Haitiâ??s tragedy: A crime of US imperialism

[RedLocks]

Ran into this article on another website, guess they found off another website, so I now pass it on to this website. Just thought it was an interesting read.


By Bill Van Auken
January 21, 2010 â?? wsws.org


The immense death and suffering inflicted upon the people of Haiti by the January 12 earthquake has laid bare a massive international crime by US imperialism, which prepared this catastrophe with a century of oppression and is now attempting to exploit the disaster for its own ends.

The estimated 200,000 who have died, the quarter million or more injured and the three million whose homes have been destroyed are victims not merely of a natural catastrophe. The lack of infrastructure, the poor quality of construction in Port-au-Prince and the impotence of the Haitian government to organize any response are determining factors in this tragedy.

These social conditions are the product of a protracted relationship between Haiti and the United States, which, ever since US Marines occupied the island nation for nearly 20 years beginning in 1915, has treated the country as a de-facto colonial protectorate.
It subsequently backed the three-decade-long dictatorship of the Duvaliers, extending a series of loans that went into the family bank accounts, with the impoverished Haitian people left to foot the bill.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Washington promoted free market policies based on eliminating any safeguards for Haitian agriculture and the privatization of government enterprises and services. The results have been mass poverty, the increasing migration of destitute peasants to the shantytowns of Port-au-Prince, and the hollowing out of the countryâ??s government and infrastructureâ??all conditions that have compounded the social and human costs of the earthquake.

Now, for an entire week, with the whole world watching, millions of Haitians have been left abandoned without medical care, food, water or shelter, as US military cargo planes have ferried in thousands of soldiers and Marines, and US Naval and Coast Guard vessels have mounted patrols off Haitiâ??s shores to prevent anyone from trying to escape.

The absence of any concerted rescue effort is not an accident, nor is the agonizingly slow arrival of food, water and medicine in far from adequate quantities merely a matter of logistics. The claim that the US military, which was able to pour a quarter of a million troops into Iraq and conquer Baghdad within barely two weeks, could not rush water, food and supplies to traumatized earthquake survivors 700 miles from the US mainland is a contemptible lie.

What is involved is a deliberate and sinister policy characterized by a gross indifference to human life that borders on the genocidal.
Within the Obama administration and the American ruling elite, definite calculations were made. What was the use of saving injured members of an impoverished and chronically unemployed population that US capitalism has long treated as surplus labor? Why dig people out of the rubble only to have to provide them with medical care when Washington is attempting to ration health care within the US itself?

Even as people were still being pulled out alive from demolished buildings, US and UN officials insisted that further rescue operations were hopeless.
At the very least, saving lives has not been the priority of the US intervention in Haiti. Wherever rescue and relief have come into conflict with the primary focus of Washingtonâ??s effortsâ??the military occupation of the countryâ??they have taken a back seat.

The cargo planes that are bringing in US military personnel and supplies, it should be noted, fly back empty. There is no desire to bring injured Haitians, who will die without medical care or face the amputation of their limbs for lack of medical supplies, back to the US where they could be healed and their lives saved.

So blatant has the US military operation been that its ostensible allies in Haiti like Brazil, which heads up the United Nations peacekeeping force there, and France have registered protests with Washington. French Secretary of State for Cooperation Alain Joyandet went so far as to call for the UN to clarify Washingtonâ??s role, saying that the mission was â??helping Haiti, not occupying Haiti.â?�

Groups involved in rescue and relief operations have also publicly condemned the US military response.

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) protested Tuesday that its cargo plane carrying 12 tons of desperately needed medical equipment had been turned away three times from the US-controlled Port-au-Prince airport since Sunday night, despite being assured that it would be allowed to land. Since January 14, five of the organizationâ??s planes have been diverted to the Dominican Republic. The result, the group said, is the deaths of hundreds of its patients, and hundreds more injured Haitians are dying daily.

