The New Dark Age

24 March, 2010 — HLLN

In this post

Excerpted from “What’s Clinton’s empty apology worth to Haiti? by Ezili Dantò)

– Haiti’s Great White Hope? by JOHN MAXWELL www.opednews.com/articles/Haiti-s-Great-White-Hope-by-John-Maxwell-090525-384.html

– Improved U.S. terms for Haiti textile imports sought Pascal Fletcher, Mar 22, 2010 www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62L5LL20100322

Ezili Dantò Note:

Excerpted from “What’s Clinton’s empty apology worth to Haiti? by Ezili Dantò)

“The U.S.-promoted agricultural policies, such as forcing Haitian rice farmers to compete against U.S.-subsidized agribusiness, cost an estimated 830,000 rural jobs. bit.ly/clXFeC

Then, …former U.S. President Bill Clinton – now U.N. special envoy to Haiti – …publicly apologized this month for championing policies that destroyed Haiti’s rice production. Clinton in the mid-1990s encouraged the impoverished country to dramatically cut tariffs on imported U.S. rice.

“It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked. It was a mistake,” Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 10. “I had to live everyday with the consequences of the loss of capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people because of what I did; nobody else.” (With cheap food imports, Haiti can’t feed itself by Jonathan M. Katz, AP. March 20, 2010 – bit.ly/cni0TH)

But note: Hillary Clinton’s State Department and Bill Clinton along with Obama are STILL promoting sweatshop slavery supposedly to give Haiti a mere 100,000 assembly plant jobs at less than .38 cents an hour when US policy FORCED Haiti to lose 830,000 rural jobs.

Real jobs where the people of Haiti actually made more, relatively speaking than .38cents an hour, owned more land, had better shelter and security in the countryside and ate food from the land that was non-cancerous unlike Arkansas nutritionalist rice and other US food imports!

It’s no secret that US food is full of pesticides/harmful hormones and the most cancerous food on the planet, which is why HLLN has noted that US health care reform must also integrate US food system reform. (Healthcare reform also requires food system reform by Ezili Dantò of HLLN bit.ly/QDm9N)

Should Haiti accept these Soros/Clinton/Group 184 new assembly plants, which have the same effect as the use of poor Haitian women for Norplant implants- as guinea pigs for their contraceptives and now more Haitian women have fallen to cervical and other feminine cancer illnesses than ever before, not too mention, infertility and the excessive bleeding?

Is it possible that the US won’t be satisfied until Haiti’s is as cancer ridden as the United States, or filled with diabetes and heart disease patients to feed US pharmaceutical companies? Isn’t already too indecent that these companies, like the Norplant manufacturer, used poor Haitian women for testing Norplant as a contraceptive which ultimately led to the implants approval by the U.S. Federal Drug Administration in 1990.

So as Haiti bleeds today from all these US/Euro ravages, including over 300,000 earthquake dead, part of which came from US agricultural policies that forced rural Haitians into Port au Prince, what’s Clinton’s apology worth to Haiti?

What’s Clinton’s empty words worth to Haitians who lost an estimated 830,000 jobs, their health, security, and food security due to the dumping of Arkansas rice and sugar? And then got slaughtered by the UN occupation trying to “pacify” crowded Site Soley originally built up from the LOST of the very same US assembly plant HOPE Act jobs Clinton/Obama/UN are now peddling back as new hope and “development” (bi-partisan oppression) for Haiti? Where is the justice?…”

See: Improved U.S. terms for Haiti textile imports sought www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62L5LL20100322 and the Sweatshop Hoax and Message to Paul Farmer ; U.S. AID go home! www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/AID_Haiti.html The Slavery in Haiti the Media Won’t Expose bit.ly/1zFCt and Healthcare reform also requires food system reform )

Haiti’s Great White Hope? by JOHN MAXWELL Sunday, Jamaican Observer, May 24, 2009

History is littered with treachery. In the noisome Slough of Dishonour are mired thousands of reputations, most of those who betrayed their own countries, like Pierre Laval, Vidkun Quisling, Jonas Savimbi and Augusto Pinochet. JOHN MAXWELL

The deepest pits, though, the most purulent sinks, are reserved for those who have ranged abroad to betray and sabotage strangers, to inflict unnecessary suffering on people who have never given them cause for complaint. People like Leopold of Belgium, Neville Chamberlain, Hitler, Ariel Sharon and George W Bush spring readily to mind. On Monday, former President Clinton announced that he would accept an invitation from the UN secretary general, Ban Ki Moon of South Korea, to become the SG’s personal envoy in Haiti. It is an appointment that will end in disaster. I mention Ban Ki Moon’s nationality because I believe that the disaster that already exists in Haiti is the result of a culture clash which is entirely incomprehensible to most people outside the Western hemisphere and not easily understood by most people outside the international crime scene that has been created in Haiti.

