However, it looks like the sweatshop owners and business class in Haiti don't stand to make anything from the provisions in the deceptive HOPE act for the DR either.
Most Haitians are well aware of the deceptions that are often used to keep aid and funding from getting to the people; this realization has already sparked massive demonstrations against the government of Rene Preval for not only their lack of presence and incompetence during and after the quake, but for the state of emergency that the Parliament declared which gave a commission made up of foreigners and Haitians the power to disburse donor funds.There are signs that the "International community" is preparing to crush any dissent. They have mobilized several means for militarizing Haiti and the Caribbean by:
1) Withholding funds from the Haitian govt. This is being justified by the Democrat Patrick Leahy as a response to the alleged massacres at Les Cayes prison by Haitian Riot Police. This is in spite of the fact that both the UN and the Haitian gov't are said to have launched investigations.
By the way, the call for investigations is echoed for Jamaican police by the U.S. State Department's tool Human Rights Watch along with other members of the international community.
In 2008 HRW issued a flawed report entitled, "A Decade Under Hugo Chavez" ahead of a constitutional referendum in Venezuela. Read this report which questions HRWs real motives (PDF).
2) There is a ramp up and launch of an "international police" force:
Security Council authorizes extra police for UN force in Haiti
"The deployment of 680 further officers as a result of todays Council resolution will bring the total number of UN Police (UNPOL) serving with the UN mission, which is known as MINUSTAH, to 4,391."3) Also, Hillary Clinton and a U.S ambassador have announced the launch of a Caribbean security force to protect "our people."
"For all of us, the safety of our people must be our highest priority. That's why today we are committing ourselves to CBSI," the chief US diplomat told the gathering at a beachfront hotel."The Caribbean is getting harder to handle for the Western Colonial powers. It is unfortunate that peaceful protests, political organizing and calls for human rights and living wages to combat the skyrocketing cost of living in the Caribbean are often met with deadly violence from those who are in power.
It is instructive to know that U.S. foreign policy has spurred some of these developments in the Caribbean. In Jamaica for one, the CIA created the Jamaican Shower Posse which battled with Jamaican police to protect politically connected alleged drug lord, Dudus Coke. In Haiti, of course there were two successive coups, one in 1991 and the other in 2004 which was planned by the U.S., France and Canada, and primarily supported and financed by the U.S.
A change in U.S. foreign policy is necessary to stop the steady progression towards chaos in the Caribbean. The Caribbean is just a tiny microcosm for the same dangerous situations around the world. Just last week a report on Columbian, rated it the most dangerous place in the world for trade union members. Therefore, it was incredible to hear U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton make the following statement about Columbia:
"In her speech Clinton said lessons learned in Colombia, which she visited on Wednesday, as well as in Mexico and Central America are being applied to the Caribbean region."Is there a disconnect here? No, because everything is going according to plan. This is clear from the op-ed piece, "Rebuilding Haiti," which was posted on March 10 this year at the Huffington Post by one Eric Farnsworth, a former State Department official. Farnsworth, is now the VP of an organization called the "Council of the Americas":
There's really only one way to establish such a framework for action [rebuilding Haiti] : via U.N. mandate. Existing U.N. authorities should be expanded, and Haiti be given special status under international law, a virtual enterprise zone of international governance. Reconstruction requires a unified command with a common vision and mandate, as well as authorities for donor nations to conduct humanitarian and reconstruction efforts without fear of being labeled interventionist or imperialistic, as some have already experienced.
Under such mandate, historically relevant democracies including the United States, France, Canada, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, and others will be able to come together with key sectors of Haitian society to build a long-term redevelopment plan for Haiti. Political and economic institutions, physical infrastructure, investment and regulatory matters, the environment and clean energy use, social development, and public health, among other issues, would all be considered."
In other words, the "International Community," which controls virtually all the money and aid projects to Haiti, and has done such bang up job of keeping Haiti underdeveloped and poverty stricken, should continue wielding the real power in Haiti. The State Department was in agreement with Mr. Farnsworth in 2004, when they supported a coup against the democratically elected government. See how that works?