â??We donâ??t have any more morphine to manage pain for our patients,â?� said Rosa Crestani, MSF medical coordinator for Choscal Hospital. â??We cannot accept that planes carrying lifesaving medical supplies and equipment continue to be turned away while our patients die. Priority must be given to medical supplies entering the country.â?�

Similarly, a Spanish aid group active in Port-au-Prince called a press conference at the Madrid airport Tuesday to denounce the US militarization of the response to the Haitian earthquake and to warn that the â??obsession with securityâ?� was disrupting efforts to save lives. The groupâ??Intervención, Ayuda y Emergenciaâ??said that it had never encountered anything like it in responding to disasters from Sri Lanka to Turkey.
The real character of the US â??aidâ?� effort is expressed in President Barack Obamaâ??s choice of his predecessors, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, to lead it. Both have Haitian blood on their hands. The Bush administration orchestrated the 2004 coup that ended with the kidnapping and expulsion of elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, together with the killing of thousands by CIA-trained death squads. Clinton sent troops into Haiti in 1994.

It is the Democrat, Clinton, who in some ways has expressed most nakedly the attitude of the US ruling elite, which is characterized by class hatred for Haitiâ??s oppressed and barely concealed racism.

In media interviews, Clinton has praised the government of President Réne Préval for its subservience to Washingtonâ??s demands. He has spoken of Haiti coming out of the earthquake better than before, treating the mass carnage and social disaster as little more than a speed-bump on the road to progress, which is to be measured in increased US investment.
This is Washingtonâ??s real and malignant purpose. It aims to exploit the countryâ??s tragedy in order to impose more direct colonial control and create conditions for US firms to make massive profits by exploiting virtual slave labor working for starvation wages.

At the same time, it is reasserting its domination in an area that it long regarded as its â??own backyard,â?� the birthplace of Yankee imperialism. Facing growing challenges from its economic rivals in Europe and China for trade and investment in the Western Hemisphere, as well as a deterioration of its influence over the states of the region, Washington is utilizing military force to pursue its interests.

The corporate-controlled US media has played a particularly odious role in supporting this process. It has glorified the role of the US military, while deliberately concealing the obstructions that the US occupation forces have placed in the way of rescue and aid work.

At the same time, it has sensationalized stories about â??lootersâ?�â??for the most part, hungry people searching through the rubble for some means of sustenanceâ??in order to provide a pretext for the massive military response. The real criminals under these conditions are not the so-called looters, but the hoardersâ??those who defend private, profit-making control of vitally needed supplies and those who withhold them from the hungry and homeless people.

The crimes being carried out against the Haitian people are inseparable from the assault on the conditions of the working class and the oppressed masses all over the world, which is driven by the economic crisis of capitalism. The rescue of Haitiâ??s workers and oppressed from the conditions created by over a century of oppression can be achieved only by uniting their struggle with that of workers in the United States and across the globe to put an end to the profit system.

RedLocks Reviewed by RedLocks on 01-21-2010. Haitiâ??s tragedy: A crime of US imperialism Ran into this article on another website, guess they found off another website, so I now pass it on to this website. Just thought it was an interesting read. By Bill Van Auken January 21, 2010 â?? wsws.org http://www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blogimg/haiti2.jpg The immense death and suffering inflicted upon the people of Haiti by the January 12 earthquake has laid bare a massive international crime by US imperialism, which prepared this catastrophe with a century of oppression and is Rating: 5

[imyourbestbud]

Thank you!!! I thought I was the only one seeing this!! Haiti Will probably become another "common wealth" (bullshit... we know it means colony) like Jamaica and a Naval base will probably be built there within the next 20 years.

[Islandborn]

Get real....america has donated BILLIONS of Dollars to haiti since the mid 90's under clinton thats been stolen and hijacked by ruthless drug lords and corrupt politicians......how about the worthless UN take charge? Oh yea....thats right....the only thing the UN runs well are their brothels in the Sudan which I can post pictures of if ya need. How much $ have YOU donated from your air conditioned homes with computers in it, Spoiled Brats. imp:

Maybe we as HUMANS should wait till they stop pulling dead children from the rubble till we start bashing entire nations....unbelievable.

