No Disaster Tourism for Haiti

A compilation of Haiti and world news.
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Photo by KeelyKernan at Flickr.com

The kid goes to Haiti the week of the US Open", and wins it all...
Defend Haiti | Sports | Monday, 20 June 2011

Rory McIlroy's visit to Haiti as UNICEF's "Irish Goodwill Ambassador" may have just been a humanitarian visit, and not the design of an agent or public relations firm. However, some have cried foul, saying this is more of the type of "disaster tourism" Haiti has seen since the devastating January 12, 2010 earthquake.

It's very heart-warming that so many generous and beautiful souls have taken an interest in Haiti. Many ordinary people around the world have given to Haiti relief. Most common folks and some celebrities do not support Haiti for the attention or accolades – Haitians are grateful to them for their humanity and goodwill.

However, what Haiti needs is sustainable development and political pressure on Washington from U.S. citizens asking that the U.S. support sustainable development, not sweatshops and disaster capitalism. Washington's neoliberal policies and counterproductive actions are keeping Haiti poor and underdeveloped.

It's unfortunate that some actors, musicians, entertainers, athletes, political players and any number of folks are able to raise their public profile with a "goodwill" trip to pose with the children and people of "the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere." Want to raise money for your personal or favorite NGO? Are you planning to run for political office or to make a bucket load of money by NOT running? Have you just been involved in an embarrassing, high profile scandal? If that describes you, then Haiti is the place to go for a disaster tourism tour of the rubble, illness and misery! And don't worry, the same conditions will exist for years to come, so just keep on sustaining the republic of NGOs to remain in Haiti indefinitely.

Haiti does not need more TOURISTAHs! Haiti has the hated MINUSTAH occupying force to fill that role.

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Making Sense of Martelly's National Fund for Education

Defend Haiti | Economy | Monday, 20 June 2011

It's despicable that the poor are now being taxed via their cell phones and wire transfers. Of course, Martelly has no intention of taxing the leeching multinational corporations, repugnant rich elite, and others who do not invest or support Haiti's human and infrastructure development.

If this new education program, which is mired in controversy and mistrust from Haitian in and out of the country ever gets off the ground, since the Haitian diaspora are the guarantors of this latest stalled IDB loan, we should at least have a say in the curriculum.

For instance, in what language will schools be taught -- some prefer French, many support Kreyol--both? What about culture and history? Will Haitian and African culture be given priority -- they should? Also, math, science and technology should prepare the students for highly-skilled careers. Will they get music, health and physical education? Show us the curriculum!

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Arcade Fire in Haiti: "So much joy..."

The Observer | World News, Haiti | Sunday 19 June 201

Arcade Fire's Régine Chassagne tells a moving story about a concert her group held in the remote mountain village of Cange. The charming story hit a sour note for me when Régine talked of being the opening act for RAM. Folks outside of the Haiti and the Haitian diaspora may not be aware that RAM leader Richard Morse supported the 2004 coup which ousted Haiti's first democratically elected government.

The rock band has attached their name to Partners & Health (PiH), a worthwhile, sustainable and effective NGO with medical projects in Cange and other remote areas of Haiti. Unfortunately, Mr. Paul Farmer, PiH's founder, once a promoter of democracy in Haiti, has become part of Haiti's myriad problems since he joined the UN occupying force as their "special envoy" to Haiti. Since then, Farmer's not (to my knowledge) shared his opinions on fraudulent elections, the barring of Aristide's party Fanmi Lavalas from elections, and the stagnant progress rebuilding Haiti by his pal William Jefferson Clinton, who heads the IHRC. To his credit, Farmer did speak out about the imported UN cholera. Farmer voiced the necessity of finding the origins of the disease when his UN colleagues were against naming the source. As we know, that trail lead back to the UN.

Wikileaks Cables Reveal: After Quake, a “Gold Rush” for Haiti Contracts

HaitiAnalysis.com | Politics | June 16th, 2011

War and disasters are seen as opportunities for some. Naomi Klein calls it "disaster capitalism."

THE GOLD RUSH IS ON!” [U.S. Ambassador] Merten headlined a section of his 6 p.m. situation report – or Sitrep – back to Washington."

Lucke, for one, justifies making money off of disasters. “It’s kind of the American way,” he told Haïti Liberté. “Just because you’re trying to do business doesn’t mean you’re trying to be rapacious. There’s nothing insidious about that... It wasn’t worse than Iraq."

More on Disaster Capitalism from Truthout...

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Attacking Libya - and the Dictionary

Truth-out.org | Politics | Tuesday 21 June 2011

The Obama administration's rush for oil in Libya has them redefining war.

