Don't Let Disaster Capitalists Get Hands On Haiti

[Sounder]

Lisa provides a fair backgrounder here;

http://realhistoryarchives.blogspot.com/

[Sounder]

Bumping for Lisa, check it out, its good writing.

[chiggerbit]

Wow.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/cb_haiti_earthquake

Can low-paying garment industry save Haiti?



AP – A woman takes a break at the DKDR Haiti garment assembly factory in Port-au-Prince, Friday Feb. 19, 2010. …

Slideshow:Haiti Earthquake

Play Video
Earthquakes Video:Haiti's cultural community looks to uncertain future AFP



By JONATHAN M. KATZ, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 57 mins ago

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Jordanie Pinquie Rebeca leans forward and guides a piece of suit-jacket wool and its silky lining into a sewing machine, where — bat! bat! bat! — they're bound together to be hemmed.

If she does this for eight hours, she will earn $3.09. Her boss will ship the pinstriped suit she helped make to the United States, tariff-free. There a shopper will buy it from JoS. A. Bank Clothiers for $550.

In the quest to rebuild Haiti, the international community and business leaders are dusting off a pre-quake plan to expand its low-wage garment assembly industry as a linchpin of recovery. President Barack Obama's administration is on board, encouraging U.S. retailers to obtain from Haiti at least 1 percent of the clothes they sell.

But will that save a reeling country whose economy must be built from scratch?

Few Haitians have steady incomes, and unemployment is unmeasurable; before the quake it was estimated at between 60 and 80 percent. In cities, most scrape by selling in the streets, doing odd jobs or relying on remittances from abroad that make up a quarter of Haiti's $7 billion gross domestic product.

Garments are central to the economic growth plan commissioned by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last year, a 19-page report written by Oxford University economics professor Paul Collier and promoted by former President Bill Clinton as special envoy to the impoverished nation.

They say the sector could quickly produce hundreds of thousands of jobs thanks chiefly to two things: an existing preferential trade deal with the nearby United States, and cheap Haitian labor.

The deal is the Haiti Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement Act, or "HOPE II." Passed by the U.S. Congress in 2008, it lets Haiti export textiles duty-free to the U.S. for a decade. Last year, $513 million worth of Haitian-made apparel, the bulk of exports, was shipped with labels including Hanes and New Balance. Factory profit margins average about 22 percent, according to Washington-based Nathan Associates Inc.

The cheap labor is Jordanie Pinquie Rebeca, and others like her.

During a recent shift at the South Korean-owned factory where she works six days a week, employees softly sang a Creole hymn beneath the hot fluorescent lights: "Lord, take my hand. Bring me through."

It was HOPE II that persuaded the bosses to move their Dominican plant and rename it DKDR Haiti SA. Nearly all the 1,200 people still working there after the quake make the new "outsourcing" minimum wage of 125 gourdes a day, about $3.09 — approximately the same as the minimum wage in 1984 and worth less than half its previous purchasing power.

Pay was even lower last year when lawmakers raised the country's minimum from $1.72 a day to almost $5 in response to protests. But owners complained, and President Rene Preval refused to enact the law. A compromise allowed non-garment workers to receive the higher minimum, but stuck factory workers with the "outsourcing" wage.

DKDR complied but cut production-based incentives, according to general manager Chun Ho Lee. Producing 600 pieces in a day used to yield a worker a bonus of $2.47. Now it's worth $1.23.

Rebeca, though stylish in her paperboy hat and spaghetti-strap dress, sleeps on the street and barely eats. With a day's pay she can buy a cupful of rice and transport via group taxi, and pay down debt on her now-destroyed apartment. Anything left over goes to cell phone minutes to call her boyfriend, who was evacuated to the Dominican Republic with a leg fracture sustained in the quake, or her 4-year-old son, Mike, whom she sent to live with relatives in the countryside.

Meanwhile, holding that low-paying job makes it tough to get handouts from relief workers.

"The foreigners are giving people food outside, but I can't get anything. I have to stay here working all day," she said.

All sides agree that garment-industry wages are too low to feed, clothe and house workers and their families. Even factory owners acknowledge that reality — though they deny running sweatshops and say the businesses have an important role.

"It's not enough to make a decent living, but it's the first step" toward economic recovery, said George Sassine, president of the Association of Industries of Haiti.

Others said relying too much on clothing assembly is risky.

"The garment sector is creating trouble for the economy because of social tensions and the low wages," said prominent Haitian economist Kesner Pharel.

Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, himself an economist, said that while the garment industry shouldn't be ignored, increased investment should be sought in more enduring sectors such as agriculture and tourism.

Still others fear a return to darker times: Under the brutal Duvalier dictatorships that ended in the mid-1980s, a small elite reaped the profits from facilities that assembled garments, baseballs and toys for sale in the U.S.

Last month's earthquake cracked the metal-roofed DKDR building's walls and prompted a costly, two-week shutdown. Another company's factory, west of the capital in Carrefour, collapsed entirely, killing at least 300 workers.

But garment industry production has already rebounded to 80 or 90 percent of capacity, and the boosters' enthusiasm is unshaken.

In a recent opinion piece published in The New York Times, Collier likened the moment to the opening of the American West: "The earthquake could usher in such a boom in Haiti."

