US Interventionist Policies in Haiti's New Low: The Attempted Displacement of the Peasants

Rele fòs, rasanble fòs pou Ti Pèp Ilavach Dosye Ilavach
(Support the People of Ile-a-Vache -- Need a Strong Response!)
by Ezili Dantò | 2/29/2014 | fb

Ilavach is a beautiful offshore Island in southern Haiti. The Haiti residents have lived at peace there, eating the fresh fruits, vegetables off the land, fishing and crafting beautiful art pieces. Enjoying natures' bounty, the sand, sky and sea. Selling to other local areas, without food, their extra food. In fact, up until recently Ilavach only had two policemen on the Island.

But the Obama crew is pushing for more privatization of Haiti assets and wealth.

So, last May 10, 2013 its puppet Martelly-Lamothe government UNILATERALLY, with no local participation, declared the entire island property of the state. Martelly, the US-picked Haiti president simply DECREED this. The people of Ilavach reject this plan to take their Island, their land to create a tourist haven for white folks and other foreigners. Categorically reject it and need our support. Haven't the people of Haiti been traumatized and destroyed enough?

The government want the island for hotels, luxurious beachside condos, private airport and golf courses — instead of providing needed services for the people like better schools, clean running water, roads, and electricity.

Konbit peyizan Ilavach (KOPI), the organization put together by the people of Ilavach to secure their interests say the taking of their lands is illegal and the development is not intended to benefit the island residents but foreigners. One resident says he'd rather continue to eat yams, fresh fish, fruits, vegetables off his own ancestral land than have to get a wage job on the Island to service Northern tourists. Haitians took down slavery in 1804 not to return to it in 2014.

The Beautiful Island People of Ile-a-Vache are threatened with  a forced removal from their homes by Obama/Martelly/Lamothe
The Ilavach folks have no local representation in the puppet government of US occupied Haiti. There has been no local elections, no parliamentary elections in Haiti since the US puppet, Michel Martelly, took office with only 17% of the population voting. The Martelly-Lamothe government, instead of organizing required elections, has enjoyed complete control by constantly postponing local and national elections. Two thirds of the parliament's mandates are over. There was no mayoral elections as provided for in the Constitution. Dictator Martelly conveniently CHOSE local folks who will rubber stamp his decrees.

Martelly created the local position - Ajan Egzekitif Enterimè or Interim EXECUTIVE agent. The name says it all. In Ilavach the person chosen by Martelly's government for this position is someone who previously ran for local office that residents say only got 100 votes. "He would not have been elected to represent the people of Ilavach if the people were allowed to vote" one resident said in a radio interview. But it is this man who is selling out the people of Ilavach. Pointing them out for intimidation, imprisonment and even death, says the residents, by Martelly-Lamothe government forces.

As I understand it, Stéphanie Balmir Villedrouin, the Minister of Tourism arrived on the Island to talk to the agitated residents. She came without the plan of development that the people asked to see and promised to return with the plan the government said would benefit the people. But then released a youtube video of the government vision for Ilavach. On that same day when the Haiti plan for Ilavach was released on youtube, 100 BIM soldiers - a special Haiti police squad, trained by the occupiers and created to protect foreigners - tourist- in particular, arrived on the Island. (Motorized Intervention Brigade - BMI)

Residents report that these non-local forces have been terrorizing the protestors, going to the school to intimidate their children, arresting the KOPI members, beating up the demonstrators, firing at the unarmed people. No international media is reporting.

HLLN has sent out an urgent action alert. The residents of Ilavach say Radyo VKM has been the only radio station to report on their desperate plight. Vwa Klodi Mizo on Radyo VKM in Southern Haiti has a wealth of information on their site and interviews with updated information.

We're getting more Haiti radio station to report. Lakou New York, Hugues Girard, Dady Chery, the Haitian Blogger and Elsie News are writing and posting about this. There may be more we're not aware of. But we're asking everyone, everyone to tell this story. Help stop the coming massacre of innocent people. This attempt to make landowning Haitians landless and without food sovereignty. Help stop this big business terror in Haiti.

The Ezili Network is asking Haitians in the Diaspora to call their families in Southern Haiti and Port au Prince, don't let the resident of Ilavach face the wrath and unbridled greed of the rabid elites alone. Tell their story. reach out to the media, circulate their words, the voices of the people of Ilavache.

