Don't Let Disaster Capitalists Get Hands On Haiti

[thatsmystory]

How does one reconcile calls for the US government to help Haiti with current US foreign policy and previous intervention in Haiti? Is it simply proof that we live in a complex world? Is it indicative of society wide cognitive dissonance? What is the connecting thread between drone attacks and aid ships? To be clear, the more aid to Haiti the better. The confusion is with the disconnect between Shock Doctrine/Economic Hitman foreign policies and relief missions.

[Nordic]

Well, we literally exploit them to death, the entire country, UNTIL a natural disaster hits, which kills them just like we do, only in a more dramatic way, then we all run down there for the grand "Photo Op" so we can all look like a generous caring nation.

And CNN can have one of their talking heads literally perform brain surgery on injured little girls:

http://rawstory.com/2010/01/cnn-star-pe ... tary-ship/

That's because we're fucking HEROES, man! We're heroes!

Doesn't it feel GREAT?! Yeah, you can text your GREATNESS to some number and FEEL THE GOODNESS.

The tears fill my sympathetic eyes as my heart goes out to the poor black savages of "Voodoo Island" -- (thanks, Mac!)

[Gouda]

CNN is especially full of heroes. Anderson Cooper, hero. After focusing his reportage on a "Frenzy of Looting" and chaos, AC is photographed 'saving' a stunned and bleeding boy, making sure he gets in there before others on the scene. Well documented of course and somehow right in synch with that Avatar stuff.

Anderson in the midst of looting chaos







From the comments:

"Wow Anderson. Your a Hero again for the like 8th time this week."

"God bless your soul Mr. Cooper. You dont need wings to prove you are an angel."

[Gouda]

In other AVATAR news:

Aid Groups, Nations Complain US Military Blocking Haiti Aid

A growing war of words is emerging tonight as the US military, ostensibly dispatched to Haiti to help with humanitarian efforts in the wake of a disastrous earthquake, is being accused to blocking aid from entering the nation as well as flights for non-American citizens from leaving.

“This is about helping Haiti, not about occupying Haiti,” cautioned one French minister, who slammed US troops that seized Haiti’s only airport and have since been directing traffic as it suits them.

Doctors Without Borders, one of the world’s most high profile aid groups and the recipients of several major donations for Haitian relief efforts, complained that the US military actually blocked several flights carrying badly needed medical supplies, including inflatable emergency hospitals, ordering them to divert to the Dominican Republic instead.

Added on edit:

Hillary Clinton's arrival in Haiti shut down the airport for 3 hours, further blocking aid according to a report by Jesse Hagopian, a Seattle teacher and contributor to SocialistWorker.org:

ON SATURDAY, Hillary Clinton flew into Haiti to oversee the relief effort--supposedly. But I think her trip to Haiti tells you all you need to know: They had to shut down the airport for three hours so she could land, which meant that no actual aid flights could come in.

And this happened at a really critical time, because we're right at that point where every extra ounce of water matters. At this point, people who have been without water are facing imminent death. But they stopped the aid shipments so Clinton could give a canned speech from Haiti about how much the U.S. is doing to help.

And in any case, the U.S. government is sending more boots on the ground and more guns to help with "law and order." But this isn't what the Haitian people need. They need people with shovels, and people to give them water. And of course, "law and order" is threatened by the lack of aid. Emphasizing troops over aid creates a self-fulfilling prophecy that will lead to serious bloodshed.

[AlicetheKurious]

...THE CARIBBEAN Community’s emergency aid mission to Haiti, comprising Heads of Government and leading technical officials, failed to secure permission Friday to land at that devasted country’s aiport, now under the control of the United States.

Consequently, the Caricom ’assessment mission’, that was to determine priority humanitarian needs resulting from the mind-boggling earthquake disaster of Haiti last Tuesday, had to travel back from Jamaica to their respective home destinations..

On Friday afternoon the US State Department confirmed signing two ’Memoranda of Understanding’ with the Government of Haiti that made ’official that the United States is in charge of all inbound and outbound flights and aid off-loading...’

Further, according to the agreements signed, US medical personnel ’now have the authority to operate on Haitian citizens and otherwise render medical assistance without having to wait for licences from Haiti’s government...’

Prior to the US taking control of Haiti’s airport, a batch of some 30 Cuban doctors had left Havana, following Wednesday’s earthquake, to join more than 300 of their colleagues who have been working there for more than a year. ...

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl ... =161583443


Frustration mounts over Haiti aid

Desperately needed aid is still not reaching large swathes of the population [Reuters]

Tensions are rising on the streets of Haiti as the bulk of earthquake survivors continue to go without food, medicine or proper shelter.

Aid organisations continued to struggle to reach them with supplies on Sunday, six nights after the devastating earthquake that killed tens of thousands of people and left hundreds of thousands homeless.

A bottleneck at the capital's small airport – the main entry point for the massive assistance pledged by world leaders following the disaster – means little help has reached the many people waiting for help in makeshift camps on streets strewn with debris and decomposing bodies.

Airport bottleneck

Some aid agencies have complained about a lack of co-ordination at the Port-au-Prince airport, where the US military has taken over operations.

Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders, (MSF) said an aircraft carrying a mobile hospital was denied permission to land at the airport on Saturday and diverted to neighbouring Dominican Republic, where it would take a further 24 hours to deliver supplies by road.

"Priority must be given immediately to planes carrying lifesaving equipment and medical personnel," MSF said in a statement.

Al Jazeera's Teresa Bo, reporting from Port-au-Prince, said quake survivors in the capital were growing increasingly frustrated over what appeared to be the mismanagement or miscommunication that was holding up the aid.

In the absence of large scale foreign help, Haitians were trying to help each other, our correspondent said, with some turning homes into hospitals to treat the wounded and others giving away food, but food supplies and other resources were running out.

People could see helicopters flying overhead, US military vehicles in the city and aeroplanes arriving at the airport with supplies, so it was difficult to understand why little aid appeared to be reaching the people, she said.

Meanwhile the European Union pledged over $575m in emergency and long-term aid, the bloc said on Monday.

The union is also moving towards sending 150 people to assist the police force and help beef up security, as tensions in the Caribbean nation rise.

US defends position

The US military said on Sunday that it was doing its best to get as many aircraft as possible into Port-au-Prince.

