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<h1 id="reader-title">In Hurricane Matthew’s Aftermath:Is
Washington Again Using Disaster Aid to Haiti as a Trojan
Horse?</h1>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="FR"><span lang="FR"><span
lang="FR"><span lang="FR"><span lang="FR"><span></span></span></span></span></span></span>Kim
Ives - October 12, 2016<br>
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> The images and accounts of Haiti’s
devastation following Hurricane Matthew’s passage on
Oct. 4 are gut-wrenching. The death toll is in the
hundreds and continues to rise. Entire villages in the
country's southwest were obliterated. The response of
a Haitian government, left besieged and without
resources by decades of foreign plunder, is anemic.
The victims’ anguished appeals for help are
heart-rending. The United Nations now says 1.4 million
people are in need of assistance, urgent and immediate
for half of them. Distressed onlookers around the
world want to do something, anything, and fast.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span><span>But the
greatest danger in the hurricane's aftermath may not
come from the destruction of crops and
infrastructure, the inevitable spike in cholera
cases, or the sudden homelessness of tens of
thousands. It may come from the aircraft carriers,
foreign troops, food shipments, and hordes of NGO
workers which are now descending on Haiti ostensibly
to help the storm’s victims.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span> </span><span>This
supposed aid may end up undermining local food
production, sabotaging pending elections,
reinforcing the foreign military intervention in the
country, and generally subverting Haiti’s recent
moves to regain its sovereignty.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span> </span><span>We saw this
scenario almost seven years ago, following the 7.0
earthquake that leveled the town of Léogâne and the
region around the capital city of Port-au-Prince on
Jan. 12, 2010. In the days after the earthquake, the
United States deployed 22,000 troops to Haiti
without the permission of the national government,
took over the Port-au-Prince airport, and </span> <a
href="http://www.haiti-liberte.com/archives/volume4-48/U.S.%20Worried%20about%20International.asp">
<span> <span>militarized the humanitarian response</span></span></a><a
name="_Hlt463855994"></a><a name="_Hlt463855993"></a><span>.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span> </span><span>“Marines
armed as if they were going to war,” exclaimed the
late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez in early 2010.
“There is not a shortage of guns there, my God.
Doctors, medicine, fuel, field hospitals, that is
what the United States should send. They are
occupying Haiti in an undercover manner.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span> </span><span>(That
intervention and much else about U.S. meddling in
Haiti have been detailed in a joint publishing
project begun in 2011 between Wikileaks and </span>
<i> <span>Haiti Liberté</span></i><span> weekly
newspaper</span><i><span>,</span></i><span> which
partnered with</span><i><span> The Nation</span></i><span>
magazine on many </span> <a
href="http://canadahaitiaction.ca/wikileaks"> <span>
<span>English language articles.</span></span></a><span>)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span> </span><span>Today, the
U.S. has sent the aircraft carrier USS George
Washington and an amphibious transport vessel, the
Mesa Verde, with </span> <a
href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/devastation-in-haiti-after-hurricane-matthew-pounds-the-country/2016/10/05/76041fe2-8a66-1">
<span> <span>300 Marines</span></span></a><span> on
board, as well as </span> <a
href="http://www.haiti-liberte.com/archives/volume10-13/Hurricane%20Matthew%20Devastates.asp">
<span> <span>100 Marines</span></span></a><span>
with nine helicopters from Honduras.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span> </span><span>Richard
Morse, who runs Port-au-Prince’s iconic Oloffson
Hotel, returned to Haiti on Oct. 9 and tweeted:
“Lots of U.S. military on the plane.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span> </span><span>In contrast,
the day after the hurricane hit, Venezuela flew 20
tons of humanitarian aid to Haiti – food, water,
blankets, sheets, and medicines. It dispatched two
more shipments in the following days, including a
ship containing 660 tons of material that includes
450 tons of machinery to remove debris and fix roads
and bridges and 90 tons of non-perishable foods and
medicines, supplies, tents, blankets, and drinking
water. It has also dispatched 300 doctors, many of
them Cuban-trained. All this despite very difficult
economic conditions in Venezuela as well as a
relentless political assault by Washington against
the Venezuelan government.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span> </span><span>In this
latest disaster, “Venezuela was the first to help
Haiti,” said the Haitian Ambassador to Caracas,
Lesly David.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span> </span><span>Cuba,
meanwhile, </span> <a
href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Venezuela-Cuba-Show-Solidarity-with-Haiti-After-the-Hurricane-20161008-0002.html">
<span> <span>has supplemented</span></span></a><span>
its revered 1,200-doctor </span> <a
href="http://medicc.org/ns/"> <span> <span>medical
mission to Haiti</span></span></a><span> with 38
