Dessalines Is Rising!!
Ayisyen: You Are Not Alone!

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Hope in Humiliation: HLLN’s analysis of May 18, 2006 and the Inaugural of President Rene Preval by Marguerite Laurent

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When Haiti Was Free - Video Evidence of Media Lies (A Proposed HLLN Documentary) by Ezili Danto for Haitian Perspectives and the FreeHaitiMovement, May 14, 2008

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Veil of Blood: Ignorance is no Defense by Ezili Dantò, May 9, 2008
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Media Lies: The two common storylines about Haiti - May 14, 2008 & August 27, 2007

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Ericq Pierre et le plan néolibéral ! by Haiti Progres, May 7, 2008
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Le Plan Politique Américain pour Haiti by Haiti Progres, May 7, 2008
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Many Haitians want exiled Aristide back, April 16, 2008
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Haiti, Reaping the Whirlwind
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Price of Rice prompts renewed anger in Haiti, April 15, 2008
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HAITI: Food Crisis Sparks Anger and Despair, April 16, 2008
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Haiti no longer grows much of its own rice and families now go hungry
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Comparing crime, poverty and violence in the rest of the Hemisphere to Haiti

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"...Go after the Respondeat Superior...Category One, the imperialist...*Besides Castrated Category Zero (the black middlemen) would not be human if they didn't resent their humiliating servility, dependency and castration; didn't resent being the public face of all the repugnancy of their white imperialist bosses but never having these bosses touched or revealed for what they are because racism, and its various levels of oppression and exploitation, assures that it is only black folk and the economic black elites not their white brethens who are "barbaric," "rapacious" and "morally repugnant"; didn't resent the role of preserving the economic power of the whites by trading their souls, identities, their own country, heritage and peoples only for personal gain that, in the larger picture, is mere menial world economic power and only symbolic political power." (See, The Revolutionary Potential of Haiti, its creeds, values and struggle - Not primarily a class struggle: Comments inspired by Gutiérrez' post on Haiti)
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30 Years Ago Haiti Grew All the Rice It Needed. What Happened? The U.S. Role in Haiti's Food Riots By BILL QUIGLEY, HLLN's News, Views, Essays and Reflections, April 21, 2008

Riots in Haiti over explosive rises in food costs have claimed the lives of six people. There have also been food riots world-wide in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivorie, Egypt, Guinea, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen.

The Economist, which calls the current crisis the silent tsunami, reports that last year wheat prices rose 77% and rice 16%, but since January rice prices have risen 141%. The reasons include rising fuel costs, weather problems, increased demand in China and India, as well as the push to create biofuels from cereal crops.

Hermite Joseph, a mother working in the markets of Port au Prince, told journalist Nick Whalen that her two kids are “like toothpicks” they’ re not getting enough nourishment. Before, if you had a dollar twenty-five cents, you could buy vegetables, some rice, 10 cents of charcoal and a little cooking oil. Right now, a little can of rice alone costs 65 cents, and is not good rice at all. Oil is 25 cents. Charcoal is 25 cents. With a dollar twenty-five, you can’t even make a plate of rice for one child.”

The St. Claire’s Church Food program, in the Tiplas Kazo neighborhood of Port au Prince, serves 1000 free meals a day, almost all to hungry children -- five times a week in partnership with the What If Foundation. Children from Cite Soleil have been known to walk the five miles to the church for a meal. The cost of rice, beans, vegetables, a little meat, spices, cooking oil, propane for the stoves, have gone up dramatically. Because of the rise in the cost of food, the portions are now smaller. But hunger is on the rise and more and more children come for the free meal. Hungry adults used to be allowed to eat the leftovers once all the children were fed, but now there are few leftovers.

The New York Times lectured Haiti on April 18 that “Haiti, its agriculture industry in shambles, needs to better feed itself.” Unfortunately, the article did not talk at all about one of the main causes of the shortages -- the fact that the U.S. and other international financial bodies destroyed Haitian rice farmers to create a major market for the heavily subsidized rice from U.S. farmers. This is not the only cause of hunger in Haiti and other poor countries, but it is a major force.

Thirty years ago, Haiti raised nearly all the rice it needed. What happened?

In 1986, after the expulsion of Haitian dictator Jean Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier the International Monetary Fund (IMF) loaned Haiti $24.6 million in desperately needed funds (Baby Doc had raided the treasury on the way out). But, in order to get the IMF loan, Haiti was required to reduce tariff protections for their Haitian rice and other agricultural products and some industries to open up the country’s markets to competition from outside countries. The U.S. has by far the largest voice in decisions of the IMF.

