti, the region's poorest country.
"These are the best results I've ever seen," says Laskowski. "I don't think there's a question of whether there's a good deposit here. It's a question of whether we can develop it here in Haiti."

In late May, Eurasian Minerals announced the gold content found in several trenches cut into the hillsides here, driving its stock price up 40 per cent on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Laskowski says the company hopes to find billions of dollars worth of gold in the hills above La Miel, which is just a few kilometres from the border with the Dominican Republic.

This would be no small news for Haiti, where industrial production is meagre and agriculture is mainly subsistence. Haiti has never had a modern gold or silver mine; its only copper mine closed 35 years ago.

[DecDoom]

Here's an article on Haitian resources:

This one is translated from a Haitian source:

Source: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.metropolehaiti.com%2Fmetropole% 2Ffull_une_fr.php%3Fid%3D13439
Snippet from source: (Click link for full article):


Scientists Daniel and Ginette Mathurin indicate that under Haitian soil is rich in oil and fuel fossible which were collected by Haitian and foreign experts. "We have identified 20 sites Oil, launches Daniel Mathurin stating that 5 of them are considered very important by practitioners and policies.

The Central Plateau, including the region of Thomond, the plain of the cul-de-sac and the bay of Port-au-Prince are filled with oil, he said, adding that Haiti's oil reserves are larger than those of Venezuela . An Olympic pool compared to a glass of water that is the comparison to show the importance of oil Haitian compared to those of Venezuela, "he explains. Venezuela is one of the world's largest producers of oil.

Daniel Mathurin reveals that investigations of several previous governments have allowed to verify the existence of these large deposits of oil. It reminds a document of Lavalas party to power in 2004, had specified the number of sites in Haiti hydrocarbons.

If that's true, that would give us the ulterior motive for the "aid".

[Uncle Hank]

Since it seems like there is a little bit of debate about US involvement in the Haitin relief efforts, here are a couple of articles from SocialistWorker.org that help put the US effort there in the context of US imperialism.
Beyond a few misguided comrades I'm not sure it's us that need schooling on the now more prevalent than ever US imperialism in Haiti, but it seems we're the only ones willing to listen. :( If we were going to do something for the sake of helping people that'd be un-American I guess... just more blatant proof of the sad state of affairs worldwide, not to mention the calamities that have struck Haiti.

What I get from what I've read of the articles is pretty much as suspected- the Obama administration doesn't do nothing for nothing. The whole guise of the troops as security to silence the somewhat genuine concern liberals have is the most obvious sham I think, and we can expect a greater permanent US military presence in Haiti until fuck knows when. All of this plays back to racism for the right wing, of course knowing what savages the Haitian people are. And now we better gun down those 4000 inmates, because lord knows they're all murderers and rapists. :rolleyes:



Here's an article on Haitian resources:

This one is translated from a Haitian source, dating to 2008:

Source: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.metropolehaiti.com%2Fmetropole% 2Ffull_une_fr.php%3Fid%3D13439
Snippet from source: (Click link for full article):


Haiti is full of oil say Daniel and Ginette Mathurin

Scientists Daniel and Ginette Mathurin indicate that under Haitian soil is rich in oil and fuel fossible which were collected by Haitian and foreign experts. "We have identified 20 sites Oil, launches Daniel Mathurin stating that 5 of them are considered very important by practitioners and policies.

The Central Plateau, including the region of Thomond, the plain of the cul-de-sac and the bay of Port-au-Prince are filled with oil, he said, adding that Haiti's oil reserves are larger than those of Venezuela. An Olympic pool compared to a glass of water that is the comparison to show the importance of oil Haitian compared to those of Venezuela, "he explains. Venezuela is one of the world's largest producers of oil.

Daniel Mathurin reveals that investigations of several previous governments have allowed to verify the existence of these large deposits of oil. It reminds a document of Lavalas party to power in 2004, had specified the number of sites in Haiti hydrocarbons.
I would just like to interject that even if there is oil the main concern of the US imperialists isn't always about oil, as eager as some would be to make it out to be about oil; a main concern would be Haitian immigration, trying to make things seem better so they can make the people stay put without objection from those aware of it. There was even a plane flying over boradcasting in (I think) Creole telling the general population to not come to the US; they would not be allowed to stay, which is essentially what is said here (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/01/19/2796287.htm?site=news) towards the bottom of the article. Also seen in the article 'The Humanitarian Myth' in the OP, that it's been called on by an op-ed NY Times contributer to use Guantanamo as a base for "humanitarian aid. Now it's been reported here (http://www.navytimes.com/news/2010/01/ap_navy_guantanamo_haiti_012110/) (funny source to use, the Navy Times, but it should show how even the slanted can't slant this) that they plan to use Guantanamo as a detention center for those potential immigrants caught at sea by US forces. Guess the op-ed guy is getting what he wanted. :thumbdown:

[dar8888]

The U.S. has taken hundreds of millions of dollars from Haiti - while Haiti itself is the poorest country in the hemisphere.

It's no wonder the U.S. wants to "rebuild" Haiti - the slaves can't work if the infrastructure is gone...

[cyu]

The U.S. has taken hundreds of millions of dollars from Haiti - while Haiti itself is the poorest country in the hemisphere.


Speaking of which, excerpt from http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/517494

A 2008 report from the Center for International Policy points out that in 2003, Haiti spent $57.4 million to service its debt, while total foreign assistance for education, health care and other services was a mere $39.21 million. In other words, under a system of putative benevolence, Haiti paid back more than it received.

[Tatarin]

The US aiding poor people? You'd have a better chance of convincing me that Hitler was an alien from the planet Nazius and Germany just misunderstood his good intentions.

[Communist]

Here's a brief story on U.S. "aid".
--------------------------
=====================
=============

U.S. aid comes with strings attached (http://www.workers.org/2010/world/us_aid_0128/)

By Sara Flound (http://www.swans.com/library/art12/zig090.html)ers


How much is $100 million in U.S. aid to Haiti really worth? $100 million is less than what the U.S. spends in five hours on the wars and occupation in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The $100 million President Barack Obama promised in emergency aid to Haiti for earthquake relief sounds like a lot of money. But it is a tiny amount when compared to what the rulers of France and the United States stole from Haiti and its people over centuries.

The U.S. imposed 60 years of sanctions and blockade on Haiti after the victory of the first successful slave revolution in history. This blockade impoverished Haiti. France demanded in 1825, with warships in the harbor, that Haiti repay French slave owners $21 billion for the value of the enslaved Africans who were liberated. Haiti was forced to pay interest on this debt for more than 100 years.

U.S.-supported dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier diverted $500 million in U.S. loans into his personal bank accounts in just the last six years before he fled the country. But the Haitian people still had to repay all the Duvalier loans.

Billions of dollars in debt, Haiti was forced to accept an International Monetary Fund structural adjustment program that promised “debt forgiveness.” This IMF program destroyed Haiti’s sustainable agriculture, bankrupted its cash crops of rice and sugar, raised the price of electricity, and froze pay on public transit, infrastructure and vital social service providers such as doctors, nurses and teachers.

