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Racism
and Poverty
by John Maxwell
The people of Haiti are as poor as human beings can be.
According to the statisticians of the World Bank and others who speculate
about how many Anglos can dance on the head of a peon, Haiti may either
be the second, third or fourth poorest country in the world.
In Haiti’s case, statistics are irrelevant.
When large numbers of people are reduced to eating dirt – earth,
clay – it is impossible to imagine poverty any more absolute,
any more desperate, any more inhuman and degrading.
The chairman of the World Bank visited Haiti this past week. This man,
Robert Zoellick, is an expert finance-capitalist, a former partner in
the investment bankers Goldman Sachs, whose 22,000 ‘traders”
last year averaged bonuses of more than $600,000 each.
Goldman Sachs paid out over $18 billion in bonuses to its traders last
year, about 50% more than the GDP of Haiti’s 8 million people.
The chairman of Goldman took home more than $70 million and his lieutenants
– as Zoellick once was – $40 million or more, each.
It should be clear that someone like Robert Zoellick is likely to be
totally bemused by Haiti when his entertainment allowance could probably
feed the entire population for a day or two. It is not hard to understand
that Mr. Zoellick cannot understand why Haiti needs debt relief.
Haiti is now forced by the World Bank and Its bloodsucking siblings
like the IMF, to pay more than $1 million a week to satisfy debts incurred
by the Duvaliers and the post-Duvalier tyrannies. Haiti must repay this
debt to prove its fitness for ‘help’ from the Multilateral
Financial Institutions (MFI).
One million dollars a week would feed everybody in Haiti even if only
at a very basic level – at least they would not have to eat earth
patties. Instead the Haitians export this money to pay the salaries
of such as Zoellick.
But Zoellick doesn’t see it that way. According to the World Bank’s
website the bank is in the business of eradicating poverty. At the rate
it does that in Haiti the Bank, I estimate, will be in the poverty eradication
business for another 18,000 years.
The reason Haiti is in its present state is pretty simple. Canada, the
United States and France, all of whom consider themselves civilised
nations, colluded in the overthrow of the democratic government of Haiti
four years ago. They did this for several excellent reasons:
• Haiti 200 years ago defeated the world’s then major powers,
France (twice) Britain and Spain, to establish its independence and
to abolish plantation slavery. This was unforgivable.
• Despite being bombed, strafed and occupied by the United States
early in the past century, and despite the American endowment of a tyrannical
and brutal Haitian army designed to keep the natives in their place,
the Haitians insisted on re-establishing their independence. Having
overthrown the Duvaliers and their successors, the Haitians proceeded
to elect as president a little black parish priest who had become their
hero by defying the forces of evil and tyranny.
• The new president of Haiti, Jean Bertrand Aristide refused to
sell out (privatise) the few assets owned by the government (the public
utilities mainly);
• Aristide also insisted that France owed Haiti more than $25
billion in repayment of blood money extorted from Haiti in the 19th
century, as alleged compensation for France’s loss of its richest
colony and to allow Haiti to gain admission to world trade;
• Aristide threatened the hegemony of a largely expatriate ruling
class of so-called ‘elites’ whose American connections allowed
them to continue the parasitic exploitation and economic strip mining
of Haiti following the American occupation.
• Haiti, like Cuba, is believed to have in its exclusive economic
zone, huge submarine oil reserves, greater than the present reserves
of the United States
• Haiti would make a superb base from which to attack Cuba.
The American attitude to Haiti was historically based on American disapproval
of a free black state just off the coast of their slave-based plantation
economy.
This attitude was pithily expressed in Thomas Jefferson’s idea
that a black man was equivalent to three fifths of a white man. It was
further apotheosized by Woodrow Wilson’s Secretary of State, William
Jennings Bryan who expostulated to Wilson: “Imagine! Niggers speaking
French!”
The Haitians clearly did not know their place. In February 2004, Mr.
John McCain’s International Republican Institute, assisted by
Secretary of State Colin Powell, USAID and the CIA, kidnapped Aristide
and his wife and transported them to the Central African Republic as
‘cargo’ in a plane normally used to ‘render’
terrorists for torture outsourced by the US to Egypt, Morocco and Uzbekistan.
Before Mr Zoellick went to Haiti last week, the World Bank announced
that Mr. Zoellick’s visit would “emphasize the Bank's strong
support for the country.” Mr. Zoellick added: "Haiti must
be given a chance. The international community needs to step up to the
challenge and support the efforts of the Haitian government and its
people."
“If Robert Zoellick wants to give Haiti a chance, he should start
by unconditionally cancelling Haiti’s debt,” says Brian
Concannon of the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti. “Instead
the World Bank- which was established to fight poverty- continues to
insist on debt payments when Haitians are starving to death and literally
mired in mud.”
“After four hurricanes in a month and an escalating food crisis
it is outrageous that Haiti is being told it must wait six more months
for debt relief,” said Neil Watkins, National Coordinator of Jubilee
USA Network.
“Haiti’s debt is both onerous and odious”, added Dr.
Paul Farmer of Partners In Health. “The payments are literally
killing people, as every dollar sent to Washington is a dollar Haiti
could spend on healthcare, nutrition and feeding programs, desperately
needed infrastructure and clean water. Half of the loans were given
to the Duvaliers and other dictatorships, and spent on Presidential
luxuries, not development programs for the poor. Mr. Zoellick should
step up and support the Haitian government by cancelling the debt now.”
“Unconditional debt cancellation is the first step in addressing
the humanitarian crisis in Haiti,” according to Nicole Lee, Executive
Director of TransAfrica Forum. “There is also an urgent need for
U.S. policy towards Haiti to shift from entrenching the country in future
debt to supporting sustainable, domestic solutions for development.”
The above quotations are taken from an appeal by the organisations represented
above.
Further comment is superfluous.Poverty and Globalisation
President Jean Bertrand Aristide, now in enforced exile in South Africa,
might be sardonically entertained by a new report just published by
the world’s Club of the Rich, the OECD –Organisation for
Economic Cooperation and Development.
This report, titled “Growing Unequal” examines the accelerating
trend toward economic inequality in the societies of the world’s
richest countries.
The report contains several mind-blowing discoveries which will, no
doubt, amaze journalists and policy-makers in the Western hemisphere
and keep them entertained for many years.
The major finding is that globalisation and free trade have hurt millions
of people, particularly the poorest.
Another ground-breaking discovery is that “work reduces poverty”.
One of these days Jamaicans and other Caribbean people may decide to
find out whether these are true and whether if they are, we should have
signed on to the new EPA with the European Union.
If our ginnigogs* were able and willing
to read they might become aware of a phenomenon called the “resource
curse’ which appears to condemn developing countries with enormous
mineral wealth to misery, war, corruption and destitution.
If our ginnigogs could or would read, they might find it useful to discover
whether an acre of land under citrus or pumpkins is not more productive,
sustainable and valuable than that same acre destroyed for bauxite.
If our ginnigogs could or would read, they might become aware of the
fate of the island of Nauru, ‘discovered’ less than two
hundred years ago, mined for phosphate, returning a per capita national
income rivaling Saudi Arabia’s two and three decades ago and now
to be abandoned because the land has been mined to death and is destined
to disappear shortly beneath the waves of global warming.