personnel from the Henry Reeve International
Contingent of Physicians Specialized in Disaster
Situations and Serious Epidemics, which set up field
hospitals in Haiti in 2010 as well. As Washington
sends soldiers, Venezuela and Cuba send doctors.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span> </span><span>In the
longer term, it is likely that Washington will seek
to use the post-hurricane crisis to bolster its
proxy force, the UN Mission to Stabilize Haiti
(MINUSTAH), which has occupied Haiti in violation of
Haitian and international law for 12 years,
following the overthrow of Haiti's elected president
on Feb. 29, 2004. (MINUSTAH was </span> <a
href="http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/minustah/documents/minustah_press_factsheet_012011.pdf">
<span>expanded</span></a><span> from 7,000 to 11,500
soldiers and police officers after the 2010
earthquake.)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span> </span><span>MINUSTAH's
mandate expires on Oct. 15. In the face of Haitian
and international outcry and the withdrawal from the
force of several key Latin American nations –
Argentina, Uruguay and Chile – outgoing UN Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon </span> <a
href="http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/s_2016_753.pdf">
<span> <span>recommended on Aug. 31</span></span></a><a
name="_Hlt463859952"></a><span> extending the
mandate by only six months, less than the customary
one-year renewal. He says a “a strategic assessment
of the situation in Haiti” is needed.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span> </span><span>However, Ban
conditioned this shorter mandate on the hope that
“the current electoral calendar will be maintained”
so that a “strategic assessment mission would be
deployed to Haiti after Feb. 7, 2017,” the date on
which a new elected president is supposed to be
sworn in.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span> </span><span>As a result
of Hurricane Matthew, it is now unlikely that an
elected president will be inaugurated on that date.
Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) has
postponed indefinitely the elections which were to
take place on Oct. 9, involving a re-do of a
first-round presidential vote (that of Oct. 25, 2015
was patently fraudulent) and a run-off for several
Haitian legislature seats.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span> </span><span>The CEP is
due to announce on Oct. 12 the new electoral
schedule. (Leaks suggest it may propose Oct. 30,
2016.) It may prove impossible to hold the postponed
pollings in time for a February presidential
inauguration because tens of thousands of would-be
voters on Haiti’s southern peninsula have surely
lost their electoral cards while many polling places
– mostly schools – will need repairs or complete
rebuilding.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span> </span><span>The
potential absence of an elected president in time
for the constitutionally-mandated inauguration date
would surely be used as an excuse for the extension
of MINUSTAH’s mandate, despite Haitians being almost
unanimously opposed to the troops’ presence. The
MINUSTAH, now numbering 5,000 soldiers and police
officers, is reviled due to its massacres, murders,
rapes, and other crimes against Haitians, but mostly
because its Nepalese contingent introduced cholera
into Haiti in October 2010.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span> </span><span>Nearly
10,000 Haitians have died from cholera and more than
one million have been infected. The UN has fiercely
resisted any culpability for the cholera disaster. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span> </span><span>The disease
spreads when cholera-infected sewage mixes with
drinking and washing water, a situation which arises
more easily when there is massive flooding, as after
Matthew.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span> </span><span>As for the
relationship between post-hurricane rebuilding and
the upcoming elections, the earthquake’s aftermath
is instructive. Then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton and former President Bill Clinton </span> <a
href="http://www.haiti-liberte.com/archives/volume10-11/Haiti%20s%20Pay-to-Play%20IHRC.asp">
<span> <span>took command</span></span></a><span>
of Haiti’s post-earthquake reconstruction through
the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC),
sidelining the Haitian government and Haitian
President René Préval. The resentful Préval became
something of a figurehead, with the Clintons and
their coterie running the show.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span> </span><span>The powers
behind MINUSTAH – the U.S., France, and Canada –
intervened aggressively following the 2010
earthquake to install a pliant president. As
Préval's electoral mandate was finishing, his
party’s successor candidate, Jude Célestin, finished
the first-round presidential vote in November 2010
in second place. But Washington intervened, led by
Secretary of State Clinton, and replaced Célestin
with the third place finisher, Michel Martelly, a
ribald musical performer of the political
extreme-right. He went on to win the March 2011
run-off vote.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span> </span><span>Could a
similar power-play take place in Haiti’s next
election, especially with the likely election in
November of Hillary Clinton as the next U.S.