Haiti’s debt to the Inter-American Development Bank was not “forgiven.” It is more than $500 million — five times the amount of U.S. aid pledged for earthquake relief.

It is always important to remember that whatever U.S. imperialism gives with one hand, it takes away with the other. The IMF announced on Jan. 14, the same day that President Obama promised $100 million in aid, that it would be adding a $100 million loan to its current program in Haiti. This only leaves Haiti further in debt.

$100 million is just 7 percent of the $1.4 billion that Haitian workers in the Diaspora send home to their families every year. Half of the population of Haiti lives on less than $1 a day. Yet this U.S. aid and U.S. loan will force even more Haitians to immigrate to find work for their families’ survival.

The people of Haiti are owed reparations from the U.S. and French banks, which have extracted billions of dollars in profits from Haiti for hundreds of years. $100 million is far less than 1 percent of the $18 billion that Goldman Sachs executives will receive in bonuses this year, after a $700 billion U.S. government bailout of the banks.

And $100 million in U.S. aid to Haiti (http://www.workers.org/haiti/) comes with a high price tag: U.S. military occupation.

=====================
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Articles copyright 1995-2010 Workers World (http://www.workersworld.net/wwp/pmwiki.php/Main/AboutThisSite).
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire
article is permitted in any medium without royalty
provided this notice is preserved.

[Uppercut]

Well, I guess my country can't do anything right...:(
It's pretty pathetic. I should've known that the U.S. would exploit this tragedy.

I don't feel any better knowing that HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) can actually cause earthquakes. Yes, that's right, The U.S. government has a weapon that can trigger natural disasters.

[Nolan]

I don't feel any better knowing that HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) can actually cause earthquakes. Yes, that's right, The U.S. government has a weapon that can trigger natural disasters.

No, it doesn't.

[Communist]

This is what the bourgeois press came out with a few hours ago...

=======================================

AP: Haiti govt gets 1 penny of US quake aid dollar (http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LT_HAITI_US_AID?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT)

By YESICA FISCH and MARTHA MENDOZA
Associated Press Writers

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -- Less than a penny of each dollar the U.S. is spending on earthquake relief in Haiti is going in the form of cash to the Haitian government, according to an Associated Press review of relief efforts.

Two weeks after President Obama announced an initial $100 million for Haiti earthquake relief, U.S. government spending on the disaster has nearly quadrupled to $379 million, the U.S. Agency for International Development announced Wednesday. That's about $1.25 each from everyone in the United States.

Each American dollar roughly breaks down like this: 42 cents for disaster assistance, 33 cents for U.S. military aid, nine cents for food, nine cents to transport the food, five cents for paying Haitian survivors for recovery efforts, just less than one cent to the Haitian government, and about half a cent to the Dominican Republic.

The U.S. government money is part of close to $2 billion in relief aid flowing into Haiti - almost all of it managed by organizations other than the Haitian government, which has been struggling to re-establish its authority since the quake. On Wednesday, a defensive President Rene Preval acknowledged his country's reputation for graft, but said aid money isn't lining the pockets of government officials.

"There's a perception of corruption, but I would like to tell the Haitian people that the Haitian government has not seen one penny of all the money that has been raised - millions are being made on the right, millions on the left, it's all going to the NGOs (nongovernmental organizations)" Preval said, speaking in Creole at a news conference.

Relief experts say it would be a mistake to send too much direct cash to the Haitian government, which was already unstable before the quake and routinely included on lists of the world's most corrupt countries.

"I really believe Americans are the most generous people who ever lived, but they want accountability," said Timothy R. Knight, a former US AID assistant director who spent 25 years distributing disaster aid. "In this situation they're being very deliberate not to just throw money at the situation but to analyze based on a clear assessment and make sure that money goes to the best place possible."

The AP review of federal budget spreadsheets, procurement reports and contract databases shows the vast majority of U.S. funds going to established and tested providers including the U.N. World Food Program, the Pan American Health Organization and nonprofit groups such as Save The Children, which have sent in everything from the $3.4 million barge that cleared the port for aid deliveries to pinto beans at 40 cents a pound.

"We are trying to respond as quickly as we can to this catastrophe of biblical proportions by mustering all of the resources that the United States government can bring to bear, first on rescue leading into relief, which is where we are right now, and hopefully seamlessly into recovery," said Lewis Lucke, U.S. special coordinator for relief and reconstruction.

Major relief efforts were launched within hours of the Jan. 12 earthquake that killed at least 150,000, devastated the capital of Port-au-Prince and affected a third of its 9 million people. Behind each effort has been cash and contracts, airline tickets to be purchased and ocean freighters to be leased.

Of each U.S. taxpayer dollar, 42 cents funds US AID's disaster assistance - everything from $5,000 generators to $35 hygiene kits with soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste for a family of five.

Another 33 cents is going to the U.S. military, paying for security, search and rescue teams, and the Navy's hospital ship USNS Comfort.

Just under a dime has already been spent on food: 122 million pounds of pinto beans, black beans, rice, corn soy blend and vegetable oil. When purchased in bulk, the actual food prices are relatively low. Pinto beans, for example, cost the U.S. government 40 cents a pound when purchased in 5 million-pound batches last week.

Getting the food to Haitians - paying for freighters, trucks and distribution centers, and the people to staff them, took another nine cents from each dollar.

Initial disaster spending was aimed at saving lives; now the spending is shifting to recovery. The Obama administration is putting five cents of each dollar into efforts to pay survivors to work. One program already in place describes paying 40,000 Haitians $3 per day for 20 days to clean up around hospitals and dig latrines. That project also includes renting 10 excavators and loaders, at $600 each, and 10 dump trucks at $50 a load.

Just under one penny of each dollar is going straight to the shattered Haitian government, whose president is sleeping in a tent while struggling to organize an administration that was notoriously unstable even before the earthquake.

The U.S. rarely gives large amounts of money directly to governments, a practice that is "very defensible from my point of view," said John Simon, who coordinated U.S. responses to international disasters under President Bush's administration.

A final half-cent funds three Dominican Republic hospitals near the Haitian border, where refugees have been begging for help.

The U.S. is providing the largest slice of a global response that totals more than $1 billion in government pledges. The European Union's 27 nations are contributing $575 million. The U.S. also has long been the largest donor of ongoing foreign aid that Haiti depends on for up to 40 percent of its budget, with more than $260 million in U.S. money last year aimed at promoting stability, prosperity and democracy.

The money is flowing through federal agencies that administer $2.6 billion already appropriated in the 2010 budget for foreign disaster relief, said Thomas Gavin, a spokesman at the White House Office of Management and Budget. He said there are no plans to ask Congress for more money.

Of the private disaster aid flowing into Haiti, U.S. charities have raised $470 million, according to The Chronicle of Philanthropy.


---
Associated Press writer Yesica Fisch reported this story from Port-au-Prince and Martha Mendoza from Mexico City.