There are currently 25,000 garment jobs, three-quarters less than there were 20 years ago. Most are in the same industrial park where DKDR's plant is located. Owners want to expand to two new sites outside Port-au-Prince in line with government wishes to reduce pressure in the debris-choked capital where most of the 200,000 quake victims died.

At an October investors conference, Clinton laid out a vision for Haiti's economy in which garments play a central role: "The rich will get richer, but there will be a much, much bigger middle class, with poor people pouring into it at a rapid rate."

For Haitians like Rebeca, who is unable to find other work, the chances of making that leap seem dim.

"We're just fighting to survive," she said, sewing.

[Gouda]

Haiti Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement Act, or "HOPE II." Passed by the U.S. Congress in 2008...

Nice. Keep passing that Hope baton.

[MacCruiskeen]

Haiti Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement Act, or "HOPE II." Passed by the U.S. Congress in 2008...

Nice. Keep passing that Hope baton.

Jesus christ, the sheer brazenness of it:

At an October investors conference, Clinton laid out a vision for Haiti's economy in which garments play a central role: "The rich will get richer, but there will be a much, much bigger middle class, with poor people pouring into it at a rapid rate."

HOPE II

And people call Naomi Klein a "conspiracy theorist"!

[dbcooper41]

http://www.wral.com/news/national_world ... y/7093504/

Homeless Haitians: aid halted to force them out

By FRANK BAJAK
Associated Press Writer
Posted: Today at 12:32 p.m.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Homeless victims of Haiti's earthquake said Monday that
police are halting deliveries of food and water to try to force them to leave
their camp on the grounds of the prime minister's office .
Police have padlocked gates to the camp where about 2,500 homeless people live
under bed sheets propped on sticks on the sloping hill leading to the office.
Stinking garbage with swarms of flies is piling up and portable latrines are
filled, camp residents complained.
Witnesses said police beat 22-year-old Dalida Jeanty in the morning after she
picked up a broom to sweep around her tent. "They called her and she did not
come so they beat her," said her cousin, Alix Jeanty.
Friends and relatives carried the woman down the hill and U.N. peacekeepers
arranged for her to be taken to the hospital.
A police officer guarding the gate refused to give his name or to comment on the
alleged beating or on accusations they have been turning away trucks carrying
food and water for the past 10 days. Calls to the information ministry on Monday
were unanswered, as was an e-mail to the prime minister's chief aide.
"We've been here for a month and we were being treated well, but for the past
two weeks we have been mistreated," said Markinson Midey, a 22-year-old student.
"Anytime they bring food or water, the police make the trucks leave."
He and other residents said they believe the government wants to make the camp
conditions so bad that people will be forced to leave, even though they have
nowhere to go.
Many government buildings were damaged in the Jan. 12 quake and Prime Minister
Jean-Max Bellerive is working out of the same office as President Rene Preval at
a temporary government headquarters set up in the headquarters of the judicial
police, near the airport.
The Jan. 12 earthquake killed about 200,000 people and left 1.2 million
homeless, according to the government.
More than half a million people fled devastated Port-au-Prince, but 700,000 are
living in every available piece of open land, from public squares and school
yards to sidewalks, their only protection makeshift tents of sheets propped up
by sticks.
Many got soaked by an overnight downpour. Doctors say many children - half the
population of Haiti is under 15 years - are suffering from colds, coughs and
diarrhea.
Bellerive told The Associated Press last week that the government will be forced
to appropriate private land to build better tent camps with tarpaulins.
But aid agencies taking part in a massive international effort to help victims
say the government is dragging its feet even as the rainy season approaches and
the need to get people out of congested camps that pose health risks and under
proper cover becomes more urgent.
Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may
not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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[MinM]

Canada begins military withdrawal from Haiti

[chump]

AP - Adviser to Americans admits link to Salvador case

By BEN FOX (AP) – 6 days ago

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic — The former legal adviser to a group of American missionaries jailed in Haiti on child kidnapping charges is now the focus of a manhunt in the Dominican Republic.

Dominican police and U.S. agents are seeking to detain Jorge Puello, who acknowledged Monday that he is wanted in El Salvador for alleged involvement in a human smuggling ring in the Central American country.

[Gouda]

Mercenaries Circling Haiti

By BILL QUIGLEY

On March 9 and 10, there will be a Haiti conference in Miami for private military and security companies to showcase their services to governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in the earthquake devastated country.

On their website for the Haiti conference, the trade group IPOA (ironically called the International Peace Operations Association until recently) lists eleven companies advertising security services explicitly for Haiti. Even though guns are illegal to buy or sell in Haiti, many companies brag of their heavy duty military experience.

Triple Canopy, a private military company with extensive security operations in Iraq and Israel, is advertising for business in Haiti. According to human rights activist and investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill, Triple Canopy took over the Xe/Blackwater security contract in Iraq in 2009. Scahill reports on a number of bloody incidents involving Triple Canopy including one where a team leader told his group, “I want to kill somebody today…because I am going on vacation tomorrow.”

Another company seeking work is EODT Technology which promises in its ad that its personnel are licensed to carry weapons in Haiti. EODT has worked in Afghanistan since 2004 and provides security for the Canadian Embassy in South Africa. On their website they promise a wide range of security services including force protection, guard services, port security, surveillance, and counter IED response services.

A retired CIA special operations officer founded another company, Overseas Security & Strategic Information, also advertising with IPOA for security business in Haiti. The company website says they have a “cadre of US personnel” who served in Special Forces, Delta Force and SEALS and they state many of their security personnel are former South African military and police.

