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U.S. Attempts to Erase Haitian Nationhood

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
The world’s sole superpower behaves as if Haitian sovereignty no longer exists. Notions of legality are wholly absent in America’s occupation of Haiti, where the U.S. poses as the internationally recognized authority. Washington arrogantly improvises the terms of the Haitian “protectorate.”
 
 
U.S. Attempts to Erase Haitian Nationhood
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
The Haitian people ‘need democracy and self determination, said the U.S.-based Black is Back Coalition.”
Proud Haiti has been reduced to a de facto “protectorate” of the United States – a grotesque form of non-sovereignty in which the subjugated nation is “protected” by its worst enemy. Namibia under white-ruled South African administration comes to mind, although in Haiti’s case the United Nations does not even pretend to be on the side of the oppressed, acting instead as agent and enforcer for the superpower.
As Haiti writhes under the agony of hundreds of thousands dead, Bill Clinton picks through the bones in search of prime tourist spots and mango plantation sites. America’s most successful snake oil salesman is pleased to do the Haitian people’s thinking, planning and dreaming for them – and quite willing to speak for the afflicted country, as well. “This is an opportunity to reimagine the future for the Haitian people, to build what they want to become, not rebuild what they used to be,'' Clinton told the global oligarchs at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
In one sweeping sentence, Clinton claimed a kind of sovereignty over the Haitian people’s very imaginations, assigning himself the right to filter what was good or bad about Haiti’s past, and what is permissible in the future. Haitians are no longer allowed to possess their own dreams and remembrances, which have apparently been placed in United Nations trusteeship, under control of UN special envoy to Haiti, Bill Clinton.
MINUSTAH and the U.S. expeditionary force have conspired to starve out what’s left of Cite Soleil.”
As one of the world’s most shameless personalities, the former president is eminently qualified to represent both the UN and the U.S. armed missions in Haiti. The 9,000 troops and police of the UN Stabilization Force in Haiti (MINUSTAH) have for years waged war on the seaside shanty neighborhood of Cite Soleil, a political stronghold of exiled president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Before the February, 2004, U.S.-backed coup, Cite Soleil was home to at least 300,000 desperately poor but politically organized people. Relentless MINUSTAH raids have drastically shrunk the slum’s population. By 2006, only 30 percent of residents still remained in some sections of Cite Soleil, according to human rights workers.
Since the earthquake, MINUSTAH and the U.S. expeditionary force have conspired to starve out what’s left of Cite Soleil. Three weeks after the catastrophe, the United Nations World Food Program described Cite Soleil as “no-go, for security reasons.”
Have the people of Cite Soleil been condemned to death and dispersal because of their pro-Aristide politics – a trait they shared with at least 60 percent of the population the last time a count was permitted – or are they doomed by their choice seaside location? Either reason will do, or both. Haiti’s poor are condemned in advance, for existing where inconvenient.
Small rice farmers were forced off the land and into the shanty-opolis.”
The Haitian peasantry, which not so long ago kept the country self-sufficient in basic foodstuffs, became inconvenient after Washington forced Haiti to accept U.S. government-subsidized rice. Port-au-Prince, a town of about a quarter million in 1960, swelled to at least 2.5 million as small rice farmers were forced off the land and into the shanty-opolis, where they built what they could with the resources at hand. U.S.-imposed “structural adjustment” made Port-au-Prince a high-density death trap.
Somehow, this U.S.-mandated migration – which also contributed to the exodus abroad of many hundreds of thousands – is now numbered among the many “failures” of the Haitian people. They must now move again, to places outside Port-au-Prince where they can “reimagine the future,” in Bill Clinton’s words. But whatever the Haitians might imagine, the United States is determined to deny them the right to pursue those dreams. Americans hector Haitians to summon the will to rebuild, but strangle Haitian civil society by effectively outlawing the nation’s most popular political party, Aristide’s Fanmi Lavalas. Self-determination is among those things Haitians must not be permitted to rebuild or reclaim.
The U.S. strangles Haitian civil society by effectively outlawing the nation’s most popular political party.”
The Americans seem to prefer that Haitians have no government, at all, even one as compliant as that of President Rene Preval, who collaborated in banning Fanmi Lavalas from taking part in elections. Only one cent of every dollar in U.S. “relief” money goes to or through the Haitian government, which is thus reduced to a crippled and largely irrelevant spectator. The Americans will at some point “reimagine” precisely how the Haitian “protectorate” will be managed in these extraordinary times.
The Haitian people “need democracy and self determination,” said a statement by the U.S.-based Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations, “not more military interventions by the U.S., which has sent more than 10,000 troops to subdue our people.” On February 20, the Black is Back Coalition will hold a National March and Rally to Defend Haiti, in Miami, Florida. “Our people in Haiti must have reparations, not self serving charity from France and the U.S.”
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
For more information on the March and Rally for Haiti, contact stpeteinpdum@yahoo.com, call (727) 821-6620 or go to www.blackisbackcoalition.org.
 

