The MSM Continues to Perpetuate Fallacies About Haiti

Haiti experts have repeatedly criticized the US for excluding the Haitian government and Haitian companies from the reconstruction. The FOIA data proves them right: USAID and the State Department gave money to 6 US government entities and 7 UN agencies, but none to the Haitian government. Moreover, no NGOs or contractors listed in the FOIA were Haitian. How the Government Used Our Money in Haiti: Part II

In a Reuters blog article, Where Haiti’s money has gone, Felix Salmon rightly points out that:

"Development is a tricky game, easy to get wrong; as a rule, it only works when the people providing the aid are working at the margin, helping to strengthen existing projects, industries, and institutions, rather than trying to build them all from scratch. Let’s target it where it can be most effective, rather than where there happens to have been a newsworthy natural disaster."

However, the majority of his blog article is full of misconceptions, hearsay and disinformation:

“I’ve had two ministers come up to me this week, personally, and ask what’s in it for them,” says a frustrated IHRC official. “Since money grows on trees in this disaster, the attitude among Haitian officials is: Just call up your buddies in Washington, and they’ll send another check.”

The unanswered question is: what “Haitian officials” approached and wanted to know what was in it for them? Name names. Who? When? What are you, a reporter or a rumor monger? Look at the facts as reported by The Haiti Justice Alliance; they have documented proof gathered through a FOIA request that the U.S. excludes the Haitian government and Haitian companies from the reconstruction. The problem with reporting about Haiti is that even when a truth is conveyed, it is invariably wrapped in a lie or misconception.

"Meanwhile, Haiti’s suffering if anything is getting worse. Not only are new shantytowns springing up in places like Corail, but disease is now spreading disastrously: cholera hadn’t been seen in Haiti for more than 60 years, before the earthquake; it has now infected more than 250,000 Haitians, with no sign that it’s remotely under control."

Haiti has never had an outbreak of cholera.
The misconception is left that cholera was started by the conditions in the camps, but this is a lie. The cholera started in the countryside, in Haiti’s breadbasket. It has been conclusively proven in many scientific investigations that the UN/MINUSTAH brought cholera to Haiti. The latest was a "whole genome study", which "nails Nepal-Haiti cholera link." The cholera was spread because the Nepalese soldiers in Mirebalais dumped their feces into the Meye river, a tributary of the Artibonite river.

"The first thing to note is that most of the money given to Haiti hasn’t even started to be spent yet: a whopping $11 billion was pledged by donor countries and financial institutions in the wake of the earthquake, but if you take the US as a good example, it’s so far managed to spend just $184 million of the $1.14 billion allocated to the country. Even the Red Cross is barely halfway into its $479 million fund — all of which has been earmarked for Haiti, and none of which can be spent elsewhere, no matter how much better it might be put to use in some other context."

Haiti is the scene of an ongoing international crime. It’s to be expected that the worst sort of buzzards would be picking its bones clean. The NGOs supported by USAID are expected to return over 90% of the money spent in Haiti back to Washington.

"It’s worth remembering, too, that there was reason for optimism regarding the rebuilding of Haiti. There was lots of money, and the country’s right on America’s doorstep, which also helps. On top of that, it had the best conceivable international ambassador in Bill Clinton, backed up with the full support of the US government in the form of his wife’s oft-stated commitment to getting Haiti back on its feet.

Haiti is under occupation. Period. There is no freedom, human rights, sovereignty, autonomy or decision making by Haiti’s government. The U.S. and its “partners” are determined to keep real democracy out of the hands of the Haitian people as evidenced by their awareness and endorsement (according to Wikileaks) of the fraudulent nature of he last two major elections in Haiti.

It is a stupid decision on many levels, because every upcoming or anticipated disaster, calamity and mismanagement of resources…etc, is the direct responsibility of those who have imposed detrimental trade policies that have robbed Haiti of the ability to feed its people, that have sponsored coups, fraudulent elections, brought disease, the entire globe’s occupying armies to play their war games, the multinational exploiters of Haiti’s wealth, and others who use Haiti as their piggy bank and dumping ground for all of their toxic hate, greed and depravity… Speaking of depravity: they also share the responsibility for making Haiti the ground zero for sexual predators of every base/perverted sexual nature imaginable.