Softly, softly, catchee monkee
If our ginnigogs were able to read and willing and able to defend the
interests of Jamaica and the Jamaican people they might discover that
bauxite mining will, within a relatively short time, contaminate all
the water resources of Jamaica, destroy our cultural heritage, wipe
out our priceless biological diversity, deprave our landscape and reduce
those of us who survive to a state of penury and hopelessness. Goodbye
tourism, goodbye farming, welcome hunger, welcome clay patties.
According to the experts if you drop a live lobster into a pot of boiling
water the creature will make frenzied efforts to escape. If, on the
other hand, you put him in a pot of cold water and bring it slowly to
the boil, the lobster will perish without a struggle.
Jamaica, on the atlas, is shaped a bit like a lobster.
Bon appetit.
Copyright © 2008 John Maxwell
jankunnu@gmail. com
*A
ginnigog (Jamaican patois) is a VIP, especially and sarcastically, one
who inflates his own importance, a self-important bureaucrat or capitalist.
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In the The
Nescafè Machine, 2005, John Maxwell, writes:
"...Marguerite Laurent, perhaps the most eloquent of the fighters
for Haitian freedom now writing, believes that the recolonisation of
Haiti is an essential fraction of the doctrine of globalisation.
"... In Haiti, the imperialists have also found the formula for
outsourcing wars so that the blood of their sons and daughters are not
on the line."
A prison for children
The UN forces in Haiti, are made up of troops from the developing countries.
These poor, black and brown soldiers are now fighting the imperialist's'
wars for him in Haiti.
Even the African Union's rejection of the re-colonisation of Haiti is
reported to have been neutralised with the sending to Haiti of African
soldiers from the Francophone countries. Not surprising, considering
France's investment in Haiti's bicentennial coup d'etat.
It was, after all, Francophone Africa that was used to stop the spread
of Pan-Africanism after the independence movement, mainly through French
expatriates like Houphouet Boigny and Leopold Cedar Senghor."
In Marguerite Laurent's opinion, the recolonisation of Haiti is not
simply a political action, it is part of a programme to criminalise
the people of Haiti and to control them by taking away all their rights.
"...The scariest thing to happen to Haiti and Haitians this month,
has gone unnoticed with these election terrors of the imperialists and
their Haitian sycophants morbidly drawing attention away from the colonial
realities of the matter.
"USAID has started its FIRST prison for children in Haiti.
"Yes, the systematic criminalisation of young black males in Haiti,
parallels their criminalisation in the US. There are some white towns
in the US where the townspeople's sole income comes from the incarceration
of young black and brown men who make up the bulk of the prisoners.
The imperialists' game plan for Haitian boys and men, is moving along
well. By the time a puppet Haitian president, like Preval, Simeus or
Bazin, is installed in Haiti on February, 2006, more prison centres
will have to be built to contain the Haitian 'criminal elements' ..."
(From The
Nescafè Machine
Common Sense by John Maxwell, Nov. 6, 2005; See
also:
Turning Haiti into a (Penal) Colony: Criminalization of Haiti's Children
for Haiti's own good and democratic development)
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Ezili's
HLLN Counter-Colonial Narrative on Deforestation
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...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.)
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Since the beginning of Haitian president, Rene Preval's term in office
in 2006, the Haitian Legislature has been, in turn, arguing over corruption,
the Senator Boulos disqualification to hold office, dual citizenship,
corruption. They spent four months haggling over selecting a new Prime
Minister after the April 2008 food riots help get rid of the last one
and today, October 25, 2008, said President and government officials
are occupied in round the clock meetings with International representatives
and NGOs, begging, with no sense of history, authority or dignity, for
"help" from the Internationals, all presumably because of
the four September hurricanes/storms*. These folks do not represent
Dessalines'
legacy or descendants,
whatsoever.
On February 29, 2004, Bush-the-second,
along with Colin Powell, Condi Rice and Kofi Annan of the UN, helped
take down Haiti's Constitutional government, legitimizing the Boca Raton
imposed regime from the US, creating unprecedented anarchy, slaughtering
20,000 Haitians from Feb. 2004 to 2006, and then setting up a shadow
government of foreign NGOs to run Haiti behind the proxy UN-firepower
cover. By 2006, an "elected-under-occupation" Preval government
was installed. The Bush regime change in Haiti is perhaps similar to
Bush abandoning free trade to save free trade. Read: corporate welfare,
courtersy of US government firepower and super-power muscle, or socialism
for Wall Street.
Bush-the-son's USAID/US
Embassy functionaries in Haiti destroyed Haiti's democracy
to save it for easier plundering and pillaging. Today, gold,
silver, copper, iridium, uranium, granite,
limestone, coal, chalk quarries, oil/gas
exploration contracts are all being pursued behind the headlines,
as the US builds its masssive, most expensive new US
embassy compound, the largest in the world except for Iraq,
Afghanistan, China and Germany, in tiny Haiti with
over 1,000 employees. This, in a country that's facing FAMINE, klorox
hunger and that presumably has no U.S.
strategic and economic interests as there is in Iraq, Afghanistan, China
and Germany.
So what is the US doing in Haiti with this UN proxy occupation, other
than masking its pillaging and plunder; letting the world
know of only the colonial
narrative - that Haiti is resourceless and selling the myth
of the innately "violent
Haitians" who brought deforestation upon themselves,
coupled with the US/mainstream-benevolent/charitable chorus
of how hard the US tries to assist "these-failed-blacks-who-cannot-rule-themselves!?"
Why do they need such a huge new investment in Haiti after getting rid
of Haiti's democracy in 2004 and bringing on UN proxy occupation? To
serve the needs of poor, hopeless Haitians? Those "failed"
and always "fighting-each-other-Haitians," who've single-handedly
rendered Haiti, as the corporate media never misses an opportunity to
say, directly or indirectly, in a myriad of ways: "the hemisphere's
eternal basket case - a dismal repository of poverty where there is
no future?"
In sum, as intended, this post-Bush coup d'etat Haitian puppet government
offers absolutely no impediment to the empire's corporate benefactors,
no HAITIAN leadership, vision, sustainable development, no viable solutions
other than the acceptable, hat-in-hand cow-towing and BEGGING. And don't
at all, address effectively the immediate necessities of the Haitian
masses for food, health care, fair wage jobs, schooling, lower prices
for food and fuel, dignity, sovereignty, respect, self-determination,
self-sufficiency, need for personal safety, energy, freedom from UN
imprisonment, abuse or answers to any other major welfare concerns of
the people of Haiti. For, the new puppet Haitian government's job is
to keep a dynamic people and indigenous Vodun
culture passive as the Internationals' dominate, tie Haiti down with
unfair trade laws, endless IMF/World Bank debts,
failed neoliberal economic policies, dump food and other imports into
Haiti that eviscerate Haiti's domestic growth and cause famine, with
USAID/US Embassy engineering a shadow government of its approved NGOs
to oversee
the entire project, using the colonial narrative and UN firepower to
silence dissent while robbing Haiti blind of its riches. (See, Haiti's
Riches;
Eurasian Minerals acquires 27 exploration licenses in Haiti
and Recommended
HLLN Links (Energy and Mining in Haiti): The wealthy, powerful and well-armed
are robbing the Haitian people blind).