American and NATO planes are violating Libyan air space, they are finding targets, dropping bombs, and the bombs are killing and maiming innocent people and destroying civilian buildings and other "soft" and "hard" targets. It is a war, but according to an Obama administration 32 page report titled "United States Activities in Libya," it is NOT war.

"War is only war, it seems, when Americans are dying, when we die. When only they, the Libyans, die, it is something else for which there is as yet apparently no name."

According to Reporter Kevin Hall of MacClatchy, the Libyan war ties to development of oil in the Caspian region and other oil rich regions. It marks a scramble for oil and controlling Europe's energy supply. Read his article: Wikileaks cables show it was all about the oil.

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Haiti Housing Plans: BBBC vs Kay Pam

Defend Haiti | Thursday, 16 June 2011

A lot of distrust for Michel Martelly and his plans for Haiti is manifested in his adoption of a René Preval mortgage plan called Kay Pam. President Martelly has been disingenuous in presenting the plan has his own.

Without question, more suspicions about Haiti's first ever mortgage program are raise by the untimely death of Guiteau Toussaint, the President of National Credit Bank (BNC), who had partnered with Preval on the mortgage plan and who was to launch the project just before his untimely death. Toussaint was murdered at home In Petion-Ville, Haiti during an armed robbery on June 12, 2011. The death is being called an assassination and some suspect a political motive. The police are questioning suspects.

Perhaps not coincidentally, given Martelly's hatred of Aristide and Lavalas, some suspects are said to be Fanmi Lavalas political activists, including former Bush 2004 coup era political prisoner, Yvon Antoine aka Yvon ZapZap -- though it was later reported that his detention was unrelated to the death of Toussaint. No word yet on why Yvon Antoine is being detained. Also detained for questioning and conditionally released was a prominent businessman named Franck Ciné.

As for the mortgage program, many details need to be revealed and are missing from the discussion. The new president still has not been able to get his government appointments approved by Parliament, including his Vice President designate, Daniel-Gerard Rouzier. Rouzier committed a misstep by announcing his intention to disband the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission (IHRC), but hours later Martelly subsequently promised to work with the IHRC to make it more "efficient."

Martelly's mortgage program is troubling. Martelly says in a video on YouTube that the interest rate on these mortgages will be fixed at 8%. This sounds exorbitantly high for what amounts to public housing projects.

The mortgage plan is very optimistic, but unrealistic, given the high unemployment rate in Haiti. How will people be able to pay this mortgage? The sewing factories and other sweatshops that are planned or operating in Haiti do not and evidently will not provide Haitians, who work without unions or benefits, with a living wage. The new Haitian presidential administration's first priority should be sustainable Haitian jobs, not enslavement to a high-interest mortgage.

It doesn't recommend Martelly's new mortgage plan that he himself ended up in foreclosure on three of his properties in South Florida.

Democracy, Haitian Style

by Stephen Lendman | StevelendmanBlog

Except for Aristide's tenure, what passes for Haitian democracy would make a despot blush, thanks to America's imperial grip on the hemisphere's poorest, long-suffering people.

As a result, last November's presidential and legislative elections might best be called a cruel joke. The entire process was rigged to exclude 15 parties, including by far the most popular, Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas.

Moreover, the election was so tainted by brazen disenfranchisement and fraud, including ballot box stuffing and other irregularities, that legitimate independent observers would have demanded throwing out the results and starting over.

Most Haitians, however, weren't fooled. A scant 22%, in fact, voted, a hemispheric low since record keeping began over 60 years ago.

Since no presidential candidate won a majority, a March 20 runoff followed, pitting stealth Duvalierist Michel ("Sweet Micky") Martelly, an anti-populist former Kompa singer, against Mirlande Manigat, wife of former right-wing president, Leslie Manigat. Between them, they got about 11% support in round one, making them both illegitimate presidential choices.

Even more so for winner Martelly with fewer than 22% of Haitians voting, a new record low so embarrassing it was almost like holding a national election and no one showed up. Why bother with only US approved candidates participating, making both rounds fraudulent, illegitimate, and predictable, assuring sham democracy, continued repression, deep poverty, and exploitation for another five years.

Nonetheless, on May 14, Martelly will be inaugurated as president, by imperial selection, not popular mandate. In a nation of about 9.7 million people, he got about 700,000 votes, about 16.7% of registered voters (about 7% of all Haitians), making him perhaps Haiti's least popular president ever. The people's choice, he's not, with good reason.

