| *
****************************************
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What
Haitian-Americans Ask of the New US Congress and President (Outline
at Haiti
Policy Statement for the Obama Team)
-1. End the UN military occupation
Haiti needs tractors not tanks. Community policing, not war soldiers.
(See, Haiti's
image for violence is a big myth. Why is the UN in Haiti?-
Scientists
say there's more oil in Haiti than in Venezuela ; Oil
in Haiti - Economic Reasons for the UN/US occupation;
"There is a multinational conspiracy to illegally take the mineral
resources of the Haitian people: Espaillat
Nanita revealed that in Haiti there are huge deposits of gold and iridium"
and,
Haiti's Riches: Interview with Ezili Dantò
on Mining in Haiti.)
-2. Stop deportations. Grant Temporary Protected Status (TPS)
to Haitians already in the U.S. with a specification to stop all deportations
and grant work permits (See, Singled
Out).
Update: TPS was granted after the Jan 12, 2010 earthquake
but deportation resumed under Obama in Jan. 2011. Stop deportations
and expedite entry of the 55,000 Haitians already
approved to join their familes in U.S. If allowed to work
in the United States, the 55,000 beneficiaries would send remittances
to Haiti supporting an estimated 550,000 to one million persons in Haiti.
Such capital flow is by far the largest source of foreign aid to Haiti
and more important to Haitians per capita, than to any other nation
in the world.
-3. Cancel immediately and without conditions all Haiti debt to international
financial institutions, including old Duvalier-dictatorship debts
-4. End indirect aid to Haiti. Respect Haitian sovereignty, not boost
NGO profits and power in Haiti. Began direct aid to Haitian government,
not the monopoly families and foreign NGOs. Build Haiti-capacity not
NGO capacity. Stop failed policies and effectively trading through USAID,
churches and predator NGOs. A great portion of food aid from such entities
do not reach the intended beneficiaries in Haiti and, end up for
sale in the marketplace. Start fair aid and trading with Haiti
and supporting grassroots,
|
The
US Hope Act is not Hope
for Haiti's poor masses, it reproduces the inequities because
it serves only the world's greedy super-rich CEOs and Haiti's
monopoly
families while exploiting and abusing destitute Haitian women
and girls, in unsafe, toxic sweatshop work (SEZ) environments,
not even paying them the lowest minimum wage of Haiti
*********************
Unequal trade costs
Haiti more in lost revenue than Haiti ever gets in foreign aid.
Profit should not be valued over people. Moreover, US unequal
trade laws and so-called USAID "democracy enhancement"
aid projects actively promote big business interests, the exclusion
of the masses and thus promotes the sort of caricature democracy
Haiti now has under President Rene Preval, with Haiti under occupation
and where the vote of the people has been voided and where democracy
becomes a cover for US/Canada/France/UN and their Haitian sycophants'
injustice and plunder.
|
indigenous Haiti capacity building organizations.
USAID denies Haitian sovereignty and progress by blocking,
declining, subverting any direct assistance
to empower the Haitian government while engineering so that the
majority of Haiti's national budget (provided by the international community
as a consequence the 2004 Bush/USAID regime change) is currently managed
by its approved non-governmental organizations. In the agriculture department,
for instance, some
800 NGOs control part of the budget, thoroughly undermining
the state's ability to deal with the famine and food crisis. (See also:
NGOs
in Haiti counterproductive).
- 5. End fraudulent "free trade,"
began fair and reciprocal trade. Allow Haiti to protect its domestic
economy. Void grossly unfair free
trade deals and ineffective initiatives such as - the Caribbean Basin
Initiate, "Investment Support" "OPIC"), or the Special
Export Zones ("SEZ") under the sweatshop HOPE
Acts which nearly bans trade unions to protect workers' rights,
or other such sorts of agreements - pummeling, bullying and beating
Haiti into the dust of misery, debt and poverty. And, instead, support
Haitian food production and domestic manufacturing, job creation, public
works projects, sustainable development and a good working culture that
values human rights. After the storm (2008 Gonaives) emergency, calibrate
food aid so to assist and not further destroy Haiti's food production.
-6. Support post storm rebuilding and reconstruction of environmentally
degraded areas (Invest in Haitian-led
projects to built flood barriers and better drainage as in La Gonave;
support food sovereignty, energy and reforestation such as planting
of fruit trees for food, capital building and trade and use of indigenous
Haiti plant, such as Jatropha
which can be processed into biodiesel fuel and glycerin and the pulp
used for: 1. fertilizer or 2. (depending on the Jatropha strain planted)
animal/fish feed, increasing food resources by decreasing the cost of
raising these animals and/or 3. the presscake may be used to make char,
and then form the char into briquettes and burning it as fuel to produce
stream to turn a steam turbine to produce electricity. It would be truly
helpful to Haiti's fuel sovereignty, reforestation needs, and economic
independence and manufacturing needs for and long-term sustainable development
if emphasis could be put on a biodiesel program combined with a micro
finance program for purchasing modified kerosene stoves fueled by biodiesel,
providing Jatropha press to community groups, seeds and training in
processing of soap and cosmetics from the pulp. This would assist with
economic independence, replace charcoal for cooking, lower fuel costs
and employ farmers in a profitable trade while reducing pressure on
Haiti’s remaining forests.