The Haitian people are hungry, dying, being raped,
terrorized, abused and
slaughtered by the UN soldiers
whose non-development mandate the Haitian government just renewed on
October 14, 2008. ("We
don't have a development mandate and never will"
said U.N. Special Representative Hedi Annabi, according to the Asociated
Press. See, also: Rich
countries use trade deals to seize food from the world's hungriest people).
Haitian children don't have schools to go to and moreover, cannot even
safely venture outside without fear that some UN
pedophile will pull them into their UN war tanks and
trucks for rape and sexual molestation.
On the other hand, the high price of living is reflected in that many
are simply dropping dead of hunger, some eating dirt as sustenance...
while the four September 2008 storms/hurricanes have destroyed all the
major bridges, flooded the rice harvest, left mud cities from the exacerbation
caused by unregulated US and other foreign mining, digging, pillaging
of Haiti's soil, minerals and resources the 2004 Bush regime change
was all about, which no Miami
Herald/Jacqueline Charles article, intent on finding no indigenous
Black-Haitian environmentalist/conservationists in Haiti and on blaming
the Haitian peasants for deforestation, will ever mention.
It is against this backdrop, against the backdrop of a people dying
of hunger, disease, mired in the devastation of the various Bush regime
change, fraudulent
free-trade mud slides and floods, some right now have not
eaten for 7 days. Some telling Ezili's
HLLN that they are so eaten up by mosquitoes from the toxicity
of the storms flood waters that there's no more skin left on their bodies
to be bitten off... It's against this backdrop that we address the lastest
Miami
Herald colonial narrative on Haiti and deforestation.
Such Miami Herald articles on Haiti
and the hurricanes won't ever mention US/USAID's trade deals and "reform
projects" - that annihilated the peasant Haitian farmers' rice
production incomes or which eradicated the Haitian
pig, causing the peasants to then start cutting more trees
to sell for charcoal to survive - as factors that led to the harsh realities
of greater deforestation in Haiti when traditional Haitian avenues of
producing income were destroyed by US trade laws and USAID free trade
projects and reforms. Don't expect to learn how a people with a Vodun
culture that reveres nature and especially the Mapou (oak-like
or ceiba pendantra/bombax) trees, and other such big trees as the abode
of living entities and therefore as sacred things, were forced to watch
the Catholic Church, during Rejete - the violent anti-Vodun
crusade - gather whole communities at gun point into public squares,
and forced them to watch their agents burn Haitian trees in order to
teach Haitians their Vodun Gods were not in nature, that the trees were
the "houses of Satan."
No. Miami Herald articles on Haiti myopically centered only in present-day
crisis, won't give its readers any context. Won't explain how once upon
a time, trees were sacred things in Haitian/African culture, looked
upon as living energies that provided strength to the people. Thus,
cutting down trees was relatively a taboo. But these core
Africanist values were scorned and desecrated by the influences
of Western colonialism and Christian missionaries on traditional Vodun.
These core values were uprooted during the anti-Vodun Rejete
campaigns (1940-41) as a means for the Catholic Church to get rid of
Vodun as its rival religion and philosophy in Haiti and as a way for
the US to clear peasant Haitians off lands they wanted to acquire for
their agricultural initiatives in Haiti in the 1940s during the post-U.S.-occupation
presidency of Elie Lescot (1941-46).
The Catholic Churches' brutal anti-superstition
campaigns in the 1940s, which made it alright to destroy trees that
holds up, not only the land but a culture, adds to deforestation in
Haiti. For, once these core values were broken down and substituted
with foreign ideals (senility?) - foreign psychology irrelevant to Haitian
survival, things in Haiti for the vast majority, as Chinua
Achebe, would put it: began to "fall apart..."
Haitians who had acquired generations-deep
strong beliefs that certain trees were the houses of the spirits that
gave them strength, continuity, familial identity and connections to
the Ancestors were deliberately traumatized.
Rejete, the "anti-superstition campaign" in 1941-42
that killed Vodouist priests, destroyed their sacred temples, drums,
artifacts including centuries-old trees in Haiti, was also tied in to
the US government's and the Port-au-Prince bourgeoisie's agricultural
policy in Haiti that required the appropriation of peasant lands. So,
in addition to the psychological trauma inflicted on Vodouist Haitians,
forced to watch the US agents- left over trained Haitian military, instigated
by the Catholic clergy, burn down their sacred familial trees, the land
tenures upon which these trees and Vodun temples stood, these sacred
spaces that gave the majority of Haitians grounding, spiritual roots
as well as their livelihoods, sources of income and food were simultaneously
destroyed.
In partnership with the US, the mullato
President Elie Lescot (1941-45) summarily expelled peasants from more
than 100,000 hectares of land, razing their homes and destroying more
than a million fruit trees in the vain effort to cultivate rubber on
a large plantation scale. Also, under the pretext of the Rejete
campaign, thousands
of acres of peasant lands were cleared of sacred trees so
that the US could take their lands for US agribusiness and for the unsuccessful
try to make Haiti a Western-controlled rubber kingdom where it would
grow sisal or rubber trees (for portable bridges, the tires in military
jeeps, planes, aircraft guns, et al...) for the US war efforts during
World War II. (See also, Ezili Dantò's The
Avatar Movie from a Black perspective.)
Once Haiti's natural zones for agriculture
were confiscated by big agribusinesses and pushed off their ancestral
lands,
disenfranchised peasants had no choice
but to go into the harsher lands in the mountains or wherever they could,
to try to grow some food to feed their families, while a small group
of the world's rich - such as the procession of US lumber companies
in the 19th century and then, in the 20th century the procession of
US lumber, sugar and fruit companies paid large sums to corrupt government
officials to cut down pine, mahogany, cedar, oak and other trees for
access to the Haitian forests and peasant lands in order to pillage
Haiti's resources, under the guise of "development," "job
creation" or, "anti-superstition." Questionable companies
such as: Haitian American Sugar Company (HASCO, 1915), Haitian American
Development Corporation (1926), or Elie Lescot's Societe Haitiano-Americaine
de Developpement Agricole (SHADA, 1941), et al - uprooted all that was
valuable. Made millions and exported it all overseas, leaving behind
only poverty, depleted soil and tremendous environmental degradation.
One pertinent example of this sort of Western chicanery and plunder
that tampered with Haiti's zones for forest use, and zones for forest
conservation and natural access to responsible wood consumption is how
during the Duvalier era, it was an American company that simply and
without conscience or remorse clear cut major portions
of the dense pine forest - Forêt des Pins - in Thiote,
Haiti, a forest of centuries old, if not thousand-year-old giant pine
trees, and took Haiti's precious lumber to the US. The US company, with
the complicity of Haiti's mercernary
mafia families and Haiti's dictator, did not only hack into a national
heritage of the people of Haiti but left an ecological disaster and
tragedy behind -areas left bare and certain neighboring residents, used
to the soil protection, productivity and cool climate provided by the
mature forest, facing alone a devastatingly dry, hot, arid climate,
no more food or fuel sovereignty, not to mention no means to make a
livelihood from the responsible uses of the forests' natural bounty;
not to mention facing alone the dangers from drought, floods and mudslides
now that the centuries-old lush Haitian pine forest no longer protected
the surrounding area villages. Villages like Bodarie, et al. With no
tree roots to hold the soil, topsoil disappears and fewer vegetables
can grow. Fewer trees also means there is less rain.