Stand in solidarity with them especially during the days of carnival - this coming Sunday, March 2nd to Tuesday, March 4, 2014. Do not let the fascist US puppet government take the lands of the poor and give it to foreigners. This oppression and coming bloodbath must be stopped. Already the heretofore peaceful resident are being called "bandits." The government has arrested Carl Oza, Ayizan Silien and others including KOPI vice president, Jean Maltunès Lamy. (See, "Nòt pwotestasyon plizyè òganizasyon kont arestasyon ak anprizònman jean Matulnès Lamy"- Here)

Dady Chery transcribed the following statement, made by the president of KOPI in an interview with Vwa Klodi Mizo on RadyovKM:

"KOPI President Marc Lainé Donald (Jinal) said that KOPI still wants a recall of the May 10, 2013 decree that declared the entire island a zone of public utility. According to Jinal: “This is a lousy decree. This project reflects a macabre plan, a rat trap, a collective suicide, that aims to drive all the residents from the island. It is a cultural genocide that puts everyone in the island’s storm and dispossesses people of their lands. No one has the right to build on the island any more. If Ile à Vache is a hidden treasure, its people should enjoy it and get integrated into the proposed developments. We are craftsmen who have worked to beautify this corner of paradise that is so coveted by Lamothe’s administration.”

Listen to Jinal’s interview (in Kreyòl) with Radyo VKM below:
http://bit.ly/1lpDQ6H

(For more detailed information, go to -
1.- http://www.radyovkm.org/ (Kreyol);

2. - Emisyon Goute Sel 25 Fevriye Radio Vwa Klodi Mizo Aux Cayes, | Ileavache
https://soundcloud.com/radiovkm/emisyon-goute-sel-25-fevriye

3. - Share and circulate these English videos to give voice to the people of Ile-a-Vache http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI7MI0QAvhZnqZnbQIEgvyA and;

4. Dady Chery's: Haiti’s Peasants Fight Land Grab of Offshore Islands for Ecotourism http://bit.ly/K4IAhq)
***

More about Ile-a-Vache:
La Bonne Nouvelle Ile a Vache -- www.youtube.com
Île-à-Vache yon ti kwen paradi ki genyen 57e pi bèl plaj nan mond lan. -- www.youtube.com

End of Ezili Danto fb post


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First they came for the haitian peasants or "developing countries"... ironically the United States itself is now a full-fledged proxy state controlled by Wall Street.

The U.S. has intervened in Haiti on behalf of Wall Street. The first occasion was in 1914 when the U.S. Marines carted off all the gold from the Haitian national bank to Fort Knox. They held the government of Haiti's parliament hostage until they agreed to pass into law a decree to allow land ownership by foreigners. In the periods after two consecutive coups, the U.S. forced the privatization of most national businesses, including the national telephone company, cement factory and . Now their puppet American citizens Michel Martelly and Laurent Lamothe are attempting to evict Haitian peasants from their ancestral lands and plans are to build a tourist resort. If the government of Haiti can take the land of the people of Ile-a-Vache, they can sell off all of the land to developers on the pretext that there is no proof of ownership or really any pretext at all. So, don't make any plans to retire to your mom or dad's ancestral Lakou, the Martely/Lamothe government and the "international community" of corporate handlers may have plans for it.

Professor Michel Chossudovsky in a Guns & Butter* radio interview entitled: Dress rehearsal for government privatization, talks about neoliberalism and the agenda of the US corporatocracy controlled Central banks (IMF, IDB, World Bank, etc.) and Wall Street. Chossudovsky: "What we are now seeing in the United States is the privatization of the public state."

Guns & Butter: Dress rehearsal for government privatization



* Guns & Butter is Produced and hosted by Bonnie Faulkner

Playing God with Haiti’s freshwater ecosystems

Originally Posted @ Strange Attractions: April 20, 2011 @ 10:52:26 PM UTC | Reposted with the permission of the Author: un.chemyst

In September of 2010, thousands of live fish of the species Gambusia holbrooki^* were transported by air from a rural fish farm in the Mississippi Delta region of the southern United States to one on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where they are to be raised in tanks and released into freshwater ecosystems all over the country. These fish, one of two Gambusia species commonly known as “mosquitofish” in English, are native to the southeastern United States, and no sightings of the fish have previously been reported in freshwater ecosystems in Haiti or elsewhere on the island of Hispaniola. The reason given for this mass introduction is to aide in malaria eradication efforts in Haiti: malaria is transmitted by mosquitoes, mosquitoes lay their eggs on the surface of standing bodies of freshwater, and the omnivorous mosquitofish, in addition to any other food source available, will certainly eat mosquito eggs and larvae as their name suggests. Intentional introductions of these fish as a biological method of mosquito control have been carried out all over the world since 1905, with many introductions resulting in long-term establishment of mosquitofish populations outside of their native range [1].

