USA consollidates hold on Haiti with 12,000 troop invasion

[Ed Jewett]

“Democratization of Assets” in the Shadow of Disaster – Obama’s Unmistakable Globalist Message to the People of Haiti

Posted on January 17, 2010 by willyloman
by Scott Creighton
Obama's Unmistakable Globalist Message to Haiti

Since the dust has cleared a bit and the people of Haiti are beginning to recover from the initial shock of the earthquake, the globalist jackals and free-market zealots are circling the camp.
The smell of blood is in the air so the natural reaction for the Wall Street Tonton Macoutes is to leap into the fray with platitudes and platoons; to use your sympathies, your donations, and your soldiers to inflict their special brand of structured ”reforms” on a people who have been resisting them for decades.
Under the guise of bringing “relief” to the suffering people of Haiti, the globalists have mobilized their PR firms and politicians to pounce upon the chaotic mess that was once a proud nation. President Obama, in true neoliberal form, has appointed two obviously corrupt representatives with outrageous previous histories in Haiti to help the American robber baron class pave the way for a new opportunities in Haiti for the usual cast of globalist free-marketeers, the IMF and World Bank.

Jan. 2010, W. Post – Even as rescuers are digging victims out of the rubble in Haiti, policymakers in Washington and around the world are grappling with how a destitute, corrupt and now devastated country might be transformed into a self-sustaining nation.
… And those who will help oversee it are thinking hard about how to use that money and attention to change the country forever. Washington Post

Yes they Can.
The men President Obama has put in charge of our relief programs are thinking about how they can use this opportunity (and the money you donate out of the goodness of your heart) to change Haiti forever. In fact, they have been thinking about it, plotting and planning about it, and running coups and protecting murders about it, for decades now. Turns out all they needed was a natural disaster and a fake democrat with a peace prize to provide sufficient ”progressive” cover for the neoliberal Shock Therapy reforms that are bound to be already underway. Talk about adding insult to injury.
Obama’a message to the suffering people of Haiti could not be clearer and it could not be farther from the truth. We do not “stand united” behind the globalist agenda they have planned for Haiti.

A Brief History of Haiti, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush

Jan. 18 2010 WSWS – For eight years apiece, Clinton and Bush were directly and deeply involved in a series of political machinations and military interventions that have played a major role in perpetuating the poverty, backwardness and repression in Haiti that have vastly compounded by the disaster that struck that country last Tuesday. Both men have the blood of Haitian workers and peasants on their hands. Patrick Martin

President Clinton helped bring death and human suffering to the people of Haiti a decade and a half ago when for years he turned his back on a murderous dictatorial junta and then attempted to impose his globalist neoliberal IMF and World Bank Structural Adjustment Programs in 1995. Vice President Al Gore famously told the people of Haiti “no privatization… no money“.

Oct. 1995, IPS – The United States has warned Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide of the need to adopt a series of economic reforms or face an end to critical international funding.
U.S. Vice Price President Al Gore, on a brief visit to celebrate the first anniversary of the return of Haiti’s constitutional government, devoted most of a short news conference Sunday to the need for compliance with a sweeping International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank-designed Structural Adjustment Program (SAP).
At talks with Aristide ‘’we discussed the need for continuing international assistance to meet the developmental requirements of Haiti and the steps the government of Haiti and its people need to take in order to ensure the continued flow of these funds,’’ Gore said. IPS

After previously supporting the military junta, the Clinton administration was pressuring the newly returned President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the first democratically elected president of Haiti, to enact the highly unpopular neoliberal economic reforms right after he was returned to power by an effort led mainly by President Carter in 1994.
Aristide had been removed from power right after he won the election of 1990 with 67% of the popular vote. In February of 1991, Aristide took office. In September of that same year, a CIA backed military coup removed him from office and restored Haiti to a military dictatorship.