This massive neocolonial logging post-independence and the overexploitation
when Haiti was a wealthy French colony caused more harm to Haiti's forests
and soils than, say, was caused on the Dominican Republic side of the
island where, post independence, more Europeans immigrated to and therefore
their lives more valued, their environment relatively allowed to be
more protected. Moreover, during colonial times, Spain, who owned the
Dominican Republic side did not exploit the land as much but raised
cattle and sold their skins. Haiti land, rivers, seas, mountains have
been more exploited before independence and after independence than
probably any other Caribbean island. This, combined with ecological
factors** - the fact that Haiti naturally gets less rainfall, for instance,
than the Dominican Republic side of the island compounds deforestation,
soil erosion, sediment loads in the rivers, loss of watershed protection,
and more loss of soil fertility in Haiti.
Clearly, environmental degradation in Haiti cannot simply be ascribed
to the "peasants cutting trees for charcoal." Environmental
degradation is a result of the economic, social, cultural, and political
choices of the morally repugnant economic elites in Haiti and their
foreign patrons.
Haiti's attempts at developing sound environmental protection policies
and protecting natural reserves as maintained, in the initial quote
beginning this essay, by the environmental
Minister Jean-Marie Claude Germain "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." ( Haiti's
Efforts to Save Trees Falters. See
also - HLLN
on the causes of Haiti deforestation and poverty.)
But the multiple causes, which accelerated the deforestation in Haiti
and that, don't involve blaming the poor Haitian peasant, won't be outline
by colonial narratives written by the likes of Jacqueline Charles of
the Miami Herald. These narratives completely ignore, for instance,
the European genocide of the Tainos-Haitians and enslavement of Africans
in Haiti to clear the forests for sugar and coffee also ushered in the
desecration of nature. These mainstream media narratives ignore the
Atlantic slave trade was called the Triangular Trade because,
Africans were kidnapped out of Africa, transported as cargo to Haiti
and then the ships that brought the enslaved to Haiti would return to
Europe with cargos of Ayiti timber (sugar, coffee, et al.) None of these
mainstream media boilerplate narratives on Haiti's deforestation will
mention that today practically every Catholic Cathedral bench in Spain
and in France all these tourists are sitting on, were made out of wood
cut down from Ayiti. And, that the red dye used to color deep crimson
or bright scarlet those French and Spanish monarchs' and noblemen's
clothes you see displayed in horrendous pictures of the time, evidenced
at, for instance, the Palace of Versailles in France, came from trees
from Ayiti. Nor, will such mainstream media significantly factor in
a consciousness of the crisis of global warming evident.
No. The mainstream media's colonial
narrative blames the Haitian victims of US trade liberalization policies,
unbridled capitalism and greed. Completely ignoring, for instance, as
Celia
Hart wrote, that however typical they are in the Caribbean,
"hurricanes are now growing in size and number as a result
of human disdain toward nature's balance. We are condemned by the insatiable
greed of the wealthy of the world and their mortal obsession with using
their money to pay for what their poor souls just can't perceive to
deal with these new enemies who turn up in the summer to threaten –-
for a change -– the fragile Caribbean islands along with all their
dispossessed... unbridled capitalism kills nature while we’re
left to breathe worse, starve to death and suffer from the ravages of
their squandering...” (See, Celia
Hart Santamaría for Kaos en la Red, Sept. 3, 2008;
and Celia
Hart's last essay; and Miami Herald article by Jacqueline
Charles - Ravaged
environment keeps Haiti at risk).
For instance, many, in hurricane-ravaged Gonaives, Haiti are using tiny,
useless brooms to push against fatigued muscle sinew, pushing mud to
clear houses and belongings from beneath the storms' death jaws.
It is against this backdrop that we
address the Haitian Diaspora (Haitians living abroad) and the Haitian
government and say, make feeding the people a PRIORITY. Stop begging.
Use what's in your hands and kindly don't go back to arguing in the
Legislature about concerns that are NOT priorities to the people of
Haiti right now. Concerns like who gets more Legislative and Executive
power in Haiti (i.e.
dual citizenship) while Haiti is under foreign occupation,
indefinite detentions, unnecessary militarization, free trade famine,
endless fraudulent neo-liberal World Bank/IRI/USAID/IMF impositions.
Not to mention the pillaging and fleecing of Haiti's oil, gas, gold,
irdium and other natural resources that is taken place and not reported
whatsoever behind this racist, abusive "humanitarian intervention"
facade, of UN guns and the Christian NGO's anarchy and de facto rule
of Haiti since Bush W's Haiti regime change, 2004.
(See below: Forwarded Mail on Ezili's
Comment on need for Constitutional Amendment in Haiti - Not A Priority,
Haitian
Perspectives, Oct. 25, 2008; See also,
"... a lot of NGOs do as they wish and the (Haitian) government
has not been able, so far, to coordinate their efforts," says Haiti's
Prime Minister, Michelle Pierre-Louis. Go to: Haiti
aid effort unravels by Mike Thomson, BBC News, Oct. 24, 2008;
HLLN's "What
Haitian-Americans Ask the US Congress and of the New U.S. President";
HLLN
on the causes of Haiti deforestation and poverty ;
Racism
and Poverty By John Maxwell, Oct. 25, 2008; Ezili
Dantò on Help for the
Hurricane Victims in Haiti,
Sept. 12, 2008, and The
forgotten occupation).
Ezili Dantò/HLLN
October 25, 2008
*Three hurricanes, one severe storm
in September 2008, Haiti
| ******
**"(The Island
of Haiti)/Hispaniola's rains come mainly from the east. Hence
the Dominican side (eastern) part of the island receives more
rain and thus supports higher rates of plant growth. Hispaniola's
highest mountains (over 10,000 feet high) are on the Dominican
side, and the rivers from those high mountains mainly flow eastwards
into the Dominican side. The Dominican side has broad valleys,
plains, and plateaus, and much thicker soils; in particular, the
Cibao Valley in the north is one of the richest agricultural areas
in the world. In contrast, the Haitian side is drier because of
that barrier of high mountains blocking rains from the east. Compared
to the Dominican Republic, a higher percentage of Haiti's area
is mountainous, the area of flat land good for intensive agriculture
is much smaller, there is more limestone terrain, and the soils
are thinner and less fertile and have a lower capacity for recovery.
...Haiti was a colony of rich France and became the most valuable
colony in France's overseas empire, while the Dominican Republic
was a colony of Spain, which by the late 1500s was neglecting
Hispaniola and was in economic and political decline itself. Hence
France could and chose to invest in developing intensive slave-based
plantation agriculture in Haiti, which the Spanish could not or
chose not to develop in their side of the island. France imported
far more slaves into its colony than did Spain... The combination
of that higher population density and lower rainfall was the main
factor behind the more rapid deforestation... on the Haitian side.
... In addition, all of those French ships that brought slaves
to Haiti returned to Europe with cargos of Haitian timber, so
that Haiti's lowlands and mid-mountain slopes had been largely
stripped of timber by the mid-19th century." (Excerpted from
the book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by
Jared Diamond at page 339 to 340.)