"What happens when you drop billions of dollars onto a country like Haiti? Immediately after the earthquake happened, in January 2010, I said that “one of the lessons we’ve learned from trying to rebuild failed states elsewhere in the world is that throwing money at the issue is very likely to backfire”. But that’s exactly what we did — with predictable results."

As a commenter said: "...no one has actually thrown money at Haiti! The vast majority of the $11 billion you cite has not been disbursed. It was only pledged– and it was pledged over the medium term."

The reoccurring theme of stories like this seem to assume that Haiti is a "basket case" or "failed state" because of the incompetence and corruption of Haitians themselves. See the quoted remark of "a frustrated IHRC official." Here is what should be part of that calculation, but somehow never is:

"On 12 August a group of Cuban guerrillas and Haitian exiles lands on the southern most tip of the country in another attempt to remove Duvalier. They are defeated by the Haitian Army, with the aid of US marines."

Are Haitians entirely to blame for the existing calamitous conditions that the majority is suffering under? How can that be, when the scoundrels, killers, thugs, dictators, drug dealers... etc. can invariably always count on the backing of the U.S. and its acknowledgedly most globally powerful military apparatus, intelligence agencies, institutional aid agencies, and its embedded allies in the mainstream media?

BACKGROUND:
How The Government Used Our Money In Haiti: Part II

"The only aid mechanism devoted specifically to rebuilding rather than relief is the “Office of Transition Initiatives.” They put Haiti’s future entirely in the hands of two contractors: Chemonics and Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI)[3].

‎"Chemonics raises eyebrows for multiple reasons. First, it’s a subsidiary of ERLY Industries, which also owns American Rice. Since the 1980s, American Rice captured half of the Haitian rice market, a shift that Bill Clinton recently admitted was the reason Haiti can no longer feed itself. Moreover, the agricultural program it runs, which revolves around distributing hybrid Monsanto seed, is likely to jeopardize the future of Haiti’s agricultural system.

DAI, World Vision, and CHF International have also all been the subject of media scrutiny for their activities both in and out of Haiti.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research described DAI as having a “questionable past” of putting political objectives above humanitarian goals. Last year, World Vision came under fire for using “discredited” aid practices by aid critic Bill Easterly. Finally, CHF International’s spending habits were labeled “ostentatious” in a feature that also contained a confession from CHF’s field director that the organization has no experience in the role it’s filling in Haiti."

WIKILEAKS RELEASE: 722 Haiti-US embassy cables

Cable reference ID# 04SANTODOMINGO1361 | SUBJECT: CANARD II: DOMINICAN RIFLES FOR HAITI

"It is true that in early 2003 Foreign Minister Tolentino Dipp asked the Embassy for details about planned military training, and the Embassy furnished this information. This occurred in the context of unfounded press reports alleging that U.S. forces would number in the thousands and that they would be engaged in tasks other than training [emphasis added]."

NOTE: In the above quote from a cable by SouthCom , they are not denying that they provided Special Forces "training" of Haitian "rebels" in the DR in 2003 -- to overthrow of the democratically elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. They just deny that the trainers numbered in "thousands."

In another cable (04SANTODOMINGO1515, CANARD II: DOMINICAN RIFLES FOR HAITI), the writer links the "rebels" to the supply of weapons the Dominicans had purchased through "annual licensed imports": "These are not military weapons; they are pistols, revolvers, hunting rifles and shotguns (never rifles) for use by private security services." they state. But, they conclude the cable by making a direct collation: "We understand that the arms used on this movement and in the capture of Gonaives were largely shotguns, hunting rifles, and pistols."

