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Our Role in Haiti's Plight

01.14.2010 | Guardian News

Published on Thursday, January 14, 2010 by The Guardian/UK
Our Role in Haiti’s Plight If we are serious about assisting this devastated land we must stop trying to control and exploit it by Peter Hallward

Any large city in the world would have suffered extensive damage from an earthquake on the scale of the one that ravaged Haiti’s capital city on Tuesday afternoon , but it’s no accident that so much of Port-au-Prince now looks like a war zone. Much of the devastation wreaked by this latest and most calamitous disaster to befall Haiti is best understood as another thoroughly manmade outcome of a long and ugly historical sequence.

The country has faced more than its fair share of catastrophes. Hundreds died in Port-au-Prince in an earthquake back in June 1770, and the huge earthquake of 7 May 1842 may have killed 10,000 in the northern city of Cap Haitien alone. Hurricanes batter the island on a regular basis, mostly recently in 2004 and again in 2008; the storms of September 2008 flooded the town of Gonaïves and swept away much of its flimsy infrastructure, killing more than a thousand people and destroying many thousands of homes. The full scale of the destruction resulting from this earthquake may not become clear for several weeks. Even minimal repairs will take years to complete, and the long-term impact is incalculable.

What is already all too clear, however, is the fact that this impact will be the result of an even longer-term history of deliberate impoverishment and disempowerment. Haiti is routinely described as the “poorest country in the western hemisphere “. This poverty is the direct legacy of perhaps the most brutal system of colonial exploitation in world history, compounded by decades of systematic postcolonial oppression.

The noble “international community” which is currently scrambling to send its “humanitarian aid” to Haiti is largely responsible for the extent of the suffering it now aims to reduce. Ever since the US invaded and occupied the country in 1915, every serious political attempt to allow Haiti’s people to move (in former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s phrase) “from absolute misery to a dignified poverty” has been violently and deliberately blocked by the US government and some of its allies.

Aristide’s own government (elected by some 75% of the electorate) was the latest victim of such interference, when it was overthrown by an internationally sponsored coup in 2004 that killed several thousand people and left much of the population smouldering in resentment. The UN has subsequently maintained a large and enormously expensive stabilisation and pacification force in the country.

Haiti is now a country where, according to the best available study, around 75% of the population “lives on less than $2 per day, and 56% - four and a half million people - live on less than $1 per day”. Decades of neoliberal “adjustment” and neo-imperial intervention have robbed its government of any significant capacity to invest in its people or to regulate its economy. Punitive international trade and financial arrangements ensure that such destitution and impotence will remain a structural fact of Haitian life for the foreseeable future.

It is this poverty and powerlessness that account for the full scale of the horror in Port-au-Prince today. Since the late 1970s, relentless neoliberal assault on Haiti’s agrarian economy has forced tens of thousands of small farmers into overcrowded urban slums. Although there are no reliable statistics, hundreds of thousands of Port-au-Prince residents now live in desperately sub-standard informal housing, often perched precariously on the side of deforested ravines. The selection of the people living in such places and conditions is itself no more “natural” or accidental than the extent of the injuries they have suffered.

As Brian Concannon, the director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, points out: “Those people got there because they or their parents were intentionally pushed out of the countryside by aid and trade policies specifically designed to create a large captive and therefore exploitable labour force in the cities; by definition they are people who would not be able to afford to build earthquake resistant houses.” Meanwhile the city’s basic infrastructure - running water, electricity, roads, etc - remains woefully inadequate, often non-existent. The government’s ability to mobilise any sort of disaster relief is next to nil.

The international community has been effectively ruling Haiti since the 2004 coup. The same countries scrambling to send emergency help to Haiti now, however, have during the last five years consistently voted against any extension of the UN mission’s mandate beyond its immediate military purpose. Proposals to divert some of this “investment” towards poverty reduction or agrarian development have been blocked, in keeping with the long-term patterns that continue to shape the distribution of international “aid”.

The same storms that killed so many in 2008 hit Cuba just as hard but killed only four people. Cuba has escaped the worst effects of neoliberal “reform”, and its government retains a capacity to defend its people from disaster. If we are serious about helping Haiti through this latest crisis then we should take this comparative point on board. Along with sending emergency relief, we should ask what we can do to facilitate the self-empowerment of Haiti’s people and public institutions. If we are serious about helping we need to stop trying to control Haiti’s government, to pacify its citizens, and to exploit its economy. And then we need to start paying for at least some of the damage we’ve already done.