****** |
*******************
Ezili's HLLN on Dual Citizenship,
No, Not a Priority
Saturday, October 25, 2008 2:54 PM
From:"zili danto" <erzilidanto@yahoo.com>
The
Diaspora Middlemen for the colonists and Why Constitutional Amendment
is not a priority for Haiti right now: Food, Fuel, Schools, Sanitation,
Social welfare, Job Generation and Building Flood Barriers, Roads and
Infrastructure, etc ... are more immediate priorities for Haiti
Constitutional amendment, at least
relative to dual citizenship in Haiti, is not the most immediate concern
of the nation of Haiti. It may not even be for the greater good.
There is enough evidence that the Diaspora acts on behalf of foreign
interests, per the Boca Raton so-called technocrats. It has become increasingly
clear that no Haitian, with citizenship elsewhere, NEEDS legislative
or executive power just to assist Haiti's sustainable development, or
to claim their Haitian heritage.
|
*********************
"...It is
not the blue collar, minimum wage, working Haitian, living abroad,
sending $2 billion in remittances to Haiti who is asking for dual
citizenship, but red-tie, suited Haitian, mostly in the professions,
who think they are BETTER than Haitians living in Haiti, who are
nonetheless looking for JOBS in Haiti!!!!! Haiti needs no more
self-proclaimed LORDS!!!!"
"...It was, after all, Francophone Africa that was used to
stop the spread of Pan-Africanism after the independence movement,
mainly through French expatriates like Houphouet Boigny and Leopold
Cedar Senghor..." (See, Nescafe
Machine by John Maxwell)
The function
of the Diaspora Middlemen to the war profiteering neo-colonist
is to give a plausible "Haitian,
Black or progressive" facade to financial colonialism
and to turning Haiti into a penal colony to assist in keeping
Haiti in endless debt, under foreign domination and dependency.
*********************
See also:
Turning Haiti into a (Penal) Colony: Criminalization of Haiti's
Children for Haiti's own good and democratic development
|
Those who offer that position show a
sort of naivety and know NOTHING of the imperialist uses of the African,
Caribbean and Latin American populations that maintains neocolonialism
(financial colonialism) throughout these territories - Just look at
any Latin American country, look at the case of Argentina -http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=whVSw5X2pVU
Those bankers are all Argentines, educated elsewhere, come back to fleece
their own.!!!!
Haitians who live in Haiti and still hold their own Haitian citizenship
OUGHT to have greater rights than those who may be used by empire to
further enslave and contain Haiti in USAID/NGO bourgeois democracy.
The time may come, in our opinion, when the un-assimilated African-Haitians
in Haiti are strong enough to step toe-to-toe with the assimilated Haitian
in the Diaspora -(albeit, necessary as that assimilation may have been
for their survival as immigrants abroad.), that time may come when the
machinations and Eurocentric arrogance of the Haitian Diaspora, in general,
as most have evidenced in their absolute Eurocentric manners to date,
can be properly balanced and absorbed in due course. But, in our opinion,
that time is not now while we are under occupation by foreign powers
using mostly Diaspora, Pepe and foreign-educated assimilated Haitians
to maintain their Haitian facade over US/France/Canada neocolonialism.
....
Dual citizenship for the Diaspora is
not a priority for Haiti. Food sovereignty, access to affordable fuel,
the people's right to affordable Haitian schools (not Pèpè
or ecclesiastic education), access to clean water, to sanitation and
the nation's need for building structures for social justice, social
welfare, sustainable jobs; building flood barriers, roads and infrastructure,
et al, are more immediate priorities.
To the best of our knowledge, Haitians living in the Diaspora have all
the rights of Haitians living in Haiti right now, pursuant to the 2000
law enacted under president Aristide. The only right they do not have
is the right to hold certain high political office (like president and
senator), and that is as it should be. If a Haitian wants to hold high
political office in Haiti, for the moment, considering the corrupt institutionalized
reign, for 200 years, of the multi-passported mercenary families, that
Haitian ought to be willing to meet the residency requirements and give
up their foreign passport. Otherwise, considering how foreigners buy
our elected officers, they're simply not serious about an unwavering
allegiance and commitment to the interests of the people and nation
of Haiti.
We underline the thoughts of the writer below, that the Haitian Constitution
ought to be applied right now. In fact, a little experience in that
application may assist create a stronger nation, interested FIRST in
the public good of the citizens living within its territory. So Ezili's
HLLN hereby reiterate this writer's view that:
"Demandons plutot que la constitution soit respectée en
exigeant l'électricité 24/24, la gratuité de l'éducation
primaire... en combattant l'arrestation et la détention illégales,
etc. C'est mieux." (It is far better to demand that the Haitian
Constitution is respected, to ask for electricity 24/7, for more public
schools, a stop to illegal arrest and detentions.. . See Forwarded e-mail
below).
In view of the neo-colonial blueprint worldwide, Haiti's most recent
Bush Regime change history and the traditional indigenous Haitian struggle
to be a Black ruled independent nation, for the Haitian Diaspora to
ignore it already has the right to do ALL that is necessary in Haiti,
right now, except hold Presidential and Legislative power is too familiarly
despotic. No public heritage is preserved by this current demand. For
demanding more direct POLITICAL power under the sentimental guise of
"Helping Haiti" instead of being "of service" because
one must do so as a Haitian, screams of a sense of ENTITLEMENT that
is dangerously patronizing, self-serving and divisive.
Fulfilling Leclerc's imperative
through debt, free
trade and wage slavery
A genocide is going on in Haiti right now. When only a handful of Haitians
are working, when theres 70% unemployment and those actually formally
working are only making .22 cents (70 gourdes) an hour and forced to
pay the Haitian Oligarchs for food to eat at high U.S. import prices,
starvation is a given. It's economic slavery. ( The
Slavery in Haiti the Media Won't Expose; Zeitgeist:
Addendum).
This conversation for dual citizenship won't change the miserable status
quo for Haiti's majority, only allow for the white colonial blueprint
to continue. Haiti's Parliament is already too non-Haitian as it is.
These folks are not only paid by foreigners, they've adapted wholesale
foreign methods, modes and values that make no practical sense to Haitian
existence. There could be a 110-degree heat wave outside and these folks
are wearing dark, three piece suits, speaking in ecclesiastic French
most don't even understand and mimicking English debating rules that
have no root in Haitian traditional conflict resolution! They're using
Roberts Rules as their Parliamentary procedure when African mediation
have little to do with Western notions of Bourgeois democracy or other
such values, Euro-cultural profit-over-people imperatives and so-called
cost-effectiveness rules. They've been pacified into fighting using
Queensbury rules when the Haitian people's enemies use no rules, only
overwhelming power and shock and awe to paralyze and destroy the poor's
will to fight. Tout se makak madigra. Kiyes politisyen sa yo ap
sevi si se pa blan kolon? Jounen jodi a, se yo ki zouti kap tranche
nashon an. Afè Lakou a, konbit la, travay tè, pataj, Kreyòl,
Vodun, Sevi lasosyete, kòmand Desalin, paròl Grandèt
yo, ah! Sa pa gade yo. Yo vle fè sa blan ap fè. Anbasadè
Meriken e Bill "Sonthonax" Clinton se Dye
pa yo.
