**************************************************"Transformation is only valid if it is carried out with the people, not for them. Liberation is like a childbirth, and a painful one. The person who emerges is a new person: no longer either oppressor or oppressed, but a person in the process of achieving freedom. It is only the oppressed who, by freeing themselves, can free their oppressors."-- Paulo Freire, from Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Folks, an international crime is happening in Haiti, again.
And none of the people coming on TV or going to Congressional hearings
are willing to speak truth to power. I just watch Paul Farmer bite his
tongue and allow Senator John Kerry, Chris Dodd, Bob Corker and others
to talk about putting Haiti under receivership because the Haitian
government is too weak to take care of its own people. What weakened
the Haitian government? Wasn't it the US, their multinateral financial
institutions, their NGOs and the "private sector" they represent, that
forced Haiti's governments, since 1991, not to invest in public
services? The absolute lunacy of having to listen to that hearing,
particularly the second half of it, is unsupportable. Unsupportable.
Watch the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing with Dobbins, Farmer and Rony Francois.
It's
a piece of theater. Sci-fi really. James Dobbins said the NGOs have
delivered services to Haiti with fair reliability and accountability.
That's not true. He says the 9,000 UN soldiers already in Haiti have
done a good job in Haiti these last 6-years and should remain another
ten years at least, with reinforcement, to continue building prisons,
courts, police. Dobbins fails to mention that all the Supreme Court
justices in Haiti were imposed on the people, the duly appointed ones
were DISMISSED by the imposed Bush's Haiti technocrats in 2005. The
largest political party in Haiti has been excluded from participating
in elections since Bush's Boca Raton Regime came to power and even
under the puppet Preval. Dobbins also fails to mention in UN occupied
Haiti thousands upon thousands of Haiti's young men were warehoused,
indefinitely put in prisons, without trial, hearing or ever having been
convicted of a crime. He failed to mention the history of charity
workers and UN rapes, sexual abuse and molestation in Haiti. Their
trafficking in Haitian children and drug dealing. He fails to notice
the UN "help" in Haiti for six years did not build any infrastructure,
flood barriers, roads for the farmers to get their products to market,
or do anything that could have eased the suffering from this
earthquake. That they were NOWHERE to be found, as first responders the
first three days of the earthquake, just as the over 10,000 NGOs in
Haiti were nowhere to be found. Basic public services like security,
power, health and education that were already very fragile in Haiti
were gutted by the last Bush-supported regime change in Haiti and
subsequent UN/US occupation. Their policies were carried out by the
NGOs, the World Bank and other Intenational Financial Institutions
controlled by the US and by the UN proxy military force. But Dobbins
wants these same folks and the World Bank to rebuilt Haiti!
At HLLN, we thought that this time it's impossible for the international community to do the usual and blame the "corrupt Haitians" for the massive amounts of food aid that arrived the first week of the earthquake that are still stockpiled to this day at the Toussaint Louverture Airport while the people starve, suffer and die. But if you watched the Senate hearings, it may have taken them 2-weeks to blame the Haitians for the slow delivery, but indeed they did. Saying it was the poor Haiti infrastructure that was responsible for the slow delivery of US aid. Yet, even as I write today, over two weeks since the earthquake, and the US took over, relief aid is STILL not getting to the vast majority of Haiti's people. But if the US and the UN is going to blame Haitian lack of public services for the slow delivery of medical treatment, rescue, water and food. Never mind that everything fell down and if there had been infrastructure it would have also similarly collapsed. But, if the international community will do the racist thing and blame Haiti as usual without equivocation. Than HLLN with defend the people and point out that the Israeli's had no problem rescuing people, neither did the other first responders from Cuba, Venezuela, China, Belgium, Iceland, et al.
The next day after the earthquake, far away Iceland found the Haitian government, secured formal invitation to come and rescue and got their teams there ahead of the US not even knowing if the Haitian airport was working when they took off, figured they'll reroute and land in the Dominican Republic if they had to. But the airport was being manned by grieving and earthquake shocked-Haitians at that time, who guided the Icelandic teams' arrival and they went on to do a tremendous job to rescue people under the rubble, give medical relief, despite the communication challenges. And since the US and UN want to talk about the weak Haitian government and its failures to provide basic public services as the main reason for their absence in the first few days of the earthquake and the continued slow delivery of relief, we shall point to the US and the international community's policy that forced Haiti to sell-off and privatize government run companies that were providing public services, their funding NGOs to compete with government public service initiatives and their aid that never helps Haiti government because it goes directly to upholding the international charities that give aid to the anti-democratic elites and opposition to participatory democracy to undercut duly elected Haitian governments.This Senate
Committee hearing on Haiti universally obfuscated the role of the
United States in weakening Haiti's government. Even Paul Farmer, now
working for Bill Clinton and the UN occupiers, as he is, must bite his
tongue and listen to a coup d'etat Haitian - Rony Francois - talk about
a list of demands they made for Haiti through Jeb Bush when the
majority of Haitians were fighting against their Boca Raton regime and
getting MURDERED by the US marines and UN military. Paul you know the
people of Haiti have got high regards for you. And I admire your work,
but you're lost my brother and if you weren't one of us, this wouldn't
hurt so much to watch. Nothing, Paul, is worth this unusual alliance.