Jatropha grows in marginal soils and is drought-resistant so will mostly
not compete with lands needed for food crops and restores topsoil to
the eroded land. Help Haitian agricultural production emphasizing assistance
to local indigenous community groups by not only distributing needed
seeds but with support for indigenous management of comprehensive systems
of drainage canals to protect cropland from flooding; with fertilizers,
with building or repair of rural roads for local Haitian to get their
excess produce to market.
In the process of providing crisis assistance, the U.S. must promote
Haitian self-reliance wherever possible instead of the cycle of dependency.
For instance, instead of water purification tablets, add also, whenever
possible, the more long term and permanent bio-sand
filters' apparatus that will last forever and purify toxic water on
a continual, not just to one time basis. Fund or encourage funding wind,
water, solar (solar
cookers, solar panels, wind turbines for electricity and
such other simple) and good renewable energy alternatives,
instead of constantly funding IRI/USAID/NED/NGO "training programs,"
conferences or more "poverty studies" in Haiti... et al.)
-7. Demand more oversight
of USAID and its NGO earmarked funds for Haiti, greater fiscal
accountability, transparency and quantifiable evidence of self-sustainable
development achievements and, in particular these new Haiti foreign
assistance guidelines should ensure, that food and other aid actually
reach their intended beneficiaries and not end up for sale in the open
market or stay in Washington or used in Haiti mostly on administrative
salary, fees and expenses for USAID's political benefactors, shipping
companies and nonprofits.
-8. Support the institutionalization of the rule of law.
-9. Encourage maximum leveraging of Diaspora remittances.
*
Priorities:
Haitian-Americans shall ask the new U.S. president to:
1. Stop the United States' unequal immigration treatment of Haitian
refugees,
grant Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and work permits to
Haitian nationals in the US with a specification to stop all deportations
until Haiti has recovered from the ravages of hurricanes, floods and
instability. Haitians in the United States should receive equal treatment
and protection under all the immigration laws. (See, Singled
Out; Ezili
Dantò on Help for the Storm Victims; HLLN
Links for granting TPS, and Sample
Letter to US President and DHS Secretary Napolitano).
Immigration advocates estimate that there are 20,000 Haitians living
in the United States illegally who could benefit from TPS entitling
them to temporary residency and work permits for up to 18 months. The
remittances these workers provide to their families in Haiti are critical
lifelines in these hard economic times of high food and fuel prices,
hurricane devastations, flood damages and the destruction of Haiti's
rice and other crops by the back-to-back 2008 storms and floods.
In addition, we ask Congress and the new President to use their funding
and foreign aid powers to help denounce and stop the gross persecution,
illegal deportations, denial of citizenship to children born of Haitian
parentage and the general inequitable and unfair treatment of Haitian
immigrants throughout the Western hemisphere, but most egregiously in
the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas.
2. End the U.N. military occupation of Haiti, provide reparation and
restitution for the victims of 2004 Bush regime change in Haiti. (Oil
in Haiti - Economic Reasons for the UN/US occupation
and
Haiti's Riches: Interview with Ezili Dantò
on Mining in Haiti.)
In 2007, the U.N. troops in Haiti were
paid
$601.58 million per year and have been
in Haiti for four years. That is $50.13 million per month, $1.64 million
per day. (Update in 2011 UN troops make $860million per year) Yet, during
the recent floods and hurricane season in Haiti, the Haitian President
had to call for international help from the international community.
Wasn't that help already in Haiti, to the tune of 9,000 U.N. - MINUSTAH-
troops already cashing in $1.64 million per day? Why are they there,
if incapable of providing emergency help? If they had not one amphibious
unit, temporary bridge, caravan of trucks or equipment to reach Haitians
in distress, what use are they to the people of Haiti? Are their war
tanks, heavy artillery, guns and military presence in Haiti making Haitians
more secure, more safe, more free, more prosperous, better nourished,
educated and healthier than before they landed four years ago? No.
