If he wanted to, Stu Segall could donate used pyrotechnic smoke cans to Sean Penn for conversion to high efficiency biomass gasifier stoves to save trees from charcoal making in Haiti. (NSA?) Let the man with the white beard know what you want from him for Christmas in Haiti!
"Marines and Sailors from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit are training, here at Fort Pickett, VA, during the Marine Expeditionary Unit Exercise from Sept. 28-Oct. 6 with help from Stu Segall's Strategic Operations, a San Diego-based company that uses professional actors, make-up artists and PYROTECHNIC DEVICES designed to simulate improvised explosive devices and rocket propelled grenades, and REAL AMPUTEES!!!"
John Cussans - "Mass media – and particularly the mainstream news media – are themselves systems of magical power used to ‘bind’ populations according to particular dominant belief systems in the interests of those groups which have the most to gain in maintaining the cultural and political status quo. The case of the Narcosatanicos, as it turned out, was much darker and politically complex than this..
What was interesting in the story however, especially in terms of the relationship between Faudoux, Voodoo, and Vodou, is that the cult had used John Schlessinger’s voodoo horror film The Believers (1987) as a TRAINING FILM, suggesting that the lines between traditional ritual magic, its distorted malefic application and its sensational cinematic misrepresentation had become deeply entangled in this particular case."
American Pyrotechnics Association: "The fireworks devices allegedly found during the investigation were two reloadable aerial shell kits, each containing 24 small aerial shells. These types of devices contain limited quantities of explosive or combustible chemical composition designed to deflagrate (burn) rather than detonate like dynamite, TNT or military explosives. The specific firework devices that have been linked to Tsarnaev contain a maximum of 60 grams, or roughly 2 ounces, of pyrotechnic composition per aerial shell. Additionally, each aerial shell is limited to no more than 130 milligrams (or 0.005 oz.) of explosive composition, less than three aspirin tablets"
2010, quake. From Penn in Rollingstone, 2011: "With the exception of schools built under the leadership of Paul Vallas, now a J/P HRO board member, not a single public building has been rebuilt in hurricane-damaged Louisiana..and in Haiti..For our own part, J/P HRO’s engineering crew had re-established entire neighborhoods, removing over 120,000 cubic meters of rubble and demolishing hundreds of irreparable buildings, much of that rubble recycled and trucked into the slum of Cité Soleil to be used as fill beneath three new schools in assistance to the Digicel school project (mentioned in the Rolling Stone article). Our medical teams and clinics had treated over 115,000 patients, and pushed by truck and helicopter over 100 metric tons of cholera meds throughout the country, including mountainous regions so remote that inhabitants had never seen a white face before. Our school of 260 children was advancing, and we had ultimately helped to relocate over 30,000 people from camps to homes while coordinating camp services as management in that same period. We have trained and employed 250 Haitians on staff, as well as many hundreds of additional jobs our programs created, both through cash-for-work and cash-for-production programs. All of this principally funded by private donors." -Sean Penn, 2011
"Penn soon impressed Ivers and others with his ability to break through bureaucracy, and humanitarian officials now refer to his golf-course settlement, with its hospital, school, well-maintained water and sanitation, as a 'five-star camp.' "
Blonde Beyond Northern Hemisphere Dome's Thundering Haiti Quake
Ezili Danto, HLLN, AUGUST 9, 2010, in Salon magazine: "Penn is not an opportunist. I have it on good eyewitness authority that he genuinely manages the best tent camp in Port au Prince..There are forces behind each of these people - Penn and Wyclef Jean, with political interests that may not be similar to what the masses in Haiti see for themselves. Forces perhaps that neither Penn nor Jean are fully aware of, and may not understand who pull the strings and manipulated them into both being stooges for empire..
For one, recall how, before the earthquake Wyclef Jean was a media darling and a US/UN/Clinton favorite in Haiti. He was Ambassador-at-Large with a security detail and VIP treatment at the airport. When the earthquake hit that favor was transferred to clueless, first-time-doing Haiti-charity-work, Sean Penn! Not the security detail, but his crew had access to the airport when regular Haitians and more veteran search and rescue and first responders were being denied; access to military logistics while Wyclef Jean's crew had to come in through the Dominican Republic! At one point in the early days, when Wyclef Jean went to the airport with a crowd of Haitians to pick up the mounds of food, water, medicines that was just piling up there, he was denied, the crowd of eager-to-help Haiti youths who had followed him witnessed this treatment of Wyclef, embarrassed and shamed and force to leave empty handed..
Meanwhile Sean Penn's star in Haiti was rising, in his safe compound on a golf resort area fully protected by the military. Nevermind that most Haitians in Kafou Fey and elsewhere outside this "green zone," had no access to medicine, water, blood transfusions, no safety or that in general, and notwithstanding Sean Penn's well run camp, many of the World Relief organizations and various other NGOS are, in the main, using aid monies for paying their high-end salaries, traveling, for shipping fees to their own companies, for attending meetings ad nausea, some buying prostitutes and living the high life in Haiti..
World Vision, among other NGOs are leasing homes in the Haiti mountains of upper Petionville for from $6,000 to 12,000 per month paying for electricity and everything else plus renting huge SUVs from the Haitian Oligarchy. While the Haitian elite are taking this opportunity to leave Haiti and rent their plush homes for big money raised for earthquake victim relief. The new ROTATIONS from the World Relief organizations and the extra UN/US deployed personnel since the earthquake have comfortably replaced those flown out as the "new foreign elite moving in."..
All this is going on. But none of the top Haiti charity moneymakers’ tax returns were publicly exposed by the IRS or were dressed down by the media for their misuse of Haiti funds. NGO businesses like Red Cross, World Vision, Care International, Catholic Relief Services, UN world food programs, known charities that have been collecting on Haiti's poverty and pillaging Haiti for decades after decades, none of them were dressed down for their misuse of dollars collected in Haiti. But soon after the earthquake, ONLY Wyclef Jean's Yele foundation was singled out and uncovered to have IRS problems and a more than $410,000 questionable handling issue in his management of Yele Haiti foundation funds..
Before the earthquake, these problems were not made public or cited anywhere that we know about. Wyclef was needed then to put a smiley Haitian face to US imperialism. But he's being reigned in now and there is a reason. A black messiah who save earthquake victims, has Hollywood cache, a tent city, and who was not stopped from competing with Red Cross for donation dollars probably isn't controllable enough for the US Kingmakers in Haiti. It's no surprise to us at Ezili's HLLN that today the actor Sean Penn, the new carefully cultivated Haiti "expert," suddenly is the one 'suspicious' of Wyclef Jean's bid for Haiti president and getting a huge mainstream platform to say so. Notice, in the USA Today article photo, Sean Penn is wearing his Haiti medal. He's our new white expert on "all things Haitian!" ( See, also Sean Penn Hopes His Critics Get Rectal Cancer ; Youtube Video - Sean Penn 'suspicious' of Wyclef Jean's bid for Haiti president .) Where's Paul Farmer, ya'll?..
We've gone into cartoon land. The sideshow eclipses the living, breathing, suffering Haiti people enduring over 6-nightmarish years of US/US occupation and slaughters and NGO pillage never covered by the mainstream media. The election carnival is just beginning and has reduced, for the moment, the worst disaster in recorded human history to what actor Sean Penn has to say about hip hop rapper Wyclef Jean..
Although Wyclef Jean supported the forced removal of Haiti's democratically elected president Aristide; although Wyclef Jean was part of the bicentennial boycott and one who called the murdering US-supported Guy Philippe death squads, "freedom fighters"; although Wyclef Jean used his goodwill from his music fame to open Site Soley slums up to UN guns and then left his young Black male supporters to be rounded up and imprisoned indefinitely without charges, a hearing or a trial for years and years, never saying a word to request they be tried or set free; although all this is true, we are not going to restate this case evidencing Wyclef Jean's undemocratic political leanings or, non- humanitarian interventions. Why? Because at Ezili's HLLN we try not to enter into fratricide and use our limited resources towards changing the paradigm put in place by Category One, the imperialists, not any variety of Category Zero, their Black subcontractors, manipulated or not..
Besides, Wyclef Jean has done a singularly good job in bringing a different international narrative to Haiti..
His narrative is different because when Wyclef Jean and Haiti come together it’s not about the mainstream media's usual violent-Haiti narrative, the in-fighting-Haitians narrative, nor the corrupt-Haiti narrative but a successful young man who won against all odds. That, is not to be discounted. It must be put into context. There's no justice or reason for destroying Wyclef Jean simply because he is running for President of Haiti and may also owe the IRS some taxes, or may have connection to sweatshop investors that may fleece the people's labor. On these points, Haitians will undoubtedly speak, the people may even vote or withhold their vote. They will do it, for themselves. Do Haitians need Penn to "protect them" from Wyclef Jean! No..
We remember under the Bush imposed Latortue, when Gerard Latortue didn't like a legal decision, he just fired the Supreme Court. We recall that under the puppet Preval, when that government didn't like it that a judge ordered the Fanmi Lavalas party to be included as a registered party in the elections, he just fired the judge. So who knows, the CEP may ignore the law and let Wyclef Jean run. Bush ignored the Haiti Constitution and ousted President Aristide, put in the UN/US occupation and the Obama Administration is continuing the illegal prohibition, forbids President Aristide and his family from returning home. There's no respect for the law in the Haiti that's presently being run by ex-President Clinton as UN Envoy and that's under US/UN control, so there's no standard, no justice, no peace for Haiti at the moment.
Our principled position at Ezili's HLLN remains that election under occupation are illegitimate. But, if the people of Haiti vote and that vote is in any way manipulated, diluted, stolen, managed, hi-jacked by the Haiti subcontractors or Internationals, HLLN shall be here to play the oversight role we did back in 2006 and support, with our advocacy and pen, whatever "Montana strategy" the people of Haiti take on to make sure their voices and vote count.
What we do know, for now, is that there are some advantages to this media coverage of Haiti, through this Wyclef Jean candidacy. It may not help Mr. Jean. But it is an OPPORTUNITY for those of us who care to bring the REAL Haiti narrative to the fore on this media frenzy. I hope Ezili Network folks will take this opportunity to write op eds and respond and comment to CNN, Larry King, New York Times, Hollywood reporter, et al... "
Blonde Truth of US Crisis Management - Another Hero Beyond Thunder Dome:
"LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Shhh, Bill Clinton was in town. And Sean Penn tagged along. But a loud silence surrounded the visit by former US President Clinton, who gave a “private” key-note speech (no journalists invited) to participants in what IMD business school labelled an “Inspire for Excellence” regional symposium. Bill Clinton gave his own "ONE Cent Award" to TWO Haitian entrepreneurs who reduced the cost of cooking from 20 cents a day to 4 cents a day, including the cost of paying more people to convert trash to biomass pellets than it takes to cut trees and make charcoal".
Hero Redefined Beyond US Capitol Dome's Thunder Drone
Unblonde Truth of US Imperial Colonialism - Not a Hero Beyond Thunder Done:
"TransAfrica's Randall Robinson, the same man whose hunger strike would force the then-President Bill Clinton to restore (Clinton-USMC-kidnapped) Jean-Bertrand Aristide to the Haitian presidency"
"USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives Closes in Haiti", September 2013.