 

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BEST ON THE WEB --- HAITI EARTHQUAKE

Quote from a leader of President Aristide’s political party.  (see video below)
 
“Even though I am not a believer in any religion, I see that every religion believes in the notion of sacrifice, that people are to die so that others may live.  And that as our dead have died for us to live,  we have to feed on their spirit.” 
 
“For what this tells us is that they could no longer live in their environment and in these circumstances and in these conditions, and that they died so that we could pickup that strong warning.”
 
Latest and by far the best video: Al Jazeera, Fault Lines: by Avi Lewis, husband of Naomi Klein
 
Haiti: The Politics of Rebuilding
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/faultlines/2010/02/201021113542380300.html
 
BEST SUMMATION
 
More Pain for Devastated Haiti: Under the Pretense of Disaster Relief, U.S. Running a Military Occupation
http://www.alternet.org/story/145647/
 
LATEST  ---  NAOMI KLEIN
 
Haiti: A Creditor, Not a Debtor
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/02/12-1
 

A SLAVE TO GOOD

If the purpose of this world is to prove the harm in evil, then why not save us from all this misery and just tell us what is good, so we can always avoid evil? For surely evil is crime in any fair and just society.
 
And if, “All men are created equal,” then why are not all born with brains equal to the rich, so we can all become rich?
 
So here we are in a world where everyone has a freewill, the freedom to pursue happiness as we perceive it to be, and what we see is every one out there striving to enrich himself upon the misery of the next man less intelligent. And with seducing another man’s ex-wife, with many a man thinking she is still his wife, being the standard for pleasure, what can be the purpose of it all?
 
But this thing called good, how do we know there is such a thing as good? For the pretense of good is evil, and for all we know, what is the most good is just a pretense of good and the most evil. And the one who calls himself the Most High, the one who claims to be the perfection of good, why for all we know, with him having the greatest knowledge of good giving him the unlimited ability to create a pretense of good, why for all we know he is actually the most evil.
 
For those who claim to be good, they tell us we must be a slave to good, must give up 90% of the pleasures of life and do only good. Be a pacifist and let anyone who wants to kill you, avoid all high fat junk food and eat nothing that could harm you, that sort of a severely restricted slave to some sort of hypothetical definition of good.
 
And so the ultimate conclusion of evil is what this world is all about. Is there such a thing as good that will save us from all things criminal, harmful and evil, or are we forever doomed to never know good and always be slaves to evil?

The U.N., the U.S., et al

The U.N., the U.S., et al should help the Haitian citizens ... period. Haiti is a sovereign nation in need of humanitarian assistance. It's simple. Give them help. Give them medical care. Give them food and water. Give them shelter. Help them clear away the destruction. Help them rebuild. Let the Haitian people decide for themselves how and what to rebuild. Assist them but don't direct them. This is NOT and should not be an opportunity for the world's power brokers and elite to 'fix' Haitian society and profit off their misfortune and misery. Learn from history ... don't repeat it!
White men with power are very dangerous ... moving in and taking over. It's not a war this time. This natural disaster is 'manna from heaven' to the white power elite. Just another avenue for'nation building'. Heard that before? Where does it get the citizens of the victimized nation? Nowhere.
Yup ... white men always seem to know what's best for everyone else.
I am so ashamed.
Matt John
-----
flights to Haiti and save the people!

 PR: wait...
 I: wait...
 L: wait...
 LD: wait...
 I: wait...
wait...
 Rank: wait...
 Traffic: wait...
 Price: wait...
 C: wait...

 

Slavery and class warfare --- No right to achieve

 
Having grown up in the slums of Milwaukee, Minneapolis and LA, surely slavery and class warfare was all I experienced in the public school system. So when my third grade son got off the school bus covered with blood from head to shoes, deep in my guts I knew, just knew for an absolute, that none of my three boys would endure another day in public school prison. For two seventh grade boys of the fast thinking middleclass held my sons arms behind his back while another middleclass boy pulverized his face. All while a college educated middleclass bus driver said nothing and did nothing.
 