According to UN figures, Haiti's image
for violence is a big myth. Haiti's
violence rate is 5.6 homicides per 100,000. There's more
violence in Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Mexico, Columbia, even
in the United States than there is in Haiti. Haiti's violence rate is
5.6 homicides per 100,000. The US violence rate is 5.7 average with
some US cities @ 15/100,000. Dominican Republic violence rate has 23
homicides per 100,000. Brazil, which heads the UN mission in Haiti has
has 52.2 homicides per 100,000. Why is Brazil/US/UN
bringing "stability and security" to Haiti, if their violence
rates are higher than Haiti's average? The Caribbean region murder rate
is 30 per 100,000 with Jamaica nearly nine times as many—49 homicides
per 100,000. (See, Violent
Haiti a myth; Haiti not
as Violent as Peoria, Illinois and Caribbean's
shocking secret. See also:
- Pointing
Guns at Starving Haitians: Violent Haiti is a myth
-Video:
U.N. Massacre on July 6, 2005 in Site Soley;
-Video:
U.N. Massive Attack on Dec. 22, 2006 on Site Soley civilians;
-The
Cite Soleil Massacre Declassification Project;
-Humanitarian
aid workers and UN peacekeepers raping, abusing Haiti's children;
- UN
indifference to the Disappearance of Haitian veteran human rights activist,
Lovinsky Pierre Antoine;
and,
- The Allege
illegal confiscation of private property by DYNCORPS, USAID, MINUSTAH
and US Embassy in Haiti.
3. Foreign Aid to Haiti not NGOs
Less than 1cent of every aid dollar
goes to Haiti government. Direct that the U.S. re-orientate its resource
allocation to Haiti to trade with the Haitian government, not, in effect,
with the U.S. Agency of International Development ("USAID"),
foreign NGO's, churches and charities in the name of Haitians. For this
US foreign policy effectively forms a shadow government enchaining Haiti
that undermines Haiti’s sovereignty, emboldens and empowers NGOs
with no public responsibility or accountability to Haitians or Haiti’s
long term well-being.
It is in the best interest of the United States to directly support
Haitian democracy, good governance, development, self-reliance and self-sufficiency.
This cannot be done if the Haitian government has to compete with foreign
funded NGOs and charities who are not elected or accountable to the
people of Haiti, but are predatory and promoting dependency and their
own organizations' interests for self-perpetuation in Haiti. Supporting
grassroots, indigenous Haiti capacity building organizations. (Travesty
in Haiti - Fraud, False food aid, False orphanages, False charity and
False benevolence.)
USAID and the foreign, religious and
other NGOs and non-for-profits purporting to act for the Haitian people
are fighting for earmarked money, not for getting productive results
in Haiti. They have historically and continue to deny the Haitian peoples'
sovereign civil, cultural, religious and human rights. Their projects
ultimately promote endless debt, dependency, famine, death and instability
in Haiti. (See,
US Congress must provide more oversight of USAID.)
4. Support Indigenous Haiti Manufacturing and Job Creation
Provide that the U.S. only reward or
give incentives, (ie. USAID subcontracting bids, jobs, and/or grants
through the Caribbean Basin Initiative ("CBI"), Investment
"Support" through the Investment Incentive Agreement provided
by the Overseas Private Investment Corporation ("OPIC"), Special
Export Zones under the Hope
Act I (adopted in 2007), Hope II (2008) or, other such sorts
of agreements) to transnational U.S. corporations in Haiti that abide
by Haitian labor, human rights, minimum wage and environmental laws;
that are committed to integrating all levels of corporate responsibility
- economic, social and environmental - in their entire range of operations;
and, which U.S. corporations are also patronizing the informal sector
of local service providers and generally not exporting all profits and
capital but committing to paying equitable custom duties and investing
a reasonable percentage of their Haiti profits back into Haiti. (See,
Economic
proposals that make sense for the reality of Haiti). Comprehensive
long term solutions means fair trade with Haiti, trade that doesn't
further degrade the environment, repress workers rights or contain Haiti
in poverty.
| Candidate
Obama
promised to include enforceable human rights,
workers rights, labor rights and environmental protection provisions
in US Free Trade Agreements
*******************
OBAMA:
Now I just want to make one last point because Senator McCain
mentioned NAFTA and the issue of trade and that actually bears
on this issue. I believe in free trade. But I also believe that
for far too long, certainly during the course of the Bush administration
with the support of Senator McCain, the attitude has been that
any trade agreement is a good trade agreement. And NAFTA doesn't
have -- did not have enforceable labor agreements and
environmental agreements. And what I said was we should
include those and make them enforceable. (The
Third Presidential Debate Between Obama and McCain
- Full
Video at 48:45,
Oct. 15, 2008).
********
On Free trade
with Columbia (McCain
on the subject of free trade, wants NO RESTRICTIONS on 'free trade'
(50.14).
Obama wants 'free trade' with enforceable human rights, workers
rights, right to organize without being subjected to violence,
enforceable labor rights and environmental protection provisions.)