© 2010 Guardian News and Media Limited Peter Hallward is professor of Modern European Philosophy at Middlesex University and author of Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment

(I wasn't aware that the US invaded Haiti almost a hundred years ago, for example)

Haiti's suffering is a result of calculated impoverishment

01.20.2010 | Guardian

Last week’s earthquake was a natural disaster, but the carnage is a result of a punitive relationship with the outside world
Seumas Milne
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 20 January 2010 20.30 GMT

There is no relief for the people of Haiti, it seems, even in their hour of promised salvation. More than a week after the earthquake that may have killed 200,000 people, most Haitians have seen nothing of the armada of aid they have been promised by the outside world. Instead, while the US military has commandeered Port-au-Prince’s ­airport to pour thousands of soldiers into the stricken Caribbean state, wounded and hungry survivors of the catastrophe have carried on dying.

Most scandalously, US commanders have repeatedly turned away flights bringing medical equipment and emergency supplies from organisations such as the World Food Programme and Médecins Sans Frontières, in order to give priority to landing troops. Despite the remarkable patience and solidarity on the streets and the relatively small scale of looting, the aim is said to be to ensure security and avoid “another Somalia” – a reference to the US military’s “Black Hawk Down” humiliation in 1993. It’s an approach that certainly chimes with well- established traditions of keeping Haiti under control.

In the last couple of days, another motivation has become clearer as the US has launched a full-scale naval blockade of Haiti to prevent a seaborne exodus by refugees seeking sanctuary in the United States from the desperate aftermath of disaster. So while Welsh firefighters and Cuban doctors have been getting on with the job of saving lives this week, the 82nd Airborne Division was busy parachuting into the ruins of Haiti’s presidential palace.

There’s no doubt that more Haitians have died as a result of these shockingly perverse priorities. As Patrick Elie, former defence minister in the government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide – twice overthrown with US support – put it: “We don’t need soldiers, there’s no war here.” It’s hardly surprising if Haitians such as Elie, or French and Venezuelan leaders, have talked about the threat of a new US occupation, given the scale of the takeover.

Their criticisms have been dismissed as kneejerk anti-Americanism at a time when the US military is regarded as the only force that can provide the logistical backup for the relief effort. In the context of Haiti’s gruesome history of invasion and exploitation by the US and European colonial powers, though, that is a truly asinine response. For while last week’s earthquake was a natural disaster, the scale of the human catastrophe it has unleashed is man-made.

It is uncontested that poverty is the main cause of the horrific death toll: the product of teeming shacks and the absence of health and public infrastructure. But Haiti’s poverty is treated as some baffling quirk of history or culture, when in reality it is the direct ­consequence of a uniquely brutal relationship with the outside world — notably the US, France and Britain — stretching back centuries.

Punished for the success of its uprising against slavery and self-proclaimed first black republic of 1804 with invasion, blockade and a crushing burden of debt reparations only finally paid off in 1947, Haiti was occupied by the US between the wars and squeezed mercilessly by multiple creditors. More than a century of deliberate colonial impoverishment was followed by decades of the US-backed dictatorship of the Duvaliers, who indebted the country still further.

When the liberation theologist Aristide was elected on a platform of development and social justice, his challenge to Haiti’s oligarchy and its international sponsors led to two foreign-backed coups and US invasions, a suspension of aid and loans, and eventual exile in 2004. Since then, thousands of UN troops have provided security for a discredited political system, while global financial institutions have imposed a relentlessly neoliberal diet, pauperising Haitians still further.

Thirty years ago, for example, Haiti was self-sufficient in its staple of rice. In the mid-90s the IMF forced it to slash tariffs, the US dumped its subsidised surplus on the country, and Haiti now imports the bulk of its rice. Tens of thousands of rice farmers were forced to move to the jerry-built slums of Port-au-Prince. Many died as a result last week.

The same goes for the lending and aid conditions imposed over the past two decades, which forced Haitian governments to privatise, hold down the minimum wage and cut back the already minimal health, education and public infrastructure. The impact can be seen in the helplessness of the Haitian state to provide the most basic relief to its own people. Even now, new IMF loans require Haiti to raise electricity prices and freeze public sector pay in a country where most people live on less than two dollars a day.