[Communist]

-

‘Stop blocking aid to Haiti’ (http://www.workers.org/2010/us/la_0204/)

Published Jan 27, 2010

http://www.workers.org/2010/us/la_0204.jpg (http://www.workers.org/haiti/)
Photo: Indymedia (http://la.indymedia.org/)

In spite of pouring rain, activists held a protest at the downtown Federal Building in Los Angeles Jan. 23 demanding the U.S. government stop blocking international aid to Haiti and provide the assistance necessary to save the lives of earthquake victims there.

The protest, initiated by Global Women’s Strike (http://www.globalwomenstrike.net/Haiti/HaitiIndex.htm), was co-sponsored by BAYAN-USA (http://www.myspace.com/bayan_usa), the International Action Center (http://www.iacenter.org/) and Bail Out the People Movement (http://www.bailoutpeople.org/). It was endorsed by Latino Caucus (http://www.seiu721.org/myunion/caucuses-and-committees.php) members of Service Employees (http://www.seiu.org/) union Local 721 (http://www.seiu721.org/myunion/caucuses-and-committees.php).

Many speakers referred to the years of exploitation and economic sabotage toward the Haitian people by the U.S. and France and demanded not only aid but reparations for Haiti.

— John Parker

=========

[Uppercut]

No, it doesn't.

Yes, it can.

[Jimmie Higgins]

No, it doesn't.Right, as far as I'm concerned, until I see it, it doesn't. I think comrades should refrain from the use of conspiracy theories in discussions of US wrongdoings. Sure, I could be wrong, I'm sure the US military has tons of secret devices under wraps, but "earthquake machine" automatically puts you into a loony-bin category and make any further criticism of US imperialism moot in the eyes of people who are skeptical of conspiracy theories.

The US government and personality cults like to make unsubstantiated and wild claims about their foe's secret powers (Bush: Iraq's supposed WMDs/Nukes or a dictator/cult-leader telling his followers that hostile forces are plotting against them) and this only serves to whip up emotional responces to things, not critical understanding of why things happen. "Earthquake machines" tell us little about US imperialism in Haiti... it only serves to make the US government seem more (cartoonishly) evil which ultimately obscures and confuses a clear understanding of real things like imperialism or capitalism.

The real harmful effects of US policy are not some weather or earthquake machine but US policy and neoliberalism which together have impoverished the country and led to starvation and unemployment, crowding of urban slums, deregulation of building construction (in a city on a fault-line!).

It's not the technology the US does or doesn't have that makes their involvement harmful for a lot of people all over the world (they have more nukes - which is prooven - than any other country for godssake), it's US imperialism.

[cyu]

I think comrades should refrain from the use of conspiracy theories in discussions of US wrongdoings.


Depends on the situation I think. It would make much more sense in terms of Honduras. Excerpt from http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jul2009/pers-j01.shtml

A US official speaking anonymously confirmed to the New York Times that US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas A. Shannon, Jr. and US Ambassador to Honduras Hugo Llorens spoke to “military officials and opposition leaders” in the days before the coup. He explained: “There was talk of how they might remove the president from office, how he could be arrested, on whose authority they could do that.”

[Nolan]

It's not the technology the US does or doesn't have that makes their involvement harmful for a lot of people all over the world (they have more nukes - which is prooven - than any other country for godssake), it's US imperialism.

Actually I believe it's Russia that has the most nukes, but your point stands.

[Communist]

.
Protest wants aid, not occupation for Haiti (http://www.workers.org/2010/us/protest_wants_aid_not_occupation_for_haiti/)

Feb 22, 2010


Despite rain and wind last Jan. 25, at least 150 local Haitians and their supporters rallied during evening rush hour at the famous Powell & Market Cable Car Turnaround in downtown San Francisco to “Stand with Haiti.”

Organized by the Haiti Action Committee, speakers called for true solidarity with the plight of the Haitian people since the catastrophic Jan. 12 earthquake, demanded that Haiti’s legitimate President Jean-Bertrand Aristide — who U.S. operatives kidnapped in a 2004 coup and is now exiled in South Africa — be brought back.

The demonstrators called for emergency food, water and medical aid, and not foreign military armed occupation.

http://www.workers.org/2010/us/sf_0225.jpg

Local Haiti Action Committee member and trade union activist Dave Welsh sang a few inspiring songs and spoke about additional actions taking place that week to stand with Haiti.

Pierre Labossiere, co-founder of the Haiti Action Committee, said: “U.N. troops have been firing rubber bullets at Haitians ... while food and aid are not getting distributed.”

He reminded the crowd of “Haiti’s rich mineral resources, like gold, copper, silver, uranium and oil, that profit-motivated foreign companies ... have always enriched themselves with, at the expense of the cheap labor extracted from the Haitian people, like beasts of burden ... as shops are closed in the U.S. and go to Haiti, for slave wages.”

Labossiere concluded his remarks with: “Stand with the people of Haiti; we are all Haiti, Haiti is us!”

— Report and photo by Joan Marquardt

______________________



copyright 1995-2010 Workers World (http://www.workers.org/wwp/).
Verbatim copying and distribution of
this entire article is permitted in any
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notice is preserved.

[Communist]

.
Haiti: Aid Covers Up Tightening Military, Economic Domination (http://www.plp.org/challenge/2010/2/23/haiti-us-bosses-puny-aid-covers-up-tightening-military-econo.html)

February 2010


http://www.plp.org/storage/post-images/armypointinggunsatpeople.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVE RSION=1266946071069

It becomes clearer by the day that the U.S. invasion and blockade of Haiti has imperialist and racist, rather than charitable, goals.

Besides maintaining a grossly underpaid or unemployed, U.S.-dominated, almost entirely black cheap labor pool there, the top U.S. priority is seizing political and military control of this strategically-located country.

It stands at the geo-political crossroads of Caribbean trade routes, the Panama Canal, Cuba and Guantanamo Bay, Venezuela and potential off-shore oil reserves.

This follows a century of imperialist exploitation of Haiti, making it the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country, leaving it completely vulnerable to such an earthquake.

General Douglas Fraser, head of the Pentagon’s Southern Command, which runs the inadequate “aid” effort, said 13,000 of the 20,000 U.S. troops sent to Haiti would remain indefinitely. He told Agence France Presse (2/14/10), of “a transition of immediate relief capability to an enduring capacity here in Haiti.”

The 7,000 departing troops, including the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, are now on their way to more pressing tasks in Afghanistan and Iraq.

One month into Obama’s “humanitarian” occupation of Haiti, its devastated working class continues to suffer severe shortages of every basic necessity.

Fraser’s forces did woefully little to help Haitians:

• “As many as a million people have still not received any international food assistance.” (Huffington Post, 2/4/10)

• The January 12 earthquake left 1.2 million Haitians homeless and afflicted more than 3,000,000. “Only a quarter of those in need have plastic or a tent over their heads. And a lack of latrines looms as a major problem.” (Miami Herald, 2/14/10)

• The U.S. Navy News (2/9/10) boasted that, “Medical and dental personnel from the 24th MEU treated more than 100 Haitians [!] on the island of Gonave.”

