The New Dark Age

12 November 2012 — Ezili Danto

 

Recommended HLLN Links: Photo: Obama Sec. of State, Hillary Clinton and former President Clinton, celebrate sweatshop opening at Caracol, Haiti. At the bottom in their own country, sad, exploited but dressed-up Haitians frame the Avatar crew’s feet. October 22, 2012. Photo credit: Larry Downing, AP – http://bit.ly/RyxPCN

 

Audio: Swapping Haiti lives: Interview on US Haiti Exploits http://bit.ly/Oe6V4u

 

Washington Justice For Haiti: In support of Paul Farmer’s pharmaceuticals and the Farmer groups – Brian Concannon/IDJH – asking the UN to judge itself guilty on behalf of Haiti cholera victims, Washington Post opines, justice for the Haiti cholera victims would be collectively awarding $40million to Paul Farmer pharmaceuticals for cholera vaccines ( Haiti: Ezili Dantò on Wash Post Cholera editorial http://bit.ly/Kp57D8 )

 

Avatar Haiti in full force with foreigners… http://on.fb.me/RiZo3A

 

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-During a recent “whirlwind tour’ of Haiti, Paul Farmer’s partner, World Bank president Jim Yong Kim, gushed: “My goodness, things have happened here. I thought it would be a lot worse.” (World Bank head holds out hope for Haiti http://cbsn.ws/Rm2vYQ )

 

— Clinton & Celebrities launch Haiti reconstruction battleship Building Haiti back better at approximately 59cents per hour minimum wage, transportation and lunch excluded. The Avatar crew – Sean Penn, Ben Stiller, Donna Karan, Richard Branson & the beyond-the-pale Clintons, CELEBRATE “a romantic moment” together

 

— I pay this price for you: Haiti is open for business They’re open for business on top of our decomposed dead bodies, on top of our crushed bones, on top of our intense grief. Open for business on top of our ground water contaminated by their diseased feces. http://bit.ly/iU1xoU

 

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I pay this price for you: Haiti is open for business http://bit.ly/iU1xoU

 

They’re open for business on top of our decomposed dead bodies, on top of our crushed bones, on top of our intense grief.

 

Open for business on top of our ground water contaminated by their diseased feces.

 

They’ve made so much money.

 

16-months later they still haven’t stop counting collected donation profits, anticipating more huge returns. Panting, salivating for more Haiti crisis, more cholera outbreaks, more back-to-back hurricanes, more calculated or imposed Haiti instability, more such business opportunities.

 

They’ve even calculated how much they’ll make pushing our decomposed dead bodies around to sell the grieving, Clorox hungry, walking dead Haitians – still living under hurricane-soaked tarps – more of their aquatabs, antibiotics, foreign vitamins, bottled water, nitrate-laced fertilizers and Monsanto hybrid seeds. Open for business building an oasis on top of an open grave, investing in remains. Happiness rings loud laughter at the World Bank, totally orgasmic at the IMF. Rwanda-Clinton says Haiti is open for business, now.

 

The profit-over-people colonists and Duvalierists ruling occupied Haiti say, Haiti is “open for business,” ignoring disenfranchisement, ignoring the ravages of UN-imported-cholera and the pillage of donation dollars for the quake victims….(Entire article at )

 

Recommended HLLN Link: “oh no, they don’t have bread, clean water, are evicted from their homes, massacred to make way for Clinton/Obama tourists and Korean gated homes. No worries.” (Haiti:They don’t have bread? Give ‘em Carnival http://bit.ly/PWrNw9 )

 

Haiti: Brandt Busted as Clintons with Hollywood celebrate sweatshop http://bit.ly/RyxPCN

 

Haiti: 206 years since Janjak Desalin http://bit.ly/T17VFW ****************

 

Ezili Dantò’s Note: Clinton & Celebrities launch Haiti reconstruction battleship

 

Hollywood and the celebrated rich came out to glorify this Avatar flagship sweatshop park of the poverty pimps just as wealthy oligarch Clifford Brandt was busted for leading a kidnapping ring, whose kidnappings were oftentimes blamed on the ghetto poor in Haiti.

 

Oct 22, 2012 was another brutal October day for Haiti ( http://bit.ly/T17VFW). It was celebrated by the “star-studded” Avatar crew http://on.fb.me/RiZo3A – Sean Penn, Ben Stiller, Donna Karan, Richard Branson & the beyond-the-pale Clintons, who the embedded mainstream media banally gushed “shared a romantic moment” together in Haiti for the first time since their honeymoon 37 years ago.””