What this saga translates into in real life can be seen in the stark contrast between Haiti, which has taken its market medicine, with nearby Cuba, which hasn’t, but suffers from a 50-year US economic blockade. While Haiti’s infant mortality rate is around 80 per 1,000, Cuba’s is 5.8; while nearly half Haitian adults are illiterate, the figure in Cuba is around 3%. And while 800 Haitians died in the hurricanes that devastated both islands last year, Cuba lost four people.

In her book The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein shows how natural disasters and wars, from Iraq to the 2004 Asian tsunami, have been used by corporate interests and their state sponsors to drive through predatory neoliberal policies, from radical deregulation to privatisation, that would have been impossible at other times. There’s no doubt that some would now like to impose a form of disaster capitalism on Haiti. The influential US conservative Heritage Foundation initially argued last week that the earthquake offered “opportunities to reshape Haiti’s long-dysfunctional government and economy as well as to improve the public image of the United States”.

The former president Bill Clinton, who wants to build up Haiti’s export-processing zones, appeared to contemplate something similar, though a good deal more sensitively, in an interview with the BBC. But more sweatshop assembly of products neither made nor sold in Haiti won’t develop its economy nor provide a regular income for the majority. That requires the cancellation of Haiti’s existing billion-dollar debt, a replacement of new loans with grants, and a Haitian-led democratic reconstruction of their own country, based on public investment, redevelopment of agriculture and a crash literacy programme. That really would offer a route out of Haiti’s horror.

Misguided fears test Haitians' patience
By Matthew Price
BBC News

Let me take you on a drive through the streets of Port-au-Prince.

I am afraid I cannot tell you the street names, but they are pretty meaningless now anyway, and the tour you are about to embark on could be anywhere in the city, to tell you the truth.

Look up there, hanging above the road - a tatty, old piece of wood, white, with blue writing on it asking for help. The arrow points into a courtyard, in which you can see several vehicles, and some people lying under the shade of some trees.

Now here, a few hundred metres along the road, another sign with no punctuation: "Please help UN US Need Food Water Medicine".

In another street, a group of people, men and women, with scarves tied over their mouths to protect them from the dust and the smell tell us to stop.

It is the survivors who are helping themselves. They are pulling together, not tearing themselves apart

We will have to go round another way, one says, this road is too dangerous.

There are pieces of rubble across the street - a makeshift road block. The men and women are local people, looking after their own neighbourhood.

Further along there is a group of men putting up a banner, across the entrance to a side street.

"Camp des Refuges de St Patrick," it reads. There is even an e-mail address underneath, though how they expect to receive any e-mails I do not know.

Under the banner and along the road there is a group of men who want to know why we are there. One of them takes us further, as the others continue to work out how best to help their street, their people.

At the end, bathed in the orange glow of the setting sun, sit mothers and children.

Out in the street, ropes strung across the lane between the shattered buildings hold up sheets. They form makeshift shelters under which they will spend the night.

All this has been set up by the people themselves.

'Affront to humanity'

During the last week in Haiti, I was left with one overwhelming impression - it is the survivors who are helping themselves. They are pulling together, not tearing themselves apart.


Much has been made of the potential for violence, but I did not feel unsafe. Not once did I think the crowds might turn on me.
When I gave some food and water to a family we had been filming, others who had nothing stood silently by, glad that at least someone was getting a little help.

Some of the aid agencies say they fear riots may start if they start to distribute supplies in the hundreds of makeshift camps where people have gathered.

I fear riots in the long-term if they do not start distributing supplies right now.

There has been some sporadic violence. That should be expected. It would happen anywhere. Look at what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

But to use the threat of violence as a reason for not distributing aid is an affront to the people of Haiti and their own humanity.

'Calm and peaceful'

Given the scale of the disaster, should we not be focusing on how little violence there is, rather than the rare moments when frustration spills over into fighting?

One US soldier told a comrade that he feared another Somalia here. But this is a humanitarian disaster, not a war

We should certainly be concerned about overstating the security fears and undermining the aid effort, thereby exacerbating people's frustration and increasing the likelihood of violence.

Earlier this week former US President Bill Clinton, the UN special envoy to Haiti, told the BBC: "When you consider that these people haven't slept for four days, haven't eaten, and have spent their nights wandering the streets tripping over dead bodies, I think they've behaved pretty well."

Haitians have had to queue for hours to get aid from international agencies
The US ambassador to Haiti, Kenneth Merten, meanwhile told PBS that "people should be aware that the vast majority of Haitians here are behaving in a calm and peaceful manner".