Patrick Elie, the former Minister of Defence in Haiti, told Anthony Fenton of the Inter Press Service that “these guys are like vultures coming to grab the loot over this disaster, and probably money that might have been injected into the Haitian economy is just going to be grabbed by these companies and I’m sure they are not the only these mercenary companies but also other companies like Haliburton or these other ones that always come on the heels of the troops.”

Naomi Klein, world renowned author of THE SHOCK DOCTRINE, has criticized the militarization of the response to the earthquake and the presence of “disaster capitalists” swooping into Haiti. The high priority placed on security by the U.S. and NGOs is wrong, she told Newsweek. “Aid should be prioritized over security. Any aid agency that’s afraid of Haitians should get out of Haiti.”

Security is a necessity for the development of human rights. But outsourcing security to private military contractors has not proven beneficial in the U.S. or any other country. Recently, U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (IL) and U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (VT) introduced bills titled “Stop Outsourcing Security” to phase out private military contractors in response to the many reports of waste, fraud and human rights abuse.

Human rights organizations have long challenged the growth in private security contractors in part because governments have failed to establish effective systems for requiring them to be transparent and for holding them accountable.

It is challenging enough to hold government accountable. The privatization of a public service like security gives government protection to private corporations which are also difficult to hold accountable. The combination is doubly difficult to regulate

The U.S. has prosecuted hardly any of the human rights abuses reported against private military contractors. Amnesty International has reviewed the code of conduct adopted by the IPOA and found it inadequate in which compliance with international human rights standards are not adequately addressed.

This is yet another example of what the world saw after Katrina. Private security forces, including Blackwater, also descended on the U.S. gulf coast after Katrina grabbing millions of dollars in contracts.

Contractors like these soak up much needed money which could instead go for job creation or humanitarian and rebuilding assistance. Haiti certainly does not need this kind of U.S. business.

In a final bit of irony, the IPOA, according to the Institute for Southern Studies, promises that all profits from the event will be donated to the Clinton-Bush Haiti relief fund.

Bill Quigley is legal director at the Center for Constitutional rights and a long time human rights advocate. This article was written with the assistance of Vladimir Laguerre in Port au Prince. You can contact Bill at: quigley77@gmail.com.

[Gouda]

Further to chiggerbit's AP article above on HOPE for sweatshops,
the following is easily the best report on the political economy of keeping Haiti down
(Neoliberal-Corporate-NGO-Aid-Poverty Cycle) that I have seen so far...

The Labor Movement in Haiti: A Personal Reflection

By James Jordan,

Special to The Narco News Bulletin

[Howling Rainbows]

Anybody know if this has any validity?



Deletion In HAARP Records 1/11/10 – The day before the Haitian Earthquake
Email This Post Email This Post


The day before the Haitian Earthquake

“A very unusual deletion can be observed in the archived data of HAARP instrument readings from the day before the Haiti earthquake.Perhaps it is a matter of time until it will get fixed with a simple copy-paste operation, but I have made screen shots of it).
Set the date in “Chart Archives” below the today’s graph to 2001/Jan/11 in the window below the graph and see for your selves. It is the only instance of such an occurrence I have discovered by looking through other historical dates. Perhaps some other deletions have already been fixed, I can think of date like May 12th 2008 or December 26th 2004.The graphs are here:

Spectrum Monitor Waterfall Charthttp://maestro.haarp.alaska.edu/cg ... tchart.cgi

(The one below is the one you can set the date and see the blankness)

HF Chart (1-30 Mhz)http://maestro.haarp.alaska.edu/data/spectrum2/www/hf.html

http://piglipstick.blogspot.com/2010/02 ... 11010.html

[Username]

~
Third World Traveler

Haiti: Disaster Capitalism on Steroids
March 13th, 2010
an interview with Robert Roth
http://dissidentvoice.org/

"Two months after the devastating earthquake, the situation in Haiti is downright criminal," says Robert Roth. According to the spokesperson of the activist network Haiti Action Committee, major western players such as the US are more interested in defending their own geopolitical interests in Haiti than truly helping the hardly hit Caribbean country.

Johnny Van Hove: Haiti has disappeared almost completely from the front pages. Since you are in close contact with a number of Haitian grassroots organizations via the Haiti Action Committee, could you describe how the situation down there is at the moment?

Robert Roth: The situation is a catastrophe. At this point about 230,000 people have died and 3,000,000 people are still left homeless. Hundreds of thousands of people have no shelter whatsoever and are literally sleeping outside. Under sheets, not in tents. In many, many areas there is no water, no tents, no healthcare. One to two million people are in internal refugee camps that are now dotting Port-au-Prince. They were set up by international aid agencies, but they are in terrible shape.
The lack of housing is truly astounding. We have been getting numerous requests from the poorest communities in Haiti for funds for tents. With the rainy season coming, there is a very grave danger of the spread of typhoid, measles, and dysentery. It could be one these situations in which the aftermath of a disaster is even worse than the disaster itself. The situation was, and is, truly criminal.

JVH: Considering the hundreds of international aid organizations working in Haiti, how could it have come to this situation?