Successful invasions of alien species in island ecosystems often have severe ecological and socioeconomic impacts [2], and mosquitofish meet two important criteria which suggest that a successful invasion would likely result from their introduction into an area [3]: they can survive under a large range of environmental conditions, especially temperature [4] and salinity [5], allowing them to successfully establish populations wherever they are introduced, and they are highly mobile [6], allowing established populations to spread rapidly. Also, mosquitofish have a history of successful, and ecologically disruptive, invasions outside their native range. They often populate the ecosystems they invade at high densities, and since zooplankton constitute the overwhelming majority of their diet, their presence often results in elevated phytoplankton levels, and even algal blooms [7]. They attack native fish in the ecosystems they invade, compete with them for food, and eat their minnows [8] [9]. Amphibian species, some of which are also important mosquito predators [10], have been shown to be particularly threatened by mosquitofish introductions [11] [12] [13], as moquitofish eat their eggs and tadpoles. There are at least three related Gambusia species endemic to Hispaniola, and it appears that the proponents of this project have completely overlooked these fish both as a potential native species for use in biological mosquito control and also as species that would be potentially impacted by a mosquitofish invasion. Competition and hybridization with invading mosquitofish have threatened multiple rare species of Gambusia endemic to the southwestern United States, and the invasion of mosquitofish almost certainly contributed to the recent extinction of G. amistadensis in Texas [14] [15].

This, of course, is not to downplay the reality of the long history of human suffering caused by malaria in Hispaniola, a history that goes back to the first arrival of Europeans on the island in 1492. Malaria likely played a role in the decline and eventual extermination of the Taíno people who were living on the island when the first Europeans arrived, although probably not as significant of a role as smallpox or the cruel policy of genocide and forced assimilation practiced by the European conquerers. Malaria subsequently spread to much of the rest of the Americas, although contemporary Hispaniola is the only island left in the Caribbean where malaria has yet to be eradicated, with much of the effective disease reservoir being localized to the rural lowlands of Haiti [16]. In 2009, evidence for malaria resistance to chloroquine, an important drug for the treatment and prevention of malaria, was first reported on the island [17], and in 2010, a massive earthquake displaced over a million people, increasing their susceptibility to the disease [18]. Both events make the need for a campaign towards comprehensive malaria eradication even more timely [16].

The most essential tool for malaria eradication, however, would be the ability to effectively diagnose and treat malaria across the entire island, with the large scale distribution of mosquito netting to prevent transmission of the disease also being of prime importance [16]. Control of mosquito populations would certainly help these efforts, but the effectiveness of fish introductions is more or less limited to eliminating mosquitoes from fishless ponds. Tree holes, coconut shells, discarded tires, and peridomestic containers are also important breeding grounds for mosquitoes in rural tropical areas [19] [20] [21], making fish introductions only effective when integrated with environmental management, other biological methods, and possibly even chemical methods [22]. And fortunately, there are countless species of omnivorous freshwater fish around the world which will also consume mosquito larvae when they are available as a food source and which have just as much potential as do mosquitofish for biological mosquito control within their native range [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29], making mosquitofish introductions completely unnecessary. There is, of course, one thing that all of these tools for successful malaria eradication all have in common: they all require a significant and prolonged engagement with and investment in rural communities across Haiti.

The potentially severe consequences of this attempt at using mosquitofish to control malaria in Haiti and the rather naive assumptions immanent in its rationale make it a rather curious project. The organization behind it is Operation Blessing International (OBI), a non-profit organization with an explicitly Christian mission and an annual revenue in excess of $400,000,000 founded by wealthy televangelist Pat Robertson in 1978. But there is an additional level of irony in that, even assuming that the intentions at all levels of the organization are genuine, OBI is, by engaging in such deliberate ecosystem engineering, effectively disregarding two important convictions that are nearly universal in Christian theology: that the Earth is God’s creation, and that God’s judgment should not be questioned. In the biblical creation narrative, the reason that Adam, the first man, is placed in God’s creation at all is merely “to tend and watch over it” (Gn 2:15), and Adam is never called upon to improve upon it as he sees fit, or to move things around. Adam’s descendants, at various points in the Old Testament, question God’s judgment and will. “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” (Jb 38:4) is what God says to Job after one such incident. The Book of Ecclesiastes, echoing its persistent theme of human vanity, asks in reference to the work of God “who can make straight what He has made crooked?” (Ec 7:13).