The airport's control tower was knocked out by the quake and US military air controllers were operating from a radio post on the airfield grass, he said.

"What we set up here would be similar to running a major airport ... without any communications, electricity or computers," Colonel Buck Elton, the US commander at the airport, told reporters by telephone.

He said there had been 600 take-offs and landings since his crew took over operations at the one-runway airport's traffic on Wednesday, and 50 flights had been diverted.

But the flow of air traffic was improving, he said, with only three of 67 incoming flights being rerouted on Saturday, and only two flights diverted on Sunday.

'Efficiency increased'

Speaking to Al Jazeera, PJ Crowley, a spokesman for the US state department, defended the US handling of Haiti's airport and international aid.

He said changes in airport procedures "to increase efficiency and effectiveness", as well as "a technical reason", were possible reasons why some aeroplanes were not allowed to land.

Pointing out that the US military had, by adding to the infrastructure of the airport, increased flights from 20 a day to 60 a day, he said whatever limited infrastructure Haiti had before the quake was devastated by the quake and it had taken time to "maximise the flow of everything that Haiti needs".

On claims that military aeroplanes with troops were being allowed to land while those carrying aid supplies were not, he said that was "absolutely not true".

"They are bringing in aid, communications gear for the Haitian government so they can begin to operate and function once again," he said.

Not only food, water, healthcare, he said, but also "the kinds of gear that allows us to save lives, to bring in capacity so that they can establish an effective network to distribute food among the three million people in the city".

Signs of progress

There were some signs of progress on Sunday as international medical teams took over damaged hospitals and clinics where injured and sick people had lain untreated for days.

Aid trucks set out from the airport but were soon blocked by clogged streets [AFP]
A few street markets had begun selling vegetables and charcoal in the capital and US officials said international search teams had rescued at least 61 people alive so far.

Hundreds of trucks carrying aid and guarded by armed UN patrols streamed from the airport and UN headquarters out into the city on Sunday but they were soon obstructed on streets clogged with people, debris and vans carrying coffins and bodies.

There were also scrums for food and water as UN trucks distributed food packets and US military helicopters dropped boxes of water bottles and rations.

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, who visited Port-au-Prince on Sunday, said the situation in the country was "one of the worst humanitarian crises in decades".

Amid shouts of "where is the food? Where is the help?" from survivors and asked if he feared riots over the delays in aid, Ban appealed to the Haitian people "to be more patient".

Haitian government officials say 70,000 bodies have already been buried in mass graves and estimate the total death toll to be between 100,000 and 200,000.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/ameri ... 84373.html


The Right Testicle of Hell:

History of a Haitian Holocaust

Blackwater before drinking water

By Greg Palast

January 17, 2010 "The Huffington Post" - -

1. Bless the President for having rescue teams in the air almost immediately. That was President Olafur Grimsson of Iceland. On Wednesday, the AP reported that the President of the United States promised, "The initial contingent of 2,000 Marines could be deployed to the quake-ravaged country within the next few days." "In a few days," Mr. Obama?

2. There's no such thing as a 'natural' disaster. 200,000 Haitians have been slaughtered by slum housing and IMF "austerity" plans.

3. A friend of mine called. Do I know a journalist who could get medicine to her father? And she added, trying to hold her voice together, "My sister, she's under the rubble. Is anyone going who can help, anyone?" Should I tell her, "Obama will have Marines there in 'a few days'"?

4. China deployed rescuers with sniffer dogs within 48 hours. China, Mr. President. China: 8,000 miles distant. Miami: 700 miles close. US bases in Puerto Rico: right there.

5. Obama's Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, "I don't know how this government could have responded faster or more comprehensively than it has." We know Gates doesn't know.

6. From my own work in the field, I know that FEMA has access to ready-to-go potable water, generators, mobile medical equipment and more for hurricane relief on the Gulf Coast. It's all still there. Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, who served as the task force commander for emergency response after Hurricane Katrina, told the Christian Science Monitor, “I thought we had learned that from Katrina, take food and water and start evacuating people." Maybe we learned but, apparently, Gates and the Defense Department missed school that day.

7. Send in the Marines. That's America's response. That's what we're good at. The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson finally showed up after three days. With what? It was dramatically deployed — without any emergency relief supplies. It has sidewinder missiles and 19 helicopters.

8. But don't worry, the International Search and Rescue Team, fully equipped and self-sufficient for up to seven days in the field, deployed immediately with ten metric tons of tools and equipment, three tons of water, tents, advanced communication equipment and water purifying capability. They're from Iceland.

9. Gates wouldn't send in food and water because, he said, there was no "structure ... to provide security." For Gates, appointed by Bush and allowed to hang around by Obama, it's security first. That was his lesson from Hurricane Katrina. Blackwater before drinking water.

10. Previous US presidents have acted far more swiftly in getting troops on the ground on that island. Haiti is the right half of the island of Hispaniola. It's treated like the right testicle of Hell. The Dominican Republic the left. In 1965, when Dominicans demanded the return of Juan Bosch, their elected President, deposed by a junta, Lyndon Johnson reacted to this crisis rapidly, landing 45,000 US Marines on the beaches to prevent the return of the elected president.

11. How did Haiti end up so economically weakened, with infrastructure, from hospitals to water systems, busted or non-existent - there are two fire stations in the entire nation - and infrastructure so frail that the nation was simply waiting for "nature" to finish it off?

Don’t blame Mother Nature for all this death and destruction. That dishonor goes to Papa Doc and Baby Doc, the Duvalier dictatorship, which looted the nation for 28 years. Papa and his Baby put an estimated 80% of world aid into their own pockets - with the complicity of the US government happy to have the Duvaliers and their voodoo militia, Tonton Macoutes, as allies in the Cold War. (The war was easily won: the Duvaliers’ death squads murdered as many as 60,000 opponents of the regime.)

12. What Papa and Baby didn't run off with, the IMF finished off through its "austerity" plans. An austerity plan is a form of voodoo orchestrated by economists zomby-fied by an irrational belief that cutting government services will somehow help a nation prosper.

13. In 1991, five years after the murderous Baby fled, Haitians elected a priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who resisted the IMF's austerity diktats. Within months, the military, to the applause of Papa George HW Bush, deposed him.
History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. The farce was George W. Bush. In 2004, after the priest Aristide was re-elected President, he was kidnapped and removed again, to the applause of Baby Bush.