RR: The total amount of financial support that has gone through aid groups is close to one billion dollars. Haiti is truly flooded with aid organizations and yet very few aid goods have been distributed. Most goods have been sitting at the airport or in big warehouses. People who were pulled out under the rubble by Haitians could not receive medical aid because it was not distributed efficiently.
You have to distinguish among the aid groups, of course. Two groups which have been very consistent in distributing aid goods are Partners in Health and Doctors Without Borders. On the other hand, the Red Cross has been mostly invisible in the poorest communities in Haiti. There have been protests directly at the Red Cross warehouses and offices, demanding that the aid be distributed. The effectiveness of a number of the aid agencies has been astonishingly weak. And when a country has been occupied, when its democratic organizations have been repressed, and when community-based organizations are marginalized, earthquake relief just will not immediately get into the hands of the people.

JVH: What is the role of the UN and the US - which have been major players in Haitian history - in the current catastrophe?

RR: The UN and the US have looked at their role as a security measure. Their concept of aid has been militarized, which means that they have not been diligent in handing out aid to communities. The US military has eleven thousand soldiers down there, the UN nine thousand. Six thousand UN troops have been there since the coup against the democratically elected president Aristide in 2004 and they have been a repressive force, an occupying army in Haiti. In the wake of the earthquake, the US and UN armies have been essentially patrolling Haiti. I am not saying that there has been no help. They háve started to distribute food, tents, health supplies. But it has been much more limited than you would expect. There have been many reports from various communities about how armed vehicles just drove by their communities without helping them.

JVH: What were the effects of the "militarization" of the relief aid by the US, amongst other countries - Canada and Japan sent hundreds of troops too, for instance? The American/Haitian activist Marguerite Laurent suggested on her blog that humanitarian aid was blocked in favor of military equipment after the US took over the Haitian airports in the first few days after the earth quake.

RR: The militarization of the relief aid really delayed the distribution of food, water, and particularly medical aid. One of the effects was that in the first few days after the earthquake, five cargo planes of Doctors Without Borders were turned away and rerouted to the Dominican Republic. Partners In Help estimated that about 20,000 people died each day that aid was delayed.

JVH: Is the lack of security in Haiti an explanation for the heavy emphasis on sending in forces? Numerous media reports after the earthquake suggested that insecurity, rapes, and violence erupting during foreign aid handouts were mounting.

RR: The images of insecurity in the media are not accurate at all. There are always security issues in any country. But what is remarkable is the discipline, the non-violence, the resilience, the creativity, and the cooperation that Haitians have exhibited in the face of this catastrophe. Even days and days and days after not receiving aid, the US and UN could not point to any major security issues.

JVH: If Haiti has not been as insecure as hinted at in the media, how can the massive military response of the US be explained?

RR: The primary fear of the US was popular, political unrest. Haiti truly has a very politically conscious population which has never gone down easily. After the coup in 2004, thousands of people were killed and thousands more imprisoned and held without charges. Every member of the Lavalas government - from high level ministers to local officials - were removed from office. Others were forced into exile.
Still, there has never been an end to grass roots organizing. Labor unions protested the price of gas and the privatizing of the phone company. There were major demonstrations demanding Aristide's return.
Just recently there was a very successful electoral boycott because the Haitian government denied Lavalas the right to participate in the election, even though it is the most popular political party in Haiti.
The US is still not comfortable with the popular movement in Haiti. You can see this in the continued banishment of former President Aristide from Haiti. While the Obama Administration has called on former Presidents Clinton and Bush - who was responsible for the 2004 coup - to help coordinate aid, it opposes the return of a former democratically elected president who wants to return as a private citizen to aid in the reconstruction efforts.

JVH: Surely, there must be other reasons to justify the militarization of the aid relief?

RR: There is clearly a major geopolitical and economic interest in Haiti, most prominently by the US. There is a long history of US intervention in the area, including a direct US occupation from 1915-1934. This occupation created the Haitian military and led eventually to the Duvalier dictatorships. In 1991, the US overthrew Aristide and then again in 2004. So the US is clearly opposed to the social program of Lavalas and to its example in the Caribbean.
Haiti is also strategically located close to both Cuba and Venezuela. Haiti is rich in minerals, such as marble, uranium, iridium, and oil. Big corporations, such as the Royal Caribbean Lines, are creating a tourist center in the north which could have an enormous value for the tourist industry in the Caribbean area. And Haiti is looked at as a source of cheap labor. There is a long history of garment assembly in Haiti. Cherokee, Wal-Mart, Disney, and Major League Baseball all had relationships with Haiti. If the US plan for Haiti is implemented, the numbers of sweatshops in Port-au-Prince will surely increase.

JVH: Naomi Klein suggested that "disaster capitalism" is striking in Haiti. Would you agree?

RR: Absolutely. This is disaster capitalism on steroids. Number one, you have had an earthquake that ravaged the infrastructure of a country which has been made poor over the centuries. Secondly, you have more than 20,000 troops and massive amounts of capital circulating there. Plus, the Haitian government has been a very passive partner in the aftermath of the earthquake. That is a perfect recipe. The reconstruction conferences in Montreal and Miami are indicating that Haiti will be rebuilt along the lines of the organizations attending them: the US, Canada, the World Bank, the Clinton Foundation, the IMF, major business corporations such as the Royal Caribbean Lines, the Soros Foundation. Haiti is like a blank board in their minds. It is going be a feeding frenzy soon.

JVH: The Haitian government was attending the reconstruction meetings too, though. What is its role in the current crisis?