"On January 8, 2013, Canada’s Minister of International Cooperation—and head of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)—blindsided Haiti, the United States, and the United Nations by announcing through the media that he would be freezing any further distributions of development aid. The announcement made just before the three year anniversary of the devastating January 12, 2010 earthquake..While Canada has never released an official document outlining the reasons why they changed distribution of aid to Haiti, using the common practices of CIDA as a guide, it is generally assumed that they have followed in the steps of the United States by circumventing the Haitian government via NGOs. The United States has openly acknowledged this policy—outlined in the Dole Amendment—which barred USAID from directly funding the needs or projects of the Haitian government..
Ironically, the United States aimed such harmful policies only at the Haitian government, which channeled a significant portion of funds towards instituting basic and accessible levels of public healthcare and education. For example, the Lavalas administrations of Aristide and Preval built more schools in Haiti between 1994–2000 than the whole prior period between 1804–1994 (Lavalas built 195 new primary schools and 104 new public high schools). With Aristide’s second election in 2000, the United States and Canada pressured the Inter-American Development Bank to block loans to fund Haiti’s water and sanitation programs claiming that the successful completion of the project would increase the popularity of the Lavalas movement. The importation of the cholera epidemic by the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti in October 2010 has only compounded these aid failures..
It is important to note that while the pre-earthquake economic circumvention of the government via NGOs played a vital part in the undermining of the Haitian reconstruction process, Canada and the United States have also lent political support and funds to the highly controversial elections in 2010 in which 14 political parties were banned from participating – including Lavalas. As a result, the government of President Michel Martelly and Prime Minister Laurent Lamonthe came to power via the lowest voter turnout for a Presidential election in the Western Hemisphere..
Such political manipulation is not new however, as during Aristide’s second term CIDA specifically channeled development aid to fund opposition groups such as the Group of 184 in order to destabilize the government. Prominent members of the Group of 184 were also linked to Canadian garment manufacturers Gildan, who operated sweatshops within Haiti. The opposition groups such as the National Coalition for Haitian Rights highlighted the human rights abuses alleged to have been committed by top Lavalas officials, in an effort to undermine international and regional support for Aristide. With the success of the coup in February 2004, the very same CIDA-funded groups reporting on the alleged abuses of Aristide fell totally silent when the illegal regime of Gerard Latortue was carrying out widespread human rights abuses in the streets of Port au Prince..
With this troubled past of political and economic intervention in Haiti in mind, CIDA’s hypocritical accusations of corruption and mismanagement should be less surprising. With Haiti currently one of Canada’s largest foreign aid concerns, it remains to be seen how the relationship in regards to the freezing of development aid could degrade any further. Haiti has not been receiving the money collected for reconstruction efforts, but has instead been left to deal with the blame and accusations of corruption."
One of Martelly’s campaign promises was to restore the Haitian Army, and now new Haitian troops are being trained by Ecuador and Brazil. In addition, well-armed former military and paramilitary personnel have occupied militia camps since early 2012, supported by Martelly..
6. Return of the Death Squads: Martelly has issued pink identity cards with a photo for $30 to selected supporters, promising many benefits to those who hold them, like jobs and impunity from prosecution. During the Duvalier period, every Tonton Macoute received a card that provided many privileges, like free merchandise from any store entered, entitlement to coerced sex, and fear and respect from people in general..
Senator John Joel Joseph has identified Senators that he claims are marked for assassination. He identified the people who have been paying the “hit squads” on behalf of Martelly. He denounced one of the men as an escaped criminal who had been caught red handed with a “near death” victim behind his vehicle. Said victim sent the police to a house where two more victims could be found. Senator Joseph identified the leader of the death squad and his vehicle, denouncing the group as the one which recently assassinated a grassroots militant. He accused the president and his wife of pressuring the chief of police to remove the senators’ security detail, in order to facilitate their assassinations. He denounced a previous instance when Martelly tried to pressure former police chief Mario Andresol to integrate a hit-man into the police, to assassinate Senator Moise Jean Charles..
7. Death of a Judge: Martelly set up his wife and son as head of governmental projects, but with no parliamentary oversight. A Haitian citizen, Enold Florestal, filed suit with attorney Andre Michel before Judge Jean Serge Joseph, maintaining that the Martellys were siphoning off large amounts of state monies, which the Haitian Senate has no jurisdiction over. Judge Joseph moved the case to the next judicial level, which required depositions from the Martellys and various governmental ministers. Enraged, Martelly and Prime Minister Lamothe called two meetings with the judge (which they deny took place) to demand he kill the case, the second on July 11. The judge drank a beverage offered him at that meeting..
On July 12 Judge Joseph became violently ill and died on July 13. Haitian police arrested Florestal on August 16 after viciously beating him, and Haitian authorities have issued a warrant for the arrest of Attorney Michel, who has gone into hiding. A commission of the Haitian Parliament is now calling for the impeachment of Martelly based on illegal meetings with the judge, interference in legal matters, and threats to those involved in the case..
Since then Enold Florestal and his brother, who’s completely uninvolved with the case, have been arrested and remain in jail."
September 2013, the Senate put forward a resolution to indict President Martelly, Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe, and the Minister of Justice Jean Renel Sanon for high treason, lying to the public, and playing a harmful role in the death of Judge Jean Serge Joseph. Most recently, on February 8, Daniel Dorsainvil, one of Haiti’s leading human rights activists and his wife Girldy Lareche were gunned down in Port au Prince. While conflicted motives for the shooting have emerged, Haiti’s human rights community fears that the murders were politically motivated. Dorsainvil was the Coordinator of the Platform for Haitian Organizations for the Defense of Human Rights (POHDH). POHDH was established after the coup d’état of Jean Bertrand Aristide in 1991. According to POHDH’s website, “The systematic suppression of the military against the democratic and popular movement, which followed this event, and the mass amount of human rights violations in general, was the motivation for social and community development organizations to regroup with the purpose of initiating actions specifically in the field of human rights.”
A civil engineer by training, Dorsainvil had been a tireless advocate for justice, routinely speaking out against the Martelly government for its disregard of human rights, political scandals, and the consistent delaying of elections. Dorsainvil’s latest initiative was the establishment of the Patriotic People's Democratic Movement (MPDP), a group of thirty political and social organizations openly standing in opposition to Martelly’s government. While this attack is tragic on its own, it comes after numerous threats against Haitian human rights defenders such as Patrice Florvilus, Mario Joseph, and André Michel.
Both Venezuela and Haiti have been facing anti-government protests, with the respective oppositions citing poor leadership, corruption, electoral fraud, and a deteriorating economy as their primary motivations in calling for change. However, the international media’s escalation of the Venezuelan crisis and their complete silence when it comes to Haiti, raises some important questions about the United States’ inconsistency in upholding the values of human rights and democracy.
Haiti has been enduring a political crisis since the highly controversial election of President Michel Martelly, who received his mandate from only 16.7 percent of registered voters, and has been running the country without a fully functioning government in order to avoid dealing with constitutionally mandated checks and balances. For the third year in a row, Martelly has promised to hold elections to fill legislative and local seats without yet following through.
As evidence of Martelly’s unbridled commitment to democracy, instead of holding elections for mayors whose terms expired in 2012, he personally handpicked the representatives, appointing them as “municipal agents.” As a result of Martelly’s political inaction on the national level, one third of the seats in the Haitian Senate remain empty. This congressional inability to establish quorum on issues of national importance has been particularly convenient for the President. In September 2013, the Senate put forward a resolution to indict President Martelly, Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe, and the Minister of Justice Jean Renel Sanon for high treason, lying to the public, and playing a harmful role in the death of Judge Jean Serge Joseph.
Earlier in 2013, Judge Joseph had been given the task of overseeing a high profile corruption investigation against President Michel Martelly’s wife Sophia and their son Olivier.
Salin Sukar, an attorney and Mr. Lamothe’s advisor has many roles, and one of them is that of a gunrunner. He is the person charged with purchasing illegal guns because of his established relationship with gun sellers in Israel, Russia and other places around the world. Early in 2013, Mr. Sukar travelled to Israel to broker a weapon deal knowing fully well that there is a gun embargo on Haiti since at least 2004, which is why the FBI and the US State Department are looking into the purchase.
Mr. Sukar placed the first gun order in April of 2013 for a total of 1,600 Galil’s with infrared silencers and 9,000 automatic 9-millimeter handguns. These guns were shipped via Canada in partial shipments to Haiti with no more than 200 guns per shipment. According to the chief of the Haitian Police, he is neither aware of any orders for guns nor has he asked for guns. The Haitian Senate and the Minister of Finance Wilson Lalleau had not approved any money for guns in the 2013-2014 government budget, which raises many questions: Where did Lamothe get the money to purchase these weapons? Why is Lamothe buying military grade weapons when Haiti has not had an army since 2004? The FBI and the US State Department are asking the same questions.
However, the Haitian media both in Haiti and overseas has yet to investigate these illegal acts. Our sources in the Haitian Senate have informed us that Senate President Simon Dieuseul Desras is considering an interpellation of Laurent Lamothe to explain these purchases. But more important than this is the overt silence of the Haitian media.
In most democratic countries, the media is considered the fourth power. In Haiti, everything is for sale including dignity, personality, and blood. According to our sources Mr. Lamothe has been paying between 4,000 and 12,000 US dollars a month to Haitian media in Haiti. With the exception of Haiti Obervateur and Tout-Haiti, most of the Haitian print media appear to have sold-out.
Kevin Edmonds is a freelance journalist and doctoral student in Political Science at the University of Toronto. He is one of the authors of the recently released report by a Harvard University based research group, on MINUSTAH in Haiti: Canada’s government to government assistance is extremely low and consisted primarily of the training of Haitian security forces and building prisons. It must also be noted that CIDA is no impartial actor in Haiti, as it played a major role in severely weakening Haiti’s government institutions by drastically reducing aid to the Aristide government, funding disinformation campaigns and channeling resources to anti-Aristide groups which eventually carried out the 2004 coup.
Aside from the less admirable legacy of the agency, the list of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) funded projects in Haiti is quite long. A deeper look at CIDA’s multi-million partner organizations going back to 2007 reveals that NGOs such as Oxfam Canada, CARE Canada, World Vision, Save the Children Canada and larger multinational organizations such as the World Food Program and the United Nations Development Program have received virtually all of the contracts, not the Haitian government as Fantino implies. As such they do not have control over any of the Canadian funding sent to Haiti, and one would think should not be on the hook for the failure of projects or the disappearance of the money. Yet this is not the case.
A March 2012 report from the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research established that a similar pattern of channeling reconstruction funds to Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and non-Haitian contractors has been followed by the United States. The report revealed that out of the nearly US$400 million spent by USAID in Haiti at the time of publication, only 0.02% of the procurement contracts went to Haitian firms. On the opposite side of the procurement spectrum, U.S. firms concentrated in the Washington DC, Virginia, and Maryland area were rewarded with an astounding 77.46% of the contracts.
The report went on to note how reconstruction contracts were drafted with loopholes such as an “indirect cost rate” which allows for the repatriation of funds. Such loopholes “allow a portion of all funds allocated to go towards costs not related to the actual program, in other words, back to their headquarters inside the Beltway. Both Chemonics [a construction contractor] and USAID declined to provide HRRW [Haiti Relief and Reconstruction Watch] with the Indirect Cost Rate stipulated in their contract.”
The Canadian accusations towards Haiti bring to mind the statements made by former Organisation of American States (OAS) Special Representative to Haiti, Ricardo Seitenfus, who bluntly remarked that “The charges of corruption are part of an ideological discussion. There is no corruption, there is the perception of corruption. Haiti has no way of being corrupt because the state has no resources. What can be questioned is how the resources that the NGOs collect, without accounting for them to anyone, are being administered. That is indeed the big question. I make an exception of the work that was done in the emergency, but there cannot be a permanent policy of substituting the NGOs for the state. Haiti is Haiti, it is not Haiti-NGO. No country would accept what the Haitians are forced to accept.”
"$2.4 billion in humanitarian funding, 34 percent was provided back to the donor's own civil and military entities for disaster response, 28 percent was given to UN agencies and non-governmental agencies (NGOs) for specific UN projects, 26 percent was given to private contractors and other NGOs, 6 percent was provided as in-kind services to recipients, 5 percent to the international and national Red Cross societies, 1 percent was provided to the government of Haiti, four tenths of one percent of the funds went to Haitian NGOs..The Center for Economic and Policy Research analyzed all the 1490 contracts awarded by the US government after the January 2010 earthquake until April 2011 and found only 23 contracts went to Haitian companies. Overall the US had awarded $194 million to contractors, $4.8 million to the 23 Haitian companies, about 2.5 percent of the total. On the other hand, contractors from the Washington DC area received $76 million or 39.4 percent of the total..$1.5 million dollar contract to the NY based consulting firm Dalberg Global Development Advisors. Dalberg's team, according to Glenn Smucker, an anthropologist specializing in Haiti charged with briefing the team, "had never lived overseas, didn't have any disaster experience or background in urban planning… never carried out any program activities on the ground…" and only one of them spoke French. Despite this, the group was assigned the task of doing an assessment of a specific land area where the US hoped to create new communities in an attempt to depopulate Port-au-Prince. USAID reviewed Dalberg's work and found that "it became clear that these people may not have even gotten out of their SUVs. Indeed one area Dalberg's team found habitable was a small mountain with an open-mined pit, a severe 100 foot vertical cliff and ravines."..grantees completed only 7,179 transitional shelters, 22 percent of their target number, and some of those shelters were substandard. USAID made 16 grants for shelter totaled $138 million and $37.8 million had been disbursed as of January 1, 2011. USAID issued grants were based on unsolicited non-competitive proposals and the largest were awarded to Catholic Relief Services, Cooperative Housing Foundation International and World Vision..(Haiti Action Net)" Corail-Celesse camp
Croix-des-Bouquets, Charlotin Marcadieu national school, which was destroyed in the 2010 earthquake and today functions in 14 tents arranged in three rows. “After 10 in the morning, these tent-rooms are like furnaces.” The teacher gives her and her classmates PAINKILLERS so that they can make it through the school day. "At noon, the class gets so hot, kids get HEADACHES," the 12-year-old said. As you can see, no one has placed a tent fly above the tent. A fly is a tarp that reflects heat and insures that rain will not even test the waterproofing of the main tent. A fly may also cover open windows, which may have mosquito and fly screen in the opening in the main tent wall, underneath the fly--fly covers open windows during rain for ventilation while it rains. There are other important issues with Pres. Martelly's universal free education--the constitution calls for that--but tent fly and vented double roof is what I know to keep inside temp from going above outdoor temp in tents and buildings.
Canaan - "Community members buy drinkable water from a water stand or a water truck that travels through Canaan daily. There is little opportunity in Canaan for work or resources of any kind. People must travel to buy food and supplies and to look for work. There is no shelter from the sun and the wind can be very powerful. The temperatures in the homes easily reach well over 100 degrees during the day"..then DOUBLE THE ROOF like a Tent Fly!!!..Ice House Roof..
Tent and Fly - Double Roof Keeps Heat AND MOSQUITOES Out
Ice House Roof and Wall Are DOUBLE Just Like A Tent And Fly
The teacher gives her and her classmates PAINKILLERS so that they can make it through the school day. "At noon, the class gets so hot, kids get HEADACHES," the 12-year-old said...
ToxicTrailers.org:We were alarmed by reports that the used Bush-Clinton FEMA Katrina trailers made in Bill Clinton's Arkansas would be sent to Haiti after the massive earthquake. Thankfully that didn't happen, but instead the manufacturer of the toxic Bush-Clinton FEMA Katrina trailers got the contract to build the same kind of crap for Haiti hurricane shelters that are being used as schools!
The reporters found very high formaldehyde levels in the classrooms and the sick teachers and children that would be expected from this exposure. The following quote reminded me so much of people in the Katrina FEMA trailers who moved out to live in sheds or tents because they were suffering so much from the formaldehyde exposure in the trailers:
Sitting in the sixth-grade classroom, student Mondialie Cineas, who dreams of becoming a nurse, said that three times a week the teacher gives her and her classmates painkillers so that they can make it through the school day. "At noon, the class gets so hot, kids get headaches," the 12-year-old said, wiping beads of sweat from her brow. She is worried because "the kids feel sick, can't work, can't advance to succeed."
Randy Maddalena, a scientist specializing in indoor pollutants at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, characterized the 250 parts per billion finding as "a very high level" of formaldehyde. Maddalena emphasized that Haiti's hot and humid climate could well be contributing to high emissions of the carcinogen in the classroom. Indeed, months before the launch of the Clinton trailer project, the nation's climate was widely cited as a key problem with a trailer industry proposal to ship FEMA trailers to Haiti for shelter after the earthquake. The proposal was ultimately rejected by FEMA, following a critical letter from Bennie Thompson, chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security, who argued, "This country's immediate response to help in this humanitarian crisis should not be blemished by later concerns over adverse health consequences precipitated by our efforts."
Judith Seide, a student in Lubert's sixth-grade class, explained to The Nation, she and her classmates regularly suffer from painful headaches in their new Clinton Foundation classroom. Every day, she said, her "head hurts and I feel it spinning and have to stop moving, otherwise I'd fall." Her vision goes dark, as is the case with her classmate Judel, who sometimes can't open his eyes.
Twenty imported prefab trailers are beset by a host of problems, from mold to sweltering heat to shoddy construction, and most disturbing, they were manufactured by the same company, Clayton Homes, that is being sued in the United States for providing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) with formaldehyde-laced trailers in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Clayton Homes is owned by Berkshire Hathaway, the holding company run by Warren Buffett, one of the "notable" private-sector members of the Clinton Global Initiative, according to the initiative's website. ("Members" are typically required to pay $20,000 a year to the charity, but foundation officials would not disclose whether Buffett had made such a donation.) Buffett was also a prominent Hillary Clinton supporter during the 2008 presidential race, and he co-hosted a fundraiser that brought in at least $1 million for her campaign.
Yet several months later, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported that Clayton Homes had been awarded a million-dollar contract to ship twenty trailers to Haiti, for use as classrooms for schoolchildren. The Clinton Foundation claims it went through a bidding process before awarding the contract to Clayton Homes, which was already embroiled in the FEMA trailer lawsuit. But despite repeated requests, the foundation has not provided The Nation with any documentation of this process.
US Capital One Dome
The teacher gives her and her classmates PAINKILLERS so that they can make it through the school day. "At noon, the class gets so hot, kids get HEADACHES," the 12-year-old said...
By mid-June, two of the four schools where the Clinton Foundation classrooms were installed had prematurely ended classes.
“Haiti needs to meet the challenge of constructing 500,000 new homes in order to meet the current and housing deficit between now and 2020,” according to the UCLBP’s new Policy of Housing and Urban Planning (PNLH), released in October.
Some 150,000 earthquake victims still live in about 300 camps and another 50,000 live in the new sprawling slums Canaan, Onaville and Jerusalem.
Half of the camps have no sanitation services and only eight percent are supplied with water, according to an October 2013 report from the UCLBP and the Camp Coordination and Camp Management (CCCM)/Shelter Cluster, part of the U.N.’s humanitarian presence in Haiti.
With the Lumane Casimir Village and the 400% and Chavez Houses projects, it appears that the government is no longer going to build social housing that is within reach of the majority of Haitians.
According to the World Bank, 80 percent of the population lives on less than two dollars per day. Even if a couple combines incomes, it would have only about 60 dollars a month. How could that family pay rent that runs from 39 dollars all the way up to 233 dollars per month?
Speaking at an event at the Lumane Casimir Village on Nov. 11, 2013, Lamothe affirmed his pride in the project, which he called “social housing.”
But, if the housing is not for the poor – such as, for example, the majority of the earthquake victims – and if, with monthly rents that reach 233 dollars, it is out of reach of 80 percent of the population, is it really correct to call it “social” or public housing?
Known as the 400% or “400 in 100” project because Martelly promised 400 homes in 100 days, the 30-million-dollar project funded by the Inter-American Development Bank was inaugurated on Feb. 27, 2012.
But not all of the new residents are earthquake victims. Many are public administration employees. Residents must pay a five-year mortgage.
The mortgages are between 39 and 46 dollars per month.
“The president did not give us a house. He is selling it to us. How can one find 1,500 gourdes (39 dollars) each month?” asked Yves Zéphyr, an unemployed father of two who has lived in the development since November 2012. One-half of 10 residents questioned said they are unemployed. When the project was launched, the government received financing to prepare the land, build the houses, and set up the electricity system, but not for affordable transportation to downtown Port au Prince.
Septic systems for some of the houses are causing problems. “They fill up in a quarter of an hour!” claimed André Paul, who has lived in “400%” since July 2013. “Some of them are completely blocked, others are just totally filled.”
The Expo was dreamed up a few months after the earthquake during a meeting at Clinton’s home in Chappaqua, NY, USA, according to architect Leslie Voltaire, one of its originators. 60 or so models eventually built have an average price tag of US$21,000 and range up to US $69,000, steep prices for humanitarian organizations, and in a country where more than two-thirds the population makes less than US$2 a day.
Soon after the Expo process was launched, an “Exemplar Community” board of directors was formed, with Voltaire, former Secretary of Tourism and now Royal Caribbean representative Maryse Pennette Kedar, industrialist Gregory Mevs and others. They were to work with Harvard and MIT, the IDB and others to plan and build a model community.
Professors and students took three consultation trips to Haiti that included a community meeting and various surveys. The professors and others also held a meeting on Martha’s Vineyard.
“We had a good retreat with the MIT and Harvard groups to discuss new community creation in Haiti. Somehow the location of Martha’s Vineyard was chosen, and many of houses are made with imported materials. None of the estimated 10 million cubic meters of earthquake rubble was used, the planner added, because of “earthquake material wasn’t ready or available. The zone is really low, so you have to fill in, at least one meter. And each cubic meters costs about, I think now its $25 US dollars,” Santos explained. The IDB offered to prepare the site, which ended up costing $1.2 million because it required a least a meter of gravel, according to IDB urban designer Arcindo Santos. By simply building it up with gravel, drainage remains difficult and “nothing will grow.” Because of the plain’s potential vulnerability to rain and eventual sea flooding, report authors write, “the next catastrophe is programmed.”
IDB’s Arcindo Santos, McAslan’s Nick Rutherford, Harvard’s Werthmann and former Minister Patrick Delatour – call the Expo “significant,” “a good idea” and “a success.” And for each of them, it was. Each person and agency accomplished his piece of the project, attending conferences, writing reports, inaugurating events. And most of them, and their employees, got paid. But nobody carried the projects forward nor does anyone seem to be bothered with them today. Rather than housing earthquake victim families as the government promised, the model homes are empty.
One home appears to have a resident – an employee of Haitian firm Bureaucad S.A., one of the exhibitors. The man, who asked not to be identified, said his company had built the model – which is priced at US $12 500 – “because they thought the country was going to be reconstructed. Since that hasn’t happened yet,” he has been allowed to live there with his wife, son and a servant.
In Morne Cabrit, Constructora Hadom, a Dominican construction company, which designed and built sitecast reinforced-concrete construction prototypes at the 2011 ‘Building Back Better Communities’ Expo at Zoranje, received a contract from the Government of Haiti for a new -1,000-unit development and swiftly set up a neighboring concrete plant and imported all materials and labor.
Clintons and Martelly fronted for a project to build 3000 houses. That whole development, 3000 very nice houses built by Venezuelan funding for a DR'n construction company, ended up in the hands of Lavalas squatters! Martelly had made it clear that the project was for card-carrying yale tet kale makouts, but then CIA Duvalierists embezzled Venezuela's funding so that electrical and sewer utilities were never built. Clintons-Martelly delight in looting every cash cow, so when they simply as usual abandonned Morne a Cabrit, the Lavalas squatters took over. "Built on a hill far from Port au Prince most of the 3,000 homes built at Morne a Cabrit with Venezuelan funding remain unoccupied today(2019 but Lavalas does occupy Morne a Cabrit)." Keyword Venezuela! The US sabotages anything Venezuela, CIA Duvalierists and Clintons stealing $4-6 billion dollars in Venezuelan funding earmarked for the Haitian people.
Early in the morning on 9/11, a small group of top financial CEO's with offices in the WTC, were flown to the nerve center of U.S. air defenses, Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, Nebraska, for a "Charity Classic" golf event (fund raiser benefit for youth groups). Warren Buffett hosted this event. Warren Buffett was born in Omaha, Nebraska. He is known as one of the wealthiest men in the United States, with a fortune that is reported to be approximately $36 billion. He is also known to be a miser. He wants 99% of his wealth to go to the Buffett Foundation, which mostly serves family planning clinics.
Buffett-Bush-Clinton-FEMA-911-Katrina-Haiti Family Planning:
"some of the 33 kidnapped Haitian children have live parents"--
While our nation was in shock and turmoil, then-President George W Bush was being flown hither and yon, with Offutt Air Force Base as one of his stops.
John DeCamp asked his friend Bill Colby, "What do Ronald Reagan, President George Bush (Sr.), former CIA Director William E. Colby, Democratic presidential candidate Bob Kerrey, billionaire and second richest man in America and now head of Salomon Brothers - Warren Buffett, and Ronald Roskens, the current administrator of USAID, all have in common?" Colby replied, "I give up, what could that group have in common?" DeCamp answered, "Three things, all of them a burden at times for those who have to carry them. The three things are me (John DeCamp), a case called Franklin, and a man named Larry King."
Lawrence E. (Larry) King was the manager of Franklin Community Federal Credit Union, when it was raided by federal agencies and shut down. Nearly $40 million was missing from the coffers of the credit union, as the financial scandal turned into something more. It became known children from Omaha and its surroundings said they had been flown from city to city to be abused at parties held by Franklin's officers, well-known Nebraskans, and Republican activists.
The FRANKLIN SCANDAL, A Story of Powerbrokers, Child Abuse & Betrayal, a book published by Trineday, includes a images I took for publisher Kris Millegan.
Alex Jones discussing the above (graphic) subject with John DeCamp can be heard at thedossier.ukonline.co.uk.
CIA/FBI pedophile blackmail videos, Seattle APEC, "underage boys provided as prostitutes to visiting dignitaries attending the weeklong November conference of 15 Asia-Pacific nations", Bangkok APEC, "Thai security at the empty orphanage explained to a teacher that the children had been removed for President Bush, for security at the Bangkok APEC conference, and to express gratitude to Thai soldiers serving with US troops in the mideast".
Jorge Torres-Puello, a man who provided legal advice to the 10 American Baptists accused of kidnapping 33 Haitian children after the earthquake there was arrested Thursday night in the Dominican Republic for human trafficking, the country's anti-narcotics agency said Friday.
The man, identified as Jorge Torres-Puello, is linked to a network that trafficked in Haitian and Central American children and is wanted in the United States, El Salvador and Costa Rica, the National Drug Control Agency said in a news release.
Torres-Puello had been hiding in the Dominican Republic after he was accused of using the country to take 33 Haitian children to North America.
Ten Baptists from the Idaho-based charity New Life Children’s Refuge could be prosecuted in America for child trafficking. Haitian Prime Minister Max Bellerive said his country is open to having the Americans face US justice, since most government buildings - including Haiti's courts - were crippled by the monster earthquake. 'It is clear now that they were trying to cross the border without papers. It is clear now that some of the children have live parents,' Bellerive said. 'And it is clear now that they knew what they were doing was wrong.'
Haitian investigating judge Bernard Sainvil said he would need to check whether there was any prior connection between Dominican Republic national Jorge Torres-Puello and Laura Silsby, the leader of the U.S. group that said it had plans to shelter the Haitian children in an orphanage it was establishing in Dominican Republic(?!).
The missionaries have been in jail since they were arrested on January 29 trying to take the 33 children across the border to the Dominican Republic 17 days after the magnitude 7 earthquake that killed at least 212,000 people in Haiti.
Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) -- The group of American missionaries in Haiti facing kidnapping charges for trying to take 33 children out of the country last week made an earlier, unsuccessful attempt at taking dozens of other children, a Haitian police officer said Monday. He had stopped the 10 Baptist missionaries, including group leader Laura Silsby, on January 26 as they tried to transport 40 children on a bus from Haiti to the Dominican Republic.
The officer said he discovered Silsby and the nine other Americans on a bus in the Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Petionville in the early afternoon of January 26 after receiving a tip from a concerned citizen.
He stopped the group and ordered the children to get off the bus. He then directed Silsby to the Dominican embassy.
"I said what happened, and she (Silsby) told me, 'I have the paperwork to cross the Haitian Dominican border with 100 children,' " the officer said.
According to Atty. Ezili Dantò, Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network, the network is dealing with 16 similar cases and she believes the issue of child molestation in Africa and Haiti is pandemic. Recently, 110 UN peacekeepers were deported out of Haiti for starting a brothel and funneling children in and out of their tanks for sex, she said, adding that much of these activities occur under the cultural narrative that White American and foreign charitable workers like Mr. Perlitz are superior to the Haitian people so whatever they do is more important than what Haitians are doing.
“He hid behind this religious persona and I thought it was critically important that I unveiled that religious persona because that persona is hiding a lot of mess in Haiti right now. I call it false benevolence, this idea that there are 16,000 NGO's in Haiti, and Haitians are dying,” Attorney Dantò said.
“There are 16,000 charitable organizations and they're all raking in the dollars to pay for their lifestyle on an island with maids, butlers and nice seafood to eat. They are living off in the hills and people are dying on the streets. They've collected almost $2 billion off our name and most of it is earning interest in charitable organization executives' bank accounts,” Attorney Dantò said.
Number of people killed in the earthquake in 2010: over 217,300
Number of people killed by cholera epidemic caused by U.N. troops since October 19, 2010: over 7,912
Number of cholera cases worldwide in 2010 and 2011: 906,632
Percent of worldwide cholera cases that were in Haiti in those years: 57%
Total number of cholera cases in Haiti from 2010-2012: 635,980
Days Since Cholera Was Introduced in Haiti Without an Apology From the U.N.: 813
Percent of the population that lacks access to "improved" drinking water: 42%
Funding needed for U.N./CDC/Haitian government 10-year cholera eradication plan: $2.2 billion
Percent of $2.2 billion which the U.N. pledged to provide: 1%
Percent of $2.2 billion that the U.N. has spent on MINUSTAH(UN cholera troops) since the earthquake: 87%
Amount disbursed by bilateral and multilateral donors to Haiti from 2010-2012: $6.43 billion
Percent that went through the Haitian government: 9%
Amount the Haitian government has received in budget support over this time: $302.69 million
Amount the American Red Cross raised for Haiti: $486 million
Amount of budget support to the Haitian government in 2009, the year before the earthquake: $93.60 million
Amount of budget support to the Haitian government in 2011, the year after the earthquake: $67.93 million
Number of dollars, out of every $100 spent in humanitarian relief, that went to the Haitian government: $1
Value of all contracts awarded by USAID since the earthquake: $485.5 million
Percent of contracts that has gone to local Haitian firms: 1.2%
Percent of contracts that has gone to firms inside the beltway (DC, Maryland, Virginia): 67.6%
Number of people displaced from their homes by the earthquake: 1.5 million
Number of people still in displaced persons camps today: 358,000
Percent that have left camps due to relocation programs by the Haitian government and international agencies: 25%
Share of camp residents facing a constant threat of forced eviction: 1 in 5
Number of transitional shelters built by aid agencies since the earthquake: 110,964
Percent of transitional shelters that went to camp residents: 23%
Number of new houses constructed since the earthquake: 5,911
Number of houses marked “red”, meaning they were in need of demolition: 100,178
Number of houses marked “yellow”, meaning they were in need of repairs to make safe enough to live in: 146,004
Estimated number of people living in houses marked either “yellow” or “red”: 1 million
Number of houses that have actually been repaired: 18,725
Percent growth of the Haitian economy (GDP) in 2012, predicted by the IMF in April 2011: 8.8%
Actual percent growth of the Haitian economy (GDP) in 2012: 2.5%
U.N. Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) funding appeal for 2013: $144 million
Percent of last year’s OCHA appeal that was actually funded: 40%
Funding committed by the U.S. Government for the Caracol industrial park: $124 million
Share of U.S. funds earmarked for “reconstruction” that this represents: 1/4th
Cost of building 750 houses near the Caracol park for workers: $20 million
Cost of building 86-100 houses for U.S. Embassy staff: $85 - 100 million
Share of garment factories in Haiti found to be out of compliance with minimum wage requirements: 21 of 22
Number of garment factories that have lost preferential tariff benefits to the U.S. because of labor violations: 0
Cookstoves kill more women and children in Africa than MALARIA!!! Stoves are the fourth killer of poor people in the developing world. "Each year in the developing world the smoke from indoor fires, used for cooking, kills more people than malaria. Almost 2 million lives lost" per year!
Supermodel Gisele Bunchen for UN:
Two million lives of women and children, not soldiers, lost per year, while silence surrounds, no journalists are allowed to hear, one cent awarded to two black guys(inventors), two guys one cent is CHAINS, two black guys chained, two million women and children per year one cent, when Bill Clinton as UN special ambassador to Haiti presides over hundreds of millions of dollars, and cents, per YEAR, so who owns Bill, and why do we need another 007 James Bond hero? Bill the Hero handles the top secret stuff, THE UNBLONDE TRUTH, like suppressing inventions and selling two million women and children for one cent at his secret auction, which costs hundreds of million dollars a year. Then we need Blonde Truth, not SUPPRESSED INVENTIONS secretly purchased for One Cent by Bill 007 Clinton. Blonde Truth is that trees are endangered in Haiti, so Haitians need more USMC invasions, more kidnappings of heads of state, to save the trees, not people. All Haitians would need then is Another Tress Passer with more Blonde Truth tickling elite liberal white ears about someday by and by saving trees from Haitians in Haiti.