The Haitian people would rather go with the course prescribed by Loune Viaud of Zanmi Lasante and with Monika Kalra Varma, director of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights, who co-authored an Op-Ed in today's Boston Globe. (06.13.10).
The piece describes the need for Haitians to be involved in the decision making process of rebuilding of their country.
"Since January’s devastating earthquake in Haiti, well-meaning experts have proposed an abundance of short-term and long-term recovery solutions. They ask why aid delivery has been so slow, why previous development plans for Haiti have rarely been successful, and why billions of dollars in funding over decades have not improved conditions for the most impoverished people in our hemisphere.
Some blame the government of Haiti, while others, including the organizations we represent, often point fingers at the international community. The simple answer is that those who have the greatest stake in rebuilding Haiti, Haitians themselves, don’t now and never have had a real seat at the table.
While Haitian resilience has been duly recognized around the world, few appear to be interested in talking to Haitians about how to rebuild their communities and how the billions likely to be pledged to their country will be used. And no one is talking about what recourse Haitians will have if promised projects are never completed, or worse, pledged money never arrives. Unfortunately, past failures can be found in every community across Haiti - water projects that were promised but never built, resulting in water-borne illness and death; food aid that was delivered, but spoiled or sold in markets below the prices asked by local farmers; non-government organizations that started educational programs, but then shifted priorities, leaving children without access to schools.
[…] Those who have worked in Haiti and other places around the world and have suffered large-scale death and destruction know that successful long-term recovery needs to be driven by the people most intimately affected. Beyond the enormous funding and international experts needed to rebuild Haiti, it is time to make a new pledge - to heed and support the experts who can truly rebuild Haiti, the Haitian people."
– Give Haiti control over its recovery
By Monika Kalra Varma and Loune Viaud
4 comments:
The U.S. Moves Against the Black Overseers
Let's see how the tactic works for the U.S. During the Haitian Revolution people with differing interests decided to ban together against the French. This union led to the defeat of the French in 1804 and the establishment of an independent Haiti.
The island of Santo Domingo had black forces who were trained and a part of the French colonial system before Napoleon decided that these "gilded blacks" should no longer have any power. Napoleon made the faithful decision to reestablish slavery.
A friend of mine commented on Twitter: "From Kabul to Kingston: Jamaica's thuggish security forces have been trained by US, Canada, and the UK." He included a link to the story:
From Kabul to Kingston
Army tactics in Jamaica resemble those used in Afghanistan – and it's no mere coincidence
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The many allegations of human rights abuses committed by the security forces – including extrajudicial killings and the disposal of bodies – have received almost no international attention. Nor have the linkages between the Jamaican crisis, the security establishments in the US, Britain and Canada, and the mutations of the "war on terror".
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The author quoted above forgets or doesn't know that the same tactics have been applied in Haiti, where the same "security establishment also trained the military and police. In Haiti, two successive coups that were supported by the "international community" used the brutal measures. Extra-judicial killings in Haiti doesn't seem to get much attention at all from anyone in the international community, unless the NY Times has an agenda--as we know from the way their reporters (remember Judith Miller?) pushed the Iraq war, the NY Times is often a tool of the U.S. govt.
The plan for Haiti has always been to put it under a trusteeship. This has been in the works since 2000, but the devastating earthquake of Jan. 12 was a "stroke of luck." The U.S. State Department, which has made the case to Congress over the years is evidently anxious to get this done.
As long as the primary victims of this system of exploitation are folks from the developing world, many ordinary folks in the developed world will not attempt to change it until it starts to affect them in the same way.
Anyway, we are already seeing some of the blow back in the form of worst environmental disaster, worst financial meltdown since the great depression, corporatocracy in lieu of democracy etc.
For now, most are happy with limiting themselves to going to "missionary and or humanitarian rescue missions" and do not seem to be interested in changing the status quo.
Ooops! forgot to mention some folks are happy with blaming the victims and go about business as usual.
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