Respect the struggle. If you must stop, then do. But don't give us more
work to do. "The international A Team," Paul Farmer, cannot be the same
suspects who brought about the problem in the first place! It will just
prolong our pain, cost more Haitian life. Receivership of Haiti is
being bandied about in this hearing, and there's NO ONE, no one to
represent the interests of the Haitian people without equivocation.
Folks we have to stop this. Stop this!
The Senators just
repeated the same old self-serving lines that the US has tried in VAIN
for decades, nay, centuries, to "HELP Haiti" and Haiti won't cooperate,
so now they should just take over Haiti! Farmer just squirmed and
weaseled around the truth and let that Haitian doctor, Rony Francois,
talk about how the coup d'etat Haitians represent the Haitian majority
abroad and are not just the technocratic sell-outs. The lies stink.
Meanwhile, the media keeps feeding us pictures of white women embracing
confused Black Haitian "orphans" showing their great love for our small
children while at the same time feeding us white hysteria about the
older Haitians being savage beasts who will pounce on a foreigner -
they are gangsters that kill, rape, loot and riot! Never mind there's
no proof of this massive looting and killing and raping. If their too
old to cuddle on TV like little pets, their black BEAST!!!
Please read Statement on Haiti adoptions from adoptees of color.
Please
tell your representatives that Haitians do not want to be further
colonized. We've suffered enough humiliation at the hand of the
do-gooders. Tell them to just use all that donation money people are
sending to Haiti and give it to the supermarket owners for their entire
stock and let the people have whatever is there. Not one Haitian life
is worth losing to protect food that's already rotting under the rubble
but that may keep a human being alive. NOT one!
For three
decades now in Haiti, the United States has been forcing on Haiti a
neo-liberal policy which maintains that government should not provide
public services and should get out of the life of the people and let
the "free market" the marketplace - do its thing. Today the Senators
at the Congressional hearing on Haiti, sat around bemoaning the weak
Haitian government their policies brought about, as if they had NOTHING
to do with it. And had the gall to talk about the World Bank should do
reconstruction, the UN security and the World Relief NGOs provide basic
services. All these entities are failures EVERYWHERE in the world. But
no, it's Haitians who are failures.
Never mind that the
Chicago-boys forced privatization on Haiti and when Aristide resisted,
removed him from office, not once but TWICE. Never mind their dumping
Arkansas rice into Haiti destroyed Haiti's agriculture so the people
can't go find some food right now. No. The Senators commenting at that
hearing, some, with more corrupt charges circling around their heads
then any poor Haiti public official, get on TV and lie, lie, lie. None
dare mention the US's unholy alliance with the mercenary white Haitian
families in Haiti. None. But they can slam President Preval of Haiti
like there's no tomorrow! Why not, they don't need him anymore to
uphold their occupation. Nope. Just like they don't need Wyclef anymore
to give a Black face down there legitimizing first, the Boca Raton
imposition, and then the UN occupation. Nope. The brother is about to
learn what it means to be HAITIAN. Hope he's ready.
All of the
sudden his Yele Foundation has some sort of tax problem. His entourage
can't land at the Toussaint Louverture airport. Uhmmm, and no offense
to Travolta, but John Travolta's sciencestology is landing there just
fine, just fine. Poor Wyclef, he made the mistake a few days after the
earthquake of going to the airport and trying to take the food there to
go distribute. Oh no he was told, the logistics have to be worked out.
NGOS have to go "assess." The fact that the brother could actually
mobilize the people, form a human food chain line and have Haitians
helping each other, isn't the plan. Oh no. Now he's barred. Take the
place of the failed World Relief NGOs, not happening they say. Compete
for charity dollars with the Red Cross, get out of here. He's got "tax
problems."
1. Haiti needs emergency humanitarian aid rescue, recovery, relief and rebuilding, not military occupation.
The
occupation of the Toussaint Louverture international airport and other
Haitian national spaces by foreign militaries, especially by the US/UN,
Canada and France, must end and these areas be returned to the control
of the people of Haiti.
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