There are now thousands of US soldiers on the ground in Haiti.

In places they act as if they are in the middle of Iraq or Afghanistan, pushing back people, sealing off secure zones.

One told a comrade that he feared another Somalia here.

But that is the wrong approach. This is a humanitarian disaster, not a war.

The soldiers and others are being welcomed - they are needed.

For how much longer, though, will the people welcome them, if the aid continues to sit on the ground at the airport, rather than being put into the mouths of those who need it?

As for the security fears, an article by the BBC today calls these 'misguided fears' - and the reporter is speaking from first hand experience - stating he feels safe on the streets and that he fears rioting if Aid is NOT distributed/given:

Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN)
The U.S. pricetag for relief in Haiti has hit $170 million, the federal government announced Thursday as ton after ton of relief supplies headed into the island nation through a crucial reopened pier.

The vast majority of the committed federal aid -- $140 million -- is from the U.S. Agency for International Development under the State Department, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

And the need within Haiti -- still reeling from last week's devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake -- only grows by the minute. After days of being closed to much needed food and supplies, the south pier at Port-au-Prince was channeling aid into the leveled capital city. The supplies were brought into Port-au-Prince on trucks traveling on a repaired gravel road leading from the port.

A Dutch Navy ship, the Pelikaan, was docked at the city's south pier Thursday, unloading 90 tons of humanitarian aid. Two other ships had previously offloaded containers.

The reopened pier is older and smaller than the north pier, which was rendered unusable by the January 12 earthquake. The south pier was damaged, but Haiti port authorities and the U.S. military were able to put it back in adequate shape. Workers also repaired the road leading into the city and laid gravel on it.

Unloading of aid, however, was a slow process. The road allows only for one-way traffic, meaning a truck drives to the end of the pier, is loaded with supplies, and then drives out. Also, because of concerns about overloading the pier, only one truck is allowed on it at a time.

Repairs on the pier continue, said U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Mark Gibbs. "We're working on it. We've got a long ways to go. ... If we lose this pier, that's it. We can't bring in anything."

However, the reopening of the pier and the repairing of the road represented a major development in efforts to get aid to earthquake victims, in that ships can carry much more cargo than air airplanes.

Authorities hope to get two-way traffic going on the pier by Friday, which would speed up the process.

A 5.9-magnitude aftershock Wednesday stopped efforts at the pier for about three hours. U.S. Navy divers had to go back in the water and reassess the pier's structural integrity, officials said. There was no immediate word if two less intense aftershocks Thursday, measured at magnitude 4.9 and 4.8, also caused a delay.

from reading the article, the author does not offer any hint of exactly what real controversy is "sparked" by the US humanitarian mission to Haiti. The fact that a damaged airport has limited ability to land, offload, park and refuel air operations? Or the fact that controllers on the ground need to prioritize landings to high-capacity military transport with humanitarian relief (including medical) supplies over a relatively low capacity private aircraft from France?

and therefore it seems immoral, unseemly and incomprehensible that plane loads of aid were turned away because the military wanted to increase security.

more lives would have been saved (this is not rhetoric - the articles give examples of Haitans who died as a result of the delays0

and not believe all the patriotic spin that all that the military do is 'right' or 'justified'.

I'm with the aid agencies and others who are critical of these decisions.

The reopened pier is older and smaller than the north pier, which was rendered unusable by the January 12 earthquake. The south pier was damaged, but Haiti port authorities and the U.S. military were able to put it back in adequate shape. Workers also repaired the road leading into the city and laid gravel on it.

....

Repairs on the pier continue, said U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Mark Gibbs. "We're working on it. We've got a long ways to go. ... If we lose this pier, that's it. We can't bring in anything."

However, the reopening of the pier and the repairing of the road represented a major development in efforts to get aid to earthquake victims, in that ships can carry much more cargo than air airplanes.

Authorities hope to get two-way traffic going on the pier by Friday, which would speed up the process.

We should certainly be concerned about overstating the security fears and undermining the aid effort, thereby exacerbating people's frustration and increasing the likelihood of violence.

There are now thousands of US soldiers on the ground in Haiti. In places they act as if they are in the middle of Iraq or Afghanistan, pushing back people, sealing off secure zones.

One told a comrade that he feared another Somalia here. But that is the wrong approach. This is a humanitarian disaster, not a war