"The Haitian people are asking not for charity, but for justice."
The Uses of Haiti last paragraph pg. 307
What, then is to be done?
Speaking of events since the 1991 coup, Noam Chomsky has noted that "honest commentary would place all of this in the context of our unwavering opposition to freedom and human rights in Haiti for no less than 200 years." The first order of business, for citizens of the United States, might be a candid and careful assessment of our ruinous policies towards Haiti. Remorse is not a very fashionable sentiment. But for many, old-fashioned penitence might be the first step towards a new solidarity, a pragmatic solidarity that could supplant both our malignant policies of the past and the well -meaning but unfocused charity that does not respond to Haitian aspirations. The Haitian people are asking not for charity, but for justice.
See blueness's comment, original sin.
Today's book is Travesty in Haiti. This book paints a vivid and depressing picture of what is now the poverty industry. It covers in detail how food aid destroys economies. We learn that NGOs have known that food aid destroys economies since at least the 1990's maybe before. However to meet corporate payroll they continue to dump food aid in countries making the people go from poor to starving. We also learn that this is a deliberate plan the US is implementing through NGOs. The helping business turns into a vehicle for our government to exploit poor people by destroying local farm economies and making people dependent on imports and keeping them desperate for work. Thereby providing cheap labor and a market to dump our excess agricultural products. I am only half way done and have already learned about CARE and other NGO's role in carrying out a plan the U.S. came up with sometime in the 1970's .
Travesty in Haiti (pg. 107)
As it turns out, CARE had become involved in what was a very deliberate undermining of the Haitian peasant economy, the cornerstone of a plan that the World Bank and USAID had designed.
I first learned about the trade deal Damming the Flood. It was called the Paris Plan. But I did know how NGOs were used as instruments to carry it out.
Damming The Flood pg. 56
It is undeniable true that the 1994 Paris Plan forced Aristide to make some very painful decisions. In exchange for some $770 million in promised aid and loans, the list of concessions appears calamitous: tariffs were to be "drastically" reduced, wages frozen, around half the civil service to be laid off, and all nine of Haiti's remaining public utilities (telephone, electricity, port, airport, cement, flour, a cooking oil plant and two state banks) were to be sold off.
In The Uses of Haiti I learned about deal that the Nixon Administration made with the Duvalier regime. The deal is the same as the one Clinton made with with Aristide in order to return to Haiti and finish his term. . (pg. 97)
Apparently, the 1971 transition from Duvalier Senior to Duvalier Junior... was part of a deal worked out between Francois Duvalier and Nixon administration during Vice President Nelson Rockefeller's trip there in 1970. The United States would support continuation of the Duvalier dynasty, and Jean- Claude, when he came to power, would support a new economic program guided by the United States, a program featuring private investments from the Untied States that would be drawn to Haiti by such incentives as no customs taxes, a minimum wage kept very low, the suppression of labor unions, and the right of American companies to repatriate their profits.
Back to Travesty in Haiti in the 1970's many countries in Central America and the Caribbean were rural and people depended on small farms. The USAID calls that underdeveloped. I call it underexploited. The U.S. Saw great opportunity in Haiti. The opportunity to exploit the poor:
(Pg. 108)
...Moreover, there were new opportunities on the horizon. The promotion of overseas sales of U.S. corn, wheat, cotton and rice was high on the US congressional agenda....
There was also the offshore industrial sector, particularly the 100 billion dollar garment industry, something the U.S. government had begun to 'cultivate' in Haiti as far back as 1971 when the exchange for supporting the continuation of the Duvalier dictatorship from father to son the Haitian government agreed to create an environment hospitable to U.S. investors in the assembly sector. Custom taxes were eliminated, a low minimum wage guaranteed, labor unions suppressed, and U.S. companies given the right to repatriate profits.
It is at this juncture that the US government working though USAID and the planners at the world's major international lending institutions-the World Bank, The International Monetary Fund (IMF), all U.S. and secondary EU controlled-- were led by USAID in adopting policies that, with perhaps the best of intentions, would destroy the Haitian economy of small farmers.
And on pg. 121:
The designers of the plans--U.S. and E.U. government officials and employes of the IDB, the IMF, and the World Bank-- provided the development funds, much of which the Haitian government had to pay back, with interest. But as was seen in Jean Makout, it was multinational corporate charities dedicated to helping the poorest of the poor that carried out the plan, delivered the aid and executed the so-called 'development projects' that were supposed to push the Haitian population and economy in the desired direction. For many of the high level directors this was defensible: NGOs had budgets and operating costs and, for the means of meeting costs in Haiti was far and away food aid. Donor governments gave money in the form of food; the charities sold the food on the Haitian market and then used the money to meet corporate overhead costs and to carry out programs that were supposed to alleviate suffering. But in the end, in the institutional struggle to survive and in an environment in which accountability did not exist, the world's largest multinational charities--CARE, CRS, World Vision, and ADRA--executed the political will of institutions, governments, and lobbyists that had identified Haiti's comparative advantage as low wages, i.e. poverty, and in doing so these charitable organizations dedicated to helping the poorest of the poor wound up working to make the people of Haiti even poorer....
For longer than half a century Haiti had arguably been the site of more religious missions and charities per square foot than any place on earth. Yet with the increase of aid the situation had gotten worse. What is more, what I discovered and am recounting here about food aid is not a secret. Nor is it unique to Haiti. As it turns out the US food aid was born in 1954 with the passage of PL 480 the specific goal was not principally to help people but to promote overseas sales of US agricultural produce.
This was and probably still is the master plan. We have two issues we are dealing with. One subsidies for our farmers are expensive and Congress was making an issue of selling the product.
Two we have Haiti that is what the USAID called underdeveloped. I think underexploited is a more accurate term as I said before. In order to dump our product and help rich corporations get richer we had to destroy the Haitian farm economy. This way they would be dependent on our imports and have no alternative to working in one of our wonderful sweatshops. Clinton is a huge fan of sweatshops.
Now how were we to carry this plan out. We used the USAID to give donations to major "charities" in the form of monetary food. This is food the charity would have to sell on the Haitian market to get their money. So we aren't giving poor people aid we are in effect making them pay and giving NGOs aid? The NGOs have more food to donate. The effect of this is flooding the market with cheap or free produce and putting farmers out of business. This--food aid destroys economies--is well known in the NGO business.
Now we have to figure out how to exploit Haiti by making them agree to self destructive trade deals. As we see from the quotes above we gave the Haiti government no choice. They had to accept our trade policy: tariff free trade for most textiles, Haiti had to keep minimum wage low, and discourage labor unions, labor laws and basically any and all human rights (this was said out right before now they say make Haiti attractive to the industry--greedy law breaking corporations) And make it ok for the U.S. to repatriate profit. This does not help Haiti because all the profit comes back to the U.S. What it does is help the US and create a new industry the-- multinational NGOs. We have the poverty industry.
I don't see much if any difference in our new trade policy the much celebrated HOPE legislation. I think it is Orwellian they are trying to get us to celebrate sweatshops. They use different language. They don't come out and say keep unions out. Instead we say create an environment friendly to the garment industry. The effect of this new legislation will be the same as it has been. Which is destroy Haiti's economy and ensure cheap labor and a place to sell our products.
H.O.P.E. Legislation: H.R. 5160:
Reuters, Improved U.S. terms for Haiti textile imports sought
PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Former U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush will seek improved U.S. trade preferences for textile and apparel imports from Haiti to assist its recovery from the catastrophic January earthquake, Clinton said on Monday.
snip
This included support and investment for Haiti's textile and apparel manufacturing industry, which enjoys favorable tariffs and terms under the U.S. HOPE legislation that both Clinton and Bush had helped to bring into being.
snip
"We pledged to do what we could to get the changes adopted by Congress that would enable you to make maximum use of this law, and that I think could create more than 100,000 jobs in Haiti in short order," he said, addressing Preval.
I found a review of the book online. I see that we picked out many of the same quotes. The review I read is here.
I started reading the part about orphanages and it is not good. I will tell you about it when I read it. Although I think I am the only person that reads what I write. So I will tell myself about it:-)
This is our book list so far:
Mountains Beyond Mountains
Damming The Flood
The Uses of Haiti
Travesty in Haiti
Partner To The Poor A Paul Farmer Reader
Walking on Fire
Brother, I'm dying
Bitter Sugar: Slaves Today in the Caribbean by Maurice Lemoione [1985]
The Black Jacobins, C.L.R. James (h/t Deoliver47)
Edwidge Danticat's TheFarming of Bones
The Chosen Place, The Timeless People
PIH has a book list
PIH has a new website. They have recommended reading book lists websites with action alerts. Articles. I just ordered The Agronomist, Aristide and the Endless Revolution, and Breath, Eyes, Memory
I will add to book/video list. I am still reading The Black Jacobins.