WikiLeaks Haiti: The Aristide Files

via DemocracyNow.org | Kim Ives | Haiti Liberté


Aug 11, 2011

A new exposé on Haiti reveals how the United States led a vast international campaign to prevent former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from returning to his country while he was exiled in South Africa. It's part of a series of reports that draw from almost 2,000 US diplomatic cables on Haiti released by WikiLeaks. The series is a partnership between The Nation magazine and the Haitian weekly newspaper, Haïti Liberté. Democracy Now! interviews one of the authors of these reports, Haiti Liberté editor Kim Ives. His latest article for the Nation.com is called, "WikiLeaks Haiti: The Aristide Files."

The cables cover an almost seven-year period, from April 2003 to February 2010, just after the earthquake that devastated the capital of Port-au-Prince and surrounding cities. The cables show that high-level U.S. and U.N. officials coordinated a politically motivated prosecution of Aristide to prevent him from "gaining more traction with the Haitian population and returning to Haiti." They reveal how U.S. officials and their diplomatic counterparts from France, Canada, the United Nations and the Vatican tried to vilify and ostracize the popular Haitian political leader. These officials allegedly poured tens of millions of dollars into unsuccessful efforts to paint Aristide as a drug trafficker, human rights violator, and heretical practitioner of Voodoo. Another recent exposé based on the cables details how Haiti's unelected de facto authorities worked alongside foreign officials to integrate at least 400 ex-army paramilitaries into the country's police force throughout 2004 and 2005. According to the report, hundreds of police considered loyal to Aristide's deposed government were purged. Some were jailed and a few were killed. The Wikileak cables reveal just how closely Washington and the United Nations oversaw the formation of Haiti's new police force and signed off on the integration of paramilitaries who had previously targeted Haiti's working classes and democratically elected governments.

For the complete transcript, to download the podcast, or for Democracy Now!'s special report on the return of Aristide to Haiti, visit DemocracyNow.org

________________________

Background:

‎"For a year and a half following the ouster of Haiti’s elected government on Feb. 29, 2004, UN, OAS, and U.S. officials, in conjunction with post-coup Haitian authorities, vetted the country’s police force – officer by officer – integrating paramilitaries with the goal of both strengthening the force and providing an alternative “career path” for paramilitaries.

Hundreds of police considered loyal to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's deposed government were purged. Some were jailed and a few killed, according to numerous sources interviewed."

notes and analyses: "WikiLeaks Reveal: U.S. and UN Officials Oversaw Integration of Ex-Army Paramilitary" | by Jeb Sprague

"The cables show that high-level US and UN officials even discussed a politically motivated prosecution of Aristide to prevent him from “gaining more traction with the Haitian population and returning to Haiti.”

The secret cables, made available to the Haitian weekly newspaper Haïti Liberté by WikiLeaks, show how the political defeat of Aristide and his Lavalas movement has been the central pillar of US policy toward the Caribbean nation over the last two US administrations, even though—or perhaps because—US officials understood that he was the most popular political figure in Haiti."

The Nation - "WikiLeaks Haiti: The Aristide Files" | by Kim Ives and Ansel Herz

Until the Day I Die: Haitian Women Winning Their Rights

by Gerta Louisama and Beverly Bell (Other Worlds)

Original article at: towardfreedom.com

Gerta Louisama (Photo by Beverly Bell)

Gerta Louisama is a member of the Executive Committee and the National Women’s Committee of Tèt Kole Ti Peyizan Ayisyen, Heads Together Small Producers of Haiti, Haiti’s largest and oldest peasant group. She is also head of the local Tèt Kole Women’s Committee in her village of Savanette. Here she speaks about the Tèt Kole’s efforts to win recognition, social equality, and economic rights for rural Haitians, especially women.

I am a peasant women and the daughter of two peasants. I’ve been a victim of this society which ostracizes women.

My father was a member of Tèt Kole and I chose to follow him and join the organization. I’ve gotten all my knowledge through Tèt Kole. I’m illiterate, but thanks to the organization, after women helped me for three months, I could even spell my name and write a little. Even though I’m getting older, I’ll keep going to school.