RR: What was remarkable throughout the crisis was the invisibility of the government. There are two reasons for that. First of all, the government really seems to have lost its connection to the Haitian people. President Preval has been major disappointment since he was elected in 2006. He has basically been an arm of the occupation forces of the UN. Secondly, the government of Haiti has been starved for years and years by the international lending organizations, including USAID. Even now, the government does not receive true support. It literally gets only one cent for every dollar spent on Haiti. That really creates a dependency on international aid agencies. When a crisis such as this happens, the government is underfunded and the aid agencies take over. All in all, the invisibility and compliance of the Haitian government is a token for the fact that the US, the UN, and the NGOs have taken control of the country.

JVH: Since the relief agencies are not performing efficiently, who has been providing aid at the grassroots level in Haiti?

RR: What is happening in Haiti is that local communities are helping themselves. The mainstream image of Haitians is that they cannot help themselves, that they are dysfunctional and violent. The truth could not be more different. Haiti is a very well organized country at the grassroots level. There are community committees in every one of the poor neighborhoods, which have been organizing protests in order to get the aid goods distributed. They have also been contacting international organizations they know they can trust and started distributing the aid goods to their local communities.
An organization which has been very important is the Aristide Foundation, which has been setting up aid programs, especially in the refugee camps. They have created mobile schools, they have developed local health clinics, and they are also setting up a big health center at the foundation's site. Partners in Health has continued to provide important support as well. The Haiti Emergency Relief Fund is funding community projects that are not getting aided by the big relief organizations.

JVH: According to Marguerite Laurent in the current issue of the American magazine, The Progressive, the people that could be saved were saved mostly by Haitians "frantically using their bare hands to dig through the rubble and lift pulverized concrete in the immediate forty-eight hours after the earthquake". Does that give an accurate image of how the digging and rescuing took place?

RR: Laurent is absolutely right. The chair of the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund, for instance, was in Haiti with his family at the time of the quake, and they saw first hand how Haitians were working day and night to save their families and friends. That was basically the story in Haiti: Haitians saving themselves and bandaging and housing each other. They waited for aid that never came and that is why so many people have died unnecessarily.

JVH: Nevertheless, Haiti cannot rebuild itself without external help. The Haitian diaspora will keep on sending close to a billion dollars to their homeland every year. But what role can international aid agencies play? Who should be supported in order to help Haiti?

RR: You can't talk about disaster capitalism and then donate to the big NGOs. If you donate to the Red Cross, for instance, some help will go to Haiti. At the same time, you are also donating to a system which is not designed to empower Haitians. So if you are progressive, if you want democracy in Haiti, and if you have some faith in the Haitian people, you should be looking for the groups most closely related to, and working with, the grassroots organizations. Hopefully, people can donate to organizations like the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund that are doing just that.


Robert Roth is a teacher and long-time Haiti solidarity activist. He co-founded Haiti Action Committee in 1992. He is a co-author of We Will Not Forget: The Achievements of Lavalas in Haiti and Hidden from the Headlines: The US War Against Haiti. He can be reached at action.haiti@gmail.com. Read other articles by Robert, or visit Robert's website.

***************

Third World Traveler -- Haiti Page
~

[Gouda]

Profiting off Haiti's disaster?

Al Jaz talks to the textile sweatshop workers...



Millions of dollars from around the world are pouring into Haiti to provide basic aid for the earthquake devastated nation.

And millions of dollars in foreign investments are also flowing into the country to help it rebuild and shape its future.

However, many Haitians see the expansion of foreign companies as a way to take advantage of the widespread poverty plaguing the country, where the unemployment rate is up to 80 per cent.

The exploitation concerns come as former US presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush prepare to visit the Caribbean nation on Monday to discuss long-term recovery efforts with Haitian officials.

And a part of their plans will be to discuss the expansion of clothing industries in the country - in which workers earn less than $4 a day - one of the lowest wages in the world.

Al Jazeera's Sebastian Walker reports from the city of Ouanaminthe - home to some of the country's biggest textile businesses.

[Gouda]

"Donors must start delivering on their promises to Haiti quickly, so reconstruction can be accelerated, living standards quickly improved and social tensions soothed,"

--IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said in a statement.

[conniption]

Global Research - embedded links

Haiti “Reconstruction”: Luxury Hotels, Sweat Shops and Deregulation for the Foreign Corporate Elite

By Julie Lévesque
Global Research, August 16, 2013

Region: Latin America & Caribbean
Theme: Poverty & Social Inequality
In-depth Report: HAITI



Picture: Girl in a displacement camp, January 2013. REUTERS, Swoan Parker

“The international community is so screwed up they’re letting Haitians run Haiti.” –Luigi R. Einaudi, US career diplomat, member of the Council on Foreign Relations and former Assistant Secretary General at the Organization of American States

Haitian author and human rights attorney Ezili Dantò heard Luigi R. Einaudi make this shocking comment in 2004, as Haiti was about to celebrate its 200 years of independence with its first democratically elected President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Apart from his efforts to raise the minimum wage and other social measures for the majority of Haitians living in extreme poverty, Aristide planned to nationalize his country’s resources, a move which meant more money for Haitians and less for multinationals. One month later, in the name of the “international community”, Aristide was overthrown in a coup d’état orchestrated by the U.S., France and Canada.

Today, the “international community” is running Haiti again, colonial style.