PIH has a link to this cool website, RESULTS
Any suggestions? We are looking for books, articles, websites where we can get accurate information about Haiti. Please share any information. And feel free to correct any errors. As I said i am new to learning about Haiti. I think I will say that forever.
The now requisite warnings: |
Please do your research before donating. The Charity Navigator tool is a useful resource for this purpose. For those not familiar, Charity Navigator evaluates and rates charities according to their financial responsibility and sustainability. Their homepage now lists comprehensive information the major organizations on the ground in Haiti now. (h/t DeepHarm and deb s) An additional resource for researching charities is the Better Business Bureau's Wise Giving Alliance site.
There are a number of misunderstood messages, rumors, or outright hoaxes being circulated. If something sounds "too good to be true" or you have questions about it, Snopes has a Haiti page to verify or debunk them.
A note about ratings listed here: allie123 has looked up all of the charities listed here and we've put ratings next to the ones that have actually been rated. It looks like this: (****/A). The number of stars (1-4) indicates the rating from Charity Navigator and is also a clickable link to a detailed review of that particular charity. The letter grade is from AIP and is explained here.
The lack of a rating does not mean that something is wrong with it. A lot of good (and bad) organizations have yet to be rated. Also, Charity Navigator, for example, does not evaluate organizations that are exempt under Internal Revenue Code from filing the Form 990. If you don't see a rating, it just means that maybe you should do a little more research before donating. When questions have been raised about a particular entry here, we've either removed it or we've included the question or criticism next to the entry. For more tips, see: Evaluating Charities Not Currently Rated by Charity Navigator.
The Aristide Foundation for Democracy (AFD) was created in 1996 by former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide (the first democratically elected president of Haiti) with a simple principle in mind: "The promise of democracy can only be fulfilled if all sectors of Haitian society are able to actively participate in the democratic life of the nation."
CanDo is a direct outcome organization that provides AID and relief in emergency situations.
Fonkoze (***) , a micro-lending organization in Haiti. From their Web site:
Fonkoze is Haiti’s Alternative Bank for the Organized Poor. We are the largest micro-finance institution offering a full range of financial services to the rural-based poor in Haiti. Fonkoze is committed to the economic and social improvement of the people and communities of Haiti and to the reduction of poverty in the country.
According to their Web site, their offices have taken quite a hit. This is another one in the category of long-term rebuilding. (h/t parryander and dizzydean)
Haiti Emergency Relief Foundation:
Haiti’s grassroots movement – including labor unions, women’s groups, educators and human rights activists, support committees for political prisoners, and agricultural cooperatives – are funneling needed aid to those most hit by the earthquake. They are doing what they can – with the most limited of funds – to make a difference. Please take this chance to lend them your support.
All donations to the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund will be forwarded to our partners on the ground to help them rebuild what has been destroyed.
Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti:
We fight for the human rights of Haiti’s poor, in court, on the streets and wherever decisions about Haitians’ rights are made. We represent the unjustly imprisoned and victims of political persecution, coordinate grassroots advocacy in Haiti and the US, train human rights advocates in Haiti and disseminate human rights information worldwide.
The Lambi Fund (***) is a secular non-profit nonprofit whose mission is "to assist the popular, democratic movement in Haiti. Its goal is to help strengthen civil society as a necessary foundation of democracy and development. The fund channels financial and other resources to community-based organizations that promote the social and economic empowerment of the Haitian people." They support "projects that embrace the following principles: non-violent, non-partisan, community-based, promoting the advancement of women, using education and training for empowerment, and promoting the overall democratic movement."
Partners in Health (****/A+) has now started a BLOG about its efforts called Stand with Haiti. It has very useful information. Partners in Health is also putting out a call for health volunteers, in case you are a medical professional who can help out that way.
Matching Funds
Turn a $25 donation into a $50 donation.
Matching funds currently available at this link for Reiser Relief, a group that parryander works with:
Reiser Relief is a charity started by my friend Father Reiser - it funds our water truck, pays teachers salaries, feeds kids, and it supports orphanages and homes for the elderly and women.
A total of $20K in matching funds have been provided for Reiser Relief from Razoo.