Ground Zero for Modern Civilisation

It is my contention that the modern world was born in Haiti. When you understand that the modern rotary printing press is a direct descendant of mills made to grind sugar you may begin to get the drift of my argument. Since I am not a historian my arguments will not be subtle and nuanced. I am simply presenting a few crude facts which, however you interpret them, will lead inexorably, I believe, to the conclusion that modern ideas of liberty and freedom, modern capitalism and globalisation of production and exchange, would have spent much longer in gestation had it not been for the black slaves of Haiti who abolished slavery and the slave trade. In the process they defeated the armies of the leading world powers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, destroyed the French empire in the western hemisphere, doubled the size and power of the United States and incidentally promoted the European sugar beet industry and revolutionised European farming.

The problem with all this, as I have repeatedly pointed out, is that had the Haitians been ethnically European, their achievements would now suffuse the world narrative; conversely, had Spartacus been black, he would long ago have faded into the mists of barbarian myth. The Haitians and all the other blacks of the Western hemisphere were uprooted from their native grounds, their civilisations laid waste, and they themselves transported to unknown lands in which they were forced to create unexampled riches and luxury for their rapists and despoilers.

For reasons lost to history, the blacks in Haiti and Jamaica were, for most of their captivity, the most unwilling subjects and continued to fight for their freedom for more than three centuries. The Enlightenment and its prophets and philosophers popularised the ideas of freedom and liberty, the rights of man. Nowhere was freedom taken more seriously than by the Haitians, who, described as Frenchmen, fought valiantly for American freedom in that nation’s Revolutionary War of Independence. When Revolution convulsed France in turn, the Haitians threw their support to those they thought were fighting for freedom. When that proved a false trail, the Haitians continued to fight, defeating the French, British and Spanish armies sent to re-enslave them.

Although the Americans and the French said they believed in freedom, they formed an unholy combination to restrict Haiti’s liberty. The fact of Haitian freedom frightened the Americans and other world powers. Haiti promised freedom to any captive who set foot on her soil and armed, provisioned and supplied trained soldiers to Simon Bolivar for the liberation of South America. Nearly 200 years before the United Nations (and France and the USA), Haiti proclaimed Universal Human Rights, threatening the slave societies in America and the Caribbean. Haiti’s freedom was compromised by French and American financial blackmail, and as I’ve said before, what the Atlantic powers could not achieve by force of arms they achieved by compound interest. Haiti was the first heavily indebted poor country, and the United States, Canada, France and the multilateral financial organisations, the World Bank, the InterAmerican Development Bank and the IMF have worked hard to keep her in that bondage. In this March 10, 2009 file photo, former US President Bill Clinton greets United Nations workers in Port-au-Prince. The United Nations recently named Clinton as its special envoy to Haiti, with a mission to help the impoverished nation achieve some measure of stability after devastating floods and other crises. (Photo: AP)

Eventually, 93 years ago, the Americans invaded Haiti, destroyed the constitution, the government and their social system. American Jim Crow segregation and injustice destroyed the Haitian middle class, enhanced and exacerbated class distinctions and antagonisms and left Haiti a ravaged, dysfunctional mess, ruled by a corrupt American-trained military in the interest of a small, corrupt gang of mainly expatriate or white capitalists, ready to support any and every murderous dictator who protected their interests.

Finally, 20 years ago, the Haitians rose up and overthrew the Duvaliers and the apprentice dictators who followed. In their first free election the Haitians elected a black parish priest of small stature, the man whose words and spirit had embodied their struggle. But the real rulers of Haiti, the corrupt, bloodthirsty capitalists with their American passports and their bulletproof SUVs, had no intention of letting Haitians exercise the universal human rights their leaders had proclaimed two centuries before.

When Jean Bertrand Aristide was deposed after a few months in office, it was with the help of the CIA, USAID, and other American entities. Then ensued one of the most disgraceful episodes in the long, unsavoury history of diplomacy. Bill Clinton – elected president promising to treat the Haitian refugees as human beings – elected instead to observe the same barbarous policies as George Bush I, and when the refugees became a flood, Clinton’s answer was more illegality. He parked two massive floating slave barracoons in Kingston Harbour where refugees picked up in Jamaican waters were, with the craven connivance of the Patterson government, denied asylum, captured and processed and 22 per cent of them selected for the Guantanamo Bay concentration camp while the rest were returned to their murderers in Haiti.

Eventually, largely due to pressure from black pressure groups in the US and crucially, a fast to the death begun by Randall Robinson, Clinton agreed to restore Aristide while General Colin Powell talked grandly of the soldier’s honour he shared with Haiti’s then murderer-in-chief, a scamp called Raoul Cedras. President Clinton made several pledges to Aristide and to Haiti, but history does not seem to record that any were kept. Had even a few been kept, Haiti may have been able to guarantee public security and to install some desperately needed infrastructure. Instead Haitians are still scooping water to drink from potholes in the street and stave off hunger with ‘fritters’ made from earth and cooking fat.