• The USS Normandy delivered “more than 1,000 gallons of water” in its 21 days of Haiti service, an amount the ship uses every day to flush its toilets, and equal to the water in an average backyard swimming pool.

• The $450 million in U.S. aid sounds like a lot, but it amounts to just $150 per stricken Haitian. Compare that with the $1 million Obama is shelling out for each soldier in his ongoing civilian-slaughtering Afghan surge.

Bill Clinton For President — Of Haiti?

As U.S. soldiers patrol Haiti’s streets, Obama & Co. are cooking up a scheme to make Bill Clinton the country’s virtual colonial governor. The Miami Herald reported (2/10/10):

“The Obama administration is quietly advocating a plan to reconstruct Haiti that could involve a central role for former President Bill Clinton. The plan, designed by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s staff and presented to top Haitian officials in recent days, calls for the creation of an Interim Haiti Recovery Commission to oversee the ‘urgent early recovery’ over the next 18 months. The commission’s top priority: create a Haitian Development Authority to plan and coordinate billions in foreign assistance for at least 10 years.

“The plan...states that the commission could be co-chaired by the Haitian prime minister and ‘a distinguished senior international figure engaged in the recovery effort.’ Haiti observers believe the job description describes Clinton although he’s not named in the document. The United Nations has already named him to coordinate its reconstruction efforts.”

[B]U.S. Bosses See Opportunity in
Haitian Workers’ Misery

U.S. capitalists hope such direct political control will enable them to expand sweatshop operations in Haiti. One U.S. think-tank, the Center for Global Development (CGD), bankrolled by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, actually sees Haiti’s $3-a-day garment factory pay as key to recovery, provided bosses don’t beat workers too much:

“Apparel assembly pays relatively low wages wherever it is done in the world.... The United States should... facilitate Haiti’s apparel exports and create [these $3-a-day] jobs...” (CGD, 1/25/10)

Before the quake Bill Clinton used his UN post mainly to campaign for more U.S. sweatshops in Haiti. Last October he led a trade mission — financed by billionaire George Soros — of U.S. investors that explored “manufacturing opportunities” in Port-au-Prince.

If Obama’s plan goes through, Clinton could soon become Haiti’s garment boss-in-chief.

Now John Kerry’s daughter, Vanessa Kerry, MD, has called for an open militarization of medical relief under Pentagon command.

A resident at Harvard-run Massachusetts General Hospital, Kerry wrote in a NY Times op-ed piece (2/13/10), “The United States should create a service corps of doctors, nurses and medical technicians to deploy to humanitarian disasters like the one that struck Haiti last month.” In other words, well-meaning rank-and-file supporters of Doctors Without Borders should don the uniform of the U.S. war machine.

‘Healers in Uniform’ — A ‘Force
Multiplier’ Enhancing U.S. Military

Dr. Kerry insists that giving modest medical care can help the U.S. ruling class (to which she belongs by birth) win the wars it now wages and must soon wage to preserve its threatened worldwide empire.

She proclaims, “Our generals in Iraq and Afghanistan have long recognized that providing basic services to populations there is central to the success of their mission.”

In a paradox only a capitalist could appreciate, Kerry said that more healers in uniform could actually enhance the Pentagon’s killing power:

“In military terminology, improved health care should be seen as a force multiplier.” This is a technical term the U.S. military reserves for especially lethal weapons systems.

Kerry’s plea looks like a backdoor attempt to revive the “national service” program (that is, a restored draft) her father couldn’t sell in his failed 2004 White House bid but one which was part of Obama’s 2008 campaign.

Catastrophes like Haiti prompt outpourings of sympathy and real attempts to help from the working class and its allies. Capitalists see disasters as chances to increase both their own profits and workers’ misery.

Communists view them as opportunities to serve the working class, spreading our ideas to prevent disasters, with workers organizing our class to help all workers in a profit-free society.

[Communist]

.
Mercenaries Circling Haiti (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-quigley/mercenaries-circling-hait_b_482972.html)

March 2010
By Bill Quigley

http://www.truthout.org/files/images/030310-3.jpg

On March 9 and 10, there will be a Haiti conference in Miami for private military and security companies to showcase their services to governments and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) working in the earthquake-devastated country.

On their web site for the Haiti conference, the trade group IPOA (ironically called the International Peace Operations Association until recently) lists 11 companies advertising security services explicitly for Haiti. Even though guns are illegal to buy or sell in Haiti, many companies brag of their heavy-duty military experience.

Triple Canopy, a private military company with extensive security operations in Iraq and Israel, is advertising for business in Haiti. According to human rights activist and investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill, Triple Canopy took over the Xe/Blackwater security contract in Iraq in 2009. Scahill reported on a number of bloody incidents involving Triple Canopy including one where a team leader told his group, "I want to kill somebody today ... because I am going on vacation tomorrow."

Another company seeking work is EODT Technology, which promises in its ad that its personnel are licensed to carry weapons in Haiti. EODT has worked in Afghanistan since 2004 and provides security for the Canadian Embassy in South Africa. On their web site, they promise a wide range of security services, including force protection, guard services, port security, surveillance, and counter-IED response services.

A retired CIA special operations officer founded another company, Overseas Security & Strategic Information, also advertising with IPOA for security business in Haiti. The company web site says they have a "cadre of US personnel" who served in Special Forces, Delta Force and SEALS and they state many of their security personnel are former South African military and police.

Patrick Elie, the former minister of defence in Haiti, told Anthony Fenton of Inter Press Service, "these guys are like vultures coming to grab the loot over this disaster, and probably money that might have been injected into the Haitian economy is just going to be grabbed by these companies and I'm sure they are not the only these mercenary companies but also other companies like Haliburton or these other ones that always come on the heels of the troops."

Naomi Klein, world renowned author of "The Shock Doctrine," has criticized the militarization of the response to the earthquake and the presence of "disaster capitalists" swooping into Haiti. The high priority placed on security by the US and NGOs is wrong, she told Newsweek. "Aid should be prioritized over security. Any aid agency that's afraid of Haitians should get out of Haiti."

Security is a necessity for the development of human rights. But outsourcing security to private military contractors has not proven beneficial in the US or any other country. Recently, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (Illinois) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vermont) introduced bills titled "Stop Outsourcing Security" to phase out private military contractors in response to the many reports of waste, fraud and human rights abuse.

Human rights organizations have long challenged the growth in private security contractors in part because governments have failed to establish effective systems for requiring them to be transparent and for holding them accountable.

It is challenging enough to hold government accountable. The privatization of a public service like security gives government protection to private corporations, which are also difficult to hold accountable. The combination is doubly difficult to regulate

The US has prosecuted hardly any of the human rights abuses reported against private military contractors. Amnesty International has reviewed the code of conduct adopted by the IPOA and found it inadequate in that compliance with international human rights standards are not adequately addressed.