14. Haiti was once a wealthy nation, the wealthiest in the hemisphere, worth more, wrote Voltaire in the 18th century, than that rocky, cold colony known as New England. Haiti's wealth was in black gold: slaves. But then the slaves rebelled - and have been paying for it ever since.

From 1825 to 1947, France forced Haiti to pay an annual fee to reimburse the profits lost by French slaveholders caused by their slaves’ successful uprising. Rather than enslave individual Haitians, France thought it more efficient to simply enslave the entire nation.

15. Secretary Gates tells us, "There are just some certain facts of life that affect how quickly you can do some of these things." The Navy's hospital boat will be there in, oh, a week or so. Heckuva job, Brownie!

16. Note just received from my friend. Her sister was found, dead; and her other sister had to bury her. Her father needs his anti-seizure medicines. That's a fact of life too, Mr. President.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf ... e24416.htm

[Wombaticus Rex]

I would like to add that I obviously stand about 1000% corrected and those of you who disagreed with me have been proven right. Probably to a greater extent than even y'all yourselves thought possible.

Bill Hicks was almost lucky he died young. Ha ha ha!

[Gouda]

*** Deleted on edit. Dupe of Sunny's post on page 3 ***

[Gouda]

US Troops Land, Establish Position at Haitian Presidential Palace

By RAY RIVERA and SIMON ROMERO
Published: January 19, 2010

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Helicopters carrying dozens of American troops landed on the lawn of Haiti’s destroyed National Palace on Tuesday morning, a potent symbol of the United States’ escalating military presence in Haiti since the earthquake that struck a week ago.

...

The troops, who appeared to be establishing a position at the palace, were among the roughly 5,000 United States military personnel already in Haiti; thousands more are expected.

...

Given the long history of American military intervention in Haiti — stretching back to a Marine landing in 1915 — commanders took pains on Tuesday to reassure Haitians that the United States was not invading.

Col. Gregory Kane of the United States Army told reporters at the Port-au-Prince airport — which has come to resemble an American military base, with helicopters coming and going continually — that the Haitian government remained in charge. He said that United States forces were only on the ground to assist in the relief efforts.

“There have been some reports and news stories out there that the U.S. is invading Haiti,” Colonel Kane said. “We’re not invading Haiti. That’s ludicrous. This is humanitarian relief.”

[Julia W]

From http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuse ... =526360683

January 18, 2010 - Monday
From Cynthia McKinney: An Unwelcome Katrina Redux
Current mood: sad
Category: News and Politics