 

Foreign, so-called “investment” in Haiti with this Caracol sweatshop first cost Haiti sustainable jobs. The foreign industrial park owners cleared the FERTILE land of 365 or so farming families who now have no land, no way to grow food, feed their families.

 

The US destroyed Haiti agricultural causing the loss of 850,000 Haiti peasant jobs. Bill Clinton apologized for destroying Haiti agriculture but then Hillary Clinton under Obama brings in MONSANTO hybrid seeds to further destroy and make dependent Haiti farmers. This industrial park is a hoax that, at max, will provide 20,000 jobs in 6-YEARS. But Hollywood attention seekers took the free ride to Haiti with the Clintons to make a big to do about a sweatshop paying Haiti workers (mostly women) $4:74 per day or 59cents per hour on an 8- hr day. And the $4.74 has to pay the tap tap transportation and lunch too.

 

Since the workers are paid on a piece-rate system, and production quotas are raised to the point where the majority of workers have no hope of meeting them in an 8-hour day, sometimes not even in a 12hour day, the hourly rate is even less than the meager 59cents per our in the high cost Western Hemisphere. 12hours per day to make their quota 12/4.74 (or 200gds per day) makes the real hourly rate for these “jobs” about 39 cents an hour. 39 cents to live on, pay lunch and transportation each day and have something left to cover children schooling, clothes, fees, food, fuel and housing! But rich Hollywood and the millionaire Clintons CELEBRATE this building Haiti back “better.”

 

The Clinton’s subsidized Korean agents for making US duty free goods for Wallmart, Target, et al, begin with NOT paying the minimum wage as Hollywood celebrities celebrated Obama‘s sweatshop HOPE for Haiti:

 

The minimum wage went up to 300gourdes as of Oct 1, 2012 in Haiti. It’s not 200gourdes but that’s what the workers who were outside protesting the Clintons and their Hollywood buddies making this hoax look like real jobs for Haiti were getting paid. The Sae-A Korean factory owners are paying the workers the old minimum wage. Except for the NYT, I think no one in the mainstream media who covered this “star-studded” event noted this worker abuse, right at the start. But then it seems NYT must have asked Sae-A about it, because NYT also reported that the workers are getting the old minimum wage because they are on six months training probation? How is it legal for the employer to put an employee on training probation to circumvent the minimum wage it must pay by LAW?

 

Can Sae-A have the Haiti employee on permanent probation also to circumvent the minimum wage or fire the worker after six months “training”, hire new ones on training probation every six months? (For the historical perspective on such so-called “foreign investments” in Haiti, check this link: Foreign investment means death for Haiti at http://bitly.com/NhilyS)

 

This Caracol industrial park is a HOAX because it’s a pretext to explain foreign presence in the area so they can build cruise ship berths and infrastructure for the (20bil) gold mining companies and Haiti vast oil. It’s not about living wage, sustainable jobs or earthquake relief for homeless earthquake victims. The earthquake happened in the south not north of Haiti. Bait and Switch. The only real investment in Haiti is not the false charity poverty pimps, Paul Farmer NGO invasion, USAID tied aid, US occupation behind UN mercenary guns nor the sweatshops. The only real INVESTMENT in Haiti Hollywood or the Clintons should be applauding and reinforcing is the Haiti Diaspora remittances – over $2billion PER YEAR sent back home to keep their families and friends alive. The Haiti Diaspora sends more money back home, than any other nationality. But, now the US-selected Martelly gov., with the help of corporate giants like Digicel and Western Union are TAXING the poor in Haiti. The diaspora remittances is charged $1.50 per transfer made to Haiti and .5cent extra charge per phone calls to Haiti. The Obama/Clinton State Department helped select the Martelly/Lamothe gov., so they’re obviously not concerned about the dilution of the only real Haiti investment.

 

New York Times article -“The Clintons in Haiti: Can an Industrial Park Save the Country?” is at http://ti.me/Ptj4VE

 

Ezili Dantò HLLN Nov, 2012

 

Haiti: Foreign Investment means Death and Repression: A Historical Perspective http://bit.ly/NhilyS

 

Washington Justice For Haiti: Awarding $40million to Paul Farmer pharmaceuticals for cholera vaccines –Haiti: Ezili Dantò on Wash Post Cholera editorial http://bit.ly/Kp57D8

 

Haiti: If I could reach CNN’s audience on the 4th of July http://bit.ly/OpM1OR

 

Haiti: A look at Koralen’s Vyewo http://bit.ly/O1V4UB

 