OBAMA:
...The history in Colombia right now is that labor leaders
have been targeted for assassination on a fairly consistent basis
and there have not been prosecutions.
And what I have said, because the free trade -- the trade agreement
itself does have labor and environmental protections, but we have
to stand for human rights and we have to make sure that
violence isn't being perpetrated against workers who are just
trying to organize for their rights, which is why, for
example, I supported the Peruvian Free Trade Agreement which was
a well-structured agreement.
But I think that the important point is we've got to have a president
who understands the benefits of free trade but also is
going to (not?) enforce unfair trade agreements and is going to
stand up to other countries. (The
Third Presidential Debate Between Obama and McCain
- Full
Video and
Obama's quote at 51:34).
|
Fair Trade not Free Trade or
Sweatshops and begin reciprocal trade- End unfair treatment in trade
and foreign aid.
The US must re-allocate resources away
from low-wage assembly plant exports, SEZs and overseas insurance to
US companies to promoting manufacturing in Haiti that create and produce
necessary everyday products used by everyone that are all now being
imported, help with promoting basic infrastructure, job creation, sustainable
development, a positive working culture and healthy environment. Accordingly,
it should re-direct current resources so that their net effect would
be an investment in Haitian domestic and commercial production of food.
The US must stop dumping
food into Haiti. It eviscerates Haiti's food sovereignty. (See, HLLN
Links to US "free trade" fraud promoting famine in Haiti,
Dumping
food- USAID to send $25 million more).
The only sustainable solution is to calibrate emergency food aid focusing
all efforts on supporting Haiti's national food production, consumption,
local distribution and to increase domestic manufacturing.
The hunger/famine situation was dire
before the four 2008 storms, but after the storms that destroyed bridges,
roads, caused severe property damage, killed over a thousand people,
left millions homeless and flooded the rice-producing region of Haiti,
it will be unspeakable.
" Charity Christian Aid estimates
that roughly one third of the country's 60,000-ton annual production
of rice may have been ruined by floods. Farm tools, seeds to plant next
year's crop, livestock that farmers live off and irrigation systems
vital for rice production were also destroyed. The damage is all the
more serious because it came at harvest time." (Haiti
could face new food crisis after storms, Sept. 15, 2008,
Reuters By Matthew Bigg).
U.S. agricultural aid to Haiti should support
local people-centered, self-sustaining projects to rebuild the flood-devastated
former bread basket areas of Haiti in the Artibonite valley and Plaine
du Sud. According to a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization
of the United Nations, (FAO), the rice bowl areas in Haiti alone, are
capable of producing food to feed 10 million people. Haiti has a population
of 8.5 people and thus, Haiti has the capacity to feed itself. The U.S.
should eschew old failed USAID and State Department policies, including
voiding the the CBI, OPIC, SEZ agreements et al...and support this capacity
for food sovereignty. For, these unfair, unbalanced and over-reaching
US agreements and policies with Haiti are extremely one-sided, take
morally repugnant advantage of Haiti's weak governments, lack of strong
allies and have only proven to promote famine, hunger, endless debt
and political instability as evidenced by the April 2008 food riots
that forced the resignation of the Alexis government in Haiti.
Haiti needs food sovereignty, domestic manufacturing, local
entrepreneurship, fair wage jobs, affordable and clean energy.
5. Cancel old debts, support agriculture: The US may provide
authentic assistance by debt forgiveness - canceling old Duvalier dictatorship
debts that bleed approximately $6 million a month out of famine and
flood-stricken Haiti and paid to the wealthy USA and by supporting projects
that donate modern farm equipments, tools, fertilizers, emergency seeds,
et al...to help increase food production; projects that creates local
agriculture, engineering and construction jobs and planting crops that
can stabilize the soil and be sold or used for bio-fuels.
Support valid reforestation: It should simultaneously
support the planting of fruit trees in Haiti that can feed Haitian families
and be used as cash crops for domestic trade and investments. Without
trees to anchor the soil, erosion will continue to reduce Haiti's scarce
agricultural land, making Haiti more vulnerable to devastating floods
each hurricane season.
| The
US Hope
Act is not Hope for Haiti's poor masses, it serves the world's
greedy super-rich CEOs and Haiti's monopoly families
*******************
Enriching the few
at the expense of the many is not "hope." The
Hope Act "fails to impose labor standards and
imposes patronizing, and burdensome conditions on the Haitian
people.... (the) legislation amends the Caribbean Basin Economic
Recovery Act (formerly the Caribbean Basin Initiative) that already
provides for Haitian apparel to enter the U.S. duty free but on
a temporary renewable basis. The Haiti (HOPE) Act makes the current
duty free agreement permanent and subjects it to NEW ONEROUS
CONDITIONS. The HOPE legislation requires the U.S. president
to certify to Congress that Haiti has established or is making
progress in establishing a ‘free trade’, market-based
economy that rules out subsidies, price controls and government
ownership of economic assets; that eliminates barriers to U.S.