Tèt Kole started on September 6th, 1986 and the Jean-Rabel massacre was on July 23, 1987. We lost 139 peasants [when the two largest landowner families in the region hired hit men to stop Tèt Kole’s work for land reform]. Then we had a second massacre in Piatte in 1990. The big land owners, the army, and the local police are responsible for those blood baths. It was asking for these necessities that got the peasants slaughtered. They were well-planned massacres to subdue us.

It’s like the peasants have no rights because they don’t have access to clean water, no access to roads, no access to health care, no access to free schooling. And if we protest for those rights we’re entitled to, they will send in the police or MINUSTAH [UN peacekeeping troops] and they’ll spray tear gas, arrest people and beat them up. You don’t even have the right to protest for your rights.

Legally speaking, both men and women have the same rights. In this country, we have plenty of laws. They’re on paper, they’ve just been set aside. Part of our movement is to get these laws respected.

Us Haitian women, we have a lot of challenges, but as peasant women we have even more.

We truly carry the burden of society. We’re the ones who hustle to feed the household and send the sick to the hospital if need be. We women, we work the land, we raise cattle, we transport merchandise like plantains, yams, and black beans to the capital. If we don’t work, there won’t be any flow of goods.

One of the priorities of the women in Tèt Kole is to get things working in our favor. We have to address economic problems and social problems. We need ways to process the foods we produce, we need access to seeds. We need to help women who’ve been victims of domestic violence get support in the courts.

What the women do in Tèt Kole is to group ourselves together in teams of 10 to 15 women. We work in the fields together, we do laundry together. We do personal development training. The chances for peasant women to go to school are small because they don’t have the financial means, so the trainings are designed to remind them that they’re also human and part of the society, even though society has marginalized them. They help peasant women understand their strength in society and understand that as for those services they’re entitled to. The government’s not doing them favors, they’re their rights.

We’re asking the government to do a thorough agrarian reform. Most times, the peasants don’t own the land they are working on. The peasants should have ownership of the land they’re working. Land needs to be taken away from people who aren’t using it, and the state needs to let go of land it holds on to that could be used for farming, and be given to the peasants who are working it, with the other [agricultural] resources they need to farm.

Actually, the women have been tirelessly working the small plots of land they’ve been able to get their hands on, so we should be the ones to own them. We peasant women think the government has to have in its agricultural plan a way to help us hold onto our land in the mountains so we can produce food, and help us get seeds and tools. We don’t have tools to work with, we don’t have seeds, we don’t have technical support.

The problem is even worse for women because both the family and the society keep us from owning land or other big assets. We’re not entitled. If the land isn’t in the hands of the government or the church, it’s mostly for the sons.

Say my father dies. If he owned three hectares of land and he had two sons and me as a daughter, he’ll never say that I can have one hectare and each son receives one hectare. Me, I’ll only be entitled to 1/4 hectare or at most 1/2 hectare, and the extra will be divided among my brothers.

And if I was living in common-law with a man, if he died, I’d need to race to get myself off the land, even if I didn’t have anywhere else to sleep. I wouldn’t have any right to stay on the premises.

Another priority for the Women’s Committee is all the people who don’t have birth certificates. The state has no respect for the peasants. People may have a piece of paper but it might not be valid, because the number on it might be the same as on 15 or 20 other certificates; only one person has the actual birth certificate and all the others are just photocopies. This comes out when the children of the peasant women have to go study or take care of something [legal]. Also, they used one birth certificate for people from urban areas and one for those from the countryside [this has since been changed]. I’m 42, and up til this day, I don’t even know if my birth certificate is valid. Maybe if I go to get a passport one day, I’ll find out.

The lack of respect for peasants is also why today cholera is spreading throughout the country. There was no plan from early on, and that’s why it’s killed so many in all the departments [states], especially the poorest who can’t get medical care for themselves. In remote areas, people might need to carry the person with cholera four to five hours on a stretcher to make it to the hospital. [Cholera can kill within 4 to 6 hours after infection.] Where I’m from there’s a joke: since [the village of] Savanette has no roads, cholera can’t travel there. Actually, if it were to hit Savanette, no one would survive.