Doctor Paul Farmer was in Haiti then and saw what happened. “Within less than two years, it became impossible for Haitian farmers to compete with what they called ‘Miami rice.’ The whole local rice market in Haiti fell apart as cheap, U.S. subsidized rice, some of it in the form of ‘food aid,’ flooded the market. There was violence, ‘rice wars,’ and lives were lost.”

“American rice invaded the country,” recalled Charles Suffrard, a leading rice grower in Haiti in an interview with the Washington Post in 2000. By 1987 and 1988, there was so much rice coming into the country that many stopped working the land.

Fr. Gerard Jean-Juste, a Haitian priest who has been the pastor at St. Claire and an outspoken human rights advocate, agrees. “In the 1980s, imported rice poured into Haiti, below the cost of what our farmers could produce it. Farmers lost their businesses. People from the countryside started losing their jobs and moving to the cities. After a few years of cheap imported rice, local production went way down.”

Still the international business community was not satisfied. In 1994, as a condition for U.S. assistance in returning to Haiti to resume his elected Presidency, Jean-Bertrand Aristide was forced by the U.S., the IMF, and the World Bank to open up the markets in Haiti even more.

But, Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, what reason could the U.S. have in destroying the rice market of this tiny country?

Haiti is definitely poor. The U.S. Agency for International Development reports the annual per capita income is less than $400. The United Nations reports life expectancy in Haiti is 59, while in the US it is 78. Over 78% of Haitians live on less than $2 a day, more than half live on less than $1 a day.

Yet Haiti has become one of the very top importers of rice from the U.S. The U.S. Department of Agriculture 2008 numbers show Haiti is the third largest importer of US rice - at over 240,000 metric tons of rice. (One metric ton is 2200 pounds).

Rice is a heavily subsidized business in the U.S. Rice subsidies in the U.S. totaled $11 billion from 1995 to 2006. One producer alone, Riceland Foods Inc of Stuttgart Arkansas, received over $500 million dollars in rice subsidies between 1995 and 2006.

The Cato Institute recently reported that rice is one of the most heavily supported commodities in the U.S. -- with three different subsidies together averaging over $1 billion a year since 1998 and projected to average over $700 million a year through 2015. The result? “Tens of millions of rice farmers in poor countries find it hard to lift their families out of poverty because of the lower, more volatile prices caused by the interventionist policies of other countries.”

In addition to three different subsidies for rice farmers in the U.S., there are also direct tariff barriers of 3 to 24 percent, reports Daniel Griswold of the Cato Institute -- the exact same type of protections, though much higher, that the U.S. and the IMF required Haiti to eliminate in the 1980s and 1990s.

U.S. protection for rice farmers goes even further. A 2006 story in the Washington Post found that the federal government has paid at least $1.3 billion in subsidies for rice and other crops since 2000 to individuals who do no farming at all; including $490,000 to a Houston surgeon who owned land near Houston that once grew rice.

And it is not only the Haitian rice farmers who have been hurt.

Paul Farmer saw it happen to the sugar growers as well. “Haiti, once the world's largest exporter of sugar and other tropical produce to Europe, began importing even sugar-- from U.S. controlled sugar production in the Dominican Republic and Florida. It was terrible to see Haitian farmers put out of work. All this sped up the downward spiral that led to this month's food riots.”

After the riots and protests, President Rene Preval of Haiti agreed to reduce the price of rice, which was selling for $51 for a 110 pound bag, to $43 dollars for the next month. No one thinks a one month fix will do anything but delay the severe hunger pains a few weeks.

Haiti is far from alone in this crisis. The Economist reports a billion people worldwide live on $1 a day. The US-backed Voice of America reports about 850 million people were suffering from hunger worldwide before the latest round of price increases.

Thirty three countries are at risk of social upheaval because of rising food prices, World Bank President Robert Zoellick told the Wall Street Journal. When countries have many people who spend half to three-quarters of their daily income on food, “there is no margin of survival.”

In the U.S., people are feeling the world-wide problems at the gas pump and in the grocery. Middle class people may cut back on extra trips or on high price cuts of meat. The number of people on food stamps in the US is at an all-time high. But in poor countries, where malnutrition and hunger were widespread before the rise in prices, there is nothing to cut back on except eating. That leads to hunger riots.

In the short term, the world community is sending bags of rice to Haiti. Venezuela sent 350 tons of food. The US just pledged $200 million extra for worldwide hunger relief. The UN is committed to distributing more food.
What can be done in the medium term? The US provides much of the world’s food aid, but does it in such a way that only half of the dollars spent actually reach hungry people. US law requires that food aid be purchased from US farmers, processed and bagged in the US and shipped on US vessels -- which cost 50% of the money allocated. A simple change in US law to allow some local purchase of commodities would feed many more people and support local farm markets.

