The only disaster that has hit Haiti is the un-natural disaster of rabid, merciless US imperialism. It is US imperialism and its neo-liberal policies that is killing Haitians today and every day, while CNN tells us about the 'generosity' of the white man. Cuba has been helping actively Haiti since a long time. It maintained over 400 medical personnel long before this crisis.
I have lived for a time in Haiti in the late 90's so I speak with some personal knowledge. I was there during the drunkard, idiot Preval's first administration before the re-election of Aristide and his subsequent kidnapping and removal by the schemes of US-armed, US-paid, US-ordered Haitian goons and the complicity/coordination of Canada & France. The key to the catastrophe are not the natural situations such as earthquakes and hurricanes which are serious unto themselves but the systematic destruction of the agricultural sector by the US that has created/fed systematic poverty, resulting in dislocation, eco-degradation and a situation in which Haitians cannot cope with hardly anything and are forced to eat cookies literally made of dirt.
I am totally devastated/heart-broken by what is taking place in Haiti. The people of Haiti are noble and do not deserve this. The biggest curse is that which is imposed by its US slave Masters who have not given this place peace since classic slavery was overthrown and short-lived independence hard-won. They have created, co-opted and nurtured a corrupt, complicit elite that has participated in the rape and plunder against its own people. The only interest the US has today in Haiti (after end of Cold-War) is to keep the Haitians just fed enough to prevent them from launching another refugee boat people crisis that lands them on the shores of the region and especially on the shores of Florida. Haitians are not allowed the option of 'leaving' just as the US elite forcibly reserved for the poor of New Orleans. The US elite was happy to see its largely poor, blacks migrate from New Orleans and disappear in the inner cities of America. The empire's selected Nobel-Peace-Prize-Winning-Warmonger-In-Chief Bushama in blackface may even take up an old, tried Clinton trick to allow Aristide (stuck in exile in South Africa), which the empire under the Republicans removed twice, to return as a distraction.
I hope Aristide makes it back as he can galvanize hope and give a voice to the majority who support Lavalas, who like Hamas is denied. Lavalas that represents the majority is not allowed to event contest elections by the empire and by this empire's stooges. The Haitians are condemned to stay hungry, to stay poor/dependent, as a reserve of slave labour, as a hostage market of 10M. They will bury their dead and soon go back to suffering in silence. For now, for every dollar going in (that represents socialized dollars paid by the US Treasury/people, that in fact goes to provide US corporate profit) there are 10$ leaving Haiti through its elite, to Miami, Panama, Montreal, Paris, Santo Domingo and the rest of the region. They will in time come back and buy up whatever they don't own for a song. In the meantime US fundamentalist missionaries, members of the NGO industry, paedophiles and other pretend do-gooders are having the run of the place while taking advantage of this photo-op. Just put on a huge stiff tariff on US Rice Corp and give subsidies to Haitian producers and Haitian consumers to buy national produced rice and this will do more to alleviate the suffering than all this current bordello/show. The same to sugar, coffee. Give people charcoal briquettes and pay them to plant trees and protect the treas. These briquettes could be made as a residue from bagasse (the left-over of sugar cane and add flavouring that mimics and improves over wood charcoal).
Reverse all neo-liberal tariff reduction that allows dumping of subsidized foreign-made goods and promote/subsidies to national production. If the Haitians are eating dirt, this will at least stop the hunger. All the Haitians need is a chance to live, which the Empire has denied them since Napoleon and President Wilson. The next stage will show us the goons/mobsters including the mayor of Port-au-Prince making big money from the necessary disposal of corpses while paying pennies to the slave labour that will do it. I foresee epidemic as more than half the children are unvaccinated. The vicious (sand-flies) tiny mosquitoes at night are a perfect vehicle for spreading disease. I believe more than those that died from the earthquake will die from disease. I am so disturbed that I choose to not write about Haiti for some time as I watch this hell unfold. ~SN
Stuffed and Starved
http://stuffedandstarved.org/drupal/node/477
Neoliberal roots of Haiti's food crisis
http://socialistworker.org/2008/05/05/haiti-neoliberal-crisis
Trade and Disappearance of Haitian Rice
http://www1.american.edu/TED/haitirice.htm
Onè Governor General Michaelle Jean:
