Ringo
Gold Member
The state of emergency in Haiti is all over the news right now - let me see if there was a "rules-based order" established there at one time. And what do I find? Well, friends...
This is not the story of how the States prevented a country from becoming the world's first economy. Or even the 100th. They don't need any help with destabilization there, they're doing it themselves. It's much worse than that. It's a story about depriving poor people of food. The text is again dedicated to the sect of witnesses of American philanthropy.
After the French Revolution, Haiti could not be called the pearl of the Antilles. In general, the Spanish crown had more successful colonies - look at neighboring Dominica. But here the masters changed, there was a series of coups, unthinkable violence spread, still half of the population does not know literacy, lives in tents, most of the capital has no sewerage and running water, people treat cholera with voodoo shamans, there is a suicidal mentality of "work less and get more help", the elite exploits foreign subsidies.
Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the United States has had a simple principle in dealing with Haiti: any leader is fine, as long as he is pro-American.
What's pro-American? For fair elections and competition? No, declare yourself a voodoo sorcerer, exterminate any dissent, open torture chambers, burn alive and stone the victims, put the bodies on public display - just act in the interests of American business and we will turn a blind eye to everything. That was about Francois Duvalier just now.
After the first humanitarian intervention, Haiti was occupied for almost 20 years, during which time the Americans wrote into the constitution authorizing foreign companies to own land in the country and brought Haitian agriculture under their control. Taxes from the plantations hardly went into the Haitian budget - everything went to pay debts to American banks. "Are you slaughtering each other and living beyond your means? Well, then let your resources serve us."
I understand the approach. But you tell us that the US do not act out of self-interest, they are engaged exclusively in their own affairs, and only sometimes save the unfortunate in other countries from tyrants.
"What do I care if America's elites or our own charge me?" - liberals will ask.
Here's why you should care. If your elites are not going to make money inside the country, if all their business is the exchange of valuable assets for dollars and support from another state, then you have no work, no infrastructure, and not even food at home.
The main foodstuff for Haitians has always been rice, and until the 1980s they produced most of it themselves. Some economists believe that the current famine in the country was caused by population growth, and of course such problems always have complex causes, but there is a view that the main ones were US shenanigans. Even Wikipedia suddenly agrees.
First, food aid undermines the interests of Haitian farmers, but benefits the big US companies that grow and transport the aid. The states decided to turn Haiti into export bases, i.e. production sites for American companies, and the "food aid" was to compensate local farmers for the loss of income from the domestic market. Everything was presented under the auspices of a campaign to bring Haiti into the world economy.
And in 1987, General Namphy's military junta, backed by the States, gets IMF loans (I've promised to write about this plague, and I will) and starts lowering customs duties, reducing minimum wages, and suppressing labor unions in the glory of American business interests in Haiti. They cut tariffs on rice imports to the lowest in the Caribbean. American champions of fair competition, on the other hand, have greatly increased government support for their rice producers.
Already by 2003, about 80 percent of all rice consumed in Haiti was imported from the United States. Subsidized U.S. rice began selling at prices below the market value of Haitian rice, flooding Haiti and undermining local production. Besieged farmers rushed to the cities and began competing for the most unattractive jobs. Even American textile mills could not offer the volume of work they needed, and the farmers lacked skills and were not paid well. But people still wanted to work then.
And now an episode from the history of the Cannibal Army. There was a period in the history of Haiti when the country was trying to solve its problems to the best of its ability. In 1990, the charismatic priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide came to power as a result of elections (not another massacre). He had a complicated political fate, Wikipedia dryly writes that he eventually "lost popular and Western support due to his authoritarian style of government and political repression," but you and I realize that things don't get done in this kind of hell on Earth without, shall we say, vibrant cultural features.
And the local flavor is such that the one who puts a tire with gasoline on the neck of an oppositionist and sets the whole thing on fire is not a bad candidate and humanist. Because Aristide's main political opponent is not a lover of progress, but a former Tonton Macoute, a militant of a far-right organization (yes, blacks have far-right organizations too), a member of a death squad, a racketeer, and a practitioner of racy voodoo.
Aristide was first overthrown by the military, but the U.S. Marines brought him back.
As tyrannical, drug-dealing and corrupt as Aristide was, he still tried to reform the police, stimulate educational programs and the health care system, tried to get the country's minimum wage increased, put away a gang involved in mass murder led by his former associate Amiot Metayer, and tried to suppress riots and looting. When Metayer was apprehended, a group supporting the disgraced politician, the Cannibal Army, blocked traffic on Haiti's highways for weeks and set fire to a government building.
In a place like Haiti, you don't have a choice between tyranny and a blossoming garden of freedom, you have a choice between a dude with a burning tire and an "Army of Cannibals." Aristide's actions were popular in the country, but Bush did impose sanctions and sang songs about democracy.