One can easily tell by comparing the very slow construction of shelters and basic infrastructure for the Haitian majority with the rapid rise of luxury hotels for foreigners, sometimes with the help of aid funds which, we were told, were going to provide Haitians with basic necessities.

Most of the aid money went to donor countries’ businesses, government agencies and NGOs, as usual. International “aid” is a well-known capitalist scheme aimed at developing markets in the global south for businesses from the North. Of course this “aid” will benefit Haitians. But only the very few elite ones: those in power and the rich corporate elite. “Haiti’s open for business” and deluxe hotels will be welcoming businessmen so they can set up their sweat shops in a cool and luxurious environment.


Picture: Original caption “Back in 2011, the U.N. and Oxfam promised that a new system of cisterns and kiosks would soon provide residents with water from the state water agency. Two years later, the faucets remain dry [see photo]. Residents buy water at 5 gourdes (about US$0.12 cents) a bucket from private vendors or from the committees that manage the few still-functioning water “bladders” left over from the camp’s early days when water and food were free and when agencies provided “cash for work” jobs and start-up funds for would-be entrepreneurs.” (Reconstruction’s Massive Slum Will Cost “Hundreds Of Millions” Reconstruction’s Massive Slum Will Cost “Hundreds Of Millions” Haiti Grassroots Watch, June 17, 2013)

“Several new luxury hotels in Haiti”

A year ago the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund invested humanitarian aid money in a five star hotel, as some 500,000 Haitians were still in displaced camps:


Picture: Oasis Hotel, Petionville Haiti

As part of the country’s “Reconstruction”, The Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund recently invested $2 million in the Royal Oasis Hotel, a deluxe structure to be built in a poverty-stricken metropolitan area “filled with displaced-persons camps housing hundreds of thousands”. (Julie Lévesque, HAITI: Humanitarian Aid for Earthquake Victims Used to Build Five Star Hotels, Global Research, June 28, 2012)

Now, as 300,000 Haitians are still living in camps, a “new Marriott hotel rising from the rubble in Haiti is getting a $26.5 million financial boost” from the International Financial Corporation (IFC), member of the World Bank Group:

Marriott International and telecom giant Digicel broke ground on the hotel last year, and it is expected to open in 2015. It will be among several new luxury hotels in Haiti after the devastating Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake. Spain’s Occidental Hotels & Resort and U.S.-based Best Western have both opened hotels in the last six months in Petionville, a Port-au-Prince suburb. Spanish hotel chain NH Hotels also will open a new El Rancho in Petionville over the next few months.

IFC officials say the Marriott’s construction is expected to create about 300 jobs. The hotel itself will offer 200 permanent jobs. Marriott Hotels & Resorts will operate the hotel under a long-term management agreement.

The IFC currently has about $78.5 million worth of investments in Haiti, which continues to limp toward recovery more than three years after the quake nearly wiped out its economy. The investments are aimed at creating jobs, access to basic infrastructure, and income opportunities for Haitians, the IFC said.

“Haiti has the fundamental conditions for sustainable economic growth, including a competitive workforce, proximity to major markets, and unique cultural and tourist attractions,” said Ary Naim, IFC Representative for Haiti. “With our long-term financing support for this new and important piece of business infrastructure, we are confirming our commitment and confidence in Haiti’s future.” (Jacqueline Charles New Marriott under construction in Haiti getting financial boost, Miami Herald, July 3, 2013)

Picture: Best Western Petionville, Haiti.

How a luxury hotel in a rich suburban area helps give the 300,000 displaced and most impoverished Haitians “access to basic infrastructure” has yet to be demonstrated. Moreover, it won’t create jobs for those who need it the most. It is very unlikely that a deluxe hotel in the plush suburb of Petionville will hire many poor, needy, often illiterate Haitians who only speak Creole to work for rich foreigners. These people are the “competitive work force” and end up in sweat shops and mines. What “competitive workforce” and “proximity to major markets” actually mean is “cheap labor for the U.S.”

On its web site the IFC says its investments are “focused on helping rebuild Haiti and reactivate growth through investment and advisory services, in priority sectors such as garment, infrastructure, telecom, tourism, and finance.” In addition to the $26.5 million for the Marriott, the IFC has invested $7.7 million to the aforementioned Oasis hotel, also located in Petionville. (IFC Investment Generation in Haiti)

In total, almost half of IFC investments have helped the construction of deluxe hotels in a rich suburb, home to the Haitian elite.

The World Bank: An Imperial Tool


The IFC is part of the World Bank Group. The World Bank has been criticized for previous initiatives like the Project for Participatory Community Development (PRODEP). An eight month investigation by Haiti Grassroots Watch found that PRODEP “helped undermine an already weak state, damaged Haiti’s ‘social tissue,’ carried out what could be called ‘social and political reengineering,’… raised questions of waste and corruption… contributed to Haiti’s growing status as an ‘NGO Republic’… damaged traditional solidarity systems and in some cases even strengthened the power of local elites.” (World Bank “success” undermines Haitian democracy, Haiti Grassroots Watch, December 20, 2012)

Recently, in May 2013, Alexandre Abrantes, the World Bank special envoy to Haiti announced that the “World Bank is supporting the Haitian government in improving the frameworks for mining, including legal provisions which are largely considered inadequate for current requirements,” Daniel Trenton, (World Bank says its helping Haiti draft mining legislation, The Gazette, May 17, 2013)

For Ezili Dantò, the U.S. and the World Bank are simply rewriting Haiti’s constitution to benefit mining companies:

Oxfam, [the] World Bank and the other fake philanthropic folks [are] involved in protecting the interests of the one percenters, re-writing Haiti mining laws…

ARTICLE 36-5 of the Haitian Constitution, states:

“The right to own property does not extend to the coasts, springs, rivers, water courses, mines and quarries. They are part of the State’s public domain.”