This is yet another example of what the world saw after Katrina. Private security forces, including Blackwater, also descended on the US gulf coast after Katrina grabbing millions of dollars in contracts.

Contractors like these soak up much needed money which could instead go for job creation or humanitarian and rebuilding assistance. Haiti certainly does not need this kind of US business.

In a final bit of irony, the IPOA, according to the Institute for Southern Studies, promises that all profits from the event will be donated to the Clinton-Bush Haiti relief fund.

---------------

Bill Quigley is legal director at the Center for Constitutional Rights and a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. He is a Katrina survivor and has been active in human rights in Haiti for years with the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti.

[the last donut of the night]

It's really saddening how we live in a world where a select group of people and their organizations will prey on hungry and defenseless people solely for money.

[Communist]

.
San Francisco Labor Council Resolution

Deliver Earthquake Aid to Haiti and Respect the
Sovereignty of the Haitian People! (http://hcvanalysis.wordpress.com/2010/03/04/sf-labor-council-resolution-deliver-earthquake-aid-to-haiti-and-respect-the-sovereignty-of-the-haitian-people/)

[Note: The following resolution was adopted by the
Executive Committee of the San Francisco Labor Council
on March 1, 2010. The original resolution was submitted
by Dave Welsh of the Letter Carriers union to the Feb.
22 delegates' meeting of the Labor Council, where it
was referred to the Executive Committee. At the
Executive Committee, the resolution was moved and
motivated by Alan Benjamin of OPEIU Local 3.]

WHEREAS, President Obama has promised that "the people
of Haiti will have the full support of the United
States in the urgent effort to rescue those trapped
beneath the rubble, and to deliver humanitarian
relief" following the January 12, 2010 earthquake; and

WHEREAS, instead of delivering on this commitment, U.S.
military deployment has taken priority, resulting in
thousands of preventable deaths, as many areas
devastated by the earthquake have seen little or no
aid, even to this day; and

WHEREAS, there has been compelling testimony from aid
organizations on the ground that US military actions
have prevented them from using airports to bring in
relief supplies; and

WHEREAS, as Haitian families search for survivors and
relief supplies remain undistributed, and despite the
cancellation of some of its external debt, Haiti is
still shouldering the burden of servicing many hundreds
of millions of dollars in international debt, including
debts originated by unelected governments and
unscrupulous lenders; and

WHEREAS, a large majority of Haitians continues to
demand an end to the banishment of former President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, so that he can freely and
safely return to the land of his birth and participate
in the rebuilding of his country. The devastation of
the earthquake has given this oft-expressed demand a
renewed urgency;

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the San Francisco
Labor Council urge the Obama Administration to make a
public commitment: A) that distribution of water, food,
shelter, medical care and other vital aid in Haiti will
have priority over military deployment; B) that Marines
and paratroopers will cede control of the distribution
of aid to civilian authorities as soon as possible; C)
that it is the Haitian people - not outsiders - who
must coordinate and lead relief efforts and the long
term rebuilding of their country; and D) that the U.S.
support the Haitian people's demand for sovereignty and
self-determination, including food sovereignty and
democratization of food production and distribution in
favor of the poor; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the San Francisco Labor
Council send the following letter to the G7 Finance
Ministers, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and
International Development Bank: "In the wake of the
earthquake in Haiti, we call on you to secure the
immediate cancellation of all of Haiti's external debt
and ensure that any emergency earthquake assistance is
provided in the form of grants, not debt-incurring
loans. As the country starts to rebuild, it is
essential that its people are not saddled with a debt
burden that will simply deepen poverty for
generations"; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the San Francisco Labor
Council urge President Obama and Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton to end the banishment of President
Aristide, as the majority of Haitians demand, so that
he can freely and safely return to the land of his
birth and participate in the rebuilding of his country;
and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the San Francisco Labor
Council request that the AFL-CIO ask the federal
government to seek ways in which union members can be
involved in the reconstruction of Haiti; and

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED, that the Council send copies of
this resolution to President Obama, Senators Boxer and
Feinstein, Speaker of the House Pelosi, Congresswoman
Barbara Lee, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Also copies to Bay Area labor councils, California
Labor Federation, the AFL-CIO, and Change to Win
Federation, urging adoption of this resolution.
.

[Communist]

.
Boston city councilors hear report from Haiti (http://www.workers.org/2010/us/boston_haiti_0325/)

By Frank Neisser
Boston
Mar 21, 2010

Seven Boston City Councilors attended an eyewitness report from Haiti in Boston City Hall on March 11. City Councilors Chuck Turner and Charles Yancey hosted the meeting, which filled the Piemonte Room. In Turner’s introductory speech, he called for a grassroots mobilization demanding the restoration of democracy in Haiti.

http://www.workers.org/2010/us/boston_0325.jpg
FIST organizer Jonathan Regis & Jenny Ulysse. Photo: Steve Kirschbaum

After a moving song by an elementary school children’s choir from a local Haitian church, Boaz Hilaire of the Boston School Bus Drivers, United Steel Workers Local 8751, who had just returned from a relief trip to Haiti, described how he saw U.S. military personnel everywhere in Haiti but no aid being distributed.

Turner then introduced Jenny Ulysse, a Boston teenager and community youth organizer who had been caught in the rubble of a building in the earthquake. Ulysse told how, though she needed immediate medical assistance, the U.S. Embassy failed to come to her aid — because she is a permanent resident green card holder and not a citizen.

She described the conditions in Haiti where bodies are still unburied and pigs are roaming free, eating human cadavers, and are in turn eaten by hungry Haitian people, spreading disease. Ulysse expressed her intention to return to Haiti to help with reconstruction.

Turner read City Council resolutions that recognized Jonathan Regis of Fight Imperialism, Stand Together (FIST), Andrea Yarde of the District 7 office, and Horace Small of the United Minority Neighborhoods for their work in helping Ulysse successfully return to Boston. The meeting also recognized the international campaign of support for Ulysse and all permanent residents to return to the U.S. from Haiti.

Claude St. Germain, newly elected Coordinator for Fanmi Lavalas of Boston, described the lack of democracy in Haiti and how Washington is trying to force elections from which Fanmi Lavalas is excluded. He called for the return of democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.



_________



Articles copyright 1995-2010 Workers World (http://www.workersworld.net/wwp/pmwiki.php/Main/AboutThisSite).
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire
article is permitted in any medium without royalty
provided this notice is preserved.

.

[Communist]

.
Haiti's Earthquake
Victims in Peril (http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/331.php)

The Bullet (http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/)
A Socialist Project
by Roger Annis
March 21, 2010


It's been nearly eight weeks since the devastating
earthquake in Haiti and familiar patterns of
interference and neglect by the major powers that
dominate the country are firmly entrenched.
Notwithstanding heroic efforts of ordinary Haitian
people, Haitian government officials and agencies, and
many international organizations, a grave health risk
hovers over the people residing in the earthquake zone
or who have fled beyond it. Meanwhile, the direction of
Haiti's reconstruction remains entirely undetermined.
"Few events of such ferocity"

According to a February study by the Inter-American
Development Bank, the cost of physical damage from
Haiti's earthquake ranges from $8-billion to
$13-billion. It says, "there are few events of such
ferocity as the Haiti 2010 earthquake."