Moreover, it not hard to imagine the mentally colonized, visa-carrying
privilege Diaspora, exerting their power over the Haitian, without dollars,
jobs and visa power, living inside Haiti. Thus increasing our fear of
each other. Said fear, divides and thereby assist our traditional enemies
and keep Haiti from moving forward. Let's recall Sonthonax came to uphold
the rights of the Mulatto to vote and to maintain slavery of the Africans
in Haiti. The Haitian revolution got rid of physical enslavement. Today,
economic enslavement reigns unfettered.
Fifty years from now, if the paradigm doesn't change, what the Spanish
did, within 30 years of setting foot in Haiti, - that is, cause the
death of all the inhabitants, one million Taino-Haitians, will be matched
by today's "International Community" with the genocide of
perhaps 9-million Afro-Haitians living in Haiti. That's when Haiti shall
be developed, no longer stigmatized and at peace. For, Lecler's imperative
shall have been fulfilled, albeit over two centuries later with the
Blan's bicentennial return conquest of Africa's negroes in Haiti that
started in 2004. (See, The
Kidnapping Coup).
"It is not everything to have removed Toussaint, there are
two thousand other chiefs here to have taken away...Here is my opinion
of this country. It is necessary to destroy all the negroes of the mountains,
men and women, sparing only children under the age of twelve, and destroy
half of those of the plain, without leaving a single colored man in
the colony who ever wore an epaulette. Without that, the colony will
never be at peace." ---French General Charles Victor Emmanuel
Leclerc
Part of the reason Leclerc's peace and security has not been accomplished
sooner is because, for close to two centuries, the Haitian majority
did not depend on the Euro/US dollar to eat.
They grew their own food, had the Lakou and Konbit (cooperatives) and
went to market to barter for what they did not grow. That system has
been destroyed by "free trade" in the last
30 or so years. Dependency on the Mulatto/Freedmen/Affranchis
or "Black" bourgeoisie as metastasized today in the new face
of the deracinated Haitian
Oligarchy, who get their liberty by being more into the US/Euro
monetary system/capitalism and white profit-over-people culture
than the whitest of white man, to bring Africa's children food is death.
Who doesn't understand that?" (To understand further the US/Euro
monetary system, go to: Zeitgeist:
Addendum).
"Haiti's history reveals that the bourgeoisie - economic elite
- will not throw their lot in with the African masses unless they are
already on the way OUT." Power
concedes nothing unless it has to. Social stratification,
oppressive laws, injustice, elitism and the profit-over-people coporatocracy
cannot be eradicated unless we change our profit-over-people values
and notions of achievement. For what shall it profit a man, if he shall
gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? (See also, Haiti's
Linyon Fè la Fòs - The union in Haiti that's never wavered.)
There was a time, when we too at Ezili's HLLN looked upon dual citizenship
as necessary and expedient for the Haitian Diaspora,
but experience in Haiti affairs for almost two decades, study of the
current Haitian laws on the books that offer reasonable rights already
to the Diaspora, project of development that we ourselves have assisted
grassroots organizations in Haiti and abroad with, show that it is a
power that may become a new form of AGGRESSION that ONLY further excludes
the Haitian masses in Haiti from the citadel of power in their own country.
It is not the blue collar, minimum wage, working Haitian, living abroad,
sending $2 billion in remittances to Haiti who is asking for dual citizenship,
but red or blue-tie, suited Haitian, mostly in the professions, who
think they are BETTER than Haitians living in Haiti, who are nonetheless
looking for JOBS in Haiti!!!!! Haiti needs no more self-proclaimed LORDS!!!!
"...It was, after all, Francophone Africa that was used to stop
the spread of Pan-Africanism after the independence movement, mainly
through French expatriates like Houphouet Boigny and Leopold Cedar Senghor..."
(See, Nescafe
by John Maxwell- http://www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/nescafe.html)
The
function of the Diaspora Middlemen to the war profiteering neo-colonist
is to give a plausible "Haitian,
Black or progressive" facade to financial colonialism
and to turning Haiti into a penal colony to assist in keeping Haiti
in endless debt, under foreign domination and dependency.
Haitian officials should not be wasting time on the dual citizenship
issue right now. For, feeding the Haitian people is more critical, sustainable
development, jobs, education and investing in domestic agriculture and
Haiti's infrastructure, demilitarization, ending the occupation and
more participation of the masses in the decision making process are
much more immediate.
Moreover, the nation-state idea is fairly obsolete in this world of
globalization. Haitians in the Diaspora have the entire world as their
oysters and ought to use that passport to market Haiti and the culture
that is so maligned, instead of trying to attain power in a tiny territorial
teapot. The Haitian legacy is that of Pan-Americanism and Pan-Africanism.
It seems a much more worthwhile pursuit to push for ONE American Hemispheric
passport than merely dual citizenship.
Likewise, for the moment, it seems much more realistic and advantageous
to Haitians abroad and at home, to push for Haitian equality in Caricom,
than accepting the current discrimination of Haitians citizenship there.
Just a few thoughts we add to this conversation. ...
Our duty, those of us who have MORE and have other citizenship, ought
to be about countering the colonial narrative, being of service to our
heritage and history, of service of our people and to generally assist
ourselves and our children's legacy by ELEVATING Haiti and our brethren
in Haiti towards self-reliance and the nation's highest good. It ought
not to be about getting MORE political and economic power over those
who are already traditionally excluded from power by the Haitian economic
elite. (See, for instance, The
Slavery the Haiti the Media Won't Expose,The
Kidnapping Coup, Haiti
Policy Statement for the Obama Team, What
UN Special Envoy Bill Clinton may do for Haiti and the FreeHaitiMovement
Demands).
Ezili Dantò/Marguerite Laurent
Founder and President, Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network ("HLLN")
Oct. 26, 2008
Last updated August, 2009
***
--- On Sat, 10/25/08, Josué PIERRE-PAUL <> wrote:
From: Josué PIERRE-PAUL <>
Subject: Amendement constitutionnel, un imperatif !
To: ______@ yahoogroups. com
Date: Saturday, October 25, 2008, 10:36 AM
Salut,
Je pense que pour la constitution n'a pas encore besoin d'un amendement
ou d'une modification quelconque. La constitution ne met pas de barrière
empêchant la diaspora à participer activement au développement
du pays. Il n'y a aucun article qui empêche un individu, même
l'étranger, de venir donner sa contribution à l'amélioration
de vie en Haiti.
En ce qui concerne les postes électifs qui, selon mon ami, ne
font appel à aucune exigence, je pense que c'est normal. Les
ministres, de par l'étymologie du mot, sont les véritables
gestionnaires des affaires de l'Etat. Et si l'Ecole primaire n'est pas
assurée en Haiti, ce serait illogique de parler de plus grandes
exigences.
Les analphabètes sont en grand nombre parce que la constitution
n'est pas respectée. Ce n'est pas l'amendement qui va réduire
le nombre d'analphabètes dans le pays.
Donc ce qu'on doit faire, c'est respecter la constitution. On ne change
pas une constitution sans l'avoir fidèlement appliquée.
comment sait-on que la constitution ne convient pas tandis que les articles
fondamentaux sont méprisés ?