president?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span></span><span>Then there is
the question of emergency aid – food, water,
shelter, and medical supplies. There is an obvious
need for all of this in the immediate term, such as
that sent by Venezuela. However, in the past,
Washington has used its food aid to crush and
debilitate local Haitian food production. Former
CARE employee and Haiti-resident researcher Tim
Schwartz documented this at length in his book </span>
<i> <span>Travesty in Haiti: A True Account of
Christian Missions, Orphanages, Fraud, Food Aid
and Drug Trafficking</span></i><span>. He wrote
that the role of food aid “was not principally to
help people but to promote overseas sales of U.S.
agricultural produce. The consequences have been
devastating throughout the world.” That aid, he
argued, brought ruin to small Haitian farmers.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span> </span><span>“Westerners
wanting to help shouldn’t assume that there are no
resources available to Haitians in country,” writes
Haitian Jocelyn McCalla in </span> <i><a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/06/hurricane-matthew-haiti-aid-long-term-economic-investment">
<span> <span>The Guardian</span><span> on Oct. 6</span></span></a></i><span>.
“While charitable goods may provide temporary
relief, they can hinder recovery in the long run to
the extent that they can have a negative impact on
the local economy.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span> </span><span>In 2010,
most of the humanitarian disaster aid was funneled
through international non-governmental organizations
(INGOs) and the result was disastrous. Even the
Clintons’ own daughter, Chelsea, was “profoundly
disturbed” by what she saw on the ground. She wrote
in </span> <a
href="http://www.haiti-liberte.com/archives/volume9-10/The%20Mysterious%20Gap%20in%20Hillary.asp">
<span> <span>a declassified email</span></span></a><a
name="_Hlt463862166"></a><a name="_Hlt463862165"></a><span>
in early 2010 that the “incompetence is mind
numbing,” that “Haitians want to help themselves and
want the international community to help them help
themselves,” and that “there is NO accountability in
the UN system or international humanitarian system
(including for/ among INGOs).”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span> </span><span>The current
Haitian government, headed by interim President
Jocelerme Privert, is trying to take control of the
disaster relief efforts and funds. Following the
earthquake, only one per cent of aid funds went to
Haitian authorities. This time, the president’s
office has reinforced the </span> <a
href="http://www.alterpresse.org/spip.php?article20693#.V_r8TvkrLDd">
<span> <span>Permanent National Office for Risk and
Disaster Relief</span></span></a><a
name="_Hlt463862345"></a><span> (SNGRD) through
which all national and international disaster relief
is to be channeled and coordinated. What will be
Washington’s response to this initiative?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span> </span><span>The U.S. was
angered earlier this year when the Privert
government resisted its pressure not to form an
independent verification commission to investigate
the fraud-plagued Aug. 9 and Oct. 25, 2015
elections. Anger became outrage when Privert’s CEP
respected</span><span>the verification commission’s
recommendation to redo the 2015 presidential
first-round, and Washington and the European Union
said they would withhold all financial support.