The study looks at natural disasters over the past 40
years and concludes that the death toll, per capita, of
Haiti's earthquake is four times or more higher than
any other disaster in this time period. Nearly 24,000
people per million of Haiti's population died. The
total estimated death toll is well over 200,000. The
closest equivalent is 4,000 per million, in the 1972
earthquake that struck Nicaragua.

Survivors of the quake now have to deal with the
elements.

The Partners In Health agency estimates some 1.3
million people were left without shelter by the
earthquake. The majority of those people still do not
have adequate emergency shelter nor access to potable
water, food and medical attention.

According to U.S. AID, there are approximately 600,000
displaced people living in 416 makeshift camps in
Port-au-Prince. Sanitation conditions in the camps
remain a grave concern. With heavy seasonal rains fast
approaching, the population is extremely vulnerable to
exposure and water-born disease.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
issued an alert on March 4 about another deadly danger
that lurks: malaria. It said, "Displaced persons living
outdoors or in temporary shelters and thousands of
emergency responders in Haiti are at substantial risk
for malaria." Each year, Haiti has 30,000 confirmed
cases of malaria. Officials believe the actual number
is closer to 200,000.

Partners In Health says it has established clinics in
five of the makeshift settlements in Port-au-Prince,
serving some 80,000 to 100,000 people. A 'broadly
insufficient' Relief Effort

Two leading directors of Doctors Without Borders have
called the relief effort to date "broadly
insufficient." In a March 5 interview, they say that,
"The lack of shelter and the hygiene conditions
represent a danger not only in terms of public health,
but they are also an intolerable breach of the human
dignity of all these people." They call conditions in
the makeshift refugee camps where many survivors still
struggle to survive "shocking" and "shameful."

Partners In Health (PIH) voiced similar concerns in a
March 5 press release and conference call. They called
on governments and NGOs to do a better job addressing
the "inhumane and rapidly deteriorating conditions on
the ground in Haiti."

PIH Executive Director Ophelia Dahl, recently returned
from Haiti, told the conference call:

"We witnessed hundreds of thousands of people living in
makeshift temporary shelters; spontaneous settlements
made of scraps of cardboard and plastic bags. What
little people have is soaked, because they're sleeping
in the rain, and the makeshift shelters are already
breaking down and dissolving. The conditions for the
homeless and displaced people are absolutely inhumane
and getting worse every single day." 'We Are Issuing a
Call to Action'

Under pressure from international agencies, the Haitian
government has pulled back on its appeal for tent camps
to be established to meet the displaced population's
needs. Since January, U.S. AID and some UN agencies
have refused such calls, instead arguing for a policy
that U.S. AID calls, "Thinking Outside the Tent."
Victims are directed to return to their shattered
neighbourhoods and fend for themselves, albeit with
promises of provision of building materials such as
corrugated iron sheets for protection from the rains.

But those who have congregated into makeshift camps are
there precisely because provision of aid to
neighbourhoods has proven insufficient or entirely
lacking.

Why the refusal to build large and secure camps? Could
it be a fear that earthquake victims will be better
placed to voice their concerns over the direction of
the country? A Wall Street Journal article on March 8
reported, "Inside the many tent cities now home to
hundreds of thousands of people, a rudimentary social
order is beginning to emerge as committees agitate to
secure food, water and supplies in high demand from
international aid organizations."

That's the story of the Morne Lazarre neighbourhood in
Petionville, a district on the outskirts of
Port-au-Prince. There, the community school SOPUDEP has
played a heroic role in organizing medical treatment
and food and water supplies to the local population and
even to other affected areas. School Director Rea Dol's
efforts are featured in a recent video documentary
produced by the New York Times.

Conditions are also critical outside the earthquake
zone. Cap Haitien, Haiti's second largest city located
120 km north of Port-au-Prince, has received an
estimated influx of 50,000 refugees. Its mayor, Michel
St. Croix , recently told the Miami Herald, "We need
housing, sanitation, security -- we need everything." He
said the city has received next to no assistance from
the United Nations nor the International Red Cross.
'Rebuild Haiti'

PIH is calling for more international support to the
ministries and agencies of the Haitian government.
Chief Program Officer Ted Constan told its March 5
conference call:

"Of the aid money coming into Haiti, the Haitian
government is seeing a very small amount - about $1 of
every $100.

"The government of Haiti is standing up on its feet:
staff are returning to the General Hospital, they are
running vaccination camps, they are running
registration drives for displaced people, they are
maintaining and strengthening their presence at the
airport. We need to make sure aid money is used to
capacitate and hold accountable the government of Haiti
- it's the only real solution to these challenges over
the long term."

Constan spoke of the "sad fact" that the Haitian
Ministry of Health does not even have vehicles in which
to move around.

President Rene Preval arrived in Washington on March 8
for several days of talks as the U.S. Congress prepared
to vote on further aid spending in Haiti. He told
reporters in Miami while en route, "What's most
important is the philosophy of the reconstruction. It's
not just 'reconstruct Port-au-Prince.' It's 'rebuild
Haiti'."

Decades of neglect of the provinces and agriculture,
Preval said, have forced people into the overcrowded
capital city. This economic migration must be turned
around, he argues. "We need to put jobs in the
provinces, and for that you need roads, electricity,
education, health."

In an interview with Associated Press on March 5,
Haiti's Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive repeated his
government's growing concern with the international aid
effort. "Too many people are raising money without any
controls, and don't explain what they're doing with
it."

Preval says the direction of international aid is
becoming a barrier to the creation of government
institutions and of economic activity that could
gradually supply more and more of the country's needs.

Every foreign government in Haiti pays lip service to
the principle of strengthening the capacities of the
Haitian government, its ministries and agencies. But
most have failed that test. In a speech by PIH founder
Paul Farmer to a conference of GlobeMed in Chicago on
March 5, he said a recent study of financial promises
made to Haiti at a UN donors conference in April 2009
showed that of the more than $400-million aid dollars
promised, only fifteen percent was delivered by the
time of the earthquake.

Farmer warned against the "trauma vultures" descending
on Haiti. He asked why so many years of aid and
charitable funds going to Haiti has left the country
poorer than ever.

Mark Turner, a spokesman with the International
Organization for Migration, voiced concerns over aid to
the Miami Herald on March 9. "Many people have got very
profound motivations for doing this work," he said.
"But organizationally, the aid industry is like
corporations. A budget depends on a big job that is
high profile, and if you want budget, you want staff,
you have to be here."