In the long run, what is to be done? The President of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who visited Haiti last week, said “Rich countries need to reduce farms subsidies and trade barriers to allow poor countries to generate income with food exports. Either the world solves the unfair trade system, or every time there's unrest like in Haiti, we adopt emergency measures and send a little bit of food to temporarily ease hunger."

Citizens of the USA know very little about the role of their government in helping create the hunger problems in Haiti or other countries. But there is much that individuals can do. People can donate to help feed individual hungry people and participate with advocacy organizations like Bread for the World or Oxfam to help change the U.S. and global rules which favor the rich countries. This advocacy can help countries have a better chance to feed themselves.

Meanwhile, Merisma Jean-Claudel, a young high school graduate in Port-au-Prince told journalist Wadner Pierre "...people can’t buy food. Gasoline prices are going up. It is very hard for us over here. The cost of living is the biggest worry for us, no peace in stomach means no peace in the mind "I wonder if others will be able to survive the days ahead because things are very, very hard."

“On the ground, people are very hungry,” reported Fr. Jean-Juste. “Our country must immediately open emergency canteens to feed the hungry until we can get them jobs. For the long run, we need to invest in irrigation, transportation, and other assistance for our farmers and workers.”

In Port au Prince, some rice arrived in the last few days. A school in Fr. Jean-Juste’s parish received several bags of rice. They had raw rice for 1000 children, but the principal still had to come to Father Jean-Juste asking for help. There was no money for charcoal, or oil.

Jervais Rodman, an unemployed carpenter with three children, stood in a long line Saturday in Port au Prince to get UN donated rice and beans. When Rodman got the small bags, he told Ben Fox of the Associated Press, “The beans might last four days. The rice will be gone as soon as I get home.”

*
Bill Quigley is a human rights lawyer and law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. He can be reached at quigley77@gmail.com People interested in donating to feed children in Haiti should go to
http://www.whatiffoundation.org/


People who want to help change U.S. policy on agriculture to help combat world-wide hunger should go to:
http://www.oxfamamerica.org/ or http://www.bread.org/

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RBM Video Reel - Between Falling and Hitting the Ground
Ezili Dantò, Lawyer, Performance Poet, Founder and Chair of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network (Carnegie Hall/ Breaking Sea Chains )

Recommended HLLN Links on : US "Free Trade" Fraud Promotes Famine in Haiti

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- "Miami Rice": The Business of Disaster in Haiti by Other Worlds, December 9, 2010

- Rich countries once used gunboats to seize food. Now they use trade deals by George Monbiot, The Guardian, August 26 2008

- "We Made a Devil’s Bargain": Fmr. President Clinton Apologizes for Trade Policies that Destroyed Haitian Rice Farming

- Bill Clinton’s Heavy Hand on Haiti’s Vulnerable Agricultural Economy: The American Rice Scandal by COHA Research Associate Leah Chavla

-Youtube-The politics of rice - 04 Jul 08 - Part 1

- 30 Years Ago Haiti Grew All the Rice It Needed. What Happened?

-Bill Clinton Apologizes To Haiti For Effects Of Free Trade By Dave Johnson

- Ezili's Response to Lionel's Questions and on the Food Crisis: Creating New Paradigms by Ezili Dantò, April 14, 2008

- Haiti’s Food Crisis: Imposing Hunger on the People of Haiti by Pierre Labossiere

-Bush Administration Accused of Withholding "Lifesaving" Aid to Haiti, June 25, 2008

- Is Starvation Contagious by John Maxwell

- Review (Part 1) of Peter Hallward's "Damming the Flood" By Stephen Lendman ( Part 2 )

- Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: How the U.S. Uses Globalization to Cheat Poor Countries Out of Trillions, Democracy Now, Nov. 9, 2004

- Haiti no longer grows much of its own rice and families now go hungry

The U.S. Role in Haiti's Food Riots
- Haiti, Reaping the Whirlwind

- HAITI: Workers Protest Privatisation Layoffs
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38646

- Haiti: Privatisation plan starts with mass firings

- Feeding Dependency, Starving Democracy: USAID Policies in Haiti
http://www.margueritelaurent.com/law/haitianNGOs.html#dependency

- The US and Haiti: How to Get Rich on 11 Cents an Hour
http://www.doublestandards.org/verhoogen1.html

- Disney's Hell in Haiti | Haiti Progres, This Week in Haiti, Vol. 13, no. 41, 3-9 January 1996
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/294.html

- IMF warns rising food prices may spark more riots like Haiti
By Andrew Gumbel | Monday, 14 April 2008, Independent.co.uk

- Food, trade and US power politics in Latin America by Toni Solo
07 April 2004 | http://www.doublestandards.org/solo16.html