As of May 13, over $4K remain (this number does not appear to be updated daily, but we will keep it as current as possible).
SOIL is based in Haiti (founded by two American females) and although their regular mission is :Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL) is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting soil resources, empowering communities and transforming wastes into resources in Haiti, they are in the streets in PAP providing normal disaster relief services and translation (they speak Kreyol). They have said that all donations in the next 30 days (at least) will go directly to their relief work rather than their usual mission. They have been in Haiti for several years and are very familiar with the people and communities (h/t Royce)
TransAfrica:
Today, TransAfrica Forum campaigns against the crippling debt burden on the countries of Africa and the Caribbean by opposing Vulture Funds, companies that threaten the gains of already hard-fought for debt relief. TransAfrica Forum also struggles for international financial architecture that promotes sustainable growth and takes cues from civil society.
Other news and diaries: |
ShelterBox: carolina stargazer is still watching the store. ShelterBox diary- Tuesday's diary is up. A new diary will be posted Friday. And carolina will continue to monitor the Tuesday diary until she posts the Friday diary. Matching funds are available.
There are two excellent liveblogs by mindoca. This is the first one and this is the second. If you need more specific information, these are a great place to start. mindoca has spent time in Haiti and offers a true first-hand view of disaster relief and Haiti itself.
Mokurai has contributed The Real Story in Haiti and Haiti: Dimensions of Disaster.
FishOutofWater takes a moment to explore the benefits of Partners in Health's commitment to solar powered health centers.
Meteor Blades points the way to a better and more sustainable future for Haitians in Haiti Could Use a New Deal.
As the MSM (in the United States) turns attention away from Haiti, Deoliver47 reminds us that things are not suddenly all better: Raining Disease and More Deaths.
For some good pre-earthquake background on Haiti, see Daisy Cutter's Book Review: "Damming the Flood" by Peter Hallward, pt 1. This diary was published in July 2008 and presents a history of Haiti up to 1999 using Hallward's book as a reference. Excellent.
Two recent diaries by Deep harm remind us that the rains are coming and tents are needed.
This series was created by Dallasdoc and has been maintained with the help of (listed alphabetically): Aji, ALifeLessFrightening, allie123, AntKat, Avila, betson08, big spoiled baby, cosmic debris, Deep Harm, Deoliver47, Frederick Clarkson, J Brunner Fan, Jimdotz, maggiejean, marabout40, Norbrook, OHknighty, oke, parryander, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, Pluto, RunawayRose, swampus, and thebluecrayon. All of these previous diaries can be found by clicking here (listed in reverse chronological order).
IJDH is simply the most reliable source for information and analysis on human rights in Haiti.
— Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)
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Please sign petition to help stop forced evictiions: |
Action Alerts:
Aid:
Evictions:
Stop Forced Evictions of Haiti's Earthquake Victims Institute For Justice & Democracy in Haiti has a petition, here.
The UN and Haitian Government agreed on April 22 to an immediate 3-week moratorium on forced evictions which expired, Thursday, May 13th. Within that period reports of evictions continued. Humanitarian aid, including food, water and sanitation facilities have been cut off in targeted camps (1, 2). In other locations, residents are being harassed and abused by the police. The people most affected by the earthquake, those who have lost their families, homes and livelihoods, now live in fear that they may be violently forced to leave their present settlements without viable options established for relocation (2).
Additional Action Alerts:
TransAfrica Forum
Stand up and be counted (Partners in Health)
HAITI ACTION COMMITTEE ACTION ALERT Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti |
UPCOMING DIARIES
Thursday: Book diary allie123
Friday: Avila
Saturday: Aji
Sunday: RunawayRose
Monday: maggiejean
If you would like to volunteer to contribute a diary to continue this series, please volunteer in the comments below. Norbrook has created a Google documents file** with the source code for our usual introduction and the list of charities the community has developed. Doing one of these diaries, thanks to Norbrook, is not nearly as demanding as it was early in the series. Also, updates need to be made far less frequently. You don't need to set aside huge chunks of time for it and it's easy to multi-task if you have other things to do, as long as you're able to check the comments every 30 minutes or so.
**There is also a backup to the original google doc. See this comment for more details.
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The icons and March 13 formatting revision of this diary series are courtesy of the html artist known on Daily Kos as Pluto. The "Help Haiti" image at the top of the diary that has become the "logo" of this series is courtesy of AuntKat.