- My latest article is but one of a few that have reported on the emerging role of private contractors in post-earthquake Haiti of late: 'Private Contractors 'Like Vultures Coming to Grab the Loot': 'Critics are concerned that private military contractors are positioning themselves at the centre of an emerging "shock doctrine" for earthquake-ravaged Haiti.' [IPS]
- 'Helping Haiti, for a Price Private security contractors begin to capitalize on the disaster': "With the U.S. government already pledging more than $183 million in aid to Haiti as of late January, it’s “inevitable” that long-term relief efforts will end up being contracted out to private U.S. firms, says David Isenberg, an independent analyst of private military and security contractors and the author of Shadow Force: Private Security Contractors in Iraq." [Jeremy Gantz writing for In These Times]
- 'Watch this Investment Summit on Haiti: Concerns over two-day Miami event': "Caricom, which participated in the Montreal Conference and which has been mandated by Haiti to function as its special advocate at international fora in relation to the country's post-earthquake reconstruction, received no invitation or official information about this upcoming summit. At the time of writing two days ago, the indication given was that it was "most unlikely" that Caricom would have an official present at the scheduled investment summit." [Rickey Singh for the Jamaica Observer]
- The Center for Economic and Policy Research has set up the invaluable Haiti Relief and Reconstruction Watch, which has already produced a number of relevant posts, including: Private Prison Company Gets Haiti Contract, and Contractors in Haiti, Readying to Profit from Disaster?
- Last week there was a 'No Shock Doctrine for Haiti'-themed meeting in London featuring Peter Hallward, Selma James, and Nick Deardon.
- 'Obama's plan to rebuild Haiti has the Clinton imprint attached': "The Obama administration is quietly advocating a plan to reconstruct Haiti after the crippling Jan. 12 earthquake that could involve an even more central role for former President Bill Clinton." [Albeit in typical corporate media fashion, the leaked document in question is not revealed, an important development to track via Miami Herald]
- 'US-HAITI: The Loan that Wasn't – Part 1': "In 2000, Aristide once again won overwhelmingly in the Haitian elections. Aristide's second election did not please the new U.S. president, George W. Bush. Johnson then recounts how the Bush administration conspired to cut off funds already appropriated for a vital infrastructure and public health project. An award of 146 million dollars from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) had already been approved, but at U.S. [and Canadian] insistence was not being disbursed. Some 54 million dollars of this loan was intended for desperately needed water and sanitation projects. [William Fisher, IPS]
- 'What the World Owes Haiti': "It was the Haitians alone of all of history's enslaved peoples who defeated the system, destroyed the institutions of slavery and legislated that thenceforth, all men, women and children of whatever colour or station or nationality were, in Ayiti, full and free human beings. It drove the Americans mad." [Another important, must-read article from John Maxwell, Jamaica Observer]
- 'More Pain for Devastated Haiti: Under the Pretense of Disaster Relief, U.S. Running a Military Occupation': "Official denials aside, the United States has embarked on a new military occupation of Haiti thinly cloaked as disaster relief. While both the Pentagon and the United Nations claimed more troops were needed to provide "security and stability" to bring in aid, according to nearly all independent observers in the field, violence was never an issue." [Arun Gupta, Alternet]
- Peter Hallward, author of Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment, was on Democracy Now! this morning, along with Kim Ives, reporting from Port au Prince. [Democracy Now!]
