- 'Profiting from Haiti’s Crisis: Disaster Capitalism in Washington’s Backyard': "US corporations, private mercenaries, Washington and the International Monetary fund are using the crisis in Haiti to make a profit, promote unpopular neoliberal policies, and extend military and economic control over the Haitian people." [Upside Down World]
- 'Haiti's elite spared from much of the devastation': "Although Tuesday's 7.0-magnitude earthquake destroyed many buildings in Port-au-Prince, it mostly spared homes and businesses up the mountain in the cool, green suburb of Petionville, home to former presidents and senators." [WaPo]
- Jeremy Scahill flags how the Orwellian-named 'International Peace Operations Association' has already created a special 'Haiti Earthquake Support' page, "offering the “services” of its member companies to swoop down on Haiti for some old fashioned...disaster profiteering." No word yet on any specific role being portioned out to private contractors, including Canada's premier disaster capitalist corporation, SkyLink Aviation; details as they emerge.
- Scahill reports further, 'Here we go: New Orleans 2.0':
"On January 15, a Florida based company called All Pro Legal Investigations registered the URL Haiti-Security.com. It is basically a copy of the company’s existing US website but is now targeted for business in Haiti, claiming the “purpose of this site is to act as a clearinghouse for information seekers on the state of security in Haiti...Among the services offered are: “High Threat terminations,” dealing with “worker unrest,” armed guards and “Armed Cargo Escorts.” Oh, and apparently they are currently hiring.” [Rebel Reports]
- Further to the disaster capitalism front, Corpwatch re-circulated this important 2004 piece by Toronto Star reporter Rick Westhead, which provides a reminder of signs to look for in the coming days, 'Haiti: Companies covet post-war rebuilding contracts.'
- Over the weekend, to its credit, the Globe and Mail reported on Aristide's desire to return to Haiti. Unfortunately, referring without qualification to Aristide as "a highly controversial leader who was blamed for human-rights abuses and violence," reporter Geoffrey York trots out the usual false narrative to describe Aristide's demise:
" In 2000, he won election...but human-rights groups criticized his campaign for using violence and intimidation. Opposition parties boycotted the election and refused to recognize his victory. Over the next four years his government was plagued by protests against human-rights abuses, corruption, economic woes and high unemployment. His armed supporters were accused of attacking journalists and political opponents. The anti-government protests intensified in 2004 and turned violent, and Mr. Aristide was forced to flee the country. He later complained that he was "kidnapped" and bundled onto a U.S. airplane by U.S. security agents."
Ever the trenchant reporter, York can't be bothered with the evidence that has accumulated to corroborate Aristide's "complaint" of a coup d'etat, nor with the details of the deliberate U.S., Canada, France-led destabilization of Aristide's government from 2000-2004 (withholding of aid, fomenting disinformation, financing the "opposition" movement and rebels, etc.), and least yet with the repressive apparatus that replaced him in the form of a UN-occupation, death squads, forcing thousands to flee, killing thousands more, filling prisons with political prisoners, etc. York's poor reporting is depressingly all too common.
- On the realistic side of the issue of Aristide's return, the widow of CLR James (author of the classic account of the Haitian revolution, The Black Jacobins), Selma James (who we had the honor of meeting in Caracas at the 2006 World Social Forum) wrote, in a letter to The Guardian titled 'Only Aristide has the mandate to lead Haiti's recovery.' Contrast this with York's tired old narrative:
"Elected again in 2000 with over 90% of the vote, [Aristide] was again removed in 2004, not by "a bloody rebellion" (Haiti's exiled former president vows to return, 15 January) but by bloody US marines. Haitians continue to call for Aristide's return. Will the only person with a mandate to govern be kept from leading their recovery and reconstruction?"
- 'Haitian President Preval largely absent in quake's aftermath.' Interestingly, this article notes, "[Preval] imposed economic austerity measures in his first term, including the privatization of some government services, which drew criticism for primarily benefiting Haiti's elite." Indeed, only five days before the earthquake hit it was announced that Viettel, a telecommunications company owned by the Vietnamese military, is set to take a 70% stake in Haiti's once-state run Telecommunucations company, Teleco.
- We've seen more than a few articles derogate Haiti either implicitly or explicitly as a "basket case" (for example, here, here, here, and here). The best response to this was Bill Fletcher's, during his interview with the good folks at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's Counterspin (transcribed unofficially by the WOD):
"One of the reasons I think that this is critically important, to look at history, is that the problem, in the absence of history, is that people then tend to look at Haiti as a basket case; they look at it as pathetic, as opposed to understanding that Haiti today is a direct result of the policies of the United States and France that go back to when Haiti achieved independence from France in 1804. If you don't get that, if you don't understand that the United States blockaded Haiti until 1862, that the French demanded that the Haitians pay reparations to France for the loss of the slaves as a result of the Haitian revolution, from the 1820's until 1947, if you don't get that the United States occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934; if you don't get that the United States backed, systematically, repressive regimes in Haiti, the most notorious being Papa Doc Duvalier; if you don't get that the United States was directly implicated in overthrowing President Aristide in1991, you can't understand how Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and one of the poorest on the planet. So the destruction of Haiti through outside interference, the ecological devastation that has taken place because people burn down trees...in order...to live...The mainstream media, by ignoring this broader context, ends up painting this picture of a pathetic population, as opposed to a population whose main crime was living on an island that is that close to the United States."
- Speaking of the French need to repay Haiti for its thuggery and theft, 'France: Time to Pay Back Haiti.'
- Even the French, no strangers to occupation, have decried the U.S. military-led aid distribution oversight: " The United Nations must investigate and clarify the dominant U.S. role in earthquake-ravaged Haiti, a French minister said Monday, claiming that international aid efforts were about helping Haiti, not "occupying" it..."This is about helping Haiti, not about occupying Haiti," [Alain] Joyandet, in Brussels for an EU meeting on Haiti, said on French radio." [WaPo]
- More Canadian counterinsurgents just back from Kandahar volunteer for Haiti mission. [CP]
- Canada announces that it will host a 'Haiti Summit' with the so-called 'friends of Haiti' (those who have been de facto running the country since 2004) next week to discuss how to run rebuild the country. [Globe & Mail]
- Patronizing, opportunistic reports from the Canadian press corps are not hard to come by. The WOD threw a dart that landed on this one from Chantal Hébert, who (while of course ignoring Canada's "leadership role" as coup-supporter, and de facto trustee over the last six years) thinks the Haiti earthquake can "become a game-changer in Stephen Harper's foreign policy." Hebert, joining many editorialists from across the country, thinks Canada is well-poised "to play a leadership role in [Haiti's] rebuilding." [Toronto Star]
- "Nearly 2,000" is the total number of Canadian Forces personnel we are now told will be back in Haiti in due course. A CBC report which says the soldiers are heading down to "protect" Haitians, where "The Haitians aren't the enemy, but chaos is," according to reporter Rob Gordon, who is embedded with sailors of HMCS Athabaskan, en route to Port au Prince. This terminology reminds us to be shocked that we haven't yet heard any reference to the "responsibility to protect" (R2P) Haitians in their time of need. Our ears will , of course, be kept to the ground...