The Haitian Army, the most corrupt and evil public institution in the western hemisphere, was abolished by Aristide, to the displeasure of the North American powers. Now that the Americans have deposed Aristide for the second time, security is in the hands of a motley mercenary army, a UN peacekeeping force. Security in Haiti is so good that three years ago, the then head of this force, a Brazilian general, was found shot to death after a friendly chat with Haitian elites. The rapes, massacres, disappearances and kidnappings continue unabated and the only popular political force, the Fanmi Lavalas, has been effectively neutered. President Clinton “will aim to attract private and government investment and aid for the poor Caribbean island nation”, according to Clinton’s office and a senior UN official. “A UN official said that Clinton would act as a ‘cheerleader’ for the economically distressed country, cajoling government and business leaders into pouring fresh money into a place that is largely dependent on foreign assistance.”

It all sounds so nice and cozy, a poor, black ‘hapless’ nation under the tutelage of the rich and civilised of the earth. I am prepared to bet that neither Haitian democracy nor Bill Clinton’s reputation will survive this appointment. Democracy is impossible without popular participation and decision making. In Haiti, democracy is impossible without Lavalas and Aristide. If Haiti itself is to survive, the UN General Assembly needs to seize this baton from the spectacularly unqualified and ignorant Security Council and its very nice and affable secretary general, even less attuned to Haitian reality than the last SG, Kofi Annan and his accomplices, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, PJ Patterson and Patrick Manning.

Copyright -2009 John Maxwell jankunnu@gmail.com

Improved U.S. terms for Haiti textile imports sought Pascal Fletcher PORT-AU-PRINCE Mon Mar 22, 2010 7:39pm EDT Related Video

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – Former U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush will seek improved U.S. trade preferences for textile and apparel imports from Haiti to assist its recovery from the catastrophic January earthquake, Clinton said on Monday.

www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62L5LL20100322

Clinton, named by the United Nations as coordinator of relief efforts for the quake-stricken Caribbean state, made the promise during a visit with Bush to Haiti to check on its long-term rebuilding needs following the January 12 quake.

The husband of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has already visited Haiti since the disaster, which Haitian President Rene Preval says may have killed up to 300,000 people. It was former President Bush’s first visit to the Western Hemisphere’s poorest state.

Clinton said their talks with Preval focused on the country’s long-term post-quake aid and development requirements, which will be presented to foreign donors at an international conference in New York on March 31.

This included support and investment for Haiti’s textile and apparel manufacturing industry, which enjoys favorable tariffs and terms under the U.S. HOPE legislation that both Clinton and Bush had helped to bring into being.

At a news conference in Port-au-Prince also attended by Preval and Bush, Clinton said there was South Korean and Brazilian interest in investing in this Haitian sector, if improvements were made to the existing U.S. HOPE legislation.

“We pledged to do what we could to get the changes adopted by Congress that would enable you to make maximum use of this law, and that I think could create more than 100,000 jobs in Haiti in short order,” he said, addressing Preval.

Outside the badly damaged presidential palace, supporters of former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who have criticized Preval for being slow to help quake victims, staged a noisy demonstration. They also burned vehicle tires and an American flag.

Clinton and Bush later visited a camp near the palace sheltering several thousand quake survivors. The two former U.S. presidents, surrounded by security personnel, met some of the homeless who beseeched them to speed up relief efforts.

“HAITI NEEDS HELP”

Bush said earlier: “Hopefully our trip will help to remind people in our country that Haiti needs help”

Clinton later explained to Reuters he would like to see the HOPE trade preferences for Haiti extended for several more years to give major foreign investors an opportunity to establish themselves in the Haitian apparel sector.

He also wanted to see the cap on Haitian textile and apparel exports to the U.S. under HOPE increased, to 250 million square meters a year from the existing 70 million.

“I’d like to see the ceiling lifted so that then we can get bigger investments here,” he said.

“Most of it (the proposed increase for Haiti) would be shifted production from Asia to Haiti, so there’d be no greater penetration of American markets and we’d be helping our neighbor and it could create hundreds of millions of dollars of investment,” he said.

Clinton said he would also seek funds for more seeds and fertilizer, as well as investment, to help Haiti’s weak farming sector rebound after years of being flooded with food aid and cheap, subsidized farm imports from the United States.

Both former presidents recognized that work still needed to be done to provide more than a million Haitian quake survivors with adequate shelter and sanitation before the threat of rains and hurricanes expected in the coming weeks and months.

(Additional reporting by Sue Pleming in Washington and Jane Sutton in Miami; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Tell the Truth About Haiti Forum with Ezili Dantò of HLLN bit.ly/cSpvDp

Healthcare reform also requires food system reform bit.ly/QDm9N

U.S. AID go home! bit.ly/b2UE1z

Haiti & Africa: The Horrors of Humanitarian Aid www.burbankdigest.com/node/275

Recommended HLLN Link: Tell the Truth About Haiti Forum with Ezili Dantò of HLLN bit.ly/cSpvDp

A message to Paul Farmer, the Senate, Dobbins & Francois bit.ly/dbjfio

The Slavery in Haiti the Media Won’t Expose bit.ly/1zFCt

U.S. AID go home! bit.ly/b2UE1z

Forwarded by Ezili’s Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network