Pat Robertson has been well known for his large investments in mineral extraction interests in the countries where OBI operates, his use of OBI resources for his personal business ventures, and his close ties to right-wing dictators who violently expropriate land from and enforce crippling economic policies on the people they rule [30]. But whatever the organization’s larger plans for Haiti may be, the project to introduce mosquitofish to the country appears to be nothing more than a gimmick: a mythical “silver bullet” born in the heart of the rural U.S. South and about to be used against an exotic foe for once and for all, which when stripped of the reality of its certain ineffectiveness and its potentially severe consequences, is sure to win over the hearts of North American donors. The long-term consequences of this project for Haiti’s freshwater ecosystems are completely irrelevant to the project’s viability anyways, as it is not the people who live in Haiti and depend on its freshwater ecosystems for their livelihoods who control the means in which their collective suffering is exploited as the Christian tradition of charity is commodified. Equally irrelevant are the theological contradictions inherent in the project, as the project is not in any way an act of Christian charity, but a gimmick which is being sold to charitable Christians. Like the introduction of malaria itself to Hispaniola, the brutal extermination of the people who inhabited the island at the time, the clearing of the island’s forests for plantation agriculture, the damming of its rivers, and the reckless extraction of its mineral resources, the introduction of mosquitofish to Haiti amounts to simply another permanent alteration of Hispaniola’s landscape and ecology for short-term private profit, this time in the name of the empire of Pat Robertson.

Photo Credit: Paparazzo Presents

References

1. L.A. Krumholz, "Reproduction in the Western Mosquitofish, Gambusia affinis affinis (Baird & Girard), and Its Use in Mosquito Control", Ecological Monographs, vol. 18, 1948, pp. 1-. DOI.
2. J.K. REASER, L.A. MEYERSON, Q. CRONK, M. DE POORTER, L. ELDREGE, E. GREEN, M. KAIRO, P. LATASI, R.N. MACK, J. MAUREMOOTOO, D. O'DOWD, W. ORAPA, S. SASTROUTOMO, A. SAUNDERS, C. SHINE, S. THRAINSSON, and L. VAIUTU, "Ecological and socioeconomic impacts of invasive alien species in island ecosystems", Environmental Conservation, vol. 34, 2007, pp. 98-. DOI.
3. C.S. Kolar, "Ecological Predictions and Risk Assessment for Alien Fishes in North America", Science, vol. 298, pp. 1233-1236. DOI.
4. R.G. Otto, "Temperature tolerance of the mosquitofish, Gambmia affinis (Baird and Girard)", Journal of Fish Biology, vol. 5, 1973, pp. 575-585. DOI.
5. J. Chervinski, "Salinity tolerance of the mosquito fish, Gambusia affinis (Baird and Girard)", Journal of Fish Biology, vol. 22, 1983, pp. 9-11. DOI.
6. J.S. Rehage, and A. Sih, "Dispersal Behavior, Boldness, and the Link to Invasiveness: A Comparison of Four Gambusia Species", Biological Invasions, vol. 6, 2004, pp. 379-391. DOI.
7. S.H. Hurlbert, and M.S. Mulla, "Impacts of mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis) predation on plankton communities", Hydrobiologia, vol. 83, 1981, pp. 125-151. DOI.
8. N. Caiola, and A. Sostoa, "Possible reasons for the decline of two native toothcarps in the Iberian Peninsula: evidence of competition with the introduced Eastern mosquitofish", Journal of Applied Ichthyology, vol. 21, 2005, pp. 358-363. DOI.
9. D.K. Rowe, J.P. Smith, and C. Baker, "Agonistic interactions between Gambusia affinis and Galaxias maculatus: implications for whitebait fisheries in New Zealand rivers", Journal of Applied Ichthyology, vol. 23, 2007, pp. 668-674. DOI.
10. S.E. DuRant, and W.A. Hopkins, "Amphibian predation on larval mosquitoes", Canadian Journal of Zoology, vol. 86, 2008, pp. 1159-1164. DOI.
11. S. Komak, and M.R. Crossland, , Wildlife Research, vol. 27, pp. 185-. DOI.
12. H. A., L. S., and M. M., "The role of introduced mosquitofish ( Gambusia holbrooki ) in excluding the native green and golden bell frog ( Litoria aurea ) from original habitats in south-eastern Australia", Oecologia, vol. 132, 2002, pp. 445-452. DOI.
13. S.C. Gamradt, and L.B. Kats, "Effect of Introduced Crayfish and Mosquitofish on California Newts", Conservation Biology, vol. 10, 1996, pp. 1155-1162. DOI.
14. G. Huxel, "Rapid displacement of native species by invasive species: effects of hybridization", Biological Conservation, vol. 89, pp. 143-152. DOI.
15. K.T. Scribner, K.S. Page, and M.L. Bartron, , Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries, vol. 10, pp. 293-323. DOI.
16. J. Keating, D.J. Krogstad, and T.P. Eisele, "Malaria elimination on Hispaniola", The Lancet Infectious Diseases, vol. 10, 2010, pp. 291-293. DOI.
17. B.L. Londono, "Chloroquine-Resistant Haplotype Plasmodium falciparum Parasites, Haiti", Emerging Infectious Diseases, vol. 15, 2009, pp. 735-740. DOI.
18. P. Adams, "Rainy season could hamper Haiti's recovery", The Lancet, vol. 375, 2010, pp. 1067-1069. DOI.
19. S.M. Kulkarni, and P.S. Naik, "Breeding habitats of mosquitoes in Goa.", Indian journal of malariology, vol. 26.
20. J.C. Anosike, B.E.B. Nwoke, A.N. Okere, E.E. Oku, J.E. Asor, I.O. Emmy-Egbe, and D.A. Adimike, "Epidemiology of tree-hole breeding mosquitoes in the tropical rainforest of Imo State, south-east Nigeria.", Annals of agricultural and environmental medicine : AAEM, vol. 14.
21. D.A. Yee, "Tires as habitats for mosquitoes: a review of studies within the eastern United States.", Journal of medical entomology, vol. 45.
22. L.A. Lacey, and B.K. Orr, "The role of biological control of mosquitoes in integrated vector control.", The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene, vol. 50.
23. S.M. Nelson, and L.C. Keenan, "Use of an indigenous fish species, Fundulus zebrinus, in a mosquito abatement program: a field comparison with the mosquitofish, Gambusia affinis.", Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association, vol. 8.
24. D.K. Lee, "Predation efficacy of the fish muddy loach, Misgurnus mizolepis, against Aedes and Culex mosquitoes in laboratory and small rice plots.", Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association, vol. 16.
25. T.P. Hurst, M.D. Brown, and B.H. Kay, "Laboratory evaluation of the predation efficacy of native Australian fish on Culex annulirostris (Diptera: Culicidae).", Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association, vol. 20.
26. A.R. Van Dam, and W.E. Walton, "Comparison of mosquito control provided by the arroyo chub (Gila orcutti) and the mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis).", Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association, vol. 23.
27. P. Irwin, and S. Paskewitz, "Investigation of fathead minnows (Pimephales promelas) as a biological control agent of Culex mosquitoes under laboratory and field conditions.", Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association, vol. 25.
28. V. Louca, M.C. Lucas, C. Green, S. Majambere, U. Fillinger, and S.W. Lindsay, "Role of fish as predators of mosquito larvae on the floodplain of the Gambia River.", Journal of medical entomology, vol. 46.
29. G. Chandra, I. Bhattacharjee, S.N. Chatterjee, and A. Ghosh, "Mosquito control by larvivorous fish.", The Indian journal of medical research, vol. 127.