Oct. 1996, History Commons – Haiti agrees to implement a wide array of neoliberal reforms outlined in the IMF’s $1.2 billion Emergency Economic Recovery Plan (EERP) put together by the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and the Organization of American States (OAS). The recovery package, to be funded and executed over a five-year period, aims to create a capital-friendly macroeconomic environment for the export-manufacturing sector. It calls for suppressing wages, reducing tariffs, and selling off state-owned enterprises (like the Central Bank of Haiti). Notably, there is little in the package for the country’s rural sector, which represents the activities of about 65 percent of the Haitian population. The small amount that does go to the countryside is designated for improving roads and irrigation systems and promoting export crops such as coffee and mangoes. The Haitian government also agrees to abolish tariffs on US imports, which results in the dumping of cheap US foodstuffs on the Haitian market undermining the country’s livestock and agricultural production. The disruption of economic life in the already depressed country further deteriorates the living conditions of the poor. History Commons

Oct. 1996, IMF – The major public enterprises and the state-owned banks will be restructured… IMF

In 2001, on the 10th anniversary of the illegal CIA backed coup that ousted Aristide, he addressed the coup as well as the crippling ”economic terrorism” inflicted by the neoliberal “reformers” in terms that were readily understandable at the time:

Oct. 2001, Haiti Progress – Referring to these events and the Sept. 30 coup, Aristide condemned terrorist acts in any form. He then said he considered the blockage of international aid to Haiti since last year, due to a contrived electoral crisis, as an act of economic terrorism. He charged the modern terrorists as being responsible for the current dilapidated state of Haiti. After his first election on Dec. 16, 1990, we worked peacefully and democratically to climb out of poverty but they organized the Sept. 30, 1991 coup d’itat, Aristide said. If we hadn’t had the Sept. 30th coup, today how many people would be better in the country? How many people would have already escaped poverty? How many people would have escaped unemployment?
How many would already be literate?… The 1991 coup was a crisis which should never happen again on Haitian soil, never, never, never again. Haiti Progress

After the September 30th 1991 coup in Haiti, an event aided by the CIA and run through a group called the Front for the Advancement of Progress of the Haitian People (FRAPH), the new military dictatorship set to work killing and kidnapping hundreds (or thousands) of political dissidents.
The FRAPH was run by two men; Emmanuel “Toto” Constant and Louis-Jodel Chamblain. Constant admitted to being employed by the CIA (a claim Amnesty International latter validated) and Chamblain had run a notorious death-squad under the reign of Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier’s dictatorship. These are the kinds of people who ruled Haiti under the first few years of the Clinton administration while IMF and World Bank funds flowed into the nation and straight into the hands of Haiti’s corrupt elites. The State Department under Bill Clinton took an estimated 60,000 pages of documents from Haiti that related to the FRAPH regime when Aristide was about to be returned to power. They would later refuse to hand these documents over to the Aristide government when the latter wished to prosecute certain members of the military junta for crimes against humanity that occurred during their rule.

Oct. 2001, Haiti Progress – The Haitian government has also used the historical moment to renew its calls for the return of Emmanuel Toto Constant, the leader of the CIA-paid paramilitary death squad FRAPH during the coup, who now lives and works in Queens, New York with Washington’s protection. Haiti Progress

Noam Chomsky put it this way in a speech he gave in 2004;

March 2004, Democracy Now – The military junta, though it’s—that much is reported, they were leaders of the military junta, which killed maybe 4,000 or 5,000 people than death squads did, the paramilitaries. What is not mentioned is that the military junta was supported by the Bush and the Clinton administrations.
… But just starting in 1990, the Haiti did have its first free election in 1990. The U.S. had a candidate, World Bank official Mark Bean who would assume obviously win. He had all the money and everything else. Nobody was paying attention to what was going on in the slums and the streets and the hills and what was going on was pretty impressive. A lot of large-scale effective organizing among some of the poorest, most miserable people in the world and grassroots movements had developed with nobody paying any attention. Which were so powerful that when it did come to an election, they swept the election. The U.S. candidate got 14% of the vote and Aristide, President Aristide won by a very large majority, which shocked everybody. The United States instantly, instantly turned to overthrowing the government.
… It later turned out that the Bush and the Clinton administrations had authorized Texaco Oil Corporation to circumvent presidential directives and supply the oil illegally to the gangsters who were torturing and terrorizing the population that has yet to be printed outside of the business press.
Finally, in 1994, Clinton decided that the population had been tortured enough and the president was permitted to return. That is described, and like I said, you don’t read the front pages, but what you do read is that this was a magnificent act of humanitarian intervention, pure altruism entering the noble phase of foreign policy as we restored the democratically elected president in 1994. Continuing with what isn’t reported, the president was indeed allowed to return, but on a condition, namely the condition that he accept the program of the defeated U.S. candidate in the 1990 election who had gotten 14% of the vote. That is a very harsh neo-liberal program, which opens Haiti up to complete takeover by foreign, meaning U.S., mainly corporations, no constraints. Democracy Now