Another Tress Passer (blonde):
Another Hero, Trespassing beyond ThunderDone:
Number of people killed by cholera epidemic caused by U.N. troops since October 19, 2010: over 7,912
Number of cholera cases worldwide in 2010 and 2011: 906,632
Percent of worldwide cholera cases that were in Haiti in those years: 57%
Total number of cholera cases in Haiti from 2010-2012: 635,980
Days Since Cholera Was Introduced in Haiti Without an Apology From the U.N.: 813
Percent of the population that lacks access to "improved" drinking water: 42%
Funding needed for U.N./CDC/Haitian government 10-year cholera eradication plan: $2.2 billion
Percent of $2.2 billion which the U.N. pledged to provide: 1%
Percent of $2.2 billion that the U.N. has spent on MINUSTAH(UN cholera troops) since the earthquake: 87%
More blonde truth, erosion, saving the trees in Haiti would stop erosion. Avatar movie, blonde truth, what would the indigenous people in Haiti know to do with trees, much less oil or gold, which we can leave out of blonde truth for now. The blonde truth is, that Haitian indigenous people would never have the sense to trade trees(oil, gold, inventors, women, children) for carbon credits. Maybe we need Bill to say no, in secret, while we are entertained by Another Tress Passer whispering sweet nothing i.e. Blonde Truth, feel good and watered down, just like our food?
Feel good and watered down, William the Wonkeror does Blonde Truth for Crisis Management. Why did Bill Clinton and the Bush family's fund leave Haiti with the money? Sean Penn's org does a legit full turn, temp housing to rebuilding, unlike Bush FEMA Katrina or Clinton-Bush Haiti. William the Wonkeror projects a feel good crusaderism, just the ism, along with a watered down junk food and only the USMC/NATO/UN conquerors get a full paycheck.
That would be Crisis Management. Blonde Truth is crisis management. Now we know who owns Bill. Those who are using every form of Crisis Management, are engaged in the laundering from Fed to Well Fed. See how producers clothed Tina Turner in chain mail of crusaderists? Crisis management takes our number one priority in devotion for supposedly protecting us, protecting trees in Haiti from primitive charcoalers. Selfless Marines risk life and limb for mere trees, invading Haiti to kidnap primitive shaman presidents elected by mere voodoo of voting and midnight political parties. Then blonde truth and selfless crusaderists could save us from terrorists, drugs, cancer, and go above and beyond to Get Kony 2012, beyond mere voting for lifetime dictator Museveni in Uganda, Get Kony, why should supermen merely vote for Museveni? Voters would not be paid. Supermen are paid, to maintain Museveni as lifetime dictator, but not even to Get Kony, since that are being paid for doing nothing, nothing but puppeteering.
Plodding toward efficiency in the quest for unsupressed invention, "open source" like the Linux operating system, I achieved legit blue flame status like Linus Torvalds hacking unix away from all templar occulting fascists, using nothing but vegetable and soup cans, wood chips not biomass pellets or recycled petrochemical briquettes, and without resorting to using a fan. The elusive blue flame achievement:
Canned Heat, Let's Work Together:
Wood or biomass gasifier stoves make tree cutting and charcoal making seem expensive, and create new jobs to replace wood cutting and charcoal making and distribution.
Haiti is down to about one percent of its former forest area, and erosion is taking an extreme toll where no trees remain to hold soil by their root systems.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Shhh, Bill Clinton was in town. And Sean Penn tagged along. But a loud silence surrounded the visit by former US President Clinton, who gave a “private” key-note speech (no journalists invited) to participants in what IMD business school labelled an “Inspire for Excellence” regional symposium. Bill Clinton gave his own "ONE Cent Award" to TWO Haitian entrepreneurs who reduced the cost of cooking from 20 cents a day to 4 cents a day, including the cost of paying more people to convert trash to biomass pellets than it takes to cut trees and make charcoal:
Haiti recycled fuel award secretly presented by Bill Clinton:
MINUSTAH is not truly a “peacekeeping” force, as there is no armed conflict in Haiti, however, Canada wouldn’t be the first country to use MINUSTAH for diplomatic or political reasons as opposed to legitimate security concerns. In fact, as we have previously noted, diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks show the motives behind Brazil taking the lead for MINUSTAH were largely political. One such cable, from March 2008 asserts:
Brazil has stayed the course as leader of MINUSTAH in Haiti despite a lack of domestic support for the PKO [peacekeeping operation]. The MRE [Ministry of External Relations] has remained committed to the initiative because it believes that the operation serves [Foreign Minister Celso] Amorim's obsessive international goal of qualifying Brazil for a seat on the UN Security Council.
The International Finance Corporation (IFC), the investment wing of the World Bank, has invested in Eurasian Minerals, partner to Newmont Mining in Haiti. As of the end of 2012, the IFC owns 7.1% of Eurasian Minerals stock (see Eurasian Minerals, Corporate Overview, March 2013). Meanwhile the World Bank intends to help Haiti rewrite its Mining Law.
Kambale Musavuli, of Congo, on a speaking panel at Brecht Forum with Ezili Danto of Haiti Lawyers Leadership Network, said that World Bank rewrote mining laws in Congo, as it did in Haiti, and, also as in Haiti, at the same time had the same conflict of interest by its investment wing, IFC, having an equity interest in a large mining concern in Congo.
Is there something wrong with this picture? This is most certainly conflict of interest and outrageously so.
While giving lip-service to having other priorities, the IFC’s major concern appears return on investment. Thus, what favors Eurasian Minerals-Newmont, favors the IFC. In short, it is essentially letting a mining company help rewrite the mining law. In fact, one can suspect that they have let Newmont and others help them write policy and laws. The IFC seems very warm and snuggly with Newmont, and the closeness between Newmont and Eurasian must certainly have been instrumental in their decision to invest. The decision was made prior to the earthquake. Newmont owns 6.3% of Eurasian Minerals and Eurasian CEO, Dave Cole, worked for Newmont, prior to Eurasian, and was part of the Newmont exploration team for the notorious Yanacocha mine in Peru.
Wikileaks made the relevant “cablegate” documents available in October 2008. Then-Ambassador to Haiti Janet Sanderson wrote that MINUSTAH was “an indispensable tool in realizing core USG policy interests in Haiti.” Sanderson noted that an early departure of MINUSTAH could lead to “resurgent populist and anti-market economy political forces.” Sanderson continues:
"In the current context of our military commitments elsewhere, the U.S. alone could not replace this mission. This regionally-coordinated Latin American commitment to Haiti would not be possible without the UN umbrella…Without a UN-sanctioned peacekeeping and stabilization force, we would be getting far less help from our hemispheric and European partners in.."
Managing Haiti.
Further, the leadership role of Latin American countries helped further the U.S. goal of isolating Venezuela and Hugo Chávez, as a cable from June 2007 explains:
"An increasingly unifying theme that completely excludes Chavez, and isolates Venezuela among the militaries and security forces of the region, is participation in international and regional peacekeeping operations."
But for Canada – at least according to MacKay, “Soldiers are good diplomats.” He reportedly went on to add: “They’re great representatives of our country. They bring with them significant experience and in many cases . . . the mission-specific training that they go through makes them wonderful representatives of our country.” Training: JIA flag shown below from IACD-CIAD Fort McNair in DC.
But many of the international soldiers who have taken part in MINUSTAH have been anything but “good diplomats.” As we have detailed in the past, some troops have assisted police in deadly raids in slums that resulted in innocent people (including children) killed, are accused of lynching a boy for stealing, have violently attacked demonstrators, have impregnated minors, many Haitians have accused them of stealing livestock and other possessions, and they have raped women, children, and young men, among other crimes. These are all reasons why calls for MINUSTAH’s withdrawal from Haiti are getting louder. On June 1, marking nine years of MINUSTAH’s presence in Haiti, civil society groups from all over the world and including many in Haiti issued a statement demanding the mission’s withdrawal, noting that:
"...Junta Inter Americana, Fecha Conmemorativa, 27 Feb 2014, Día de la Independencia de República Dominicana"
"MINUSTAH has failed miserably to achieve the goals set out by the United Nations Security Council, the only objective accomplished being the military occupation of the country on behalf of interests that are not those of the Haitian people."
March 12, 2010 President Paul Kagame’s Rwanda is the Pentagon’s proxy, 140 Rwandan police..heading to Haiti.
A Haitian proverb, “Kaka poul pa zé,” translates to “Chickenshit ain’t eggs” or, put more politely, “What issues from a chicken is not always an egg.” International aid began to arrive in Haiti with the 1972 inauguration of Jean-Claude Duvalier as president, one year after the death of his father Francois Duvalier. The aid came from the U.S. government (USAID), the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, and it required that Haiti’s economy be changed from a sustainable domestically-oriented economy into an export-led economy – to benefit the U.S. The motivations for foreign aid to Haiti remain the same today.
The aid agencies provided funds to wealthy Haitian landowners on condition that they switch large tracts of Haitian land from production of foods for the domestic market to the production of fruits and vegetables for the U.S. market. Because the U.S. market was nearby, the foods could be sold fresh there while in season; alternatively, they would be processed for export. Based on growth of GDP, the aid policies would look like a roaring success.
The expected consequences for Haitians are elaborated in numerous USAID and World Bank reports. Briefly, famine would ensue for Haitian peasant farmers and they would be displaced in huge numbers from the rural areas to the urban centers.
When the rate of urbanization proved slower than predicted, the Haitian creole pig was wiped out as part of a $23 million eradication and restocking program. This was the first major blow to the peasant subsistence economy, for which this pig had traditionally served as a savings account.
Another blow came with flooding of the Haitian market with cheap Arkansas rice during the Clinton years.
Yet a more recent blow came with the U.N.-introduced cholera epidemic that caused a large migration from the most fertile region of the country – the Artibonite river valley. Currently, less than 40 percent of the food for Haitian consumption is produced locally; as recently as 1986, this was 80 percent.
Since the late 1980s, Haiti has known real hunger. Garment-factory wages have hardly budged from 14 cents per hour. Corporations and their owners have paid no taxes.
US Government-Steered ‘non-governmental organizations’
The advent of NGOs in Haiti began with a large influx of funds to subvert the democratic process between the expulsion of Jean-Claude Duvalier in 1986 and the election of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1990. During this period, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) funneled over $2.3 million into Haiti. According to USAID’s own estimates, by 1988 U.S. funds reached at least one third of the 1,200 or so NGOs in the country. The current number of NGOs has grown to 16,000 – one NGO per 560 Haitians.
As the association between USAID and the NGOs has solidified, the hunger has intensified. Since 1990, for example, those U.S. NGOs that accept aid from USAID have been allowed to cover their expenses by selling non-emergency food aid in Haiti’s markets, in a policy called “monetization.” ((“Sak Vid Pa Kanpe: The Impact of U.S. Food Aid on Human Rights in Haiti,” New York School of Law Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, Partners in Health, RFK Center for Justice & Human Rights, Zanmi Lasante, 2010. By 2010, Haiti’s domestic food production had plummeted to a mere 40 percent, and Port-au-Prince’s population had tripled to over 2 million from its 1981 number of about 800,000.)) The food is generally of poor quality and foreign to Haitians. For example, this has included unfortified Arkansas rice that caused scurvy in prisoners.
If Haiti has become poor, let us be clear on the fact that it was not always so.
Long ago USAID predicted that, if successful, its aid policies would cause famished farmers to migrate from the Haitian countryside into urban areas, and this would in turn cause the population of Port-au-Prince to double to 1.6 million by the 21st century.
The population swelled as predicted.
Yes, the earthquake has hurt Haiti, but capitalism has hurt it more.
