- Every day this week, Kevin Pina is reporting from Haiti for Flashpoints.
- 'Jean Saint-Vil: Canada should own up to hosting 2003 summit to plot Aristide's overthrow': Article accompanies video interview. [StraightGoods]
- Jamie Stern-Weiner's written a great piece, Haiti & Gaza: The Political Economy of Humanitarianism': "The contrast between the response of our political and intellectual classes to the devastation in Haiti on the one hand and the “humanitarian implosion” in Gaza on the other is striking. There was no star-studded ‘Hope for Gaza’ benefit gig last year when US-backed Israeli forces systematically pounded Gaza’s civilian infrastructure to rubble, killing some 1,400 people in the process...This disparity is particularly shameful given that, whereas what is needed in Haiti is a huge reconstruction effort (specifically one designed to empower Haitians rather than further subjugate them to external forces), all that is required in Gaza is that we stop actively participating in and facilitating the destruction." [New Left Project]
- 'Brazilian soldiers spray tear gas at crowd of Haitians rushing for food aid' [Washington Post]
- 'Haiti Earthquake May Have Exposed Gas, Aiding Economy': “A geologist, callous as it may seem, tracing that fault zone from Port-au-Prince to the border looking for gas and oil seeps, may find a structure that hasn’t been drilled,” said Pierce, exploration manager at Zion Oil & Gas Inc., a Dallas- based company that’s drilling in Israel. “A discovery could significantly improve the country’s economy and stimulate further exploration.” [Bloomberg]
- 'US Military’s Haiti “Relief” Ops A Rehearsal For Troop Deployments in Latin America': [Glen Ford for Black Agenda Report, h/t: HCVAnalysis]
- 'The Curse on Haiti: It wasn’t the devil that hurt Haiti; it was Thomas Jefferson.' [The Root]
- Haitian President Preval says Feb 28th elections are postponed: "For human and technical reasons, it is obvious that the electoral process won't be able to proceed as we had planned," he said. "Now we have to discuss with the various parties what will happen, what will be the next plan."...Preval said Haiti's constitution sets the date for elections and does not give the president the power to delay a vote, but he noted that electoral events in Haiti often veer from the constitutionally mandated schedule..."Life is sometimes stronger than the constitution," he said." [Reuters]
- Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty 'urges debt relief for Haiti.' Bizarrely, in the same breath he echoed a Wall Street Journal report headlined, 'Venezuela's Chavez Sidesteps Haiti Debt Relief Requests.' As was pointed out yesterday, Venezuela has, indeed, forgiven Haiti's ($295 million) debt, "Haiti has no debt with Venezuela -- on the contrary, it is Venezuela that has a historic debt with Haiti," Chavez said as he made the announcement." See also, ALBA's Declaration on the Haiti crisis, Jan 25, 2010 (.pdf). [Update: 'IMF Chief in U-turn as Venezuela cancels Haiti debt.'
- Yesterday, we reported that Hillary Clinton and the State Department were whining about Al Jazeera's hard-hitting coverage of the militarized U.S. earthquake response. Today, Al Jazeera responded with a rejection of their criticism: "Responding to Crowley's complaint, Al Jazeera said in a statement that it "broadcast balanced, fair and detailed coverage of the Haiti earthquake. "In this instance our reporting reflected the concerns of the Brazilian and French governments, aid agencies on the ground and many Haitians we spoke to in the course of our newsgathering."
- 'Haiti: Two Competing Aid Approaches': "The first aid aircraft to reach the Port-au-Prince airport in Haiti, within 14 hours of the devastation, was Venezuelan, with a search and rescue team. Almost immediately afterwards, they drove to a disaster site and pulled out four women alive. And then came the Americans...Two very different visions of disaster aid and reconstruction are playing out in Haiti...The theme of solidarity extends beyond a pending historical debt. Venezuela, Cuba and other countries of ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America) see the Haitian people as protagonists of the reconstruction. It is not that Venezuela and Cuba do not have strategic interests in Haiti. As with Mrs Clinton, President Chavez has been saying publicly that no revolution is safe in Latin America until the continental bourgeoisie has been defeated. But the doctrines have different consequences for Haiti and everywhere else: military boots on the ground versus hospitals and schools, community organising versus disaster capitalism, privatisation, wage freezes and enormous loans versus public ownership, independence versus servitude." [ZNet]
- Ezili Danto points to a disturbing development which finds Israel sending 100 police to Haiti at the request of the UN Secretary General.