trade and investment by creating an environment conducive to foreign
investment protecting intellectual property rights and resolving
bilateral trade disputes.
|
Efforts at reforestation must
be tailored to planting to the needs of specific areas in Haiti, not
to what USAID contractors want to do. For it has been proven beyond
a doubt, the poor will not cut down fruit trees (to sell for charcoal)
that feed their families and help them earn a living. Consider
the judicious use of indigenous Haiti plant, such as the appropriate
Jatropha
variety for biofuel use - to build energy, fuel and electricity capacity
in Haiti and replace reliance upon charcoal and on high priced standard
fuel/gasoline. Haitian-led
capacity building means creating and bringing into manifestation such
green projects so that electrical power plants and diesel engines in
Haiti are fueled by Jatropha or, the plant called "Gwo
Medsiyen" by
Haitians; and funding visionary thinking where Haiti's waste is converted
into wealth with green projects that safely turn processed waste into
burning briskets to replace charcoal use. Encourage solar
cookers, modified kerosene stoves fueled by Jatropha biodiesel,
and such other simple) and good renewable energy alternatives.)
Haiti should be
assisted to invest more in indigenous Haiti manufacturing and eco-friendly
green jobs with an emphasis in helping meet the needs of women and children
in Haiti.
For instance, the indigenous Haiti wild herb named Vetiver is used as
a base for
perfume all over, especially in Europe. Haiti could work on getting
more Vetiver planted and process the plant in Haiti
to create more manufacturing jobs. Some say Haiti is the world's number
one producer of Vetiver oil. A good marketing campaign could re-image
Haiti as a producer of fine oils and perfumes, and of greatly needed
chemically-free, organic food products, rather than a constantly crisis-ridden,
needy basket case! (Organic rice, avocado, mangoes,
potatoes, tomatoes, Pitimi, ble, pwa Kongo, nwa, yellow rice,
white Haitian yam, plantains, St. Marc rice, St. Marc corn, millet,
pigeon peas, Vetiver oil, cashew, leafy greens, bananas, cassava, peas,
corn, cereals, papayas, bread fruit (lam veritab), et al...
See, Healthcare
reform also requires food system reform.)
Calibrate Haiti's unique
reality and riches: Haiti is a
country filled with "non-workers" by US standards. But this
informal working sector (small local producers, distributors, retailers
and market women) is the economic backbone of Ti Pèp La
- the masses in Haiti. Haiti is a place with iridium, oil, gold, copper,
lignite, coal and uranium mines, gas reserves, precious minerals, limestone,
construction aggregate, marble, chalk, and stone quarries, gem stones,
underwater sea treasures and where the poorest of the poor own property.
USAID neo-liberal economic policies that doesn't calibrate
these factors and the Haitian peoples' right to equitable
distribution of their country's own assets, will always fail. (See,
Does Western economic model & wealth calculation
fit Haiti, fit Dessalines' idea of wealth distribution? No!
; Economic
proposals that make sense reality of Haiti - Western economic model
doesn't fit an independent Black nation, and
Haitian Riches
.) Haiti's informal working sector should be seen
as the assets they are to Haiti, and the US should support this mass
and not just the few monopoly families in Haiti with its policies and
agreements. Moreover, considering Haiti gross poverty, considering Haiti's
national and indigenous heritage and value
to a free world, fairness demands special World Heritage protection
and that Haiti's unique riches are the assets of the people of Haiti,
not wealthy foreigners.
6. The US Congress must demand greater
fiscal accountability, transparency and quantifiable evidence of sustainable
development achievements from reform projects designed, supervised and
financed through USAID and their subcontractors, corporate consultants
and charity workers using federal funds in Haiti.
Any bill for aid to Haiti must include specificity in terms of what
percentage of the money shall be used for salaries/overhead/shipping
fees and then what shall actually go towards Haiti for crisis food aid
and medicines. In the storm relief situation a guaranteed percentage
for -
1. Crisis food aid and medicines, and
then some allocation for long-term assistance, such as:
2. Constructing flood barriers in the
coastal cities, particularly Gonaives. Rerouting of rivers around Gonaives
and other coastal cities, dredging harbors, building sewers and drainage
networks;
3. To rebuild and make the six major
bridges (Mirebalais bridge, Montrouis bridge, Site Soley to Croix-des-Bouquets
bridge at Route 9, Grand-Goave, Cayes-Jacmel temporary bridge, Miragoane
Bridge at Berquin) broken due to the four 2008 storms, flood-resistant.