But Bill Clinton and Papa Bush weren’t the last of American Globalist Presidents to wreak havoc on the innocent people of Haiti. George W. Bush got his licks in as well, while President Obama looks like his policies are going to fall right in line with the previous efforts.
After the election of Aristide in 2000 and Aristide’s obvious decision to end the neoliberal reforms that had been slowly sucking the life out of his people, a horrific destabilization campaign was begun under the Bush administration with the intention of turning the people of Haiti against President Aristide. In 2004, when destabilization plan failed outright, they simply removed him again the same way they had before, with another military coup.

Jan. 2010, WSWS - As for George W. Bush, his selection as co-leader of a supposed humanitarian campaign is an insult to the people of both Haiti and the United States. His appointment by Obama is in keeping with the Democratic president’s unflagging efforts since his election, the result of popular hatred of Bush and his party, to rehabilitate the Republicans.
An unapologetic war criminal who is responsible for the slaughter of a million Iraqis, Bush’s signature domestic “achievement” was the abject failure of the US government either to prevent the devastation of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in Hurricane Katrina, or to mount an effective relief and recovery effort afterwards. Patrick Martin

In 2005, Naomi Klein sat down and interviewed President Aristide. They discussed the conditions the Clinton administration attempted to force on him in return for allowing him to return to power in his own nation.

July 2005, Now News – But Washington’s negotiators made one demand that Aristide could not accept (Clinton administration in 1994): the immediate selloff of Haiti’s state-owned enterprises, including phones and electricity. Aristide argued that unregulated privatization would transform state monopolies into private oligarchies, increasing the riches of Haiti’s elite and stripping the poor of their national wealth. He says the proposal simply didn’t add up. “Being honest means saying 2 plus 2 equals 4. They wanted us to sing 2 plus 2 equals 5.”
Aristide proposed a compromise: rather than sell off the firms outright, he would “democratize” them. He defined this as writing antitrust legislation, insuring that proceeds from the sales were redistributed to the poor and allowing workers to become shareholders. Washington backed down, and the final text of the agreement – accepted by the United States and by a meeting of donor nations in Paris – called for the “democratization” of state companies.
But when Aristide began to implement the plan, it turned out that the financiers in Washington thought his democratization talk was just public relations. When Aristide announced that no sales could take place until parliament had approved the new laws, Washington cried foul. Aristide says he realized then that what was being attempted was an “economic coup.” Now News

During the 2004 coup, Aristide tried to get word out as to what was happening.

March 2oo4, Democracy Now – Multiple sources that just spoke with Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide told Democracy Now! that Aristide says he was “kidnapped” and taken by force to the Central African Republic. Congressmember Maxine Waters said she received a call from Aristide at 9am EST. “He’s surrounded by military. It’s like he is in jail, he said. He says he was kidnapped,” said Waters. She said he had been threatened by what he called US diplomats. According to Waters, the diplomats reportedly told the Haitian president that if he did not leave Haiti, paramilitary leader Guy Philippe would storm the palace and Aristide would be killed. According to Waters, Aristide was told by the US that they were withdrawing Aristide’s US security. Democracy Now

It didn’t matter. With few exceptions, the corporatist enabling US media stuck to the official story-line as, once again, the freely elected populist leader of yet another nation was removed to make way for globalist economic reforms.