From Cynthia McKinney: An Unwelcome Katrina Redux

President Obama's response to the tragedy in Haiti has been robust in military deployment and puny in what the Haitians need most: food; first responders and their specialized equipment; doctors and medical facilities and equipment; and engineers, heavy equipment, and heavy movers. Sadly, President Obama is dispatching Presidents Bush and Clinton, and thousands of Marines and U.S. soldiers. By contrast, Cuba has over 400 doctors on the ground and is sending in more; Cubans, Argentinians, Icelanders, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans, and many others are already on the ground working--saving lives and treating the injured. Senegal has offered land to Haitians willing to relocate to Africa.
The United States, on the day after the tragedy struck, confirmed that an entire Marine Expeditionary Force was being considered "to help restore order," when the "disorder" had been caused by an earthquake striking Haiti; not since 1751, 1770, 1842, 1860, and 1887 had Haiti experienced an earthquake. But, I remember the bogus reports of chaos and violence the led to the deployment of military assets, including Blackwater, in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. One Katrina survivor noted that the people needed food and shelter and the U.S. government sent men with guns. Much to my disquiet, it seems, here we go again. From the very beginning, U.S. assistance to Haiti has looked to me more like an invasion than a humanitarian relief operation.
On Day Two of the tragedy, a C-130 plane with a military assessment team landed in Haiti, with the rest of the team expected to land soon thereafter. The stated purpose of this team was to determine what military resources were needed.
An Air Force special operations team was also expected to land to provide air traffic control. Now, the reports are that the U.S. is not allowing assistance in, shades of Hurricane Katrina, all over again.
On President Obama's orders military aircraft "flew over the island, mapping the destruction." So, the first U.S. contribution to the humanitarian relief needed in Haiti were reconnaissance drones whose staffing are more accustomed to looking for hidden weapon sites and surface-to-air missile batteries than wrecked infrastructure. The scope of the U.S. response soon became clear: aircraft carrer, Marine transport ship, four C-140 airlifts, and evacuations to Guantanamo. By the end of Day Two, according to the Washington Post report, the United States had evacuated to Guantanamo Bay about eight [8] severely injured patients, in addition to U.S. Embassy staffers, who had been "designated as priorities by the U.S. Ambassador and his staff."
On Day Three we learned that other U.S. ships, including destroyers, were moving toward Haiti. Interestingly, the Washington Post reported that the standing task force that coordinates the U.S. response to mass migration events from Cuba or Haiti was monitoring events, but had not yet ramped up its operations. That tidbit was interesting in and of itself, that those two countries are attended to by a standing task force, but the treatment of their nationals is vastly different, with Cubans being awarded immediate acceptance from the U.S. government, and by contrast, internment for Haitian nationals.
U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral James Watson IV reassured Americans, "Our focus right now is to prevent that, and we are going to work with the Defense Department, the State Department, FEMA and all the agencies of the federal government to minimize the risk of Haitians who want to flee their country," Watson said. "We want to provide them those releif supplies so they can live in Haiti."
By the end of Day Four, the U.S. reportedly had evacuated over 800 U.S. nationals.
For those of us who have been following events in Haiti before the tragic earthquake, it is worth noting that several items have caused deep concern:
1. the continued exile of Haiti's democratically-elected and well-loved, yet twice-removed former priest, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide;
2. the unexplained continued occupation of the country by United Nations troops who have killed innocent Haitians and are hardly there for "security" (I've personally seen them on the roads that only lead to Haiti's sparsely-populated areas teeming with beautiful beaches);
3. U.S. construction of its fifth-largest embassy in the world in Port-au-Prince, Haiti;
4. mining and port licenses and contracts, including the privatization of Haiti's deep water ports, because certain off-shore oil and transshipment arrangements would not be possible inside the U.S. for environmental and other considerations; and
5. Extensive foreign NGO presence in Haiti that could be rendered unnecessary if, instead, appropriate U.S. and other government policy allowed the Haitian people some modicum of political and economic self-determination.
Therefore, we note here the writings of Ms. Marguerite Laurent, whom I met in her capacity as attorney for ousted President of Haiti Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Ms. Laurent reminds us of Haiti's offshore oil and other mineral riches and recent revivial of an old idea to use Haiti and an oil refinery to be built there as a transshipment terminal for U.S. supertankers. Ms. Laurent, also known as Ezili Danto of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network (HLLN), writes:
"There is evidence that the United States found oil in Haiti decades ago and due to the geopolitical circumstances and big business interests of that era made the decision to keep Haitian oil in reserve for when Middle Eastern oil had dried up. This is detailed by Dr. Georges Michel in an article dated March 27, 2004 outlining the history of oil explorations and oil reserves in Haiti and in the research of Dr. Ginette and Daniel Mathurin.
"There is also good evidence that these very same big US oil companies and their inter-related monopolies of engineering and defense contractors made plans, decades ago, to use Haiti's deep water ports either for oil refineries or to develop oil tank farm sites or depots where crude oil could be stored and later transferred to small tankers to serve U.S. and Caribbean ports. This is detailed in a paper about the Dunn Plantation at Fort Liberte in Haiti.
"Ezili's HLLN underlines these two papers on Haiti's oil resources and the works of Dr. Ginette and Daniel Mathurin in order to provide a view one will not find in the mainstream media nor anywhere else as to the economic and strategic reasons the US has constructed its fifth largest embassy in the world - fifth only besides the US embassy in China, Iraq, Iran and Germany - in tiny Haiti, post the 2004 Haiti Bush regime change."
Unfortunately, before the tragedy struck, and despite pleading to the Administration by Haiti activists inside the United States, President Obama failed to stop the deportation of Haitians inside the United States and failed to grant TPS, temporary protected status, to Haitians inside the U.S. in peril of being deported due to visa expirations. That was corrected on Day Three of Haiti's earthquake tragedy with the January 15, 2010 announcement that Haiti would join Honduras, Nicaragua, Somalia, El Salvador, and Sudan as a country granted TPS by the Secretary of Homeland Security.
President Obama's appointment of President Bush to the Haiti relief effort is a swift left jab to the face, in my opinion. After President Bush's performance in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the fact that still today, Hurricane Katrina survivors who want to return still have not been provided a way back home, the appointment might augur well for fundraising activities, but I doubt that it bodes well for the Haitian people. Afterall, the coup against and the kidnapping of President Aristide occurred under the watch of a Bush Presidency.
Finally, those with an appreciation of French literature know that among France's most beloved authors are Alexandre Dumas, son of a Haitian slave, and Victor Hugo who wrote: "Haiti est une lumiere." [Haiti is a light.] Indeed, Haiti for millions is a light: light into the methodology and evil of slavery; light into a successful slave rebellion, light into nationhood and notions of liberty, the rights of man, and of human dignity. Haiti is a light. And an example that makes the enemies of black liberation tremble. It is precisely because of Haiti's light into the evil genius of some individuals who wield power over others and man's ability, through unity and purpose, to overcome that evil, that some segments of the world have been at war with Haiti ever since 1804, the year of Haiti's creation as a Republic.
I'm not surprised at "Reverend" Pat Robertson's racist vitriol. Robertson's comments mirror, exactly, statements made by Napoleon's Cabinet when the Haitians defeated them. But in 2010, Robertson's statements reveal much more: Haitians are not the only ones who know their importance to the struggle against hatred, imperialism, and European domination.
This pesky, persistent, stubbornly non-Western, proudly African people of this piece of land that we call Haiti know their history and they know that they militarily defeated the ruling world empire of the day, Napoleon's France, and the global elite at that time who supported him. They know that they defeated the armies of England and Spain.
Haitians know that they used their status as a free state to help liberate Latin Americans from Spain, by funding and fighting alongside Simon Bolivar; their example inspired their still-enslaved African brothers and sisters on the American mainland; and before Haitians were even free, they fought against the British inside the U.S. during its war of independence and won a decisive battle in Savannah, Georgia, where I have visited the statue commemorating that victory.
Haitians know that France imposed reparations on them for being free, and Haiti paid them in full, but that President Aristide called for France to give that money back ($21 billion in 2003 dollars).
Haitians know that their "brother," then-Secretary of State Colin Powell lied to the world upon the kidnapping and second ouster of their President. (Sadly, it wouldn't be the last time that Secretary of State Colin Powell would lie to the world.) Haitians know, all-too-well, that high-ranking blacks in the United States are capable of helping them and of betraying them.
Haitians know, too, that the United States has installed its political proxies and even its own soldiers onto Haitian soil when the U.S. felt it was necessary. All in an effort to control the indomitable Haitian spirit that directs much-needed light to the rest of the oppressed world.
While the tears of the people of Haiti swell in my own eyes, and I remember their tremendous capacity for love, my broken heart and wet eyes don't dampen my ability to understand the grave danger that now faces my friends in Haiti.
I shudder to think that the "rollback" policies believed in by some foreign policy advisors to President Obama could use a prolonged U.S. military presence in Haiti as a springboard for rollback of areas in Latin America that have liberated themselves from U.S. neo-colonial domination. I would hate to think that this would even be attempted under the Presidency of Barack Obama. All of us must have our eyes wide open on Haiti and other parts of the world now dripping in blood as a result of the relentless onward march of the U.S. military machine.
So, on this remembrance of the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I note that it was the U.S. government's own illegal Operation Lantern Spike that snuffed out the promise and light of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Every plane of humanitarian assistance that is turned away by the U.S. military (so far from CARICOM, the Caribbean Community, Médecins Sans Frontieres, Brazil, France, Italy, and even the U.S. Red Cross)--as was done in the wake of Hurricane Katrina--and the expected arrival on this very day of up to 10,000 U.S. troops, are lasting reminders of the existential threat that now looms over the valiant, proud people and the Republic of Haiti.
--
http://dignity.ning.com/
http://www.enduswars.org
http://www.livestream.com/dignity
http://www.twitter.com/dignityaction
http://www.myspace.com/dignityaction
http://www.myspace.com/runcynthiarun
http://www.twitter.com/cynthiamckinney
http://www.facebook.com/CynthiaMcKinney
Silence is the deadliest weapon of mass destruction.