Haiti: Free Miller, Belizaire, Zaza http://bit.ly/OCXDec

 

Basic Haiti rights repealed http://bit.ly/PMdSJj

 

Haiti: Foreign Investment means Death and Repression: A Historical Perspective http://bit.ly/NhilyS

 

Avatar Haiti in full force with foreigners… http://on.fb.me/RiZo3A

 

Zili Dlo: 2012 delegation, Solar power and clean water for Haiti http://on.fb.me/VvGKYQ

 

2 Fon Batis mountain hamlet, Arcahaie, Haiti http://on.fb.me/Qsq1ma

 

Oct UNWomen Director, Michelle Bachelet, meet Barefoot College women solar engineers-Jaipur, Oct. 4, 2012 – http://on.fb.me/T6Wugi

 

Zili Dlo: Solar engineers for Haiti http://bit.ly/IV7EWJ

 

********************************************** Forwarded by Ezili’s Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network **********************************************

 

World Bank head holds out hope for Haiti http://cbsn.ws/Rm2vYQ CBS News, Nov. 8, 2012

 

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — It was a whirlwind tour for World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, who helicoptered from the grounds of the demolished National Palace to his old stomping grounds in central Haiti where he once treated the rural poor as a doctor.

 

Then he flew off to visit a power plant north of Port-au-Prince and then spoke at a conference on poverty at a hotel that like the presidential palace down the hill is being rebuilt following its implosion in the 2010 earthquake.

 

Kim’s two-day trip to Haiti was no routine drop-in for the head of an international organization. This one carried special significance for Kim, a physician and anthropologist who is regarded for his pioneering work in development because of his ties to the Boston-based Partners in Health.

 

Disaster-prone Haiti and unbridled optimism are unlikely bedfellows, but Kim saw reasons to be sunny.

 

“Despite the earthquake, despite the hurricanes, despite the enormous obstacles that Haiti always seems to face, I think there’s more hope today than I have seen in a very long time,” Kim told The Associated Press as a Toyota Land Cruiser hurried him to his next appointment.

 

This was Kim’s first trip to Latin America and the Caribbean since he became president of the World Bank in July, and he came to figure out how the international institution can help Haiti rebuild from the earthquake that displaced more than a million people and destroyed thousands of buildings. One of his stops was at a new, state-of-the-art public hospital built in the Central Plateau by Partners in Health.

 

Kim and President Michel Martelly signed agreements for $125 million for two projects. The first one, for $90 million, aims to increase the power supply for 600,000 people in urban and rural areas. The second, for $35 million, seeks to finance a debris management site along with an air safety navigation system at the international airport.

 

The World Bank will also be offering a year’s rent for 60,000 people displaced by the quake for the next 15 months along with vocational training, Kim announced.

 

His visit came as Haiti stumbles from yet another, though smaller, set back.

 

The country took a drubbing last month from Hurricane Sandy as the storm passed to the west and caused widespread flooding. Officials said up to 54 people died and 70 percent of the country’s crops in the south were lost.

 

The Haitian government and the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization said Tuesday that they need $74 million over the next year to help rehabilitate crops in Haiti.

 

Kim first came to Haiti as a Harvard medical student in 1987 and co-founded the community-focused Partners in Health with Paul Farmer. Kim left the group in 2003 to join the World Health Organization, where he was named director of the agency’s HIV/AIDS department.

 

He was president of Dartmouth University when he was named president of the World Bank.

 

In a speech Tuesday night, Kim laid out two scenarios for Haiti‘s future.

 

The first, he said, was a relatively sluggish “status quo” path for which GDP growth hews to the 2 to 3 percent rate of the 2000s, with reconstruction muddling along. The second is a “transformational scenario” that brings together the government, business leaders, international agencies and others to accelerate economic growth.

 

Haiti is one of the most unequal countries in the world, with much of the wealth concentrated in the hands of a select few, the World Bank says. As much as 60 percent of the population is unemployed or underemployed.

 

“Haiti‘s economy cannot be built by and benefit just a privileged few,” Kim told a crowd of diplomats, business leaders and development experts. “It must be built by and benefit all Haitians.”

 

On Wednesday, Kim met with members of Haiti‘s private sector at a hotel. Then he and his entourage climbed into a waiting caravan, which passed through the grid-like streets once clogged with rubble.

 

“I expected the streets to still be full of debris,” Kim said as the vehicle neared the World Bank office. “My goodness, things have happened here. I thought it would be a lot worse.”