The record of international donors will again be put to
the test when a UN-organized donors conference convenes
in New York City on March 31. Canadian Government and
Media Silent on the Looming Dangers

If some relief agencies are voicing concern about the
relief effort, it's being largely ignored in Canada.
Haiti's desperate plight has fallen off the radar of
Canada's media.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Peter Mackay visited Haiti
on March 6 and 7 and he gave a glowing report on
Canada's relief work. He told CBC Radio news, "Canada's
contribution in Haiti was among the quickest and has
had the most impact."

Canada was one of the few large countries in the world
that did not send civilian emergency rescue teams to
Haiti. Its official aid mission arrived one week after
the earthquake in the form of two warships and 2,000
military personnel. They pitched into the relief effort
and earned praise for their work. But most of the
assistance brought by the military, including its field
hospital in Leogane and its emergency health center in
Jacmel, have now been withdrawn.

Deep Hundal, a student in Vancouver who volunteered in
the earthquake zone area where the Canadian military
was present says the needs in Haiti will go on for
years. He explains, "The Canadian military is not a
relief agency. It helped out with short-term needs. Aid
and reconstruction is a long-term process. Who is going
to pick up where the military's work left off?"

Speaking in Parliament on March 11 on the government's
response to the earthquake, Prime Minister Stephen
Harper declared, "Ships of the Atlantic fleet were
immediately ordered to Haiti from Halifax, loaded with
relief supplies."

A report in the Halifax Chronicle Herald the following
day refuted Harper's claim. HMCS Halifax and HMCS
Athabasca, in fact, carried precious little supplies
beyond the needs of their crew and the additional
military personnel they carried. And herein lies a clue
to the thinking and planning of Canadian political and
military leaders.

Like their U.S. counterparts, the first response of
Canada's leaders was concern and preoccupation that the
earthquake disaster would open space for the Haitian
people to retake some of the sovereign political ground
lost following the overthrow of their elected
government in 2004. The first actions of all the
foreign militaries dispatched to Haiti was to flood the
earthquake zone with heavily armed patrols and to
otherwise ensure the "security" of the respective
cities where they were assigned. The U.S. demanded and
received complete control over the national airport in
Port-au-Prince. Hope for Haiti in Latin America

A different kind of aid was offered to Haiti by the
people and governments of Cuba and Venezuela. This was
the subject of a public forum in Vancouver on March 5
titled "Hope for Haiti in Latin America."

Speaking on a panel that included Professor Jon
Beasley-Murray of the University of British Columbia
and Larry Keuhn of the BC Teachers Federation, writer
and author Federico Fuentes from Venezuela detailed
that country's response to the crisis. It landed teams
of aid and medical workers within hours of the
earthquake and quickly assisted in erecting shelter. It
has cancelled Haiti's outstanding debt to Venezuela and
is providing free fuel during the reconstruction
process.

Prior to the earthquake, Cuba had some 350 health
professionals volunteering in Haiti. That number,
including graduates and students from the Latin
American Medical School (ELAM) in Cuba, has expanded
considerably.

Since 2005, 550 Haitian doctors have graduated from
ELAM. The school received its first Haitian students in
1999. Currently, there are 570 students from Haiti
attending the school.

Fuentes commented to the forum, "The ALBA economic and
social agreement among nine countries of Latin America
and the Caribbean shows a different path of development
for Haiti than the one imposed on it for years and
decades by the United States and its allies. Among ALBA
member countries, economic and social exchanges are
based on principles of equality and solidarity." *

An important source of news and analysis on Haiti is
the new website Haiti Relief and Reconstruction Watch.
Much information in this article was obtained from
sources it cited. Timely and informative articles and
videos are also posted to the website of the Canada
Haiti Action Network and the Institute for Justice and
Democracy in Haiti.

Roger Annis is a coordinator of the Canada Haiti Action
Network and its Vancouver affiliate, Haiti Solidarity BC.

.

[Communist]

.
Lies about Haiti (http://www.the-spark.net/np864406.html)

Right-wing talk radio has been arguing that the Haitians don’t deserve U.S. aid, since they caused their own poverty.

In fact, the amount of aid the U.S. is giving Haiti is a tiny fraction of the wealth stolen from the country, first by ruling classes in Europe and more recently by U.S. banks and corporations.

Before the revolt of Haiti’s slaves starting in 1791, they produced incredible wealth for the French slave owners and the French state, dying by the hundreds of thousands in the process. After the slaves won their freedom and independence, the U.S. and Britain joined France in forcing the new Haitian government – at gunpoint – to pay France’s dispossessed slave owners a sum amounting to 90 million gold francs plus interest – “reparations” for their lost slave holdings.

Haiti was forced to take out high-interest loans from French banks, plunging Haiti into deep foreign debt that would last for nearly 125 years!

A lot of this loan-sharking interest ended up being paid to U.S. banks, which bought up many of these lucrative loans.

In 1915, the U.S. Marines invaded and occupied Haiti, seized strong boxes containing the funds of the Haitian government, and took them to New York. The commander of these troops, Major General Smedley Butler later wrote in his book War is a Racket, “I helped make Haiti a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in.” Haiti became the economic captive of the New York banks.

U.S. forces occupied Haiti until 1934, running the country like a colony.

Afterwards, the U.S. continued to run the finances of the Haitian government until 1947, when Haiti’s loans for “reparations” to French slave owners were finally paid off, dozens of times over counting all the interest.

Since this time, Haiti has continued to be used as a source of cheap labor by U.S. corporations and their contractors.

The talk shows are blatantly lying when they say that Haitians have caused their own poverty.

It’s better to learn about history than listen to people who make false, ignorant remarks.

.

[Raightning]

.
Lies about Haiti
.
I'm shocked that this even needs to be said, honestly. Does the American reactionary right think the world started out as a RTS game, with every government emerging fully-formed from the abyss with a warehouse of supplies, ten villagers, and a prohibition on trading with any other government?

I suppose it would be in line with their creationist theories. ;)

[Communist]

.
As donors plot, misery continues
for Haiti quake survivors (http://www.workers.org/2010/world/haiti_0401/)

By G. Dunkel
Mar 28, 2010

While the vultures are beginning to circle over the money that “donor countries” are planning to pour into Haiti, hundreds of thousands of homeless Haitians — estimates vary between 400,000 and 1.5 million — are trying to survive heavy, violent, tropical downpours that are turning their camps into pools of water and mud.

According to USAID, there are approximately 600,000 displaced people living in 416 makeshift camps in Port-au-Prince. Hundreds of thousands fled to areas not hit by the Jan. 12 earthquake, but some of them are returning because even the meager relief available is only provided in the capital.

The Associated Press reported that during the heavy rains on March 19, in the camp housing over 45,000 people on the site of the former Port-au-Prince golf course, the screams of people knocked off their feet and swept away by the swirling water and mud could be heard over the noise of the rain. No one was reported killed.

Pictures of the encampments show many families using bedsheets, rags, scraps of wood and plastic bags to build their shelters, though a number of people have gotten tents.