[American Dream]

http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/01/the-s ... ontext-of-“natural-disasters”-haiti/

The Social Historical Context of “Natural Disasters”: Haiti

by Victor M. Rodriguez Domínguez / January 18th, 2010


Poor Mexico, so far away from God but so close to the United States.
– Porfirio Diaz


Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
– Santayana

Just like we have learned earlier from the Katrina disaster, it is important, while we share our solidarity and our support for the tragedy being endured by the courageous people of Haiti, not to forget the historical and social context that frames this most recent disaster in the Haitian experience. After hearing the news and the self-congratulatory speech of President Obama about the “historical ties” of Haiti and the United States, I could not but recall a different narrative of “historical ties” than the one the media is conveying. This counter narrative is more congruent with a famous quote from former Mexican Dictator Porfirio Diaz which applies to the Haitian experience in an ominous way. Dictator Diaz in the last half of the 19th century opened Mexico to foreign capitalists, especially U.S. investors and created the precursor of today’s neo-liberal policies in that country. By the early part of the twentieth century half of Mexico’s wealth was in foreign hands. Today, Haiti is under the total control of the United States and its institutions. A country that used to produce its own rice, now imports it from the United States.

One aspect of these “historical ties” that are not told in United States’ high school history textbooks is that Haiti, by being the first independent country in the Americas, led by people of African descent, created fear in the white slave holding elites throughout the world. Haiti was the most prosperous European colony in the Americas and one that brought to France a significant amount of the wealth that catapulted it to the rank of a developed nation. But, France’s and the United States ascent to the developed world were rooted in the sentencing of Haiti to centuries of economic despair and political instability. This is the story we are asked to forget.

In 1804, Haiti declared its independence from France under the leadership of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, who succeeded the brilliant military strategist and former slave Toussaint L’Ouverture. In the preceding years the Haitian army defeated the most powerful European army in Europe, Napoleon Bonaparte’s army of tens of thousands and at different times defeated smaller attempts by the British and the Spanish to subdue the Haitians.

Europe and the United States never forgave Haiti for becoming a model of freedom against the infamous system of slavery and after Haiti was in a state of political weakness because of internal strife imposed economic blockades (like in Cuba). Ironically, France collected “reparations” for its loss of “property” (slaves) during the Haitian war of liberation and Haiti was isolated (worse than Cuba is today). The United States waited sixty years before it granted recognition to the nascent republic. What today we call the global north, dominated by the United States created the conditions for perpetual Haitian underdevelopment. The example of an African nation which was prosperous in the Americas was too much to swallow for the slaveholders of the United States and Europe. In fact, President Jefferson initially supported the French efforts against Haiti until it discovered that Napoleon wanted to then expand the French empire beyond the Louisiana territory. After Napoleon’s defeat, it sold the Louisiana Territory to the United States dramatically expanding the United States’ empire. So thanks to Haiti’s victory, the United States began its modern phase of territorial expansion. We paid them with economic sanctions.

Unfortunately, Latin American nations in struggle for their own independence from Spain, also betrayed the nascent Haitian nation. Simon Bolivar, the liberator of the most of Latin America, received military support and weapons from the Haitian revolutionaries in 1816. Yet, in the end Bolivar denied support and recognition to Haiti when they needed it. Their own fear of apardocracia (government of the people of color) instilled more fear in the Bolivarian revolutionaries than the Spanish or the United States imperialists. Brazil did not abolish slavery until 1888, being the last country in the world to do so.

The economic disaster created by United States and Europe policies of isolation, let to the creation of one of the first debtor states. Haiti, in what was latter debt peonage, was forced to endure a period of formal colonialism when the United States marines invaded Haiti in 1915. After 19 years, they left the country neatly re-organized to become a neo-colony of United States. In order to assure obedience and discipline to the imperial requirements, the United States military trained the Haitian National Guard (like in recent years the formerly called “School of the Americas” trained Latin America’s military) and left the military forces that would lead to the eventual dictatorship of Francois Duvalier in 1957, probably (together with another U.S. protégé in the other side of the island, the Dominican Republic’s dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo) one of the most cruelest and murderous in the Americas.

In recent decades, after the end of the Duvalier dynasty period of bloody control, the Haitian nation has attempted to stand on their own feet and establish a democratic and prosperous nation. Each time their efforts have been thwarted, this time again by the United States and the support of Europe. Father Bertrand Aristide, who despite his weaknesses, was by far a step in the right direction for Haiti. He was elected democratically by the Haitian people twice and twice removed by forces supported and directed by the United States. The last time, in 2004, President Bertrand Aristide, was overthrown by former military forces influenced by the Duvalierists and other forces allied to the light-skinned elites who have ruled Haiti for decades in alliance with the United States. Marx said that history repeats itself, the first as tragedy the second time as a farce. The first tragedy was that President Bertrand Aristide was kidnapped by United States agents, placed in a United States military plane and whisked away to the Central African Republic. Today he lives in exile in South Africa. Summer 2009, President Zelaya from Honduras was also overthrown and later kidnapped and exiled in a sequel that seems more like a farce. Today, he is still in exile.

Someone has said that “Americans are the people with the most access to information and the least informed.” As we watch the coverage of the Haitian tragedy and we hear President Obama’s words, the first African American president, let’s not forget white supremacy is alive and kicking in the United States. The main networks are in a self-congratulatory mood about how we are the first responders and celebrating the spirit of giving of the nation. The United States people are a generous people and they will respond but we should not forget the reasons why this disaster has been amplified. The government and the infrastructure of Haiti are so inefficient and non-existent that the coordination of efforts will be more difficult.