Commendably, cash-strapped Haiti was undeterred and
has managed to fund the elections by itself.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span> </span><span>Haitian
government leadership of the relief efforts should
begin with its being able to establish the death
toll. The Haitian government and foreign media are
differing over how many people have died from
Hurricane Matthew. As of this writing, the
international media is saying that more than 900
people perished, while the Haitian government’s
Civil Protection Directorate (DPC) gives an official
nationwide count of 372 dead, four missing, 246
injured, and 175,509 persons housed in 224 temporary
shelters.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span> </span><span>Writing on
Oct. 8, Haitian journalist Dady Chery </span> <a
href="http://newsjunkiepost.com/2016/10/08/haiti-facts-about-hurricane-matthew-vs-media-poetic-truth/">
<span> <span>has reported</span></span></a><span>,
“Once the United States military and journalists
began to assess the hurricane’s damage by some
counting system of their own invention, the number
of Haitian casualties skyrocketed, and there were no
longer any reports of how the dead met their fates.
Indeed, the number of the Haitian dead from
Hurricane Matthew has doubled approximately every 12
hours since Tuesday [Oct. 4] morning and is now
estimated to be 800.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span> </span><span>The higher
“casualty counts should be examined carefully and
with great skepticism,” Chery continues. “For one,
there no longer appears to be a distinction between
the missing and the dead. For example, the children
from a collapsed orphanage are presumed to have
died, but no evidence of their deaths has been
offered.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span> </span><span>“It is in
the interest of the occupying powers to pressure
Haiti to exaggerate the human and material costs of
the hurricane,” Chery concludes.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span> </span><span>Indeed,
Washington will likely use this latest Haitian
crisis to further its own economic and political
agenda and to bully and undercut President Privert,
who has shown some temerity and independence since
his interim appointment by redoing the 2015
presidential election in the face of fierce
opposition from Washington, Ottawa, and Paris. After
their experience of the last six years, the Haitian
people are justified in being wary of foreigners
bearing gifts but whose policies have always
undermined Haiti's democracy and sovereignty.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span> </span><span>“If people
are concerned about the long-term sovereignty and
capacity of the country of Haiti to develop its own
resources, I would recommend against the large
charities, which in my view just perpetuate the
conditions of poverty and of political instability
that cause the country to be so vulnerable in the
first place,” Roger Annis of the Canada Haiti Action
Network (CHAN) told the Globe & Mail on Oct. 9.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span> </span><span>International
aid by whatever agency able to deliver it is being
welcomed by Hurricane Matthew’s Haitian victims and
their government. But the lesson of the 2010
earthquake is that aid and reconstruction must be
directed by Haitians and for Haitians. Otherwise,
this latest disaster will only aggravate the long
disaster of big-power intervention into the country.
That, not inevitable storms and earthquakes, is the
largest obstacle facing Haiti in its struggle for
development and sovereignty.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> (Readers are encouraged to contact
local Haitian consulates or embassies to find out how
to contribute directly to the Haitian government or
its affiliated agencies.)</p>
<i> <span> Roger Annis contributed to this article,
which is also published on <a
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/"> <span>CounterPunch</span></a>.
For background to the long history of foreign
interference in Haiti, read '<a
href="http://www.canadahaitiaction.ca/content/haiti%92s-humanitarian-crisis-rooted-history-military-coups-and-occupations"><span><span>Haiti’s
humanitarian crisis: Rooted in history of
military coups and occupations</span></span></a>',
by Kim Ives and Roger Annis, May 2011. For an
assessment of 2010 earthquake aid five years on,
read, '<a
href="http://canadahaitiaction.ca/content/haitis-promised-rebuilding-unrealized-haitians-challenge-authoritarian-rule"><span><span>Haiti's
promised rebuilding unrealized as Haitians
challenge authoritarian rule</span></span></a>,’
by Roger Annis and Travis Ross, Jan 12, 2015. The
website project '<a
href="http://cepr.net/blogs/haiti-relief-and-reconstruction-watch/"><span><span>Haiti
Relief and Reconstruction Watch</span></span></a>'
documents Haiti's difficult experiences following
the January 2010 earthquake.</span></i></span> </div>
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