Haiti’s current law doesn’t allow drilling without a signed mining convention. But US Newmont mining got a “waiver” to the current Haiti law without the approval of even the puppet Haiti legislature. Martelly signed it in violation of the Haiti Constitution. (Ezili Dantò, Haiti: US to Re-Write Haiti Constitution to Better Service the One Percent, Black Agenda Report July 2, 2013)

Haitian mineral resources alone have been estimated at $20 billion. “U.S. and Canadian investors have spent more than $30 million in recent years on exploratory drilling and other mining-related activities in Haiti.” (Trenton, op. cit.)

Slow Reconstruction, Slave Labor and the International Aid Deception


Picture: Jean-Marie Vincent camp, January 2013. AP/Dieu Nalio Chery

Unlike the fast-growing luxury hotel industry, the reconstruction efforts face many delays and various financial hurdles. Last June, a U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report criticised USAID for its lack of transparency, multiple delays, cost overruns and reduced goals. The report points to a striking paradox: although the sums allocated to sheltering have almost doubled, the number of houses to be built has been reduced by an astonishing 80 percent:

In 2010, just months after Haiti was struck by a devastating earthquake, the United States passed legislation allocating $651 million to USAID to support relief and reconstruction efforts. Three years later, just 31 percent of these funds have been spent as delays mount and goals are scaled back… The report also criticizes USAID for a lack of transparency…

The GAO found that inaccurate cost estimates and delays led to an increase in the amount dedicated to providing shelter from $59 million to $97 million while at the same time “decreased the projected number of houses to be built by over 80 percent, from 15,000 to 2,649.” Originally estimated to cost less than $10,000 for a completed house, actual costs have been greater than $33,000. USAID has awarded over $46 million to contractors for housing. Meanwhile, some 300,000 people remain in camps over three years after the earthquake. Overall, the humanitarian community has constructed just 7,000 new homes, about 40 percent of what is currently planned…

Further, the GAO report is critical of U.S. investments supporting the Caracol Industrial Park. Randal C. Archibold of the New York Times reports:

A big portion of Agency for International Development money, $170.3 million, went toward a power plant and port for an industrial park in northern Haiti that was the centerpiece of United States reconstruction efforts and had been heavily promoted by the State Department and former President Bill Clinton…

Although the aid agency completed the power plant under budget, the port, crucial to the industrial park’s long-term success, is two years behind schedule “due in part to a lack of U.S.A.I.D. expertise in port planning in Haiti,” the report said, and is now vulnerable to cost overruns. (GAO Report Critical of USAID in Haiti, Bolsters Calls for Increased Oversight, Center for Economic and Policy Research, June 26, 2013)

The delays and potential cost overruns related to the construction of Caracol’s essential port are easily explained by the fact that USAID received $72 million for its planning and construction, despite its cruel lack of expertise. Indeed USAID has not built such a structure in the past 40 years:

Despite having “not constructed a port anywhere in the world since the 1970s”, USAID allocated $72 million dollars to build one, according to [the] GAO report released last week. The port is meant to help support the Caracol Industrial Park (CIP) which was constructed with funding from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and $170 million in funding from the U.S. for related infrastructure. The CIP has been held up as the flagship reconstruction project undertaken by the international community in Haiti. Even after putting aside criticisms of the location, types of jobs and the environmental impact of the CIP, the “success” of the entire project hinges on the new port…

Without any in-house expertise in port construction at USAID, the mission turned to private contractors. HRRW reported in January 2012 that MWH Americas was awarded a “$2.8 million contract to conduct a feasibility study for port infrastructure in northern Haiti.” The expected completion date was May 2012. MWH Americas had previously been criticized for their work in New Orleans, with the Times-Picayune reporting that MWH had “been operating for more than two years under a dubiously awarded contract that has allowed it to overbill the city repeatedly even as the bricks-and-mortar recovery work it oversees has lagged.” (USAID’s Lack of Expertise, Reliance on Contractors Puts Sustainability of Caracol in Doubt, Center for Economic and Policy Research, July 2, 2013)

These examples illustrate perfectly what “international aid” is all about. Ezili Dantò explains:

The NGOs carry out US imperial policies in Haiti in exchange for “charity funding” – which means, they money launder US tax payer and donor dollars and put it in their pockets. US imperial policies is about destroying Haiti manufacturing and local economy, expropriating Haiti natural resources and making a larger Haiti market for their subsidized Wall Street monopolies.

The economic elites made billions upon billions before the $9-billion the US “big-hearted humanitarians” would add to their coffers from laundering earthquake relief dollars largely back to US groups.

But the NGOs and their Hollywood, media and academic cohorts play firemen to the US government’s arsonist role in Haiti and the global south. The professional posers – the white industrial charitable complex – play an underhanded game. For instance “The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) analyzed the $1.15 billion pledged after the January 2010 quake to Haiti and found that the “vast majority” of the money it could follow went straight to U.S. companies or organizations, more than half in the Washington area alone.” (Ezili Dantò, op. cit.).