Ironically, corporate media in the United States, because they are monolingual and do not read Spanish or Creole, are cheerleading the arrival of Canadians and U.S. planes late on Wednesday, the fact is that the first responders came from Venezuela, which sent its air force with medics, food and equipment a few hours after the tragedy. Cuba, which already had 344 medical doctors on the ground, sent more teams with 151 more specialized medical doctors (including the Reed brigade that was offered to the Bush administration to help in New Orleans) that arrived (Cubans already had two tent hospitals serving 800 wounded), the Dominican Republic which sent a 20 member Urban Rescue team, and through which Puerto Rico attempted to coordinate and sent a team of three helicopters, dozens of urban rescuers (who had earlier served in New York during 9/11 attack) and 20 structural engineers. However, Puerto Rico was unable to send them as quickly as they wished; at least until last night (1/16/2010) teams of technicians with water purifying systems, communications and military police did not receive permission from the Southern Command. As a colony of the United States, they had to wait for approval from the U.S. Southern command. God forbid Puerto Ricans and Latinos upstaged the U.S. rescue efforts.



Victor M. Rodriguez Domínguez is a professor of sociology of race and ethnicity in the Department of Chicano and Latino Studies, California State University, Long Beach, his most recent book is Latino Politics in the United States: Race, Ethnicity, Class and Gender in the Mexican American and Puerto Rican Experience (Kendall Hunt, 2005).

[Gouda]

[Gouda]

New York Times, last Saturday, 16 Jan 2010:

Although Mrs. Clinton said that the relief effort was gaining traction, she cautioned that the security situation was growing troubling. She said she hoped the Haitian government would pass an emergency decree — something it did after storms devastated the island in 2008 — which would give it the legal power to impose curfews and other measures.

“The decree would give the government an enormous amount of authority, which in practice they would delegate to us,” Mrs. Clinton said.

“There are no security issues,” -- Dr. Evan Lyon of Partners in Health (the same good doctor Mac referenced on page 3 of this thread).

One thing that I think is really important for people to understand is that misinformation and rumors and, I think at the bottom of the issue, racism has slowed the recovery efforts of this hospital. Security issues over the last forty-eight hours have been our—quote “security issues” over the last forty-eight hours have been our leading concern. And there are no security issues. I’ve been with my Haitian colleagues. I’m staying at a friend’s house in Port-au-Prince. We’re working for the Ministry of Public Health for the direction of this hospital as volunteers. But I’m living and moving with friends. We’ve been circulating throughout the city until 2:00 and 3:00 in the morning every night, evacuating patients, moving materials. There’s no UN guards. There’s no US military presence. There’s no Haitian police presence. And there’s also no violence. There is no insecurity.

Amy Goodman is on the ground, moving freely and safely. Scandalously little aid getting out. No violence.

I was just speaking with a doctor, doctors who came in from Denver Children’s Hospital and local hospitals in Colorado to somehow give relief. And he said when they came into the airport, they were shocked by the massive tents. Those tents contained aid, and also he said they were filled with soldiers, with doctors, with aid workers. And he said he could only think, why here? Why at the airport? Why not going out through Haiti?

And what we did yesterday is what few journalists have done: we left Port-au-Prince, and we went along the coast to Carrefour and to Léogâne. This is the epicenter. This is where the United Nations issued its statement, saying they acknowledge 90 percent of the buildings were down, that thousands of people were dead. But, they said, unless they could ensure security, they would not be providing aid there. Now, this is tremendously frightening.

...

And when I said, you know, President Obama, talking about how he would save Haiti, I think what we have witnessed here—for example, at Matthew 25 in Delmas in Port-au-Prince—that’s a neighborhood. And Matthew 25, this hospitality house, is actually taking off on the adage Matthew 25: “Whatsoever you do unto the least of my brothers and sisters, you do unto me.” The people who are working around the clock here, what they have shown us, in talking with the Haitians here, is not—I think we’re talking about anarchy of the government, but incredible communal strength of the community. These refugee camps, these smaller and larger camps that number in the thousands, they are organized communities. At night they’ll put rocks across the street. If you didn’t know these communities, you’d say, “What’s going on here? Right? Are these, you know, anarchists? Are they violent? Are they menacing?” They are protecting their communities and those within. And they don’t want those from outside to come in, especially at night. It’s remarkably organized at the local level, among neighborhoods, people helping each other.

[Gouda]

Haiti's Classquake

By: Jeb Sprague - HaitiAnalysis.com

Just five days prior to the 7.0 earthquake that shattered Port-au-Prince on January 12th, the Haitian government’s Council of Modernisation of Public Enterprises (CMEP) announced the planned 70% privatization of Teleco, Haiti’s public telephone company.

Today Port-au-Prince lies in ruins, with thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands dead, entire neighborhoods cut off, many buried alive. Towns across the southern peninsula, such as Léogâne, are said to be in total ruin with an untold number of victims. Haiti’s president, René Préval, and his administration remain largely inept, absent from Port-au-Prince and even the local radio.

At Pont Morin in the Bois Verna section of the capital, Teleco’s office building is badly damaged. One twitter poster in Port-au-Prince on Monday warned local residents to evacuate “After the latest evaluations of the building, they've noticed that the main poles of the structure are damaged.”

With masses of people unable to get critical emergency medical care, water and basic supplies, the lack of local state infrastructure and personnel is plainly apparent.

Instead of investing in social programs and government infrastructure that could have helped care for the people of Port-au-Prince, especially following such a natural disaster, Haiti’s government has long been pressured by the United States and International Financial Institutions to sell off its infrastructure, to shut down government sponsored soup kitchens, to lower tariffs that might benefit the rural economy.

The demographic trend in Haiti over the last few decade’s showcases the impact of capitalist globalization: the movement of rural folks to slums in Port-au-Prince, often perched in large clumps precariously on hillsides.

"Slums begin with bad geology,” writer and historian Mike Davis explains. In his book Planet of Slums, Davis describes the explosion of slum communities in today's era of global capitalism. Billions have no choice but to live in close proximity to environmental and geological disaster, Davis explains.

In mid-2007, Haitian journalist Wadner Pierre and I wrote a piece for IPS (Inter Press Service) that investigated the gutting of Haiti’s public telephone company. We interviewed public sector workers laid off in droves. The government’s plan was to reduce Teleco employees from 3,293 to less than one thousand. By 2010 Préval’s appointed heads of Teleco had terminated employment for two-thirds of the workers at the company. During his first term in office from 1996-2001, Préval had already sold off the government’s Minoterie flourmill and public cement company.