- Canadian NGO's (some of them, we must note, supported the 2004 coup d'etat) issue communique, 'Help Haiti help itself.' [Straight Goods]
- 'Occupation in Humanitarian Clothing': "The Obama administration will try to dress up their ambition to occupy and pillage Haiti in a humanitarian evening gown. But clothing is in short supply in Haiti and we can't afford to waste it." [Common Dreams]
- Counterpunch has a number of articles up today:
Sasha Kramer: "Letter from Port au Prince: Fear Slows Aid Efforts in Haiti': "I have been amazed to visit friends working with large NGO's in Port au Prince only to learn that they are forced to operate under security restrictions that prevent any kind of real connections to Haitian communities. One friend showed me the map, used by all of the larger NGOs where Port au Prince is divided into security zones, yellow, orange, red. Red zones are restricted, in the orange zones all of the car windows must be rolled up and they cannot be visited past certain times of day, even in the yellow zones aid workers are often not permitted to walk through the streets and spend much of their time in Haiti riding through the city from one office to another in organizational vehicles."
Mark Weisbrot: "Security Kills: U.S. Fear of Democracy in Haiti": "Unlike the two centuries of looting and pillage of Haiti since its founding by a slave revolt in 1804, the brutal occupation by U.S. Marines from 1915-1934, the countless atrocities under dictatorships aided and abetted by Washington, the 2004 coup cannot be dismissed as “ancient history.” It was just six years ago, and it is directly relevant to what is happening there now. The United States, together with Canada and France, conspired openly for four years to topple Haiti’s elected government, cutting off almost all international aid in order to destroy the economy and make the country ungovernable. They succeeded."
Vijay Prashad: 'Plan of Death in Haiti: The U.S. Reaches Out Its Hands...With Deadly Conditions': "The Obama team has not shifted the century-long U.S. policy vis-a-vis Haiti. Promotion of tourism and sweatshops, increase in debt and rural flight: all this will continue. A $100 million in aid is minuscule, almost insulting. It was Obama’s first tranche for Haiti. More will come, but with substantial conditions, more along the plan of death. These are inevitable, and they will set the stage for further suffering. The earthquake and its aftermath will draw in some relief money and the good feelings of Atlantic liberalism. But little more."
For some reason, Nicholas Kozloff repeats the claim (which we have not yet seen substantiated) that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said the U.S. deliberately set off the earthquake with some sort of tectonic device . This claim appears to have been refuted. More on this as clearer details emerge...
- On the prospects for disaster capitalism: 'Haiti - Profiting from Misery?' [Final Call]
- 'The US Navy has anchored one of its secret prisons (USS Bataan) in Haitian waters' [IslamTimes]. As The Guardian reported in 2008, "The controversy over prison ships was first highlighted in June 2005 when the UN's special rapporteur on terrorism spoke of "very, very serious" allegations that the US was secretly detaining terrorism suspects in various locations around the world, notably on vessels in the Indian Ocean...The US has admitted that the [USS] Bataan and Peleliu were used as prison ships between December 2001 and January 2002...USS Bataan Wasp-class amphibious assault ship, 257m x 32m. Carries 3,200 people. Took part in activities in Iraq and Afghanistan. Holds a 600-bed hospital."
- Check out regular reports at VancouverHaiti.blogspot.com.
- Former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors under George W. Bush, Glen Hubbard, calls for a technocratic, corporate-led solution to Haiti's troubles: ergo, the international community should "set up a separate entity led and staffed by people with business backgrounds. A Haiti Marshall plan would need to do the same thing. Of course existing aid agencies would object, so high-level leadership would need to come into play..." [Financial Times]
- Right wing priest from the Acton Institute think tank (whose board of advisors includes Michael Novak of American Enterprise Institute and Leonard Liggio of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation) urges: "The American government must resist any move by Aristide to return," while regurgitating the CIA's laundry list of 'black propaganda' about Haiti's twice overthrown President.