Demandons plutot que la constitution soit respectée en exigeant
l'électricité 24/24, la gratuité de l'éducation
primaire... en combattant l'arrestation et la détention illégales,
etc. C'est mieux.
Josué PIERRE-PAUL
Institut Privé de Gestion & d'Entrepreneuriat (IPGE)
16,
rue marcelin, Port-au-Prince, Haiti, WI
Tel.: (509) 3697 4962 / 3818-1679 / 2221-1720
Email du bureau : ipgehaiti@gmail.com
Site web de l'IPGE : www.ipge.fr.gd
*********************
See also:
Turning Haiti into a (Penal) Colony: Criminalization of Haiti's Children
for Haiti's own good and democratic development
*********************
****************************************
The
systemic criminalization of black males in Haiti by Haiti's US-imposed
Miami government and now the UN forces, parallels U.S. habits
"...For, in Haiti, the imperialists have also found the formula
for outsourcing wars so that the blood of their sons and daughters are
maintly not on the line.
The UN forces in Haiti, are made up of troops from the developing countries.
These poor Black and Brown soldiers are now fighting the imperialists'
wars for him in Haiti. Even the African Union's rejection of the re-colonization
of Haiti is reported to have been neutralized with the sending, to Haiti,
of African soldiers from the Francophone countries. Not surprising considering
France's investment in Haiti's bicentennial coup d'etat. It was, after
all, Francophone Africa that was used to stop the spread of Pan-Africanism
after the independence movement, mainly through French expatriates like
Houphouet Boigny and Leopold Cedar Senghor.
The Haitian comparison with Miami's Latortue, or US-citizen Andre Apaid
or to Marc Bazin are inescapable. (The comparison also applied to Texas'
Simeus when he was attempting to negate the Haitian Constitution, illegally
profit by the coup detat and unconstitutionally become a candidate in
the Feb. 7, 2006 elections. Simeus was even indirectly endorsed by a
Condoleezza Rice visit to Haiti.) Houphouet Boigny and Leopold Sedar
Senghor were seen by many as the main destroyers of Pan Africanism and
African unity in Africa. They were both President of their countries,
held in power by the foreign interference of France, as well as being
French citizen, and were, even for a time, French National assembly
members. Boigny even initially opposed independence outside the French
community. These Eurocentric Africans, like US/Euro-centric- Latortue,
Apaid, Bazin, et al, share many similarities. For instance, both Latortue
and Bazin played pivotal roles, as middlemen, in coup d'etats in Haiti
(1991 for Bazin and 2004 for Latortue and Bazin) intended to destroy
Haiti's pro-democratic Lavalas Movement and to legalize the re-colonization
of Haiti. Boigny and Senghor helped to destroy the institutionalization
of Patrice
Lumumba and Krame NKrumah's Pan-Africanism and the democratic
initiatives of their own countrymen, effectively keeping their African
countries as French colonies with themselves as France's handpicked
overseers to run their countries as a plantation for the French. (Simply...A
history Pan-Africanism - http://www.newint.org/issue326/simply.htm
)
Like the Ivory Coat's Boigny and Senegal's
Senghor, Latortue, Bazin, Apaid, et al, are the Haitian middlemen who
forged international careers on the premise that economic development
in Haiti will only come when the white men and his IMF-World bank structures
dominate Haiti and, thus, they represent these international structures,
UN, World Bank, are the "subcontractors" for sweatshops conglomerates
and transnational corporations, ultimately helping to give a "black"
face to the re-colonization of Haiti through the bi-centennial coup
d'etat that is a cover for implementing the Washington consensus, financial
colonialism and UN de facto protectorate.
HLLN, November 4, 2005.
******************** |
|
****************************************
Eurasian Minerals Inc. Acquires Grand
Bois Gold Deposit Property, Haiti, News
Releases, Jan 26, 2009
Vancouver, British Columbia,
January 26, 2009 (TSX Venture: EMX) - Eurasian Minerals Inc. (the "Company"
or "EMX") is pleased to announce the acquisition
of 100% interest of the Grand Bois Property in Haiti from Societe Miniere
Citadelle (hereinafter referred to as "SMC"). The acquisition
is focused on the Grand Bois historic, non-NI 43-101 compliant resource
of 4.3 million tonnes with average grades of 2.24 g/t gold and 14.92
g/t silver. This historic non-NI 43-101 compliant resource is based
on drilling that intersected near-surface, oxide gold mineralization,
including an intercept of 49 meters averaging 6.06 g/t gold.
Newmont Ventures Limited ("Newmont"
or "NEM"), a wholly owned subsidiary of Newmont Mining Corporation,
has selected the Grand Bois property to be included in a "Designated
Project" under the NEM-EMX Strategic Venture Agreement. Please
see attached map and the Company's web site at www.eurasianminerals.com
for more information.
|
Click on picture
to Enlarge
|
Grand Bois Property Overview. The Grand Bois property
covers an area of 50 square kilometers of mineral rights located 28
kilometers southwest of the port city of Cap Haitien, in northern Haiti,
and is entirely surrounded by exploration licenses recently acquired
by the Company (see Company news release dated December 17, 2008). The
property is situated in mountainous terrain adjacent to National Highway
#1 that connects Cap Haitien and the capital city of Port Au Prince.
Prior to EMX's acquisition, the Grand Bois property was held by SMC,
a Haitian private corporation, through a Mining Convention issued by
the Bureau of Mines and Energy, Republic of Haiti. The Mining Convention
essentially establishes a mining permit that is subject to terms and
conditions of Haiti's mining law.
The Grand Bois gold mineralization is hosted within a high-sulfidation
epithermal gold system that was recognized by Kennecott Exploration
in 1975. The gold mineralization is near-surface, oxidized, and open
for extension. The property has undergone historic exploration, including
four drill campaigns totaling more than 7500 meters. The historic drilling
returned intercepts including 49 meters averaging 6.06 g/t gold starting
at surface (0-49 m, hole GBS-D6). A summary of the historic exploration
work includes:
1975 - Kennecott Exploration completed mapping, pitting,
trenching, soil geochemistry, geophysics and 10 diamond drill holes
totaling 1,680 meters.
1978 - Penarroya completed mapping, trenching and
11 diamond drill holes for 1730 meters, nine of which are within the
deposit area.
1983 - The United Nations Development Program ("UNDP")
completed mapping, pitting, trenching, metallurgical work, and 51
diamond holes for 2,003 meters.
The UNDP work produced an non-NI 43-101 compliant historical resource
estimate, termed a "geological reserve", of 4.3 million
tonnes averaging 2.24 g/t gold and 14.92 g/t silver. (Focsa, et al.,
1986, Le Gisement d'or de Grand Bois/Limbe. Project HAI/84/016-02-P01
UNDP/BME). The historical resource was based upon a polygonal estimate
at a 0.5 g/t gold cutoff. The UNDP historical "geological reserve"
does not use the resource and reserve categories as defined in NI
43-101. A Qualified Person has not performed sufficient work to classify
the historical estimate as current mineral resources, and EMX is not
treating the estimate as current mineral resources. The historical
estimate should not be relied upon until it can be confirmed by the
Company. However, the drill-delineated Grand Bois gold mineralized
deposit described by the UNDP report is considered relevant.