Préval now follows through with the Cadre de Coopération Intérimaire (CCI), a macro-economic adjustment program formulated by his unelected predecessor (the interim regime of Gerard Latortue), along with international donor institutions and local sub-grantee groups. Privatization has been one plank of neoliberalism in Haiti.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Haiti was pressured to lower tariffs on foreign rice, bringing down the few protections in place for its local economy. With a lack of opportunity in the countryside, migration to the nation’s capital intensified. Hundreds of thousands took up residence in poorly constructed shantytowns, many in hillside slums such as Carrefour.

Using the worn-out rhetoric of nationalism to draw attention away from the implementation of policies favorable to global capitalism, government functionaries in Haiti have worked closely with IFI, NGO and governmental advisors and experts from abroad. For those Haitian politicians unwilling to go along with these plans, the brute force of coup d’états, economic embargo and reoccurring civil society training missions from abroad have reinforced the “right way” to govern.

In the aftermath of the earthquake, the Haitian state evaporated. Police searched for their own loved-ones, as government ministries and UN bases lay in ruins, many top officials now dead under tons of fallen concrete.

Widely criticized for failing in the days following the quake to visit or speak out on the radio to the neighborhoods of the capital in turmoil, Préval and other aloof Haitian government leaders have been encamped at a police station on the cities edge meeting with foreign leaders and journalists. On Tuesday Préval went to Santo Domingo in the neighboring Dominican Republic to confer further with aid officials.

The Washington Post explained “The U.S. government views Préval, an agronomist by training, as a technocrat largely free of the sharp political ideologies that have divided Haiti for decades. But at a time when tragedy is forcing the country essentially to begin again, Préval's aversion to the public stage has left millions of Haitians wondering whether there is a government at all.”

Hundreds of journalists have streamed into Port-au-Prince, while the U.S. military has set up base-camp at the damaged national airport with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the ground. Giving priority to unloading heavy weaponry, U.S. forces have turned away a number of large planes carrying medical and rescue equipment, prompting protests from France, Venezuela and the Médecins sans frontières.

International media outlets show images of Haitians digging with pieces of concrete at collapsed buildings. But over the days the cries of loved ones buried below have slowly fallen silent.

Other media have begun to show images of poor people in the capital's downtown searching for food, calling them "looters", when in fact mass starvation is setting in. This occurs as shotgun-wielding security guards attempt to cordon off the rubble of some of the larger markets.

Given the past decades of forced austerity measures imposed upon Haiti, it has been nearly impossible for the country to build up a larger government, one with more capacity to deal with emergencies, to support social investment projects, soup kitchens, or even improved slum housing. The overthrown Aristide government, 2001-2004, though severely crippled by aid embargoes and elite-backed death squads and opposition groups, had refused privatization, instituted a national program of soup kitchens and literacy centers, and even constructed a few blocks of improved slum housing in the capital (as covered at the time in an article by the former government newspaper L’Union).

Those small but welcome measures are a thing of the past. The repression of attempts by the people to have a say through democratic means and the forced subjugation of the local economy to global capitalism parallels the assumption of power by elites disconnected from the people they govern. These are the technocratic elites that Sociologist William I. Robinson in his book A Theory of Global Capitalism refers to as “transnationalised fractions of local dominant groups in the South…sometimes termed a ‘modernizing bourgeoisie’, who have overseen sweeping processes of social and economic restructuring and integration into the global economy and society.” Out from the ashes, do not be surprised if the Haitian people refuse to accept this.

Geographer Kenneth Hewitt coined the term 'classquake' in examining the 1976 earthquake in Guatemala that cost the lives of 23,000 people, because of the accuracy with which it struck down the poor. The classquake in Haiti today is much worse, compounded by decades of capitalist globalization and U.S. intervention.

[American Dream]

US Corporations, Private Mercenaries and the IMF Rush in to Profit from Haiti's Crisis

By Benjamin Dangl, Toward Freedom
Posted on January 19, 2010

http://www.alternet.org/story/145279/

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.

In the aftermath of the earthquake, with much of the infrastructure and government services destroyed, Haitians have relied on each other for the relief efforts, working together to pull their neighbors, friends and loved ones from the rubble. One report from IPS News in Haiti explained, "In the day following the quake, there was no widespread violence. Guns, knives and theft weren't seen on the streets, lined only with family after family carrying their belongings. They voiced their anger and frustration with sad songs that echoed throughout the night, not their fists."

Bob Moliere, an organizer within the popular political party Fanmi Lavalas was killed in the earthquake. His wife, Marianne Moliere, told IPS News after burying her husband, "There is no life for me because Bob was everything to me. I lost everything. Everything is destroyed," she said. "I'm sleeping in the street now because I'm homeless. But when I get some water, I share with others. Or if someone gives some spaghetti, I share with my family and others."

It is not this type of solidarity that has emerged in the wake of the crisis - and the delayed and muddled response from the international community - that most corporate media in the US have focused on. Instead, echoing the coverage and calls for militarization of New Orleans in the wake of Katrina, major media outlets talk about the looting, and need for security to protect private property.

One request from Erwin Berthold, the owner of Big Star Market in Petionville, Haiti, reflects this concern for profit over people. Berthold told the Washington Post about his supermarket, "We have everything cleaned up inside. We are ready to open. We just need some security. So send in the Marines, okay?"

That militarization is already underway. This week the US is sending thousands of troops and soldiers to the country. The Haitian government has signed over control of its capital airport to the US. Brazil and France have already lodged complaints that US military planes are now being given priority over other flights at the international airport.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez responded to the US troop deployment. "I read that 3,000 soldiers are arriving, Marines armed as if they were going to war. There is not a shortage of guns there, my God. Doctors, medicine, fuel, field hospitals, that's what the United States should send," Chavez said. "They are occupying Haiti undercover." The Venezuelan President pledged to send any necessary amount of gasoline needed to the country to aid with electricity and transport.

A Heroic History in Washington's Backyard

There is also little mention in the major news outlets' coverage of how the US government and corporations helped impoverish Haiti in the first place, creating the economic poverty that makes disasters like this so extensive. Nor is there mention of the country's heroic struggle against imperialism and slavery. Fidel Castro pointed out in a recent column, "Haiti was the first country in which 400,000 Africans, enslaved and trafficked by Europeans, rose up against 30,000 white slave masters on the sugar and coffee plantations, thus undertaking the first great social revolution in our hemisphere. ... Napoleon's most eminent general was defeated there. Haiti is the net product of colonialism and imperialism, of more than one century of the employment of its human resources in the toughest forms of work, of military interventions and the extraction of its natural resources."