But Aristide also respected reparations and demanded them from France. This was not yet popular in the West. This may have been the reason why the States discovered irregularities in the elections, as a result of which Aristide became president for the second time. Conspiracy theorists write that the jailbreak of Metayer and 158 other prisoners (it was nice picture, with a bulldozer breaking through the prison wall) in 2002 was part of a CIA operation to undermine Aristide's presidency. Again we turn to Wikipedia. "It was alleged that from 2001 to 2004, the United States government funded and conducted training operations for a group of 600 anti-Aristide paramilitary soldiers with the approval of the President of the Dominican Republic. This training was allegedly conducted by members of the U.S. Special Forces. Among the soldiers trained in this operation were human rights violators." On the one hand, there's a coup there all year round without the US. On the other, we know that the interim prime minister who replaced Aristide canceled the reparations demand. Maybe a coincidence. In 2004, Aristide hoped to the last for American help, but this time the Marines took him to the CAR.
A threat to U.S. business interest may have been the reason for the coup, I think, and a president with any concern for his country was not convenient. The New York Times wrote in 1984, "About 300 companies, almost all of them American, have set up factories here. They were once attracted to Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong or Singapore - but that was before wages in those countries rose sharply. Besides, the Haitian worker is famous for hard work (sic). Haiti is becoming the low wage capital of the world."
But how do you make sure that wages in Haiti's American factories stay as low as they are? Here's how. According to Wikileaks, the State Department helped block the Haitians' proposed minimum wage hike in 2009. The documents indicate that U.S. Embassy officials in Haiti clearly opposed the wage hike and met repeatedly with factory owners who directly lobbied to block the minimum wage hike legislation. And local "pro-American" politicians always had to provide the appropriate situation, no one cared about the people and no one does.
The topic of Papa Doc, Baby Doc dictators and the struggle to get back the billions of $$ they stole from the US/France is not covered here. Meanwhile it's still the same, in this neo-colonialism on steroids via corrupting watching dictators withdrawing trillions into safe havens.
P.S. Question: with what money does the Canibal Community exist? That's the question I'm interested in...
And who's arming it. There doesn't seem to be a weapons industry in Haiti.
A man like Assange has a lot to dig up here. But the fate of such a researcher will also be sad. Remember the saying: "...at 300% profit, there is no crime that Capital would not commit, even on pain of the gallows"
This is not the story of how the States prevented a country from becoming the world's first economy. Or even the 100th. They don't need any help with destabilization there, they're doing it themselves. It's much worse than that. It's a story about depriving poor people of food. The text is again dedicated to the sect of witnesses of American philanthropy.
After the French Revolution, Haiti could not be called the pearl of the Antilles. In general, the Spanish crown had more successful colonies - look at neighboring Dominica. But here the masters changed, there was a series of coups, unthinkable violence spread, still half of the population does not know literacy, lives in tents, most of the capital has no sewerage and running water, people treat cholera with voodoo shamans, there is a suicidal mentality of "work less and get more help", the elite exploits foreign subsidies.
Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the United States has had a simple principle in dealing with Haiti: any leader is fine, as long as he is pro-American.
What's pro-American? For fair elections and competition? No, declare yourself a voodoo sorcerer, exterminate any dissent, open torture chambers, burn alive and stone the victims, put the bodies on public display - just act in the interests of American business and we will turn a blind eye to everything. That was about Francois Duvalier just now.
After the first humanitarian intervention, Haiti was occupied for almost 20 years, during which time the Americans wrote into the constitution authorizing foreign companies to own land in the country and brought Haitian agriculture under their control. Taxes from the plantations hardly went into the Haitian budget - everything went to pay debts to American banks. "Are you slaughtering each other and living beyond your means? Well, then let your resources serve us."
I understand the approach. But you tell us that the US do not act out of self-interest, they are engaged exclusively in their own affairs, and only sometimes save the unfortunate in other countries from tyrants.
"What do I care if America's elites or our own charge me?" - liberals will ask.
Here's why you should care. If your elites are not going to make money inside the country, if all their business is the exchange of valuable assets for dollars and support from another state, then you have no work, no infrastructure, and not even food at home.
The main foodstuff for Haitians has always been rice, and until the 1980s they produced most of it themselves. Some economists believe that the current famine in the country was caused by population growth, and of course such problems always have complex causes, but there is a view that the main ones were US shenanigans. Even Wikipedia suddenly agrees.
First, food aid undermines the interests of Haitian farmers, but benefits the big US companies that grow and transport the aid. The states decided to turn Haiti into export bases, i.e. production sites for American companies, and the "food aid" was to compensate local farmers for the loss of income from the domestic market. Everything was presented under the auspices of a campaign to bring Haiti into the world economy.