They talked about sending Clorox, but we haven’t gotten any. They’ve told peasants to use soaps to wash their hands but some of them don’t have the money to buy soap, which costs 12 gourdes [33 cents]. Cholera is an even bigger burden on peasant women because they’re the ones that have borne their children and that are responsible for the household.

If there were to be cases of cholera in Savanette, we as an organization would have to get involved. We’d have to go to the local radio stations and tell people to do preventive medicine.

Where we are, we only see outsiders when there are elections and the public officials need votes. Once the officials have been elected, you won’t see the senators again. Let’s not even talk about the president.

The fight to change the conditions of women living in the country is coming from men as well as women of Tèt Kole. This isn’t a movement of women against men, but really against the society which has isolated women. Women and men have to join together to fight. Generally as peasants, whether men or women, young or old, we’re all fighting for our rights, and men have to have that same mindset of aligning themselves with the women in this struggle.

You find there are men who really misunderstand women. They assume that the women are increasing their strength against men. But in Tèt Kole, we’ve made lots of efforts to show that our work is to change the conditions of all peasants. We’re showing that this isn’t a movement of women against men but rather a movement against the society which has isolated women.

Based on how things are going, we can almost say we’re losing the battle fast. We are slowly but surely going backwards. But as long as we are breathing, we can’t get discouraged. We are responsible for changing the conditions of our country so we’ll continue to fight.

But so far, we haven’t seen any real positive outcome. That’s why we say we’ll continue to fight, even though we won’t see the changes; our kids will see them.

I have one daughter and I have given all my energy to the organization. I have given back what the organization has done for me as a peasant woman who struggles against a society that excludes us. If it wasn’t for Tèt Kole, I wouldn’t have any value in this society. I never have thoughts of life after I leave Tèt Kole, because I see myself being involved until the day I die.

Many thanks to Patricia Bingué And Bill Davis for translation, and Deepa Panchang for help editing.

_________

Beverly Bell has worked with Haitian social movements for over 30 years. She is also author of the book Walking on Fire: Haitian Women's Stories of Survival and Resistance and is working on the forthcoming book, Fault Lines: Views across Haiti’s New Divide. She coordinates Other Worlds, www.otherworldsarepossible.org, which promotes social and economic alternatives. She is also associate fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies. You can access all of her past articles regarding post-earthquake Haiti at www.otherworldsarepossible.org/haiti.

Copyleft Beverly Bell. You may reprint this article in whole or in part. Please credit any text or original research you use to Beverly Bell, Other Worlds.

In Haiti, UN Cholera Means Widespread Death

The Nepalis are continuing to help the UN cover up their culpability in contaminating Haiti's agricultural breadbasket with cholera by trying to cast doubt on the fact that the UN Nepali soldiers in Mirebalais are the origin of the scourge. An article appearing on a Nepali online news website (ekantipur.com - July 22), reads: "Haiti cholera: Charge on Nepalis ‘circumstantial’ -- Expert says evidence not based on hard science," but the Lougarou is out of the bag. The latest report to affirm the UN imported cholera to Haiti is from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

The evidence that the UN is culpable for contaminating Haiti with cholera, also has solid support from the scientific report of Professor Renaud Piarroux of the Université de la Méditerranée of Marseille. The report was compiled from a three week mission to Haiti (November 7 to 27, 2010).

There is also video and photographic evidence that the contamination originated from the UN Nepali base. The video features eyewitness testimony.

THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE

Professor Piarroux' scientific report is the first linking the Nepali base to the cholera outbreak, but many other epidemiologists and public health experts have said that the soldiers are the most likely source of the contamination. His report, titled, "Mission report on the cholera epidemic in Haiti," concludes that:

"... the fact-finding mission conducted [the] last three weeks has revealed the severe and unusual nature of this epidemic, with the origin no doubt being imported. It started around the camp of MINUSTAH and was spread explosively due to massive contamination of the water in the Artibonite River and one of its tributaries with feces of patients with cholera.

