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There isn't a Biggest Story for Today, yet.
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| Friday, October 31 | | · | Haiti: Racism and Poverty |
| Tuesday, April 22 | | · | The U.S. Role in Haiti's Food Riots |
| Monday, April 21 | | · | Global Food Crisis: Hunger Plagues Haiti and the World |
| Monday, February 05 | | · | How to Turn a Priest Into a Cannibal |
| Friday, June 30 | | · | 'The Return': Aristide, Law and Democracy in Haiti |
| Wednesday, May 03 | | · | Haitian president-elect turns to Cuba, Venezuela |
| Thursday, March 09 | | · | Elusive Victories in Haiti |
| Thursday, February 23 | | · | Haiti Election Sends World a Message |
| Friday, February 03 | | · | Botched Job: The UN and the Haitian Elections |
| Sunday, January 22 | | · | Canada, Haiti, the UN |
Older Articles
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Clinton in Haiti
By Ashley Smith
August 06, 2010 - counterpunch.org
Amid the hoopla over Chelsea Clinton’s wedding at a posh estate north of New York City, there were plenty of toasts in the media to Bill Clinton and the good works he’s performed since leaving the White House.
In particular, Clinton’s role in working with Haiti, both before and after the catastrophic earthquake last January, was singled out.
To the U.S. media, Clinton is a compassionate statesmen, with only the best interests of the Haitian people at heart. Particularly since this year’s quake, he has been viewed as a decisive leader who can “get things done,” in contrast to the country’s ineffective government. Because of his role as co-chair of the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission (IHRC), Esquire magazine called Clinton “CEO of a leaderless nation,” the Miami Herald repeatedly refers to him as the “czar of the recovery effort.”
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Caribbean: Preparing Haiti for Exploitation and Plunder
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By Stephen Lendman
May 01, 2010
Over 15 weeks post-quake, Haiti’s imperial takeover is proceeding. It began straightaway after the calamity, Haitians victimized by denied aid, appalling repression, and now dispossession of their land, homes, and communities. More on that below.
On April 16, the New York Times carried Reuters and AP reports stating Haiti’s parliament approved the participation of foreign investors to rebuild the country, meaning, of course, seize, occupy, own, control, and colonize it for profit, using Haitians as exploited serfs.
AP stated: ”Haiti’s soon-to-expire parliament has approved the creation of (an Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission – IHRC) co-chaired by former US President Bill Clinton to oversee billions in post-quake reconstruction aid, the Ministry of Communications said Friday (April 16).”
The vote also extended Haiti’s state of emergency for 18 months, leaving the Rene Preval-Jean-Max Bellerive government in charge, effectively a dictatorship like Preval instituted in 1999 by not renewing parliament and ruling by decree pending new elections.
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Caribbean: Haiti Post-Quake: Devastation, Depravation, Exploitation, and Oppression
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By Stephen Lendman
March 29, 2010
Two and half months post-quake, the major media mostly ignore Haiti, the calamitous conditions on the ground, and the growing desperation of millions forced to largely endure on their own - out of sight, mind, the concern of world leaders, and UN, USAID and other aid organizations diverting most of the $700 million + donated to contractors and profiteering NGOs.
A March 11 New York Times editorial titled, "Haiti, Two Months Later," tried to have it both ways, citing relief effort failures, yet praising the US, UN, foreign countries, and aid organizations for:
"dispatch(ing) tents, tarps, food, water, medicine and doctors as they should. They have done a lot of good, particularly the United States, which rushed supplies, a troop force....and a hospital ship. Many lives were saved."
Unmentioned was the thousands of US combat troops obstructing aid, getting none to the most impoverished neighborhoods, and amounts to emergency shelters have been woefully inadequate, making calamitous conditions worse.
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Caribbean: American Genocides: Is Haiti Next?
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By Stephen Lendman
February 22, 2010
Distinguished historian, scholar and activist Gabriel Kolko studied "the nature and purpose of (American) power (since) the 1870s," calling it "violen(t), racis(t), repressi(ve) at home and abroad (and) cultural(ly) mendaci(ous)." It's been the same since inception, historian Howard Zinn calling colonial America:
"a class society from the beginning. America started off as a society of rich and poor, people with enormous grants of land and people with no land. And there were riots, there were bread riots in Boston, and riots and rebellions all over the colonies, of poor against rich, of tenants breaking into jails to release people who were in prison for nonpayment of debt. There was class conflict. We try to" portray a benevolent nation. We weren't then. We're not now.