4. To repair and make flood-resistant all the major road arteries;
5. To assist Haiti in irrigation, fertilizer and necessary farming equipment
to increase domestic food production in the Artibonite valley and Plaine
du Sud farming areas;
6. For ethically and responsibly creating
a uniquely Haitian organic food-for-trade market from Haiti's own traditional
fruits and crop staples (Pitimi, ble, pwa Kongo, nwa, yellow
rice, avocado, mangoes, white Haitian yam, plantains, St. Marc rice,
St. Marc corn, millet, pigeon peas, Vetiver oil, cashew, potatoes, tomatoes,
leafy greens, bananas, cassava, peas, corn, cereals, papayas, bread
fruit (lam veritab), et al...).
7. For planting fruit trees to assist
the small rural farmers towards self-sufficiency;
8. For creating indigenous Haiti manufacturing
and eco-friendly green jobs with an emphasis in helping meet the needs
of women and children in Haiti. (Proper Jatropha production is an excellent
option.)
9. To support Haitian-led grassroots
capacity building organizations;
10. For child health care, medicines,
permanent clean water facilities (long lasting bio-sand
water filter units instead of just water purification tablets, fund
wind, water, solar (solar
cookers, solar panels, wind turbines for electricity, a microfinance
program for purchasing modified kerosene stoves fueled by (Jatropha)
biodiesel and such other simple) and good renewable energy alternatives,
instead of constantly funding IRI/USAID/NED/NGO "training programs,"
conferences and more "poverty studies" in Haiti... See: Haiti
- Solar Cooking,
et al.); and,
11. Educational initiatives that don't deny Haiti's unique indigenous
culture.
12. Also, it is essential that Congress
add in every such bill for aid to Haiti a requirement that every
6-months and until all the funds have been completely disbursed, a report
is filed detailing the specific sustainable development goals that were
met - that is, a full report indicating the flood barriers,
roads, fruit planting, Gwo Medsiyen biofuel plants constructed, the
crisis food aid and medicines that actually reached the intended poor
beneficiaries not the open market, and the manufacturing jobs and capital
building that were attained.
In particular, for the long term, the
new US President should ask Congress to review and investigate which
US corporations and political officials pocketed and benefited from
the more than $4 billion U.S. dollars spent in Haiti by US through USAID
and their sub-contractors from 1994 to 1998 and who profited and were
made wealthier from the over $8 billion dollars and counting spent during
the second Bush coup d'etat from Feb. 29, 2004 continuing on through
today. What improvements have the use of these US taxpayer monies made,
if any, in the lives of the Haitian majority. None. They are suffering
now from famine, the foreign soldiers' rape, assault, molestation, indefinite/arbitrary
detention and moreover...worst insecurity, injustice, impunity,
standard of living and degraded environment than what they had before
the US regime change and US/UN 2004 occupation. (See also, HLLN's
FreeHaitiMovement Demands and,
Rep.
Barbara Lee's bill (HR 331) calling for investigation of U.S. role in
2004 Coup d'État.)
In particular, according to U.S. Citizenship
and Immigration Services spokeswoman, Ana Santiago, "The U.S. has
given nearly $400 million in assistance to Haiti since 2004, including
$64 million for disaster relief after Jeanne and Hurricane Dennis in
2005. (See, Haitians
seek temporary halt to deportations By JENNIFER KAY, AP,
Sept. 12, 2008). In 2004 Hurricane Jeanne killed over 3,000 Haitians
and flooded the City of Gonaives. Like then, in a replay of the same
scenario, the media rushed in and published the lines
of folks in flood waters, receiving aid, photographed the
dead, told the tragic and dying stories. Like then USAID and the U.S.
government also rushed in and committed millions of dollars to “help.”
International help has been occupying Haiti for four years. Why was
the City of Gonaives never rebuilt? Why did it remain filled with flood
damage, weak and devastated, battered from hurricane Jeanne, Dennis,
Noel and the subsequent hurricanes from 2004 up until to this season
with Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike? Where did the $400 U.S. million, including
$64 million in disaster relief, go?
Not one bridge was reinforced, not one dike, flood barrier, road or
house in Gonaives was ever built or re-built. Yet, USAID subcontractors,
US NGOs, humanitarian and charity workers raised millions of funds based
on Haiti's misfortunes and were photographed distributing bags upon
bags of rice and water immediately after each major hurricane and flood,
and then... nothing. The flurry of activity subsided. The media cameras
were gone; only to return again during Storm Noel last October 2007,
and again for the food riots to show starving Haitians rebelling in
April of 2008.
And the two-century-old, Euro/US and
Christian vengeance against Haiti's freedom, Vodun religion, culture
and independence continues. The story repeats itself.