^* UPDATE April 27,2011:
Operation Blessing International has said they did not import Gambusia Holbrooki Fish Into Haiti, they introduced Gambusia Affinis. In response, the author of this piece states:

The difference between G. holbrooki and G. affinis is minor. They are both known as "mosquitofish" in American English and though they are two separate species, they are often treated as one in the scientific literature because their biology is very similar. Some of literature that I cited, especially those by Australian scientists, actually deal with G. affinis, since that was the species introduced there (G. holbrooki was introduced in Europe, Asia, and Africa).

I'm not sure if I believe their claim that G. affinis already exists in Haiti, though. When I wrote the article, I searched pretty hard for any evidence that either species had been introduced to the island, but found none. If it was already there, why did they have to fly fish in from Mississippi? And why aren't they using native fish? Perhaps I could contact Dr. Abe personally to clarify this.

They claim that they are not going to release G. affinis into open water, which is good. This doesn't mean that G. affinis won't successfully invade freshwater ecosystems though, especially in the event of a flood.

So, although I will certainly edit my article to reflect their claim that it was G. affinis that they introduced, I certainly will not change my analysis. I'm working on drafting an open letter Bill Horan, which I will post on my website. I plan to address the fact that the press release seems to imply that they didn't just introduce a species of fish into Haiti, which they did. It also does not accept that what they are doing will have ecological consequences, which it will.

un.chemyst

An open letter to Bill Horan

Posted: April 27, 2011 @ 3:45:54 AM UTC | Author: un.chemyst