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Caribbean: Freedom Rider: Useless Aid, No Donation Without Agitation
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By Margaret Kimberley
January 27, 2010 - blackagendareport.com
“Dollars must come with demands of non-interference in Haiti’s affairs and demands of accountability to charitable organizations.”
A telethon hosted by celebrities succeeded in raising more than $57 million in funds for the relief of Haiti earthquake victims. Yet that sum and the many millions more donated by individuals around the world will do little to relieve Haiti’s plight.
Haitians are living in their latest hellish incarnation created by American meddling and the crushing of that nation’s democracy. As long as the United States directs Haiti’s affairs, and empowers a corrupt elite instead of the will of the masses, suffering will continue whether caused by natural or human-made disaster.
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By Cynthia McKinney
January 22, 2010 - globalresearch.ca
President Obama's response to the tragedy in Haiti has been robust in military deployment and puny in what the Haitians need most: food; first responders and their specialized equipment; doctors and medical facilities and equipment; and engineers, heavy equipment, and heavy movers. Sadly, President Obama is dispatching Presidents Bush and Clinton, and thousands of Marines and U.S. soldiers. By contrast, Cuba has over 400 doctors on the ground and is sending in more; Cubans, Argentinians, Icelanders, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans, and many others are already on the ground working – saving lives and treating the injured. Senegal has offered land to Haitians willing to relocate to Africa.
The United States, on the day after the tragedy struck, confirmed that an entire Marine Expeditionary Force was being considered "to help restore order," when the "disorder" had been caused by an earthquake striking Haiti; not since 1751, 1770, 1842, 1860, and 1887 had Haiti experienced an earthquake. But, I remember the bogus reports of chaos and violence that led to the deployment of military assets, including Blackwater, in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. One Katrina survivor noted that the people needed food and shelter and the US government sent men with guns. Much to my disquiet, it seems, here we go again. From the very beginning, US assistance to Haiti has looked to me more like an invasion than a humanitarian relief operation.
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Caribbean: Misinformation and Racism Hamper Recovery Efforts in Haiti
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Doctor: Misinformation and Racism Have Frozen Recovery Effort at General Hospital in Port-au-Prince
By Democracy Now!
January 19, 2010
"There are no security issues," says Dr. Evan Lyon of Partners in Health, reporting from the General Hospital in Port-Au-Prince in Haiti, where 1,000 people are in need of operations. Lyon said the reports of violence in the city have been overblown by the media and have affected the delivery of aid and medical services.
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JUAN GONZALEZ: Amy Goodman is in Haiti, and we'll be joining
her in a few minutes. But first, we turn to a voice from one hospital
in Port-au-Prince that was badly destroyed by last week's earthquake.
The General Hospital is three blocks from the crumbling National
Palace.
Former President Bill Clinton visited the hospital Monday, as
hundreds of people with broken limbs and multiple fractures were
waiting for medical supplies to arrive.
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By Benjamin Dangl
January 19, 2010 - towardfreedom.com
US corporations, private mercenaries, Washington and the International Monetary Fund are using the crisis in Haiti to make a profit, promote unpopular neoliberal policies, and extend military and economic control over the Haitian people.
In the aftermath of the earthquake, with much of the infrastructure and government services destroyed, Haitians have relied on each other for the relief efforts, working together to pull their neighbors, friends and loved ones from the rubble. One report from IPS News in Haiti explained, "In the day following the quake, there was no widespread violence. Guns, knives and theft weren't seen on the streets, lined only with family after family carrying their belongings. They voiced their anger and frustration with sad songs that echoed throughout the night, not their fists."
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Caribbean: Reparations, not handouts, for Haiti
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By Raffique Shah
January 17, 2010
SO we cry for Haiti again. Yet another natural disaster, this time an earthquake of horrendous magnitude, has all but flattened what was left of that 'cussed' country. In the Caribbean, so full of heart are we, even those who survive barely above the poverty line give, be it cash or clothes or food. But will our generosity, will the US$1 billion or so in help that will flow over the next year make a difference to 4.5 million of seven million people who live on less than US$1 day?
I think not. All we can achieve is cosmetic relief of the flimsiest type: Some food and water to barely keep alive those who survived death only to end up in living hell. In the short term, the USA gives $100 million plus on-the-ground equipment and trained personnel. We applaud. The IMF matches the US and again we sing hosannas to this agency of death. As for our Prime Minister, he commits US$1 million-far, far less than it cost for the cultural show to open one of the international conferences held here last year. 'Things tight, boy!' he says.