First of all I think the people in this country should be outraged that our government led a coup de’tat against a democratically elected President. Maxine Waters, 2004

Enter the Great Messiah, President Barak (Look At My Peace Prize) Obama
How on earth could the first black president of the United States of America, a man who campaigned on his similarities to people like Martin Luther King and swore his oath of office on Lincolns own bible, be so insensitive to the people of Haiti as to send Bill Clinton and George W. Bush down there to “help” with the reconstruction of their country?

Jan. 2010, MSNBC – “By coming together in this way, these two leaders send an unmistakable message to the people of Haiti and to the people of the world,” Obama said in the Rose Garden, standing between Bush and Clinton. “In these difficult hours, America stands united. We stand united with the people of Haiti, who have shown such incredible resilience, and we will help them to recover and to rebuild.” MSNBC

The stark raving hypocrisy of that decision flies in the face of every single Haitian as well as any U.S. citizen who has bothered even a minimal amount of research into the history of Haiti.
Hillary Clinton, globalist extraordinaire, is rushing down to take charge of the operation while 10,000 U.S. troops are on their way. The last time U.S. troops set foot on their soil was just after the 2004 coup and now they are back in even greater numbers.
The U.S. military has taken over the airport and are controlling who and what gets into the nation while Hillary Clinton is arguing for martial law and complete control of Haitian government.

Jan. 17, 2010 – Despite guarantees, given by the United Nations and the US Defense Department, an MSF (Doctors Without Borders) cargo plane carrying an inflatable surgical hospital was blocked from landing in Port-au-Prince on Saturday, and was re-routed to Samana, in Dominican Republic. All material from the cargo is now being sent by truck from Samana, but this has added a 24-hour delay for the arrival of the hospital. MSF Website
Jan. 18 2010 WSWS – On Saturday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Port-au-Prince at the invitation of Haitian President René Préval. She argued for the imposition of an emergency decree in Haiti, allowing for the imposition of curfews and martial-law conditions by US forces. Clinton explained: “The decree would give the government an enormous amount of authority, which in practice they would delegate to us.” WSWS

It is a sickening display of raw disaster capitalism at it’s finest. These people are rushing in like swarm of flies.
Making it even worse, every single dollar that the well-meaning people of this nation will contribute to help the poor people stuck in this terrible tragedy, will be placed in the control of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to be held over the heads of the current leaders of that nation and used to compel them allow the free-market “restructuring” that they have been trying so hard to get for decades. They will take that money donated for good-will, and use it to enact the privatization schemes that will simply put massive amounts of money in their own pockets. They will direct that money into reconstruction programs handed off to the same list of cronie contractors who have been profiting from disasters and illegal occupations for decades under these monsters.
There must be a special kind of hell for humans like that. God, I wish there was. But unfortunately I’m an atheist, and I know better.
The kind of people who would take advantage of this level of human suffering in order to line their own pockets and advance their own corrupt agenda don’t deserve to be in charge of a lemonade stand, much less the vast sums of contributions of well-meaning, economically depressed citizens who are already suffering themselves due to the same corrupt people enacting the same Structural Reforms right here in America.
The irony of the entire situation is mind-boggling. Especially when you factor in “progressive” media figures like Maddow and Colbert are not only applauding the Clinton/Bush efforts, but are helping to lead the way to bleed their “progressive” flocks to donate as much as possible to the cause.
Of course, it’s in bad taste to talk about the bloody history of our neoliberal campaigns in Haiti. Every news agency will tell you so. They will ALL, every single one of them, avoid talking about these very same two ex-presidents and the corrupt, inhuman, unconstitutional, bloody campaigns they each led in their efforts to empower the international bankers and corporations against the people and the democracy of Haiti. To do so might just hinder the contributions to the Clinton/Bush Blackmail Haiti Fund.
also read:
1. The Militarization of Emergency Aid to Haiti:Is it a Humanitarian Operation or an Invasion? By Michel Chossudovsky
2. History of the Haitian Holocaust by Greg Palast
3. Bush, Clinton and the crimes of U.S. imperialism in Haiti by Patrick Martin
4. U.S. Military Tightens Grip on Haiti by Alex Lentier
5. Crushing Haiti; Now as Always by Patrick Cockburn