1997 - KWG Resources
("KWG") completed a topographic survey and 16 diamond drill
holes totaling 2131.6 meters. KWG's drilling included twin and duplicate
holes that generally supported and confirmed the prior drill results
reported by the UNDP.
The Grand Bois gold deposit is located on the top and flank of a hill
(elevations range from 580-720 m), that would have a favorable stripping
ratio for a potential open-pit operation. The base of oxidation extends
to a depth of 90 meters. The deposit as currently defined is roughly
circular in outline, with dimensions of 300 by 350 meters, and consists
of a poorly consolidated tabular body of mineralized and oxidized volcanic
rock with an average thickness of approximately 20 meters. The gold
mineralization remains open for expansion. A limited number of drill
holes that extended below the oxide gold zone intersected significant
copper mineralization, including 0.62% copper over 53.5 meters (64.9-118.4
m, hole DDH-1). The copper mineralization may be related to a porphyry
system, and provides further upside exploration potential to the property.
The Grand Bois gold deposit area is located in the northern half of
a polymetallic mineral district which covers roughly 24 square kilometers,
and contains 46 prospective gold-silver, copper, zinc and lead mineral
occurrences. Select historic rock sample assay results from massive
barite, barite-sulfide, sulfide, and quartz-sulfide mineralization collected
from Grand Bois mineral prospects contain up to 27 g/t gold, 627 g/t
silver, 30.2% copper, 2.25% lead, and 23.9% zinc (Louca, 1989).
EMX Due Diligence Results. EMX due diligence work on
the Grand Bois property included metallurgical test assays, as well
as soil and rock sampling over the known mineralization and surrounding
target areas. The preliminary metallurgical test assays were conducted
on historic drill core pulps from 21 intervals, and yielded an average
of 91% gold recovery using traditional oxide leach recovery technology.
EMX's results are consistent with metallurgical test data outlined in
historic reports from the UNDP and KWG. EMX conducted a soil geochemical
survey over the known mineralization and Rivage Ridge areas totaling
585 samples. The gold-in-soil anomalies (i.e., > 0.1 g/t Au) define
a 1000 by 530 meter north to northwest trending zone over the known
deposit footprint, with a higher grade zone (i.e., > 0.3 g/t Au)
measuring 690 by 320 meters. There are two additional northwest trending
gold-in-soil anomalies over Rivage Ridge, measuring 620 by 200 and 920
by 200 meters. EMX also collected 104 rock-chip samples from a three
square kilometer area covering the Grand Bois deposit and surrounding
areas. The results include 21 samples (20%) assaying greater than 1.0
g/t gold. Significant gold and trace element anomalies were also confirmed
in the Trompette-Fondbele area, the Rivage Ridge area, and the southern
Grand Bois polymetallic area. The five rock samples from Trompette-Fondbele
all report anomalous gold, with values up to 19.85 g/t gold. Rivage
Ridge extends 800 meters to the southwest of the deposit area, and EMX
rock samples returned up to 0.94 g/t gold. The combination of the historic
non-NI 43-101 compliant gold resource, the underlying intercepts of
copper mineralization, and the gold and polymetallic occurrences to
the south of the deposit further indicate the potential to expand the
size of the gold, silver and copper mineralized system at Grand Bois.
Terms of Agreement. EMX, through its Haitian subsidiary Ayiti
Gold Company S. A., purchased 100% interest in the Grand Bois property
from SMC, subject to making the payments as outlined below under the
Purchase Agreement (the "Agreement") (all amounts are US dollars
unless noted otherwise):
* EMX paid SMC $1,000,000 subject to certain deductions
required to maintain the property in good standing.
* On the first anniversary of the Agreement, EMX has
the option to pay SMC the equivalent of $1,000,000 as follows: $750,000
in cash or EMX stock and $250,000 in cash.
* Upon completion of a feasibility study, EMX has the
option to pay SMC the equivalent of $3,000,000 in either EMX stock or
cash, or any combination thereof.
* SMC retains a 20% net profits interest. EMX has the
option at any time to purchase SMC's net profits interest for $15,000,000.
Newmont Designated Project. The Agreement to acquire
the Grand Bois property from SMC is subject to EMX's Strategic Venture
Agreement with Newmont (see Company news release dated April 28, 2008).
Newmont has elected to include the Grand Bois property in a "Designated
Project" venture, and work on the property will be governed by
a Designated Projects Joint Venture Agreement. Newmont is responsible
for all expenditures on the project until such time as it earns its
interest.
Newmont can earn 65% interest in the Property by choosing to either
(all amounts are US dollars unless noted otherwise):
* Fund 100% of the initial $10 million expenditures on the project within
6 years, or
* Complete a positive feasibility study on the property within the first
six years.
Newmont has reimbursed EMX for the initial $1,000,000 payment to SMC
(subject to deductions). EMX will be responsible to make the second
$1,000,000 payment on the first anniversary of the Agreement. If Newmont
continues to work towards its earn-in after the second anniversary of
the Agreement, then Newmont will reimburse EMX for this second $1,000,000
payment. After Newmont earns 65% interest in the project, EMX has 120
days to elect one of three options: a) fund its proportionate share
of expenditures for the program; b) let Newmont fund EMX's share of
expenditures to production in exchange for receiving an additional 5%
interest in the project up to 70%; or c) convert its 35% interest to
a 3.5% NSR royalty and receive annual $1,000,000 advance minimum royalty
payments.
2009 Program. The Grand Bois property hosts a historic
non-NI 43-101 compliant gold resource with potential for expansion and
a possible copper-gold porphyry system at depth. EMX and Newmont plan
an aggressive program of surface exploration and drilling to evaluate
the district scale potential of the system and to test additional targets.
The 2009 EMX / Newmont programs in Haiti, including the Regional Exploration
program and the two Designated Projects, Grand Bois and La Miel, have
a proposed combined budget in excess of $5,000,000 USD.
Comments on Sampling, Assaying, and QA/QC. EMX's geochemical
samples were collected in accordance with accepted industry standards
and procedures. The samples were submitted to the ALS Chemex laboratories
in Reno, Nevada (ISO 9001:2000 accredited) and Vancouver, Canada (ISO
17025 and ISO 9001:2000 accredited) for analysis: gold was analyzed
by fire assay with an AAS finish, and multi-element analyses were determined
by ICP MS/AAS techniques. EMX conducts routine QA/QC analysis on all
assay results, including the systematic utilization of certified reference
materials, blanks, field duplicates, and umpire laboratory check assays.
The Company's Exploration Manager, Haiti, Keith A. Laskowski, MSc. is
a Qualified Person for the purposes of National Instrument 43-101 Standards
of Disclosure for Mineral Projects of the Canadian Securities Administrators,
and has reviewed and verified the technical information contained in
this news release.
EMX is exploring and investing in a first class mineral property and
royalty portfolio in some of the most prospective, but under-explored
mineral belts of the world.
For further information contact:
David M. Cole President and Chief Executive Officer
Phone: (303) 979-6666
Email: dave@eurasianminerals.com
Website: www.eurasianminerals.com
Kim C. Casswell
Corporate Secretary
Phone: (604) 688-6390
Email: kcasswell@eurasianminerals.com
Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor the Investment Industry Regulatory
Organization of Canada accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy
of this release.
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