October 29, 2009, an Environment Ministry study in Baoruco and Independencia provinces in the Dominican Republic identified 23 communities where 200 people make 37,000 sacks of charcoal per month, a clandestine market worth RD$89.2 million (US$2.5 million) yearly. The Cross-border Environmental Program report presented last month found a charcoal-marketing network concentrated in 19 villages of the region. “All production is finally gathered in Tierra Nueva, Boca de Cachón and Puerto Escondido from where it takes the trails and routes towards Haiti, crossing mainly through lake Azuéi.” It details a simple yet effective chain to make, traffic and illegally market charcoal in Haiti and notes that the 200 producers are mostly of Haitian origin, helped by 12 Dominican truck drivers, to produce every month around 37,000 sacks, sold to less than five Haitian retailers, who gather on the west side of the lake, for subsequent transport and sale in Port au Prince.
It’s been almost a decade since cane workers stopped roaming the batey of Sabana Grande de Boyá, Dominican Republic. The mill, Río Haina, that fed off those plantations had been the largest sugar plant in the world since it opened in 1950. It was closed to a private company and then it was shut down. Where there was sugarcane now there are trees for wood production. More than half of the 12 sugar plants in the country working under the State Sugar Council since the death of dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo in 1961 met with the same fate: they were sold between 1966 and 1998 and then closed years later.
Only five of those mills are still in business. Barahona is in the hands of Consorcio Azucarero Central in which the major shareholders are American and French. The mills Cristóbal Colón y CAEI (formerly known as Ingenio Italia) is the property of the Vicini family. Romana operates with a mix of foreign and national investment and Porvenir was renovated by a Spanish firm.
Haitian hands continue to supply labor for these plants. Laborers earn 200 pesos (less than 4,50 dollars) per ton of sugarcane cut down.
The Dominican sugar industry is no longer thriving. The
Brazilian
(..."Brazil has stayed the course as leader of MINUSTAH in Haiti despite a lack of domestic support") producers have taken over 65 percent of the market. Still, the Haitian laborers keep coming to look for work on rice, banana and coffee plantations. The local producers that export some of these crops to Europe under the Economic Partnership Agreements have to respect labor laws and basic rights of migrant workers. But a large sector of the Dominican industry resorts to illegal trafficking of persons to use as muscle in factories, construction and retail.
Haitian migrants are not only found in the old mills. Many live in the poor urban neighborhoods throughout the country. Some bateys, like Verde, have deteriorated into shantytowns where the majority of its aging residents are unemployed. "The time of the batey is over, said Luis María Cabrera, a "pure bred" Dominican who chopped sugarcane for Río Hana since 1950. The batey won’t come back. Since there is no more sugarcane we are like the living dead here."
At 76 years old, Cabrera receives a pension of 5,180 pesos or 120 dollars for services to the State and, even though the money is not enough, he advocates for the same for his Haitian counterparts who have been dying off without ever getting paid.
October 29, 2009, an Environment Ministry study in Baoruco and Independencia provinces in the Dominican Republic identified 23 communities where 200 people make 37,000 sacks of charcoal per month, a clandestine market worth RD$89.2 million (US$2.5 million) yearly. The Cross-border Environmental Program report presented last month found a charcoal-marketing network concentrated in 19 villages of the region. “All production is finally gathered in Tierra Nueva, Boca de Cachón and Puerto Escondido from where it takes the trails and routes towards Haiti...
12 January 2010 to 24 January, Haiti earthquake was a catastrophic magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake, with an epicenter near the town of Léogâne (Ouest Department), approximately 25 kilometres (16 mi) west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital. An estimated three million people were affected by the quake. Death toll estimates range from 100,000 to 159,000 to Haitian government figures from 220,000 to 316,000.
20 September 2010 CharcoalProject: On Tuesday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to announce a significant commitment to a group working to address the problem, with a goal of providing 100 million clean-burning stoves to villages in Africa, Asia and South America by 2020. The United States is providing about $50 million in seed money over five years for the project, known as the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves. More than a dozen other partners, including governments, multilateral organizations and corporate sponsors, are to contribute an additional $10 million or more. Mrs. Clinton called the problem of indoor pollution from primitive cookstoves a “cross-cutting issue” that affects health, the environment and women’s status in much of the world. “That’s what makes it such a good subject for a coordinated approach of governments, aid organizations and the private sector,” she said in a telephone interview on Monday. She acknowledged that the American government’s contribution of $50 million was a modest commitment for a problem with enormous implications for billions of people worldwide.
20 May 2012, LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Shhh, Bill Clinton was in town. And Sean Penn tagged along. But a loud silence surrounded the visit by former US President Clinton, who gave a “private” key-note speech (no journalists invited) to participants in what IMD business school labelled an “Inspire for Excellence” regional symposium. Bill Clinton gave his own "ONE Cent Award" to TWO Haitian entrepreneurs who reduced the cost of cooking from 20 cents a day to 4 cents a day, including the cost of paying more people to convert trash to biomass pellets than it takes to cut trees and make charcoal.
Quandl.com (UN) Charcoal consumption per household, Haiti has one half the charcoal consumption per household of Dominican Republic or Jamaica, one tenth that of Tunisia, and one hundredth that of Ugandan households. Haitians consume half the charcoal of Dominicans and Jamaicans!
4 June 2013, Santo Domingo.- Environment minister Bautista Rojas on Tuesday warned “powerful Dominicans” who contract Haitians to farm and make charcoal at Sierra de Bahoruco National Park to leave “in a nice manner,” and revealed that the forest rangers already have had to demolish 50 houses built to house traffickers.
“There are people who came from Constanza and San Jose de Ocoa to plant potatoes, after devastating there, now they come to the National Park,” he said.
“The authorities are behind the charcoal smuggling, everybody is involved in that traffic,” Rojas said.
Speaking in Hoy Mismo Channel 9, the official said the Sierra de Bahoruco National Park and the high and middle basins of the San Juan river will be totally recovered during Danilo Medina’s administration.
He said during the next four years “our goal is to stabilize the Yuna, San Juan River basins, in addition to consolidating the payment for environmental services,” in which subsistence farmers will be paid the minimum wage to help protect the forests, and noted that instead of vehicles, the programs will use mules.
He said those farmers will make RD$6,000 monthly as part of the crews to protect the forests.
He said the Environmental Police has orders not to arrest the little fish, “but to nab the owners of the trucks which transport the charcoal.”
Ezili Danto, "Recall, that" --
Danto saying: Bill Clinton’s chief of staff, Gary Conille, who does not meet the Constitutional requirements to be Haitian prime minister, is proposed and ratified as prime minister. As Conille becomes Prime Minister, Clinton gains a hand-picked Clinton chief of staff as his co-chair at the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC). The Haiti Parliament ruling that Gary Conille meets the residency requirements is clearly nonsensical and unconstitutional. If Raymond Joseph, a HAITI ambassador for more than five years under Latortue and Preval, did not meet the 5-year residency requirement to run for president in Haiti in 2006, why would an employee of the UN have more rights than a Haiti ambassador (defacto though he was) and be afforded residency in Haiti as a UN employee? This not only shows the mockery the number one superpower in the world makes of international and national laws but illustrates the power and strong arm of Bill and Hillary Clinton in Haiti as implementer of US neoliberal plan and colonial policies. It’s merely the continued consolidation of the return of the Washington chimeres and Duvalierists to Haiti, exclusion of the masses, denial of democracy masked behind walls of disinformation and untruths. Haiti and Haiti’s reconstruction is certainly not Haiti-led as trumpeted by the US State Department fact sheet on the Clinton-led IHRC.
In 2004, the Bush Administration used Kofi Annan/UN, Condi Rice and Colin Powell to peddle the US fake benevolence and “democracy” masking their re-colonization of Haiti. Now it’s the surrogate “Black” president, Bill Clinton, who fulfills for Obama, the role Condi Rice and Colin Powell fulfilled in Haiti for the Bush Administration. The US forced Haiti into the UN proxy occupation of today through de-legitimizing the electoral process (in 1991 and in 2000 during the Aristide terms) when the vote brought to power the Haitian people’s choice, not the US/World Bank/IMF choices.
Since the 2004 Bush regime change in Haiti, US large footprint in “poor?” Haiti keeps increasing. US Embassy in Haiti is the fifth largest US Embassy compound in the world, after Iraq, Afghanistan, China and Germany.
The US, France and its allies, used their power to delegitimize or legitimize, at will, the electoral process in Haiti. With this power the US implemented their own macabre Wall Street interests against the human needs of the people of Haiti. Since the fall of the US-supported Duvalier dictatorship in 1986, the profit-over-people Internationals, led by the US, have systematically prevented grassroots democracy – the one-person-one-vote principle - from taking root in Haiti.
The US and so-called International Community have not only created chaos, famine, insecurity, poverty and instability in Haiti through delegitimizing the electoral process but by funding NGOs instead of the Haiti government, by relentlessly pushing unfair trade, World Bank structural adjustment, export economy (sweatshops) ideologies, forced privatization of State assets, reduction of import tariffs and through forcing the democratically elected government to pay down illegitimate Duvalier dictatorship loans instead of investing these millions in Haiti’s domestic health care, infrastructure, clean water and sanitation, agriculture/food sovereignty, housing, education and job creation.
But most notably, the US and to a lesser extent France and Canada helped destabilized, deprive, divide and take down Haiti’s fledging process towards inclusion, economic development and democracy in 2004 through a massive propaganda war and vilification of the Lavalas Democratic Movement and by destabilizing and dividing Haiti’s people through granting US visas, jobs, heavily funding – [ through the National Endowment for Democracy (funded by the State Department) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) ] – their lackeys, the anti-democratic forces, especially Duvalierist and their NGOs in opposition to the duly elected government supported through so-called “democracy enhancement” projects and humanitarian aid. It is well documented, that the Western policymakers abhor when the people of Haiti rule themselves and planned the ouster of Haiti’s chosen popular leader (The Ottawa Initiative; Richard Morse said “It was a coup, I participated! I went to meetings in Washington” -; UN/MINUSTAH replaced the bloody Haitian army , says Richard Morse of the Oloffson Hotel, Haiti ; Matters for an International Tribunal to Investigate...; See also sidebar links and Notes 1-8, below.)
Further Recall, that...(click)
"The World Food Programme (WFP) rang in December and said they wouldn't be buying anything from us for four years because they had a corn-soy blend from USAid – for free. That was half of our annual income gone. We nearly closed in June," says American paediatrician Patricia Wolff who founded MFK 10 years ago to make a local malnourishment product that would feed children, as well as benefit farmers.
Medika mamba is a local product, manufactured by the non-profit Meds & Food for Kids (MFK) to standards approved by the World Health Organisation and the UN children's agency, Unicef. Internationally trademarked as Plumpy'Nut by the French company Nutriset, a 150-sachet carton can restore a severely malnourished child to health in six to 12 weeks. About 22% of under-fives in Haiti are chronically malnourished.
Soon, medika mamba will be rolled out in Guatemala and beyond through Unicef's programmes for malnourished people. But Haiti's newest export will not be the measure of success it sounds.
closing the factory would have cost 42 local jobs, and hundreds of Haitian peanut farmers would have lost a reliable buyer. Wolff lobbied heavily against the "market-distorting" effects of importing a therapeutic food when a local one exists.
In April, she won a year's grace, after USAid gave Unicef in Haiti a year's worth of funding for medika mamba bought locally. The factory – built in 2012 with a $732,000 (£427,000) loan from the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (Gain) and LGT Venture Philanthropy –stayed open. This year, MFK expects to buy 50 tonnes of peanuts from local farmers, nearly 50% more than in 2013.