[RedLocks]

Sunday, January 17, 2010

CARICOM Refused Entry Into Haiti by US Occupation Forces

THE CARIBBEAN Community's emergency aid mission to Haiti, comprising Heads of Government and leading technical officials, failed to secure permission Friday to land at that devasted country's aiport, now under the control of the United States.

Consequently, the Caricom 'assessment mission', that was to determine priority humanitarian needs resulting from the mind-boggling earthquake disaster of Haiti last Tuesday, had to travel back from Jamaica to their respective home destinations..

On Friday afternoon the US State Department confirmed signing two 'Memoranda of Understanding' with the Government of Haiti that made 'official that the United Stateas is in charge of all inbound and outbound flights and aid off-loading...'

Further, according to the agreements signed, US medical personnel 'now have the authority to operate on Haitian citizens and otherwise render medical assistance without having to wait for licences from Haiti's government...'

Prior to the US taking control of Haiti's airport, a batch of some 30 Cuban doctors had left Havana, following Wednesday's earthquake, to join more than 300 of their colleagues who have been working there for more than a year.

Last evening the frustration suffered by the Caricom mission to get landing permission was expected to be raised in a scheduled meeting at Jamaica's Norman Manley International Airport with US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton.

...

Asked whether the difficuties encountered by the Caricom mission may be related to reports that US authorities were not anxious to facilitate landing of aircraft from Cuba and Venezuela, Prime Minister Golding said he could 'only hope that there is no truth to such immature thinking in the face of the horrific scale of Haiti's tragedy...'

Trinidad News, Trinidad Newspaper, Trinidad Sports, Trinidad politics, Trinidad and Tobago, Tobago News, Trinidad classifieds, Trinidad TV, Sports, Business

[imyourbestbud]

Get real....america has donated BILLIONS of Dollars to haiti since the mid 90's under clinton thats been stolen and hijacked by ruthless drug lords and corrupt politicians......how about the worthless UN take charge? Oh yea....thats right....the only thing the UN runs well are their brothels in the Sudan which I can post pictures of if ya need. How much $ have YOU donated from your air conditioned homes with computers in it, Spoiled Brats. imp:

Maybe we as HUMANS should wait till they stop pulling dead children from the rubble till we start bashing entire nations....unbelievable.

1.You don't know me so shut up!
2.You shouldn't believe every thing You hear from corporate media.
3.It's only a prediction based on whats happened in the past(and what is still going on today).
4.Why not donate billions of dollars and get rid of the drug lords...It will make it a better land to colonize later on.
5.All this shit about helping them is all a sham to gain the trust of the Haitian people.
6.The U.S. gov is just as worthless as the U.N.
7.Watch the documentary American Drug War
8.As for corrupt politicians... Gee maybe you trust your government too much, because if you haven't noticed they really don't care. They do what they have to do to keep us out of their hair.

[the image reaper]

:wtf: ... I'm guessing this earthquake was a nefarious plot by George Bush, and Dick Cheney, right ? ... :wtf:

[the image reaper]

yup, got all the 'evidence' right here, from today's news:

" Hugo Chavez Mouthpiece Says U.S. Hit Haiti With 'Earthquake Weapon'

Thursday, January 21, 2010

AP

" Hugo Chavez blames the U.S. for the devastating earthquake in Haiti.

The United States apparently possesses an "earthquake weapon" that set off the catastrophic quake in Haiti and killed 200,000 innocents. Don't believe it's true? Just ask Hugo Chavez. " .... etc., etc., etc., ...

but, WAIT ! ... Bush is gone, Cheney is gone ! ... is it possible, did Obama cause the earthquake ? :wtf: ... after all, it's Obama, that now has his thumb on the 'earthquake button' ... ooohhhh, I'm so scared ...

gimme a break :wtf:

[RedLocks]

Obama doesn't care about black people

[killerweed420]

Haiti is no different than other countries that we have manipulated and bought off leaders. We do the same thing on a regular basis in Isreal. Thats why I'm a Ron Paul fan. Just leave these countries alone unless they ask for our help. Close the majority of our military bases around the world. They're just a waste of money.

[lve2smk]

Well, they probably have the technology already since they have been working on it for a while now, never heard of the HAARP project?