- 'The land that wouldn't lie': "The Haitian people overthrew slavery, uprooted dictators and foreign military rule, and elected a liberation theologian as president. The west has made them pay for their audacity." [Peter Hallward for the New Statesman]
- 'Let Haitians take charge of their destinies': "For decades, centuries even, powerful international actors such as the U.S., Canada, France, and the U.N., as well as thousands of non-governmental organizations and individual benefactors, have determined the fate of Haiti. Since Canada's involvement with the 2004 coup against former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a small national movement has led the call, "Canada out of Haiti!" Despite the earthquake and the international community's relief effort, this movement is growing..." [Rabble]
- Canadian Union of Public Employees: 'Haiti: The decisive battle': "The fact that Prime Minister Harper is devoting time and energy to Haiti is a good thing. But we have to question the relevance and usefulness of his actions, and in particular his trip to Haiti in mid-February. It is clearly disturbing to see Harper and his entourage parading for the photographers in Haiti without having anything new to say or offer. But few commentators have provided a critique or an analysis reflecting the underlying tragedy of Haiti: the country’s unimaginable and shocking vulnerability before the earthquake." [CUPE]
- 'Haitians call for Aristide's Return': "Graffiti throughout the capital - and even on a rock at a mass grave for quake victims outside Port-au-Prince - calls on Aristide to come back, while support runs deep in the slums surrounding his former church." [Times Live, South Africa, caution: this article contains a distortion of the events leading to Aristide's overthrow]
- 'Haiti: a Victim of Naked Imperialism [Axis of Logic]
- The Russian Times interviews the News Dissector, Danny Schechter, about the flawed Western approach to 'aid' in Haiti. [RT]
- Media Promotes Flawed Haiti Narrative [Brown Man Thinking Hard]
- 'Haiti Still Suffers After the Media Big Boys Wrap' [Smirking Chimp]
- Although mostly provide elite perspectives in response to the question, the AP asks, 'Are sweatshops the answer for Haiti?' [AP]
- 'Haiti and Falkland Is. at the Center of Summit of Latin American and Caribbean Unity': "The summit will have as background the catastrophe left by the earthquake that devastated the capital and several surrounding cities of Haiti, with 240 thousand dead, 300 thousand wounded and about three million victims." [Cuba Headlines]
- 'Mass protests greet Sarkozy visit to Haiti' [WSWS]
- 'Haiti premier says govt to take land': "Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive says Haiti's government will appropriate privately held land to build temporary camps for earthquake victims." [Washington Post]
- 'Haiti PM fears government collapse': "Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said Thursday his government could collapse because political opponents are capitalizing on its inability to address the staggering fallout of the Jan. 12 earthquake." [Washington Post]
- 'Haiti: Public Relations War and Historical Symbolism' [Liberal historian Nikolas Kozloff writes another article; as I noted in the comments section, he makes a spurious omission in the form of isolating Chavez as the only Latin leader to oppose the 2004 coup against Aristide; why would he ignore CARICOM and Cuba's vocal opposition to the coup? Worth reading anyway; see Huffington Post]
- 'Haiti's elite sees business opportunities emerging from reconstruction': "Last month's earthquake battered [coup-financier] Reginald Boulos's small empire, destroying one of his supermarkets, badly damaging a hotel and killing two workers at his car dealership." [Washington Post]
- 'Along the same theme, the Toronto Star writes uncritically 'Prominent Haitians devise long-term survival plan,' lauded by right-wing FOCAL's Carlo Dade. [Toronto Star, and 'the plan' via coup-backing Haiti Democracy Project]
- See CEPR's Bush Administration Veterans Have Plans for Haiti: "Roger Noriega of the American Enterprise Institute and former [coup-plotting] State Department official during the Bush administration writes today about “Priming the pump of private capital and promoting free market mechanisms,” in order to ensure Haiti’s recovery."
- 'Haiti’s elite eyes profits as millions face disease and hunger': "Haiti’s wealthy ruling elite—together with US-based corporations—are salivating over the prospects for increased riches and big profits off of post-earthquake reconstruction as millions of working class and poor people are facing the threat of starvation and infectious epidemics that could easily push an already horrendous death toll up by hundreds of thousands more." [WSWS]
- 'Report Back From Haiti: Aid is Not Reaching People, Conditions are Dire, It’s a Military Occupation' [Hip Hop & Politics]
- 'U.S. Brags Haiti Response is a "Model" While More Than a Million Remain Homeless in Haiti' [Bill Quigley, Huffington Post]