After the April 2008 food riots in Haiti, the U.S. government and U.N.
World Food Program committed to send a combined total of $117 million
in food and agricultural aid. Yet three months later, just a small fraction
of this pledge had actually been distributed to starving Haitians. None
of it had reached the starving Haitians in the countryside. On July
20, 2008, speaking about the food riots, an Associated Press article
quoted a U.S. Agency of International Development report and stated
that: "of the outpouring of international pledges... that included
more than 40,000 tons of beans, rice and other food intended to quell
the emergency, as of early July, less than 2 percent of that had been
distributed. Some 16,000 tons has reached Haiti. But more than 11,000
tons of that is still in port; nearly all the rest lies undistributed
in World Vision International and Catholic Relief Services warehouses.
Only 724 tons of food has reached distribution centers". (See,
Haiti
food aid lags, hunger deepens By JONATHAN M. KATZ Associated
Press Writer , July 20, 2008)
But there's more.
In fact, two months after the April, 2008 food riots, on June 13, 2008,
President Rene Preval is quoted in a Nouvelliste
article as saying that "...in these last months, more than 40 to
50% of the imported rice that is subsidized by the Haitian government
is CONSUMED in the DOMINICAN REPUBLIC.... And that even Haitian clandestinely
subsidized petroleum products, cheaper Haiti oil products, are also
being consumed by wealthy foreign ships passing through Haitian waters,
instead of the impoverished and starving Haitians these food and gas
subsidies were intended to benefit...". (See the role of the Haitian
oligarchs and rich families in Haiti; and, The
slavery in Haiti the media won't expose.)
For all the above mentioned reasons,
Haitian-Americans hereby request that the next President of the United
States directs that the US Congress demand that aid allocated
actually reach the intended recipients in Haiti and for greater fiscal
accountability, transparency and quantifiable evidence of sustainable
development achievements from reform projects designed, supervised and
financed through USAID and their subcontractors, corporate consultants
and charity workers using federal funds in Haiti.
7. The U.S. Congress and next U.S. president should support the institutionalization
of Haitian laws, not USAID/IRI/NED "democracy
enhancement" projects that promote coup d'etat, instability and
financial colonialism and containment-in-poverty in Haiti through neo-liberalism
- "free trade" , "globalization" and other such
"privatization" - schemes.
Every time the United States supports
the destabilization of a duly elected government it visits enormous
economic pressures and political turmoil upon Haiti. The turmoil and
pressures undermine Haitian justice, participatory democracy, self sufficiency,
sovereignty, self-determination and promotes insecurity, debt, dependency,
foreign domination, injustice, a rise in fleeing refugees and a structural
containment in poverty. This instability has widespread and deep and
disturbing repercussions.
For instance, the Haitian Diaspora invests $2 billion dollars per year
in Haiti. That investment is destroyed, diluted and undermined when
it must be used to bury family members killed in political turmoil,
kidnapped in the chaos of anarchy, instability that follows coup d'etats,
or to move and help rebuilt the family of a relative or friend traumatized
by the UN soldiers' rapes, molestation, arbitrary detention and indefinite
incarcerations of their children relatives and friends in Haiti, instead
of being used to buy books for their children and relatives to go to
school, to buy supplies to carry out a viable family business, seeds
to plant next year's harvest, or invest remittances in Haiti's tourism,
schools, reforestation, agriculture, road construction, flood barriers,
communication, energy, sanitation or health needs.
US-sponsored coup d'etats in Haiti destroy
grassroots and community organizations as well. When this human community
infrastructure is gone, Haitians cannot respond to the hurricane seasons,
worldwide rising food and gas prices or any other sort of emergency;
laws requiring that all children go to school cannot be implemented
and the Haitians' capacity to help themselves is eviscerated.
Just one more example suffices: as Environmental Minister Jean-Marie
Claude Germain indicated in an AP article titled Haiti's
Efforts to Save Trees Falters, "reforestation projects
and efforts to preserve trees in three protected zones were set back
by the violent rebellion that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide
in 2004 and prompted the U.N. to send in thousands of peacekeepers to
restore order. Even though there were agricultural laws, the laws were
not respected," Germain said. (See also - HLLN
on the causes of Haiti deforestation and poverty and HLLN
on the counter-narrative on deforestation in Haiti.)
When there's food instability because of the U.S. dumping of subsidize
Miami rice and food imported under low tariffs into Haiti;
when there is no security because of US-orchestrated regime change rebellion
in Haiti, then children don't go to school, parents don't go about trying
to earn a living and the $2 billion remittances from Haitians living
abroad cannot be maximized. The only folks who make out like fat rats
are the U.S. middlemen - the sweatshop corporations who don't have a
democratic government to account to in terms of abiding by Haitian labor
and other laws, the NGOs and non-for-profits fighting over "aid"
monies for Haiti and to be designated as subcontractors for USAID, U.N.,
State Department and other such agencies providing earmarked "recovery/reform"
funds. Haitian blood and manufactured chaos and instability lines the
pockets of certain of these U.S. corporations, defense contractors,
security firms, so-called development experts and "charity organization."