So after getting the legal facts, next day my three sons enrolled in our single family private school. One thing lead to another and within two months we had helped over a hundred families to join our corporation of home schoolers, which caused the State Department of Public Instruction to take legal action against several fathers in our corporation. Which caused our political action committee to go on statewide TV and be front page news for weeks. Which caused a law to be passed making Wisconsin the best state in America to home school your kids in.
 
And so, be it in Empire USA or Haiti, if you have only a laboring class ability to achieve, namely not enough to finish high school, then slave you are to the educated middleclass from birth to death.
 
Haiti has no public schools and less then 5% of kids attend private school. Enough said.
 
Before retiring I hand planted seedling pine for 30 years, so what is wrong with that? That is what I wanted to achieve, that is all I achieved, so what is wrong with that? Well, its work fit only for a slave according to society, to lazy to get an education and starvation wages is all you deserve according to society. So I now live on Social Security, for me that’s plenty, more then I deserve surely, so what is wrong with that?
 
So 90% of those in Haiti are laboring class achievers, like me most happy to be manual laborers, so what is wrong with that? Well, Empire USA is ruled by the highest achievers on earth, and they run an achievement dictatorship. A police state for laboring class achievers actually, and one so cruel that our jails and prisons house over 25% of all the inmates on earth. Note: 95% of our prisoners do not have a high school diploma.
 
But before the U.S. Marines invaded Haiti the first time in 1915, Haiti had a better economy and more prosperity and wealth then any colony in all of Central and South America. For it was all agriculture, and all farms run by laboring class achievers.
 
So no, Haiti does not want sweatshops run by enslaving middleclass achievers, most certainly does not need to have all its beaches occupied by middleclass educated and wealth tourists they most serve, and serve while being treated unworthy, because they are uneducated and only slave quality.
 
So get all their small farms back in operation, and get their beloved President Aristide who never looked down on them back in control. And get a law passed that will force all their super-rich high achievers to forever into exile go.

Great Points

The destruction of Haiti's rural agronomy as a result of corporate or monoculture farming is the root problem.  To reverse this trend would do wonders for the wellbeing of most Haitians.  This is a pattern (to create poverty and class struggle) repeated all over the globe.  Enslave the laboring class with corporate sweatshops WHILE DEPRIVING THEM OF THE RIGHT TO EAT FULLY AND HEALTHY.   In the mindset of the Empire, it would be wonderful if Haitians can box up "Snickers" or get carpal tunnel gutting chickens.  It's what the Empire considers "progress."  
 
Here in Iowa, the "Heartland," nobody even pretends to talk about "family farms" anymore.  The undeniable truth is that family farms have gone the way of the windmill.  The "corporate mindset" is why it's taken the remaining small farmers so long to grow organic, that and the sweetheart government subsidies. 
 
Land and agricultural reform not only in Haiti, but around the world, continues to be a revolutionary act.
 
In fact, would it not be a "revolutionary" event if Americans turned their nice, pretty, chemically-dependent lawns into gardens?  The health benefits, money saved, independence and community building aspects are at one's fingertips.
 
 

root problem is lack of right to self-determination.

As I see it.

"root problem"

“monoculture farming is the root problem”
 
But surely, actions are the root cause of nothing. 
 
For what a man feels he deserves, his highest priority in life being to even the score and get all that he deserve, this is the root cause of what we call the mind, character and personality.  
 
For Europeans are the absolute highest achievers when it comes to enslaving and war winning, and in this brain-power dictatorship called earth, if you have the ability to do it then by the standards of capitalism you deserve a government that will empower you to do it.
 
For Haiti like Empire USA is an achievement dictatorship, and since our first military invasion of 1915 whenever the highest achievers in Haiti run short of deadly force, the highest achievers of our Empire will send in the troops.  The “root problem” of why our corporate rich just sent in 20,000 more troops.

Human Rights Are The Foundation Of Haitian Progress

Like all slave descendants in the western hemisphere, our Haitian brothers and sisters will continue to suffer intensely from ethnocide and neo-colonialism until they establish Human Rights inside the realm of international law and secure massive Reparations.  Human Rights are the rights to our original language and culture and the ability to govern ourselves with no interference from any alien or adversarial government.  Reparations means Restoration of everything which has been taken from us during both the era of chattel slavery and the era of neo-colonialism.  One priority for all awakening Afrodescendants must be the establishment of our own independent educational institutions which will instruct our youth in their own Mother Tongue.  As long as we remain imprisoned in the oppressors' languages, we will remain in defacto bondage.  We the 250 million slave descendants throughout the western hemisphere must now unite.
Sincerely,
Malik Al-Arkam
www.allforreparations.org