Partners In Health Executive Director Ophelia Dahl, who recently returned from Haiti, said at a press conference March 5: “We witnessed hundreds of thousands of people living in makeshift temporary shelters; spontaneous settlements made of scraps of cardboard and plastic bags. What little people have is soaked, because they’re sleeping in the rain, and the makeshift shelters are already breaking down and dissolving. The conditions for the homeless and displaced people are absolutely inhumane and getting worse every single day.”

The United Nations has scheduled a “donors conference for Haiti” on March 31 at its headquarters in New York. A “preliminary damage and needs assessment” (PDNA) was drawn up at a conference held in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, on March 16 and 17.

The preliminary estimate was that to restore Haiti would take $11.5 billion, with 50 percent of that being used for social programs, 17 percent for infrastructure and 15 percent for environmental and disaster analysis. (Christian Science Monitor, March 17)

A number of commentators from liberal newspapers and Web sites have pointed out that donor promises are rarely kept — 25 percent is the normal level. But a widely representative group of Haitian NGOs and community groups, ranging from peasant organizations and women’s organizations to community-based associations, issued a condemnation of how this PDNA was formulated. (AlterPress, March 18)

This statement charges, “The formulation of the PDNA ... comes from a process characterized by a quasi-total exclusion of Haitian civil society and the weak and uncoordinated participation of the representatives of the Haitian government.”

It continues, “The path traced by this PDNA for the reconstruction of Haiti cannot satisfy the expectations of the Haitian people because this process is not conceived to promote development, just restoration, while the context in Haiti demands a complete reorientation of the development model.”

In other words, the PDNA is designed to restore a capitalist state in Haiti but the Haitian people need a better model.

There is an ongoing discussion in the Haitian community in New York about holding a demonstration at the U.N. against this conference on March 31.
_____________



Articles copyright 1995-2010 Workers World (http://www.workersworld.net/wwp/pmwiki.php/Main/AboutThisSite).
Verbatim copying and distribution of article
is permitted in any medium without royalty
provided this notice is preserved.

.

[Communist]

.
‘Where’s Haiti relief money?’

Mar 28, 2010

http://www.workers.org/2010/world/haiti_0401.jpg (http://www.workers.org/2010/world/haiti_relief_0401/)

About 50 people, mainly high school youth, took on the American Red Cross at their New York headquarters March 22, asking “Where’s the money?

Where is the $250 million in U.S. Red Cross donations going?

Haiti’s people are in dire need of shelter!”

The protest was called by the Friday Haiti Relief Coalition and December 12 Movement.

— Report and photo by G. Dunkel

___________



©1995-2010 Workers World (http://wwppitt.weebly.com/). Copying of article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.


.

[Communist]

.
Two Months after the Quake,
Hard Life in Haiti’s Camps (http://www.the-spark.net/np866204.html)

Militants of the Revolutionary Workers Organization (OTR) in Haiti have been able to restart their paper La Voix des Travailleurs (http://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?rubrique150) (Workers Voice), despite considerable difficulties. It stopped publication after the January 12 earthquake. We reprint here parts of their articles about the situation in Port-au-Prince.

Since the evening of the earthquake, around two million people of the west and southwest regions have slept out in the open. Even those who have houses which aren’t apparently affected fear entering them. Others sleep in the open, due to fear that an aftershock could kill them. We have seen hundreds of thousands of people rush to occupy public places and empty land. The number of people in camps varies from 200 up to 60,000, depending on the area squatted on. At Delmas 40, around 70,000 people are living in a camp.

Famine knocks at the door of hundreds of thousands of disaster victims. Food aid is distributed bit by bit by local and international Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs).

The World Food Program of the U.N., the greatest provider of food aid, had several tons of out-of-date food they hadn’t distributed, despite the fact plenty of Haitians had died of hunger before the earthquake hit. An inventory carried out after January 12 revealed that Food for the Poor has several warehouses of food that was supposed to have been used to help the victims of hurricanes Ike and Anna in the city of Gona ves.

But in order to have the right to a kit or a food ration from any NGO, a person had to have a voucher, commonly called a card. There are no rules about the distribution of cards, because there was never a census done in the camps. So each NGO works in its corner, without any central coordination.

Thus, a resourceful person, or even a swindler can have several cards, while a needy family doesn’t have any. Factory workers, who leave the camps at 5 AM and return home at 6 or 7 PM, have no chance to get a card, because these are generally distributed during the day. People are often found running like madmen vainly from one point to another seeking cards.

Besides the NGOs, the city halls also carry out the distributions of food aid by means of cards. The situation is no better. Two individuals, one of whom the population suspects is a policeman from Carrefour Vincent, got a hundred cards from the mayor’s office of Cité Soleil, one of the largest shantytowns. They distributed part of these cards to their relatives and sold the rest for up to 250 Haitian gourdes apiece.

In certain cases, people can get a food ration without a card, through an improvised or, sometimes, an announced distribution. But in both cases, the beneficiaries have to line up. The lack of food staples, hunger and the great number of applicants pushes people to give up sleep, lining up early in the morning, sometimes at 1 or 3 AM, waiting until the middle of the day to be served.

Smaller camps, with hundreds of people, are often forgotten. The distribution of food aid ignores the existence of those people who are scattered during the day and who have no place to sleep but the pavement.

Depending on charity is a truly backward way to deal with a situation like this.


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[Communist]

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Stop criminalizing Haitians (http://www.workers.org/2010/editorials/haiti_0415/)

Apr 11, 2010


News of the detention of Haitian earthquake survivors in prison-like detention facilities in the U.S. have exposed, once again, just how little the U.S. relief effort in Haiti is about actual relief for the suffering Haitian people.

At least 65 Haitians have been imprisoned throughout the U.S. after arriving here following the Jan. 12 earthquake. Some 30 of them were put on planes by U.S. Marines. These detainees have received little-to-no mental health care, according to the New York Times, “despite an offer of free treatment at [one] jail by a local Creole-speaking psychotherapist.” (March 31) Only Haitians who were in the U.S. before the earthquake have been granted temporary protected status.

The Times reported that one young man, 20-year-old Jackson, who, in his request for release from detention, “describes how even the sound of someone on the jail stairs makes him fear another earthquake and worry that because he is locked up, he will be unable to escape.” Meanwhile, his 25-year-old brother, Reagan, has inexplicably been moved to three different prisons in the past two months.

Such abuse is part of a racist policy that sees Black people as criminals and immigrants as illegal — whether they’re fleeing devastating U.S.-imposed economic policies, the effects of a natural disaster or, as is often the case, a country that has endured the effects of both. The policy is used to increase the numbers — and therefore the profit — in privately run detention centers.

It’s another reason why Haitians deserve full reparations for the legacy of slavery as well as the current-day imperialist plunder of the country. The Haitian people deserve every right to determine their own future.

It’s also why we should all be in the streets throughout the U.S. on May Day, May 1, to demand full immigrant and worker rights.
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Articles copyright 1995-2010 Workers World (http://www.workersworld.net/wwp/pmwiki.php/Main/Background). Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.


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