This pattern must stop. (-Youtube:
The
politics of rice - 04 Jul 08 - Part 1).
Unequal trade costs Haiti more in lost
revenue than Haiti ever gets in foreign aid. Profit should not be valued
over people. Moreover, US unequal trade laws and so-called USAID "democracy
enhancement" aid projects actively promote big business interests,
the exclusion of the masses and thus promotes the sort of caricature
democracy Haiti now has under President Rene Preval, with Haiti under
occupation and where the vote of the people has been voided and where
democracy becomes a cover for US/Canada/France/UN and their Haitian
sycophants' injustice and plunder.
Haitian Americans ask that the
next U.S. President stop supporting endless IMF/WB/IRI death-projects
in Haiti. Stop supporting debt, dependency and foreign domination. End
the UN occupation, grant TPS and work permits with a specification to
stop all deportations to help Haiti's recovery process. Stop the rampant
discrimination in all areas of immigration, trade and foreign "aid"
vis-à-vis Haiti and Haitian nationals. Stop, in effect, trading
with USAID, Catholic Relief Services, World Vision International and
other such NGO's and calling it "help," "aid" or
"trading with Haiti." Invest not in "free trade"
and low-wage
assembly plant jobs that will only end up creating
slums like Site Soley and destroying rural Haiti, but in sustainable
development projects - grass-roots environmental rehabilitation, and
increased food and energy production projects, designed by local Haitians
with a bottoms-up grassroots approach that recognizes Haiti's economic
backbone is its informal working sector. Stop the militarization of
Haiti in order to quell and pacify dissent. Cancel old, Duvalier-dictatorship
debts and support restitution for the coup d'etat victims and the promotion
of Haitian sovereignty, laws, community organizing, community policing,
transparency and participatory democracy.
Stop imposing failed USAID policies.
Encourage Maximum leveraging of Diaspora Remittances:
The constructive help the US can provide is to help Haitians help themselves
and step out of the way of Haitianist grassroots, bottoms-up, community
development. As illustrated above, the bulk of USAID aid and NGO emergency
handouts never reach the poorest of the poor. So, the reality is that
it's not US "aid" or NGO handouts that sustains the Haitian
people, but the over $2 billion dollars sent each year to Haiti directly
by Haitians living abroad to their families in Haiti. These Haitian
remittances should be encouraged and protected, not destroyed by cruel
deportations, coup d'etat, free trade deals that promotes hunger, famine
or a US/UN occupation that traumatizes and militarizes Haiti instead
of helping with reconstruction, viable reforestation, engineering projects,
community-based policing and development, educational initiatives, building
of flood barriers, dikes, roads, bridges, viable farms, schools, hospitals
and health centers.
Ezili Dantò
President, Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network
September, 2008
For more, go to:
Haiti
Policy Statement for the Obama Team
***********************
Proposed
solutions to create a new paradigm
***********************
What UN Special Envoy Bill Clinton May Do to Help
Haiti
-
Outline
and Full
Text
***********************
Haiti
Forum
*********************
Energy
and Mining in Haiti: The wealthy, powerful and well-armed are robbing
the Haitian people blind
****************************************
Pointing Guns at Starving Haitians:
Violent Haiti is a Myth
End the UN Occupation of Haiti.
*
MINUSTHA's approved budget (1 July 2009 - 30 June 2010): is
$732.39 million (See Haiti
MINUSTAH -Approved $611.75 million for the Mission, for the period 1
July to 30 June 2010 increased by $120. 64 after earthquake.)
That's $61.03 million per month,
$2.01 million PER DAY
*
Question: What is the UN doing in Haiti?
Answer: Disenfranchising
10 million sovereign Black Haitian peoples in order to carry the global
elites' corporate/IMF/WB
looting and recolonization of Haiti.
The UN, as military proxy for the US and the global trans-national corporate
elites, is securing, at gun point, the protection of right-wing armed
groups (Guy Philippe, Lame Ti Manchet, old army) and the exploitation,
hunger and repression of 10 million sovereign Black Haitian peoples
under the mask of "humanitarian aid," "peacekeeping"
and providing stability and security to Haitians. (See
Ezili
Blog; Recommended
HLLN Links (Energy and Mining in Haiti): The wealthy, powerful and well-armed
are robbing the Haitian people blind
;
Haitian
Riches
; |
Little
Girl 