University professor Peter Hallward, writing in the Guardian Unlimited, criticized Washington for its responsibility in creating the suffering it is now pledging to alleviate in Haiti. "Ever since the US invaded and occupied the country in 1915, every serious political attempt to allow Haiti's people to move (in former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide's phrase) ‘from absolute misery to a dignified poverty' has been violently and deliberately blocked by the US government and some of its allies. Aristide's own government (elected by some 75% of the electorate) was the latest victim of such interference, when it was overthrown by an internationally sponsored coup in 2004 that killed several thousand people and left much of the population smoldering in resentment. The UN has subsequently maintained a large and enormously expensive stabilization and pacification force in the country."

Brian Concannon, the director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti told Hallward of the root causes for the overpopulation of neighborhoods in the city of Port-au-Prince that were hit so hard by the earthquake. "Those people got there because they or their parents were intentionally pushed out of the countryside by aid and trade policies specifically designed to create a large captive and therefore exploitable labor force in the cities; by definition they are people who would not be able to afford to build earthquake resistant houses." Unnatural crises such as this made the earthquake much more devastating.

Disaster Capitalism Comes to Haiti

As Noami Klein thoroughly proved in her book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, throughout history, "while people were reeling from natural disasters, wars and economic upheavals, savvy politicians and industry leaders nefariously implemented policies that would never have passed during less muddled times." This push to apply unpopular neoliberal policies began almost immediately after the earthquake in Haiti.

In a talk recorded by Democracy Now!, Klein explained that the disaster in Haiti is created on the one hand by nature, and on the other hand "is worsened by the poverty that our governments have been so complicit in deepening. Crises-natural disasters are so much worse in countries like Haiti, because you have soil erosion because the poverty means people are building in very, very precarious ways, so houses just slide down because they are built in places where they shouldn't be built. All of this is interconnected. But we have to be absolutely clear that this tragedy, which is part natural, part unnatural, must, under no circumstances, be used to, one, further indebt Haiti, and, two, to push through unpopular corporatist policies in the interests of our corporations."

Following the disaster in Haiti, Klein pointed out that the Heritage Foundation, "one of the leading advocates of exploiting disasters to push through their unpopular pro-corporate policies," issued a statement on its website after the earthquake hit: "In addition to providing immediate humanitarian assistance, the U.S. response to the tragic earthquake in Haiti earthquake offers opportunities to re-shape Haiti's long-dysfunctional government and economy as well as to improve the public image of the United States in the region."

The mercenary trade group International Peace Operations Association (IPOA) immediately offered their services to provide "security" in Haiti to its member companies, according to Jeremy Scahill. Within hours of the earthquake, Scahill wrote, the IPOA website announced, "In the wake of the tragic events in Haiti, a number of IPOA's member companies are available and prepared to provide a wide variety of critical relief services to the earthquake's victims."

Kathy Robison, a Fortune 500 executive, formerly with Goldman Sachs Companies, wrote of the earthquake disaster in Haiti. "The business leaders I have been meeting with have seen enough disappointment and suffering," she wrote. "What Haiti needs is economic development and the building of a true middle class. ... There is much we are planning as far as creating new and innovative ways of using international aid and government support to promote private investment."

On January 14, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced a $100 million loan to Haiti to help with relief efforts. However, Richard Kim at The Nation wrote that this loan was added onto $165 million in debt made up of loans with conditions "including raising prices for electricity, refusing pay increases to all public employees except those making minimum wage and keeping inflation low." This new $100 million loan has the same conditions. Kim writes, "in the face of this latest tragedy, the IMF is still using crisis and debt as leverage to compel neoliberal reforms."

The last thing Haiti needs at this point is more debt; what it needs is grants. As Kim wrote, according to a report from the The Center for International Policy, in 2003 "Haiti spent $57.4 million to service its debt, while total foreign assistance for education, health care and other services was a mere $39.21 million."

In the midst of the suffering and anguish following the earthquake, many Haitians came together to console and help each other. Journalist David Wilson, in Haiti during the time of the earthquake, wrote of the singing that followed the disaster. "Several hundred people had gathered to sing, clap, and pray in an intersection here by 9 o'clock last night, a little more than four hours after an earthquake had devastated much of the Haitian capital." A young Haitian American commented to Wilson on the singing, "Haitians are different," he said. "People in other countries wouldn't do this. It's a sense of community."

If these elements of the "relief" efforts continue in this exploitative vein, it is this community that will likely be crushed even further by disaster capitalism and imperialism.

While international leaders and institutions are speaking about how many soldiers and dollars they are committing to Haiti, it is important to note that what Haiti needs is doctors not soldiers, grants not loans, a stronger public sector rather than a wholesale privatization, and critical solidarity with grassroots organizations and people to support the self-determination of the country.

"We don't need soldiers," Patrick Elie, the former Defense Minister under the Aristide government told Al Jazeera. "There is no war here." In addition to critiquing the presence of the soldiers, he commented on the US-control of the main airport. "The choice of what lands and what doesn't land, the priorities of the flight[s], should be determined by the Haitians. Otherwise, it's a takeover and what might happen is that the needs of Haitians are not taken into account, but only either the way a foreign country defines the need of Haiti, or try to push its own agenda."

***


Benjamin Dangl is the author of The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia (AK Press) and Dancing with Dynamite: Social Movements and States in Latin America (AK Press). He is the editor of TowardFreedom.com, a progressive perspective on world events and UpsideDownWorld.org, a website on activism and politics in Latin America. Email: Bendangl(at)gmail(dot)com

[tazmic]

"On Monday, Jean Demay, DISA’s technical manager for the agency’s Transnational Information Sharing Cooperation project, happened to be at the headquarters of the U.S. Southern Command in Miami preparing for a test of the system in a scenario that involved providing relief to Haiti in the wake of a hurricane. After the earthquake hit on Tuesday, Demay said SOUTHCOM decided to go live with the system."

http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20100115_9940.php?oref=topstory