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Caribbean: Haitian Earthquake Disaster: Made in the USA
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Why the Blood Is on Our Hands
By Ted Rall
January 14, 2010 - CommonDreams.org
As grim accounts of the earthquake in Haiti came in, the accounts in U.S.-controlled state media all carried the same descriptive sentence: "Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere..."
Gee, I wonder how that happened?
You'd think Haiti would be loaded. After all, it made a lot of people rich.
How did Haiti get so poor? Despite a century of American colonialism, occupation, and propping up corrupt dictators? Even though the CIA staged coups d'état against every democratically elected president they ever had?
It's an important question. An earthquake isn't just an earthquake. The same 7.0 tremor hitting San Francisco wouldn't kill nearly as many people as in Port-au-Prince.
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By Ashley Smith
January 14, 2010 - socialistworker.org
A devastating earthquake, the worst in 200 years, struck Port-au-Prince on Tuesday, laying waste to the city and killing untold numbers of people. The quake measured 7.0 on the Richter scale, and detonated more than 30 aftershocks, all more than 4.5 in magnitude, through the night and into Wednesday morning.
The earthquake toppled poorly constructed houses, hotels, hospitals and even the capital city's main political buildings, including the presidential palace. The collapse of so many structures sent a giant cloud into the sky, which hovered over the city, raining dust down onto the wasteland below.
According to some estimates, more than 100,000 people may have died, in a metropolis of 2 million people. Those that survived are living in the streets, afraid to return inside any building that remains standing.
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If we are serious about assisting this devastated land we must stop trying to control and exploit it
By Peter Hallward
January 13, 2010 - guardian.co.uk
Any large city in the world would have suffered extensive damage from an earthquake on the scale of the one that ravaged Haiti's capital city on Tuesday afternoon, but it's no accident that so much of Port-au-Prince now looks like a war zone. Much of the devastation wreaked by this latest and most calamitous disaster to befall Haiti is best understood as another thoroughly manmade outcome of a long and ugly historical sequence.
The country has faced more than its fair share of catastrophes. Hundreds died in Port-au-Prince in an earthquake back in June 1770, and the huge earthquake of 7 May 1842 may have killed 10,000 in the northern city of Cap Haitien alone. Hurricanes batter the island on a regular basis, mostly recently in 2004 and again in 2008; the storms of September 2008 flooded the town of Gonaïves and swept away much of its flimsy infrastructure, killing more than a thousand people and destroying many thousands of homes. The full scale of the destruction resulting from this earthquake may not become clear for several weeks. Even minimal repairs will take years to complete, and the long-term impact is incalculable.
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The "Ottawa Initiative on Haiti": Humanist Peacekeeping or...?
By Jean Saint-Vil
April 20, 2009
globalresearch.ca
On Sussex Drive in Ottawa, just a few steps away from the enormous US embassy, stands the Peacekeeping Monument. The structure titled "Reconciliation" was erected to honour the more than 125,000 Canadians who have served in United Nations peacekeeping forces since 1947. The current article documents one particular instance –the February 2004 intervention in Haiti - where the historical record conflicts with the "good peacekeeper" narrative communicated by the Canadian government, reiterated by the corporate media, and represented by "Reconciliation."
Seeing themselves as a generous people, most Canadians also consider that their noble ideals are reflected in the foreign policy of their government. The importance of nurturing this positive image both at home and abroad is well ingrained in the national psyche and, every now and again, surveys are conducted to confirm its resilience.[1]
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Caribbean: US Discriminatory Immigration Policies Toward Haitians
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By Stephen Lendman
February 27th, 2009
It's a familiar story for Haitians - last in, first out for the hemisphere's poorest, least wanted, and most abused people here and at home. Most recently it was highlighted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials announcing the resumption of over 30,000 deportations to a nation reeling from poverty, repression, despair, the devastation from last summer's storms, and occupation by UN paramilitary Blue Helmets - since 2004, illegally there for the first time ever to support and enforce a coup d'etat against a democratically elected president, at the behest of Washington.
On December 9, ICE resumed deportations after halting them in September following summer storms that battered the country leaving 800,000 people without food, clean water, other essentials, and for around 70,000 their homes.
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by Stephen Lendman
November 06, 2008
Elected Haiti's president in 1990. Its first ever democratically chosen one. By a sweeping two-thirds majority. Took office in February 1991. Deposed by an army-led coup in September with all the earmarks of being made-in-Washington. Returned to office in October 1994. Served until February 1996. According to Haitian law, he couldn't succeed himself. Reelect in November 2000 with 90% of the vote. Took office in February 2001. Served until February 29, 2004 when, in the middle of the night, US marines deposed him and forced him into exile.
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