“Haitians earn less today than they did under the Duvalier dictatorship”

The giant Caracol Industrial Park was inaugurated in March 2013 in the presence of President Martelly, as well as “Haitian and foreign diplomats, the Clinton power couple, millionaires and actors, all present to celebrate the government’s clarion call: ‘Haiti is open for business.’” (The Caracol Industrial Park: Worth the risk? Haiti Grassroots Watch, March 7, 2013)

Caracol was promoted as a way to decentralize the country and potentially create between 20,000 and 65,000 jobs. The results one year later are far from expectations:

One year after it started operations, only 1,388 people work in the park… Also, HGW research amongst a sampling of workers found that at the end of the day, most have only 57 gourdes, or US$1.36, in hand after paying for transportation and food out of their minimum wage 200-gourde (US$4.75) salary.

HGW also learned that most of the farmers kicked off their plots to make way for the park are still without land.

“Before, Caracol was the breadbasket of the Northeast department,” said Breüs Wilcien, one of the farmers expelled from the 250-hectare zone. “Right now there is a shortage of some products in the local markets. We are just sitting here in misery.” (Ibid.)

Destroying food sovereignty in the global south is a common practice used by the global north through international bodies like the World Bank and the IMF. The goal is to keep the South dependent on the North and create a market for exportation, deceptively labelled “food aid” for photo ops and to conceal the real intent: dumping.

Clearly, in addition to providing slave labor for U.S. and other foreign garment companies, the Caracol Industrial Park has contributed to reduce even more what remains of the local farming in Haiti, eradicated over the years by a barbaric U.S. foreign policy. A 2010 report from the Council on Hemispheric Affairs found that Haiti’s “savior” “President Clinton and other recent White House tenants [condemned] Haiti to a future of endemic poverty through a self-serving U.S. rice export policy.” (Leah Chavla, Bill Clinton’s heavy hand on Haiti’s vulnerable agricultural economy: The American rice scandal, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, April 13, 2010)


Picture: Notice workers who earn less than $5 a day do not smile. Clinton is the only one smiling. Original caption: “Former U.S. President and U.N. Special Envoy to Haiti, Bill Clinton, smiles as he is greeted by garment workers at the Caracol Industrial Park Monday, Oct. 22, 2012, in Caracol, Haiti. The industrial park in northern Haiti is expected to create up to 65, 000 new jobs. It is a $300 million initiative by the governments of Haiti, the U.S. and the Inter-American Development Bank.” (Clintons visit Haiti to inaugurate new industrial park, The Bee. Picture: Carl Juste, Miami Herald)

Haiti expert Isabeau Doucet notes:

In the 1950s, agriculture made up 90 per cent of Haiti’s exports; today, 90 per cent of exports are from the apparel sector, while more than half the country’s food is imported…

Preferential free-trade deals signed between Haiti and the United States—named HOPE (Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement Act, 2006), HOPE II (2008) and HELP (Haiti Economic Lift Program, 2008)—have been part of a push to expand Haiti’s apparel industry by branding “Made in Haiti” garments as somehow humanitarian, socially responsible, and good for Haiti’s “development,” while also giving duty-free access to US markets.

According to a 2011 study by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the estimated cost of living in Port-au-Prince is $29 a day. Two hundred gourdes for an eight-hour work shift is one-sixth the AFL-CIO’s estimated living wage. Transport to and from work and a modest lunch could easily cost a worker 120 gourdes. Indeed, Haitians earn less today than they did under the Duvalier dictatorship; wages have barely increased and are worth half their 1984 purchasing power. (Isabeau Doucet, Made in Haiti, Dumped in Haiti: Slave Labor and the Garment Industry, The Dominion 10 July 2013)

Displaced people dumped on a wasteland

While the tourism industry is rapidly growing, people have been evicted from the city and dumped on a wasteland in a camp called Corail-Cesselesse, also known as “Canaan,” “Jerusalem” and “ONAville”. The camp on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince could “become the country’s most expansive – and most expensive – slum” where there are no jobs and water is hard to find.


Picture: City Hall annex in Croix-des-Bouquets, Canaan.

Today, all of the big agencies have abandoned the Corail camp and its 10,000 residents. Trumpeting their success and claiming to have prepared a “transition” to the local authorities, [International Organization of Migration] IOM, [American Refugee Committee] ARC and World Vision all pulled out (although World Vision still supports the Corail School, which it built). (Reconstruction’s Massive Slum Will Cost “Hundreds Of Millions” Reconstruction’s Massive Slum Will Cost “Hundreds Of Millions” Haiti Grassroots Watch, June 17, 2013)

The international community is not helping rebuild Haiti. It is improving colonialism in Haiti with its companies, using the country’s population as slave labor to boost profits. The startling difference between the slow reconstruction efforts for Haitians as opposed to the rapid rise of the luxury hotel industry shows that in Haiti, the foreigners come first. Sadly white supremacy and slavery are still alive and well in the “pearl of the Antilles”.

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About the author:

Julie Lévesque is a journalist and researcher with the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal. She was among the first independent journalists to visit Haiti in the wake of the January 2010 earthquake. In 2011, she was on board "The Spirit of Rachel Corrie", the only humanitarian vessel which penetrated Gaza territorial waters before being shot at by the Israeli Navy.