Wolff believes that with assured international aid buyers for medika mamba, the factory could boost production year on year, creating economies of scale and a sustainable local loop of supply and demand. "Producing 550 metric tonnes makes us sustainable because it covers the cost of everything," she says.
In theory, that is development economics at its best – saving lives while sustaining change in low-income countries. It will tackle acute child malnutrition, which rose from 5.1% in 2012 to 6.5% last year, according to the Haitian government. And it creates much-needed jobs in a country where unemployment hovers around 40%. It is also able to redouble ongoing efforts to improve peanut farmers' productivity and post-harvest handling and storage.
In the longer-term, Gain, a foundation that supports public-private initiatives that address malnutrition, sees the rising global demand for Plumpy'Nut as an export opportunity for Haiti's MFK.
But whether this optimism is borne out in Haiti is dependent on whether Unicef, or other agencies, renew their order. Wolff says she lives from month to month and order to order, having no idea whether the factory will still be open next year. The loan from Gain, repayable over seven years at 6.75% interest, will need to be repaid.
The 300 peanut farmers in the north of the country, who have been selling their produce to MFK, will also be adversely affected if the factory closes.
There is little disagreement about the inherent value of localism in tackling child malnourishment in Haiti, and the WFP in Haiti says local food purchase remains a priority. But a WFP official admits that this year its nutrition activities are taken up by USAid's Kore Lavi food voucher programme, which means it can't buy from MFK at present.
But the politics, perverse logic and lack of coordinated thinking on aid from the west means well-meaning international agencies sometimes prefer to feed countries like Haiti rather than give them the means to feed themselves. As a result, local ventures such as MFK are constantly at risk of being forced out of business.
None of which bodes well for children like Bedline, who will inherit this poisoned legacy. Bedline is 17 months and weighs just 5.3kg. She lies feverish and quiet in her grandmother's arms, eyes glazed, her pale blue nylon frock hanging off thin shoulders.
Nearly 30 toddlers and their carers are crammed into the airless room at a makeshift malnutrition clinic atop a hill in Bahon, northern Haiti. This is a sleepy town along the Grande Riviere, an extravagantly named river that is a mere summer trickle through the north of Haiti.
Barring the odd snuffle, the room is silent. These children are not up to the mischief common among toddlers. They wait, listlessly, to be weighed and fed medika mamba, Haitian Creole for peanut butter medicine.
Medika mamba is a local product.
And USAID?
Draper USAID Nazi Eugenics - Death Planners - International Planned Parenthood Federation was founded in London, in the offices of the British Eugenics Society. The undead enemy from World War II, renamed "Population Control", had now been revived. George Bush was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in 1972, when with prodding from Bush and his friends, the U.S. Agency for International Development first made an official contract with the old Sterilization League of America. The League had changed its name twice again, and was now called the "Association for Voluntary Surgical Contraception." The U.S. government began paying the old fascist group to sterilize non-whites in foreign countries.
In 1988, the U.S. Agency for International Development signed its latest contract with the old Sterilization League (a.k.a. Association for Voluntary Surgical Contraception), committing the U.S. government to spend $80 million over five years. Having gotten away with sterilizing several hundred North Carolina school children, the identical group was then authorized by President Bush to do it to 58 countries in Asia, Africa and Ibero-America. The group modestly claims it has directly sterilized only two million people, with 87 percent of the bill paid by U.S. taxpayers.
Meanwhile, Dr. Clarence Gamble, Boyden Gray's favorite soap manufacturer, formed his own "Pathfinder Fund" as a split-off from the Sterilization League. Gamble's Pathfinder Fund, with additional millions from USAID, concentrates on penetration of local social groups in the non-white countries, to break down psychological resistance to the surgical sterilization teams. The Association for Voluntary Surgical Contraception has changed its name to Engender Health. In the end we can see the long term goal of creating a master race is behind the mission statement. Will they all have blonde hair and blue eyes and an IQ of 140? Meanwhile the Bush regime is responsible for sterilizing hundreds of millions brown skinned people across the globe.
General Draper was George Bush's guru on the population question. But there was also Draper's money--from that uniquely horrible source--and Draper's connections on Wall Street and abroad. Draper's son and heir, William H. Draper III, was co-chairman for finance (chief of fundraising) of the Bush-for-President national campaign organization in 1980. With George Bush in the White House, the younger Draper heads up the depopulation activities of the United Nations throughout the world.
Because of George Bush 250 million brown skinned people have been sterilized at the US taxpayer's expense - $300 million a year.
The U.S. Agency for International Development says that surgical sterilization is the Bush administration's "first choice" method of population reduction in the Third World. The United Nations Population Fund claims that 37 percent of contraception users in Ibero-America and the Caribbean have already been surgically sterilized.
In a 1991 report, William H. Draper III's agency asserts that 254 million couples will be surgically sterilized over the course of the 1990s; and that if present trends continue, 80 percent of the women in Puerto Rico and Panama will be surgically sterilized.
Mexico is first among targeted nations, on a list which was drawn up in July 1991, at a USAID strategy session. India and Brazil are second and third priorities, respectively.
"The per capita income gap between the developed and the developing countries is increasing, in large part the result of higher birth rates in the poorer countries.... Famine in India, unwanted babies in the United States, poverty that seemed to form an unbreakable chain for millions of people--how should we tackle these problems?.... It is quite clear that one of the major challenges of the 1970s ... will be to curb the world's fertility."
-- George Bush Sr.
"The [government] must put the most modern medical means in the service of this knowledge.... Those who are physically and mentally unhealthy and unworthy must not perpetuate their suffering in the body of their children.... The prevention of the faculty and opportunity to procreate on the part of the physically degenerate and mentally sick, over a period of only 600 years, would ... free humanity from an immeasurable misfortune."
-- Adolph Hitler
“Haiti might have, by some estimates, a population of 20 million by 2019…It is a time bomb, the high level Canadian diplomat said, ‘which must be defused immediately.’” (The Ottawa Initiative; and Transcending the 2002 Ottawa Initiative.)
Richard Condon in The Manchurian Candidate knew all about all of these horrendous characters in 1958 when he wrote his novel about Eugenicists who used programmed assassins to carry out The Will of the Wasps to destroy the upstart mud races as they called them. The original composition was six civilians (mostly scientists), and six high-ranking military officers, two from each major military service. Three (Souers, Vandenberg, and Hillenkoetter) had been the first three heads of central intelligence.
As Global Research points out, numerous reconstruction contracts have been awarded to companies and the funds come right back to benefit the company’s country of origin:
“According to US government figures, 1,537 contracts had been awarded [to US Companies] for a total of $204,604,670, as of last fall [2011]. Only 23 of the contracts went to Haitian companies, totaling $4,841,426.”
Tourism was especially prominent during Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier’s dictatorship. Baby Doc Duvalier, following in his father’s footsteps, continued a legacy of brutality and repression that resulted in the deaths of thousands of people and people fleeing the country in the hundreds of thousands. Part of maintaining this control meant receiving millions of dollars in “aid” from the US and other Western governments, and allowing foreign corporations and governments to have free economic reign in Haiti. Tourism allowed the privileged in Haiti to experience a diversion from what was really going on, while untold human rights violations were being overlooked and/or ignored.
Bill Clinton—former President, current US Special Envoy to Haiti, and often treated as the Second Coming—credits this time in Haiti as the time he and his wife fell in love with the country. The Haiti he fell in love with was a time when the people were exploited and repressed, and the wealthy had free reign. His presidential policies and actions since have reflected his desire to keep Haiti in a state of economic dependence on the US and on foreign influence. His now notorious economic policies ensured that subsidies to the US(Bill and Hillary Clinton's Arkansas!) rice industry would make US rice so cheap in Haiti that it would completely undercut and destroy Haiti’s own rice industry. Haiti now imports 80% of its rice from the US(from Arkansas!).
The Haiti that Bill Clinton fell in love with was also one of immense racial and class disparities. Tourism, by definition, is an industry that depends on the foreigner being served by the locals. It is a paradigm based on servitude, where the servers (the locals) live in poverty and the served (tourists, foreign aid workers, and Haitian elites) live well. Racial dynamics heighten this exploitative class dynamic. As Wendi Muse writes about tourism and race relations in Brazil, “tourism, as a business, relies heavily on stereotypes in order to function.” These stereotypes often become the main attraction for many tourists. In Jamaica, for instance, a large part of the tourism is based on the stereotypes surrounding marijuana (which, despite the hype, is actually illegal there). These racial and class dynamics between locals and tourists/foreign workers are palpable today in Haiti, from the time you step off the plane. Black Haitians rush to help you—the privileged foreigner—with your bags, competing with each other for tips (potentially a sole source of income). Everywhere we went, black Haitians were chauffeuring white foreigners in SUVs, guarding luxurious private businesses with rifles, and protecting opulence from the poor masses. Giant Supermarket, a store that rivals the most expensive US stores, is a private piece of luxury that average Haitians cannot access, unless they are in a position of servitude and accompanying a wealthy/ foreign patron. Visiting the store immediately brings a sense of unease to watch Jim Crow-esque racial dynamics play out so transparently.
As a black nation, Haiti has been the victim of stereotypes and prejudice in the Western world and within its own borders. Today, Haitians are treated with a mix of fear, contempt, and pity. Even for the most well-intentioned foreign “aid” workers, the power dynamic is inherently unbalanced. With these complex racial and class narratives playing out daily, I can’t help but be reminded of Paula Deen’s fantasy wedding: the happy black slave whose mission in life is to please the benevolent white superiors, by performing for them and serving them. Tourism, as it exists today in Haiti, magnifies the imbalance in Haiti’s race and class structure. Labadee is one of the most poignant examples of this. Royal Caribbean Cruise Line has its own port and peninsula in Haiti, Labadee, whose sole purpose is to provide tourists with all the trappings of any typical Caribbean tourist attraction: white sandy beaches, clear water, hair- braiders, black locals to wine and dine them. It is marketed as a “private, secret, and exclusive” location. It is so “secret” in fact that the company tells travelers that they are in Hispaniola (the name Christopher Columbus gave the entire island of which Haiti is a part), and not Haiti. Royal Caribbean admits that most people don’t know where they are and they use that as part of their “marketing strategy.” Privileged tourists can come to Haiti, be spoiled by its amenities, waited on by its locals, without them ever having to know that they are in Haiti!
PROPAGANDA
What makes this brand of tourism even more sinister is that it serves as a mask, hiding all of the deliberate exploitation and repression underneath it. Many come to Haiti and stay for months, without ever fully grasping the political situation and just how the population is being exploited by the Duvalierist government and its international allies. After all, can you really criticize a president who just wants you to have a Mai Tai and relax? In this way, tourism becomes an effective type of propaganda in which the privileged visitors are only exposed to selective portions of the country: the fun, relaxing, happy side of the island. And everywhere you go in Haiti, you see the beaming face of President-select, Michel Martelly, reminding you that “Haiti is advancing.”
Martelly’s résumé reads like a character from a soap opera. A former musician who made a career out of misogynistic lyrics and shocking performances (i e , pants dropping on stage, etcetera), Michel “Sweet Mickey” Martelly got his nickname from a notorious leader in the Duvaliers’ personal militia, the dreaded Tonton Macoutes. He is an admitted member of the Macoutes himself, along with other organizations responsible for the deaths of at least 35,000 people. To this day, he openly supports Jean-Claude Duvalier. He took center stage internationally as President in 2011 amidst fraud and the exclusion of major political parties (including Haiti’s majority party, Lavalas). Despite campaigning himself as a progressive who can join the ranks of Angela Davis and Dr. King, he was backed by the same conservative public relations firm as John McCain in the US and Felipe Calderón in Mexico. He even provides propaganda for President Obama and French President Sarkozy, whom he links with “peace” and “progress” respectively (himself with “love”), despite serious track records of war and exploitation.
