This is a preview of the information gathered about the H.O.P.E legislation for our new diary series, Justice Not Charity. The official diary will start soon. We branched out from the original series. The idea is simply put to not abandon Haiti again-to demand justice.
Why is President Clinton, Congress (including CBC), the media, the Gap and other stores, and textile factory owners bragging about the expansion of sweatshop jobs for Haitians? Is there a orchestrated campaign to convince us that sweatshops are good? We now have companies like the GAP saying they will have clothes labeled made in Haiti. Are they going to include that they were made by someone that worked 10 or 12 hours with little or no safety and labor regulations, for $3 a day?
Join us in the comments for today's news roundup and more. Action alerts and links below the fold.
"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.
This legislation is celebrating sweatshops. Isn't it? Am I missing something? The people in charge are doing what they always do, using propaganda to muddy the water and make everything backwards.Companies and politicians didn't used to brag about promoting and having sweatshops, did they? This seems very Orwellian and there for familiar as far as rhetoric concerning Haiti goes.
Haiti pins hopes on textile industry
Business leaders say the industry could come back, employing as many as 150,000 people in just a few years if factors align to make conditions right for foreign investment. Those include favorable trade agreements with the United States, and improvements by the Haitian government in everything from water and electricity, roads, ports and airports, to housing and education for its citizens, about half of whom are illiterate.
It would also require a willingness by Haitian workers to take what many consider a step backward.
"There is a very bad connotation to textiles in Haiti," said Gilles Antoine, who manages plants in Port-au-Prince that supply Hanesbrands and another U.S. manufacturer. "People say they are sweatshops and that those who work in them are sick all the time.
So the owner of the store who assures us he is in the business to help Haitians first tells us that the industry has a reputation of being a sweatshop.
I am sure that next he will tell us how it has changed and there are better working conditions and wages. Let's see:
"You're starting over again, with a technology that is essentially 200 years old. And you can't convince the people that used to do it to come back to it. It's hard work. It's very long hours."
So what does he say about these great changes? Oh he just say's it is hard to get people to come back to the jobs. Keep in mind this is in a place where about two thirds of the people are unemployed. So you can figure out how bad it must be.
Now why our Haiti Envoy President Clinton so happy about this neoliberal trade deal? After all heapologized for his and Bush's trade polices that caused Haiti's food dependence.
Miami Harold::
"It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked. It was a mistake," Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 10. "I had to live everyday with the consequences of the loss of capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people because of what I did; nobody else."
Clinton acknowledged that some of the U.S. legislation he and Bush signed while in office exacerbated Haiti's woes, and he promised to urge Congress to make changes.
Clinton cited the U.S. Congress-approved HOPE II as one piece of legislation in need of revision. As it is, the act -- which gives local garment manufacturers duty-free access to the U.S. market -- has already created 11,000 jobs. Revisions would bring even more.
So he is now aware of what these trade deals do. There must new regulations to help the workers in the bill. Let's see:
Late last summer, thousands of Haitian workers demonstrated in the streets in favor of raising the country's minimum wage from 70 gourdes - about $1.75 U.S. - to 400 gourdes a day. U.N. troops were called in to quell riots. Under pressure from former President Bill Clinton, the United Nations' special envoy to Haiti, the daily wage was raised to 125 gourdes and will go to 150 gourdes in October, still not a living wage.
They still do not pay a living wage. So when a person works as the owner say's long hours (10 or 12) at a job that people do not want to return to that is no longer a sweatshop? We are supposed to celebrate it. This is like saying to Haitian people we have been treating you so unbelievably badly that now that we are just going to treat you bad you should be grateful (even if you work long hours and don't receive a living wage) and we should all celebrate how wonderful and generous we are.
Much of what is made here falls under HOPE II, a complicated trade agreement that allows garments made in Haiti to be imported to the United States duty-free. In certain cases, Antoine says, it allows U.S. manufacturers to produce goods at 22 percent less than they could manage anywhere else.
The sewing machines, hundreds of them in long rows in huge metal buildings, begin humming at 6:30 a.m., and outside the office, two to three dozen people line up hoping they, too, might get a job.
"We have no shortage of applicants," Antoine said. "We have a shortage of applicants with experience.
"
And let me make one thing clear. Haitians want to work. Look they wait in line and the owner says that he does not have a problem hiring it is just getting people to come back. They think we are idiots. Or maybe they think we just don't care. Are they right?
I am really grateful to Deoliver47. She has done many diaries about Haiti. She also suggested that I watch Life and Debt. Even though it is mainly cover Jamaica the neoliberal trade policy is the same and the effects are the same.
Our government, former President Clinton know that this trade policy hurts the countries that we impose it on. We don't get to pretend like we are the good guys trying to help the Haiti. We are KNOWINGLY enacting and celebrating policies that have failed time and time again.
I am ready for all of you that will say a $3 job is better than no job. When did that become the choice and who made it the choice? According to Bev Bell and Steven Stoll, Harper’s Magazine, Toward a Second Haitian Revolution Haitian's may want a totally different kind of economy.
My answer is tell you child that when you drop them off at school. Tell them to go to school, work hard, do the right thing and one day you will might be able to work 10 hours a day at a job with no labor or safety regulations for $3 a day. It won't be enough to feed your family but you are making U.S and International Corporations richer. Feel good about that.
And for those of you that say Haiti has to start somewhere -that they have to work their way up 2 things; one is see above maybe they don't want a capitalist economy; two is this is not a start. Please tell me how this HOPE legislation is different in a positive way for Haitian's. I saw one thing OXFAM said that the legislation calls for an expansion of an existing program to enforce standard. But I am not able to find details about it and if it is an existing program than it may be a waste of money to expand it because obviously it isn't doing a good job of protecting the workers.
We can not clear our consciences by calling this a starting point. We have been doing this to Haiti since Haiti became Haiti.
And our policy has been the same since Haiti began. Ostracize and oppress by any means necessary because it is to risky to have Haiti succeed and be an example inspiration for other slaves and or poor people.
History of US policy towards Haiti
I just read in The Uses of Haiti pg. 97 that the trade deal that Nixon and Duvailer are really similar to the deal that clinton forced Aristide
to take known as the Paris agreement:
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.
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.
H.O.P.E. Legislation: H.R. 5160:
"The Haitian people are asking not for charity, but for justice."
Article we have found helpful:
Steven Stoll, Harper’s Magazine, Toward a Second Haitian Revolution
Justice for Haiti: Beyond Aid and Debt Forgiveness by COHA Research Associate Ethan Katz and Visiting Scholar Daniel Boscov-Ellen
Dr. Evan Lyon PIH, Hard lessons from recover in Haiti
Breaking hearts open in Haiti
Naomi Klien, The Nation,
"Haiti: A Creditor, not a Debtor"
Dr. Joia Mukherjee, PIH
Dr. Joia Mukherjee, Medical Director of Partners in Health, on Haiti, why aid is often undemocratic, practical and low-tech AIDs treatment, socialism and passion
***rabble.ca
Let Haitians take charge of their destinies
“THE FREE MAN WILL NEVER BE BROKEN”
Promises, Promises -- What It Will Take to Rebuild Haiti
Give Haiti control over its recovery
Paul Farmer video,
REFLECTIONS FROM HAITI
Boston Globe, Farmer & Concannon, Change Haiti can believe in:
Al Jazeera, Mark Levine, No 'hope for Haiti' without justice |
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."
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. The next ShelterBox diary is planned for Tuesday morning, but activity in Friday's diary will be monitored until then. Matching funds are available.
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.