-- Mysterious Prison Ailment Traced to U.S. Rice Behind http://ipsnews.net/print.asp?idnews=36204

- Free Market Left Haiti's Rice Growers Behind by Michael Dobbs, Washington Post, April 13, 2000

- Haitian rice farmers work against the Yankee dollar
http://www.speakeasy.org/~peterc/haiti/rice.htm

- Haitian pigs meet globalization

- Trade and disappearance of Haitian Rice by Josiane Georges, June 2004

-The history of land and agriculture of the Republic of Haiti

- Many Haitians want exiled Aristide back

- HAITI: Food Crisis Sparks Anger and Despair ( "...Thirty years ago, Haiti produced nearly all the rice it consumed. But in the late 1980s, cheap imported U.S. rice inundated the country after a military junta began liberalising the economy with support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The first batches of imported rice were escorted by armed convoys in the Artibonite valley -- Haiti's main rice-producing region. Rice farmers regarded the imported U.S. rice as a threat to their production and livelihoods.

As it turned out, their concerns were justified. In 1994, an IMF-sponsored plan cut tariffs on imported rice from 35 percent to 3 percent, the lowest in the region. In one year, the number of rice imports doubled.

While the U.S. government subsidises its own rice farmers, its Haitian counterpart was prohibited from doing so under the terms of their agreement with the IMF. Over the last 20 years, rice production in Haiti has been cut in half, while imports now dominate the market.

In La Saline, the stench of fish and chicken permeates the air as Hernite Joseph continues to tear at the heap of frozen chicken before her.

For her and her three children, the future is up in the air and if the cost of living continues to rise, Henrite only sees one outcome: "I will die." (HAITI: Food Crisis Sparks Anger and Despair By Nick Whalen, IPS, April 16, 2008))

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Our nasty little racist war in Haiti
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Disney's Hell in Haiti

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The US in Haiti: How to Get Rich on 11 Cents an Hour by Eric Verhoogen A Report Prepared for The National Labor Committee, January 1996

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Eyewitness account of the abduction of President and First Lady Aristide of Haiti by the United States Special Forces

Jean Jacques Dessalines, said, "I Want the Assets of the
Country to be Equitably Divided" and for that he was assassinated. That was the first coup d'etat, the Haitian holocaust - organized exclusion of the masses, misery, poverty and the impunity of the economic elite - continues (with Feb. 29, 2004 marking the 33rd coup d'etat). Haiti's peoples continue to resist the return of despots, tyrants and enslavers who wage war on the poor majority and Black, contain-them-in poverty through neocolonialism' debts, "free trade" and foreign "investments." These neocolonial tyrants refuse to allow an equitable division of wealth, excluding the majority in Haiti from sharing in the country's wealth and assets.
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The Western vs Real Narrative on Haiti by Èzili Dantò, March 21, 2007
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Does the Western economic model and calculation of economic wealth fit Haiti, fit Dessalines' idea of wealth? No!
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No other national group anywhere in the world sends more money home than Haitians living abroad
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Transnational Companies supporting poverty and death in Haiti
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Ericq Pierre et le plan néolibéral ! by Haiti Progres, May 7, 2008
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Le Plan Politique Américain pour Haiti by Haiti Progres, May 7, 2008
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When Haiti Was Free - Video Evidence of Media Lies (A Proposed HLLN Documentary) by Ezili Danto for Haitian Perspectives and the FreeHaitiMovement, May 14, 2008

Media Lies: The two common storylines about Haiti - May 14, 2008 & August 27, 2007
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Comparing crime, poverty and violence in the rest of the Hemisphere to Haiti by Ezili Danto, May 27, 2008
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Economic proposals that make sense for the reality of Haiti - The Western economic model doesn't fit an independent Black nation by Ezili Danto , May 23, 2008
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Èzili Dantò's counter-narrative to the Associated Press's current Neocolonial Narrative in "Haiti's tourism dreams deferred by riots"

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Hope in Humiliation: HLLN’s analysis of May 18, 2006 and the Inaugural of President Rene Preval by Marguerite Laurent

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Charity: Aid workers raping, abusing children , By Stephanie Busari For CNN, May 27, 2008
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Video Report: Child Abuse by Humanitarian Workers
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Child abuse by aid agency staff May 9, 2008
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UN peacekeepers 'abusing children'
Aljazeera, May 27, 2008
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Video: United Nations and Aid workers raping and abusing children
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Category Zero: The Subcontracted Haitians
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La Bourgeoisie Haitienne: Une Bourgeoisie Mediocre (Photos)
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The Seven Mercenaries - The Families: Lekòl Lage
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Une bourgeoisie deracinee!
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U.S. Patterns in Haiti
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