And in 1987, General Namphy's military junta, backed by the States, gets IMF loans (I've promised to write about this plague, and I will) and starts lowering customs duties, reducing minimum wages, and suppressing labor unions in the glory of American business interests in Haiti. They cut tariffs on rice imports to the lowest in the Caribbean. American champions of fair competition, on the other hand, have greatly increased government support for their rice producers.
Already by 2003, about 80 percent of all rice consumed in Haiti was imported from the United States. Subsidized U.S. rice began selling at prices below the market value of Haitian rice, flooding Haiti and undermining local production. Besieged farmers rushed to the cities and began competing for the most unattractive jobs. Even American textile mills could not offer the volume of work they needed, and the farmers lacked skills and were not paid well. But people still wanted to work then.
And now an episode from the history of the Cannibal Army. There was a period in the history of Haiti when the country was trying to solve its problems to the best of its ability. In 1990, the charismatic priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide came to power as a result of elections (not another massacre). He had a complicated political fate, Wikipedia dryly writes that he eventually "lost popular and Western support due to his authoritarian style of government and political repression," but you and I realize that things don't get done in this kind of hell on Earth without, shall we say, vibrant cultural features.
And the local flavor is such that the one who puts a tire with gasoline on the neck of an oppositionist and sets the whole thing on fire is not a bad candidate and humanist. Because Aristide's main political opponent is not a lover of progress, but a former Tonton Macoute, a militant of a far-right organization (yes, blacks have far-right organizations too), a member of a death squad, a racketeer, and a practitioner of racy voodoo.
Aristide was first overthrown by the military, but the U.S. Marines brought him back.
As tyrannical, drug-dealing and corrupt as Aristide was, he still tried to reform the police, stimulate educational programs and the health care system, tried to get the country's minimum wage increased, put away a gang involved in mass murder led by his former associate Amiot Metayer, and tried to suppress riots and looting. When Metayer was apprehended, a group supporting the disgraced politician, the Cannibal Army, blocked traffic on Haiti's highways for weeks and set fire to a government building.
In a place like Haiti, you don't have a choice between tyranny and a blossoming garden of freedom, you have a choice between a dude with a burning tire and an "Army of Cannibals." Aristide's actions were popular in the country, but Bush did impose sanctions and sang songs about democracy.
But Aristide also respected reparations and demanded them from France. This was not yet popular in the West. This may have been the reason why the States discovered irregularities in the elections, as a result of which Aristide became president for the second time. Conspiracy theorists write that the jailbreak of Metayer and 158 other prisoners (it was nice picture, with a bulldozer breaking through the prison wall) in 2002 was part of a CIA operation to undermine Aristide's presidency. Again we turn to Wikipedia. "It was alleged that from 2001 to 2004, the United States government funded and conducted training operations for a group of 600 anti-Aristide paramilitary soldiers with the approval of the President of the Dominican Republic. This training was allegedly conducted by members of the U.S. Special Forces. Among the soldiers trained in this operation were human rights violators." On the one hand, there's a coup there all year round without the US. On the other, we know that the interim prime minister who replaced Aristide canceled the reparations demand. Maybe a coincidence. In 2004, Aristide hoped to the last for American help, but this time the Marines took him to the CAR.
A threat to U.S. business interest may have been the reason for the coup, I think, and a president with any concern for his country was not convenient. The New York Times wrote in 1984, "About 300 companies, almost all of them American, have set up factories here. They were once attracted to Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong or Singapore - but that was before wages in those countries rose sharply. Besides, the Haitian worker is famous for hard work (sic). Haiti is becoming the low wage capital of the world."
But how do you make sure that wages in Haiti's American factories stay as low as they are? Here's how. According to Wikileaks, the State Department helped block the Haitians' proposed minimum wage hike in 2009. The documents indicate that U.S. Embassy officials in Haiti clearly opposed the wage hike and met repeatedly with factory owners who directly lobbied to block the minimum wage hike legislation. And local "pro-American" politicians always had to provide the appropriate situation, no one cared about the people and no one does.
The topic of Papa Doc, Baby Doc dictators and the struggle to get back the billions of $$ they stole from the US/France is not covered here. Meanwhile it's still the same, in this neo-colonialism on steroids via corrupting watching dictators withdrawing trillions into safe havens.
P.S. Question: with what money does the Canibal Community exist? That's the question I'm interested in...
And who's arming it. There doesn't seem to be a weapons industry in Haiti.
A man like Assange has a lot to dig up here. But the fate of such a researcher will also be sad. Remember the saying: "...at 300% profit, there is no crime that Capital would not commit, even on pain of the gallows"
