[News] Haiti - NGO crimes go far beyond Oxfam

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/feb/13/ngo-crimes-go-far-beyond-oxfam 



  NGO crimes go far beyond Oxfam

February 13, 2018
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Figures for earthquake relief range from $10bn to $13.4bn. Some of us 
who visited Haiti have seen little or no sign of that money, write 
activists

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In 2008 some of us had written to Barbara Stocking, then Oxfam chief 
executive, objecting to a report that it sponsored, Rule of Rapists in 
Haiti <https://www.theguardian.com/world/haiti>, which labelled Haitians 
as rapists while hiding rapes by occupying UN forces. The year before, 
114 soldiers had been sent home for raping women and girls, some as 
young as 11. No one was prosecuted. We wrote: “NGOs like Oxfam have 
known about rapes by UN forces, as well as by aid and charity workers, 
for decades. It’s the pressure of victims, women and [children] in the 
most impoverished communities, who had the courage to speak out that 
finally won … public acknowledgement.” There was no reply.

The latest revelations of sexual abuse by major charities (Report 
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/12/haiti-demands-oxfam-identify-workers-who-used-prostitutes>, 
13 February), are but one facet of NGO corruption. The people of Haiti 
were the first to free themselves from slavery, but the colonial 
“masters” they defeated – France, Britain and the US – have continued to 
plunder and exploit, including through imported NGOs. Haiti has more 
NGOs per square mile than any other country and it remains the poorest 
in the western hemisphere. Corruption begins and ends with neo-colonial 
powers.

While celebrated for “doing good”, NGO professionals do well for 
themselves. They move between NGOs, academia and political appointments, 
enjoying a culture of impunity while they exercise power over the 
poorest. The Lancet described NGOs in Haiti as “polluted by unsavoury 
characteristics seen in many big corporations” and “obsessed with 
raising money”.

Figures for earthquake relief range from $10bn to $13.4bn. Some of us 
who visited Haiti have seen little or no sign of that money. The public 
was outraged when they discovered the Red Cross intended to build a 
luxury hotel and conference centre in Haiti with some unspent donations. 
Big NGOs are far from non-governmental. For example, Oxfam 
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/oxfam> receives millions from the UK 
government. USAID is another major funder. Unsurprisingly, NGO politics 
follow the cash.

In 2004 the US (backed by Canada and France) overthrew Haiti’s 
democratically elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. He headed a 
popular movement to chart an independent course that would move Haitians 
“from destitution to poverty”. His government supported small farmers, 
raised the minimum wage (the lowest in the western hemisphere), built 
schools and hospitals. (UNEFA, his medical university will be 
celebrating the graduation of its first class of doctors in March). The 
coup against him had NGO support. Charities 
<https://www.theguardian.com/society/charities> thrive on the poor, not 
on ending poverty.

*
*

*Cristel Amiss*
/Black Women’s Rape Action Project/
*Andaiye*
/Red Thread, Guyana/
*Margaret Busby*
/(Publisher & author)/
*Sara Callawa*y
/Women of Colour Global Women’s Strike/
*Luke Daniels*
/Caribbean Labour Solidarity/
*Jocelyn Dow*
/Red Thread, Guyana/
*Selma James*
/Global Women’s Strike/
*Pierre Laboissere*
/Haiti Action_,_/
*Emma Lewis*
/Caribbean Labour Solidarity/
*Dr. Altheia Le Cointe*
/Trinidad & Tobago/
*Eddie Le Cointe*
/Dominica/
*Nina Lopez*
/Legal Action for Women/
*Ian Macdonald QC*
*Rose Okello*
/All African Women’s Group/
*Margaret Prescod*
/Women of Colour Global Women’s Strike/
*Lawrence Renee*
/Payday Men’s Network/
*Sidney Ross-Risden*
/Haiti Support Working Group/
*Becky Titah*
/All African Women’s Group/
*Sam Karl Weinstein*
/Refusing to Kill network/


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