--Professor Renaud Piarroux | Université de la Méditerranée

The Nepalis article sites "different tests" conducted by the UN on Nepali soldiers which were "negative" as a basis for a lack of evidence that the UN Nepali are guilty of contaminating Haiti.

TESTING, TESTING, 1, 2, 3...

1. We should trust the UN to conduct their own tests? What's the basis for this trust? It's certainly not been earned. Especially in light of the UN's continued denials and lies. The UN even claimed that the Nepali base's waste disposal system was up to EPA standards!
   
   
2. If the UN had nothing to do with the cholera outbreak, why didn't they allow an independent entity to test all the Nepali soldiers?
   
   
3. Just because a person doesn't show symptoms doesn't mean they are not carriers of a disease, does it? Again, we only have the UN's word that they conducted test on the soldiers.
   
   
4. Let's say there were "negative" test results. Is that evidence that there was no cholera outbreak at the Mirebalais base? Obviously, the answer is no, since the strain of cholera brought to Haiti is of South Asian origin.
   

We just don't have the details and cannot trust that there was a full UN investigation. We're left with many unanswered questions, with no credible answers and outright lies coming from the UN camp. Bottom line, independent epidemiologists and public health authorities in Haiti, the U.S. and France have all concluded that the UN Nepali military likely imported cholera to Haiti.

• The timing of the outbreak in October in Nepal fits in exactly with the arrival of the soldiers at their base in Mirebalais.
  
  
• The Nepali base (origin) is upriver from where the disease was first reported (site of contamination) downstream.
  
  
• There is no historical record of cholera in Haiti prior to this epidemic.
  
  
• The disease first infected Haiti's rural breadbasket - the Artibonite, away from the site of the devastating earthquake of January 2010 and the people living in the tent camps in the city of Port-au-Prince; a fact that the mainstream media conveniently failed to point out in the aftermath of the cholera outbreak - making it seem that the cause of the outbreak originated in the IDP camps.

The cholera contamination is expected to sicken over 779,000 people and to kill some 11,100, according to the British scientific journal, The Lancet. Though minimal prevention measures and the availability of clean water could save many lives, Haitians are being offered vaccines and sometimes rations of clean water (keeps the NGOs in business), but no sustainable preventive measures to stop widespread death, like sustainable sources of clean water.

LET'S GO TO THE VIDEO AND PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE

Thanks to Sebastian Coe of alJazeera, there's video evidence that the Nepali base's handling of their waste was negligent and criminal. Soldiers at the Nepali base were videotaped cleaning up the fecal matter that was seeping from the waste system after the outbreak. UN [al Jazeera] investigates cholera spread in Haiti

Even more unsettling, there is an iconic photograph from the AP of waste from the base being dumped just 400 meters away from the UN base in Mirebalais.

THE EXCUSES

The UN answered accusations that they imported cholera to Haiti by claiming that the Nepali camp's waste disposal method was not only up to international standards, but it was up to EPA standards. We know that was a lie. The UN said tracing where the disease originated was "not important." But, the scientists and public health experts say that tracing the source of a disease is a critical factor in diagnosis and managing a disease outbreak.

It's time for the UN to come clean about the origin of the cholera in Haiti. Haitians must demand more than an apology. The UN must pay reparations to the victims and their families. The UN must also provide clean sustainable water infrastructure to Haiti as a part of any reparations. For too long, Haiti's "friends" in the "international community" have intervened in Haiti's sovereign affairs, always to the detriment of Haiti's national interests and always leading to the deterioration of Haiti's infrastructure and continuing underdevelopment.

Water is life. Is it a coincidence that the UN (aka, "the international community"), a proxy force for the U.S. government is continuing to commit human rights violations in Haiti by spreading death?

More reading on the UN occupation of Haiti here.