Upon President Aristide’s return to Haiti in 2011 and a month after being President, Martelly publicly called Lavalas supporters and Aristide “ugly, dirty, and they smell like s**.” He continued by saying that they should all “f** off.” He has intimidated officials in his own government who disagree with him and is currently embroiled in financial and murder scandals. This is the man that Hillary Clinton called the hope of the country. Obama’s government has not only given him its blessing, but has sung his praises. This dynamic is nothing new. Since 1915, the US has politically and financially supported preferred candidates in Haiti, with US geopolitical and corporate interests at heart. Martelly’s administration follows this long tradition of puppet governments. One has to wonder how Haiti is “advancing” when Haitians are continuing to suffer in substandard living conditions (camps like Canaan), when the population is being threatened by a return of Duvalierist brutality and repression, when the US and other superpowers have a stranglehold over Haiti’s economy, and when corporations are in charge of the destiny of the people.
Not much is said in the mainstream media about the real and harsh conditions in Haiti. Even less is said about the ways in which the clock is being turned backwards in Haiti, to a time of dictatorship and cover-ups. Being in Haiti is a wake up call and a harsh one. Going there forces us to be uncomfortable and to ask difficult questions.
And while there were many aspects of the trip that were hard and difficult, there was much that inspired. Forcing ourselves and our students to see these things firsthand means that we all learn and grow. It also means that where there is injustice, there is opportunity for community building, resistance, and collective mobilizing. It is the people’s consistent resilience that makes our work in solidarity possible. For every hole in the education system, there are community organizers building their own schools. For every hole in healthcare, there are communities taking care of each other and doing their best to help each other with food and water. As solidarity workers, we must support the grassroots, and our voices must help magnify the truth to our communities abroad.
LÉOGÂNE, Haiti (Nov. 26, 2012) -- Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, join hundreds of volunteers from around the world to help build 100 homes in Léogâne, Haiti, during the 29th annual Habitat for Humanity Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Project.
Volunteers are helping to construct the homes throughout the course of this week in the Santo community, which is 18 miles from Port-au-Prince and considered to be the epicenter of the 2010 earthquake that devastated the country.
This is the second year in a row the Carters and Habitat volunteers have joined together to help build homes in Santo. Last year 100 homes were built during the Carter Work Project, and an additional 50 homes were built in the community by volunteers from the Irish nonprofit Haven.
“Last year, Rosalynn and I worked side by side with families left homeless by the 2010 earthquake and Habitat volunteers to build desperately needed homes in Haiti,” said President Carter. “We were both deeply moved by the experience in a country we have known and loved for years. We have a deep personal investment in the future of Haiti and are happy to be building 100 homes in Léogâne again this year.”
The Santo community is part of a larger Habitat shelter program funded by the Multilateral Investment Fund of the Inter-American Development Bank, Habitat for Humanity Netherlands (Samenwerkende Hulporganisaties SHO) and many other donors. Similar to last year, Haven will manage all Carter Work Project logistics, including catering, accommodations and transport throughout the week. In addition, approximately 70 Irish volunteers recruited by Haven will join Habitat volunteers from the United States, Ireland, Northern Ireland, and around the world.
“Even though nearly three years have passed since the 2010 earthquake, there remains a dire need for adequate shelter in Haiti for many who were displaced from their homes, so we are bringing the Carter Work Project back to Léogâne to help more families and to raise awareness of the ongoing efforts to rebuild lives,” said Jonathan Reckford, CEO of Habitat for Humanity International. “We sincerely thank all the volunteers, sponsors and especially the Carters for their dedication to improving the lives of our Haitian partner families who are eager to have safe, decent homes.”
Habitat for Humanity has operated in Haiti for more than 28 years. In response to the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that hit Haiti in 2010, Habitat initiated a five-year plan to help 50,000 families. Since that time, more than 40,000 families in Port-au-Prince, Cabaret and Léogâne have been served through permanent core houses, transitional and upgradable shelters, repairs and rehabs, damage assessments and emergency shelter kits. Programs focused on land reform advocacy, urban reconstruction and training initiatives have benefitted thousands more.
Each year since 1984, President and Mrs. Carter have volunteered with Habitat for Humanity for one week, building homes and hope in 14 countries around the world and providing inspiration to millions of people around the world who share Habitat’s vision of a world where everyone has a decent place to live.
This year’s Carter Work Project will be the culmination of a two-month observance of the need for safe, decent and affordable shelter that began with special events on World Habitat Day on Oct. 1, 2012. The purpose is to call attention to the need for adequate housing for everyone by raising awareness and mobilizing people to take action in response to the need of better shelter around the world.
Habitat for Humanity would like to thank the volunteers, partner families and the following sponsors for this year’s Carter Work Project: The Dow Chemical Company, Greif, Inc., Habitat for Humanity Canada National Leadership Council, Nissan, Habitat for Humanity Cars for Homes, Habitat for Humanity Women Build, Jean and Kevin Kessinger, All Weather Windows, Carpenters’ District Council of Ontario, Chemco Electrical Contractors Ltd., Cossette, Digicel, the Digicel Foundation, Genworth Canada, Proctor & Gamble, Simpson Strong-Tie, the Volkswagen of America Foundation and countless others.
About Habitat for Humanity International
Habitat for Humanity International is a global nonprofit Christian housing organization that seeks to put God’s love into action by bringing people together to build homes, communities and hope. Since 1976, Habitat has served more than 500,000 families by welcoming people of all races, religions and nationalities to construct, rehabilitate or preserve homes; by advocating for fair and just housing policies; and by providing training and access to resources to help families improve their shelter conditions. For more information, to donate or to volunteer, please visit www.habitat.org, or follow us at www.facebook.com/habitat or at www.twitter.com/habitat_org or join Habitat’s blog community at www.habitat.org/blog.
About Habitat for Humanity Haiti
Habitat for Humanity has been at work in Haiti for 28 years and has provided housing solutions through a variety of initiatives, including new home construction, progressive building, home repairs and improvements and land reform advocacy. Habitat also builds capacity in construction skills, disaster risk reduction and financial literacy, and works in coordination with community and government agencies. To learn more, please visit habitat.org/Haiti, or follow us at www.facebook.com/Habitat for Humanity Haiti - Official Site or at www.twitter.com/habitatinhaiti
Nancy Mims: I pursued language studies in Haitian Creole in Boston and have traveled twice to Leogane, Haiti, with Habitat's Carter Work Project. We built 100 homes the first year, and 150 again this year.
Jalousie
Who remembers New York City’s controversial program — in 1983, under the late Mayor Ed Koch — to beautify the abandoned buildings that bordered the Cross Bronx Expressway by putting vinyl decals in the jagged remains of the punched out windows? Crack addicts and smack heads shooting up inside, but — for the outsiders passing through on their way from suburban Jersey to suburban Long Island, decals decorated with pretty shutters, pastel flower pots, drawn-back pleats of curtains, and half- pulled-down shades.
There was an uproar, of course, about the cynical program, the racist implications, the city’s failure to help the poorest residents better their lives, etc., etc., but at least no one was living in those buildings when the decals went up. The program cost the comparatively rich New York City $300,000.
Last month, in a moment of astounding cynicism, the Haitian government, which is loathe to make any move on behalf of the Haitian people, began a $1.4 million effort to put a bright face on Jalousie by painting scores of facades in an array of pleasing Caribbean colors.
Today, Jalousie is a target neighborhood for earthquake camp depopulation, which is to say that people from the 3-year-old makeshift earthquake camps that sprang up de facto around town after a million people were made homeless by the quake are being moved into Jalousie and a few other neighborhoods. The target neighborhoods that are not so visible are not getting the paint job.
Most of the people who work in service for the wealthy residents of Petionville and Montagne Noire and Bourdon live in Jalousie. Servants live in Jalousie, with no running water and no sewage or power systems. The sewage flows in open canals, and the power comes (as it does in other shantytowns and in the camps) from dangerous freelance wiring that pulls stolen power from the weak, unreliable municipal grid. The water comes occasionally from the municipal twiyo, or pipes, where women and children line up with plastic buckets on their heads.
Prefete Duffaut, famous Haitian painter, depicted fantasy Haitian cities rising up into the heavens.
This (above) is what inspired the Martelly administration (if you can glorify President Micky Martelly’s regime with that noun) in its repainting of Jalousie: the newly painted slum is supposed to look like Duffaut’s cities in the sky. It’s a nice idea.
In Haiti, the cosmetic effort is especially grating, since billions have been promised by the international community to help with earthquake recovery, and millions have actually been spent.
And yet this, THIS, is the best that can be done to improve a camp-relocation target community?
It’s shameful, really. It’s not so much that the bright exteriors are bad in themselves. It’s simply that the cheery, slapped up paint is meant to hide — but actually highlights — the profound failure of the earthquake recovery effort.
This paint job is for passersby, for people with cameras at a distance, for outsiders — for tourists, business investors, journalists, and development workers. If it were intended to help the guy on the Jalousie balcony (relaxing with his supposed beer and his cigarette), the improvement effort would consist of toilets, sinks, sewers, and generators. And not pink paint.
put out by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) hide the realities of camps in Haiti. The new count of 171,974 does not include three camps: Canaan, Jerusalem, and Onaville. According to the Government of Haiti National housing policy, greater than 80% of all housing repairs, constructions, and additions completed or in progress in Haiti since the earthquake have been built (or rebuilt) by community residents – an estimated 90,000 houses.
Therefore, ignoring local people’s capacity to build for themselves – and build quickly, is misguided.
- learn from example: understand first how and what works (and what doesn’t) about a bona-fide, in-progress informal exurban settlement in Haiti
- avoid trying to ‘fix’ by decree or masterplan what is perceived to be wrong or substandard
- resist the desire to build, especially using outside contractors
- support capacity-building organizations such as UN-Habitat to help guide local homebuilders which technical assistance in safe construction
- support community organizations and committees already on the ground
In places such as Canaan, using their own money and without financial and technical assistance, ‘experimentation’ has been by the people, for the people.
Not only did Haitian NGOs not receive any real percentage of the relief funds, but it was also clear from the very beginning that the international community was not really trying to listen to Haitians. Refugees International reported in early March 2010 that locals were experiencing a difficult time gaining access to the international aid operational meetings concerning Haiti occurring inside the U.N. compound. According to Senior Advocate Patrick Duplat and Consultant Emilie Parry, both of Refugees International, “Haitian groups are either unaware of the meetings, do not have proper photo-ID passes for entry, or do not have the staff capacity to spend long hours at the compound.” Others reported that these international aid coordination meetings were not even being translated into Creole, the language of the majority of the people of Haiti.
Another example of the exclusion of Haitians is the Haiti Neighborhood Return and Housing Reconstruction Framework drafted in September 2010 by the Interim Haiti Redevelopment Commission. The framework, which was supposed to guide reconstruction, was not even published in draft form in Creole so local people could review it; did not realistically address the needs of Haitian renters (who accounted for more than half of the people displaced); and did not incorporate input from internally displaced people (the hundreds of thousands of Haitians in homeless camps).
No Monthly Fee Debit Card
“Paysans” (“Farmers”), crafted from recycled steel oil drums, by Serge Jolimeau
Please login or register.