Martelly, a President with Notorious Extremist Connections

He's long had ties to Haitian elites, militarists, reactionary Duvalierists, and his thuggish Tonton Macoute assassins, backing coups, death squads, deep repression, and denial of basic freedoms. Moreover, Damian Merlo managed his campaign, a man connected to former Reagan and Bush II official Otto Reich, notorious for some of the worst right-wing policies of both administrations, including attempting to destabilize and overthrow democratic governments.

As a result, Martelly will quash efforts for progressive change, in lockstep with Washington, Western corporations, and Haitian oligarchs, wanting no interference with their plans for even greater exploitation. Moreover, he's expected to do it by reinstating Haiti's notoriously repressive army, established to serve elitist interests by murdering regime opponents and crushing popular resistance, what UN Blue Helmet occupiers and Haitian police have done since spring 2004.

On April 23, Washington Post writer Lee Hockstader shamelessly called Martelly "a new kind of political figure (promising) rule of law (governance), free public education, jobs, new homes (for Haiti's homeless), and help for poor farmers." In 2002, however, a WP profile said he was a popular "favorite of the thugs who worked on behalf of the hated Duvalier family dictatorship before its 1986 collapse," a history now airbrushed from his resume.

During the Duvalier years, he ran the Garage, a Port-au-Prince nightclub, popular among the worst of Haitian extremists. At the time, he openly befriended Lt. Col. Michel Francois, dictator Raoul Cedras' ((1991 - 1994) secret police chief, and was associated with his death squad repression of Lavalas party members, even participating with them on hunt and kill operations.

In 1994, when Aristide was restored as president, he moved to Miami to continue singing in America. Once the Bush administration launched efforts to oust him after his 2000 reelection, he returned to Haiti as an outspoken critic of his policies. In fact, after his February 2004 ouster, he organized a Port-au-Prince concert under the slogan, "Keep him out!"

According to Haiti Liberte writer Roger Annis, Washington financed his multi-million dollar campaign, backers Martelly called his "friends in the US" to assure his cooperation as president.

City University of New York Professor Francois Pierre-Louis deplored the prospect of him in charge, saying:

Haiti's "dream has not come true. Sweet Mickey is vastly
unprepared and inexperienced. He did not run under an established party and thus is yet to present a realistic program for dealing with reconstruction and unemployment, and much of his team represents some of the most notorious anti-democratic forces in the country."

Moreover, "Haiti hasn't invested in the agricultural sector since the 1990s and continuing the old trade policies will likely create a food crisis very shortly. If promised agricultural reforms are not met, there'll be demonstrations and protests and Martelly's mandate will shift from developing the country to keeping people in check."

In other words, murdering them for his bosses in Washington and Haiti's oligarchs.

Of course, he was selected to serve Western, mainly US, corporate interests at the expense of popular needs. Based on his history, he won't disappoint.

On April 20, Miami Herald writers Lesley Clark and Jacqueline Charles headlined, "Haiti's Martelly meets with Clinton during his first visit to Washington since election," saying:

He "won enthusiastic backing Wednesday from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton." She praised him, saying:

"We are behind him; we have a great deal of enthusiasm. The people of Haiti may have a long road ahead of them, but as they walk it, the United States will be with you all the way."

In fact, Martelly is Washington's man charged with extracting every possible pound of flesh from ordinary Haitians, those resisting facing the most extreme repressive power of the state.

According to Wesleyan University Professor Alex Dupuy:

"The dual strategy of urban sweatshops and laissez-faire agriculture, which subordinated Haiti in the 1980s, is now its reconstruction plan."

In Washington, Clinton and Martelly discussed it, including financing by the IMF, World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, and other international lending agencies to exploit Haiti more than ever for profit, its people no better than wage slaves for those lucky enough to have any work.

The Miami Herald's Clark and Charles said:

Martelly "visited with officials at the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Inter-American Development Bank, signaling he wants their support for aid to the Haitian government and investments in the private sector. He also promoted Haiti at a US Chamber of Commerce cocktail party."

In other words, Haiti is open for business. Ahead expect greater neoliberal exploitation, Washington, the IMF and World Bank obligating Martelly's government to take more loans to service old ones and enforce structural adjustment harshness, including:

-- greater privatization of state enterprises;

-- mass layoffs;

-- full deregulation;

-- no social benefits or development;

-- wage freezes;

-- unrestricted free market access for Western corporations;

-- unchecked plundering of state resources;

-- corporate-friendly tax cuts;

-- crackdowns on or elimination of trade unionism; and

-- harsh repression against those opposing a system incompatible with social democracy.

In other words, Martelly's mandate is to facilitate profiteering from misery. As a result, unscrupulous Western interests expect a bonanza from greater pillaging of the region's most vulnerable state, including its rich resources and exploitable labor to be sold out for profit.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.