By Jaime Díaz
Haiti is in ruins. Many countries ran to offer help, including Cuba which increased its number of doctors in Haiti from 300 to 450 and set up hospitals and clinics to tend to the injured and dying. Haiti also had 400 of its own medics to offer support … who were trained at Cuban medical schools. Doctors and nurses from around the world came to help a nation in need after the terrible earthquakes suffered there. More importantly, it was a moment for nations to look at the causes that led up to the tragedy and learn more about themselves and the consequences of greed and of coveting a neighbor’s resources.
For a quick summary of Haiti and its history: It is a Creole-French speaking nation that could be a poster child of what Latin American nations should model themselves after .. if they were to follow orders from U.S. conservatives. It gained its independence from France in 1804, thus becoming the first nation of former black slaves to liberate themselves from a colonial power. The U.S. occupied the country from 1915 to 1934 and when they left made sure U.S. interests would be secured. From 1957 to 1986, Dr. Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier and later his son, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, ran the country under a family dictatorship with their own Tonton Macoutes death squads! The U.S. government provided support to the Duvalier regime supposedly to prevent Caribbean nations from falling to Cuba’s communism. In 1986, the country began using pseudo-elections where the process promoted leaders who would follow the status quo. Ironically, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a poor parish priest, was elected and began moving the country in a more positive direction. And he was ousted … twice!
Among other once-public industries, the flour, cement, and now telecom companies have now been privatized. Haiti is a country rich in lime – a component of cement – and yet imports cement, much of which did not meet earthquake standards. After the flour company was privatized, it was shut down and – again following the capitalist, economic model of “free trade” – Haiti began importing most of its flour. Other markets followed and the sentiment of this is reflected by what Jean-Bertrand Aristide stated regarding the privatization of rice in his country:
“What happens to poor countries when they embrace free trade? In Haiti in 1986 we imported just 7,000 tons of rice, the main staple food for the country. The vast majority was grown in Haiti. In the late 1980s, Haiti complied with free trade policies advocated by the international lending agencies and lifted tariffs on rice imports. Cheaper rice immediately flooded in from the United States, where the rice industry is subsidized. In fact, the liberalization of Haiti’s market coincided with the 1985 Farm Bill in the United States, which increased subsidies to the rice industry so that 40% of U.S. rice growers’ profit came from the government by 1987. Haiti’s peasant farmers could not possibly compete. By 1996 Haiti was importing 196,000 tons of rice at a cost of $100 million a year. Haitian rice production became negligible. Once dependence on foreign rice was complete, import prices began to rise, leaving Haiti’s population, particularly the urban poor, completely at the whim of rising world grain prices. And the prices continue to rise … A hungry nation became hungrier.”
Now, jumping back to today’s reality of a nation in ruins, we find the United States trying to lead the rescue missions … unilaterally. The U.S. now operates traffic control at the main airport and is controlling the seas to prevent Haitians from leaving by boat. Red Cross, World Food Program and Doctors Without Borders flights were rerouted to Dominican Republic and other aid flights from Mexico, Russia and France were denied permission to land. The priority was to let U.S. military flights land as the U.S.’ role in providing aid was to secure the country and key logistical sights; it’s what we’ve become good at doing. With supplies piling up at the airport and the distribution hubs still being put in place by U.S. soldiers, with dead piling up and more people dying from lack of basic medicines, the U.S. began letting food leave its new, securely controlled, zone of operations.
So what is it about our military that makes us – perhaps compels us – to want to tell other people what to do? We learned under George H. Bush’s failed presidency that pushing, bossing, intimidating, threatening and attacking other nations does not provide us added security. We learned during those eight, painful years how much we had isolated ourselves from the rest of the world. We woke up and realized we were not the global leader right-wing conservatives insisted we were. We woke up with a crashed economy that had imploded from following capitalist ideals to the extreme and from pushing the nation into extreme debt from years of pursuing wars. Failure after failure, our military leaders told us they could bring us victory – if they just had more time, more troops, more money, and more guns.
And maybe they were sincere? After all, when Haiti was screaming out in pain and begging for food and health care, our leaders probably heard their anguished cries and with a naïve sincerity perhaps said aloud, “Well, let them have guns!” And so our military’s push to secure key areas in Haiti and control – or prevent – distribution of supplies to the needy. If this were a play being presented to the world, it would have to be a tragic comedy.
I wonder aloud what those Mexican, Russian and French pilots were thinking when they heard American English commands being directed to them from Haiti’s Port-au-Prince airport? Perhaps they wondered – just for a second – was it a joke? Maybe once their planes bringing in much-needed supplies were denied to land at the airport, those pilots maybe began suspecting that someone else was running the show? Perhaps they thought, “It definitely isn’t the United Nations running the show! American English? A disaster zone? Did they outsource relief efforts to FEMA?! Noooo!” It definitely was a sad, tragic day for all of those victims who later died because they could not get urgently needed medical care. But then again, that seems to be the Western Hemisphere’s capitalist model: Everyone watches out for their own needs, because the government will not provide in a time of need. The sad thing is we all could learn a lot from the tragedy developing in Haiti in that, if we do not change our ways, we too can become an impoverished nation like Haiti, where thousands die because they do not have access to basic medical care, where the gap between the rich and the poor grows each year, and where people are controlled through fear, violence, and lies. So let’s make sure our government participates with other nations in rebuilding a much better infrastructure for Haitians, one they will be proud of and one where we learn from our mistakes there and here in the U.S. We still can work with other nations and we do not need to be the “super power” that rules the world; if we follow that path, we should all continue studying military jargon, shave our heads and practice roaring “Hooah!” because that is what we will become if we don’t change our course as a nation. Hooah!
Jaime Díaz is a writer in the process of publishing his first book. He has an avid interest in history and political science, and continually looks for the untold story in the present, past and in his work experiences. These experiences range from working in the biotech industry to project management. Jaime has a Bachelor of Science degree in Genetics from the University of California and hopes to pursue a Master’s degree in Political Science.
References:
1. “Why did we focus on securing Haiti rather than helping Haitians?” by Ben Ehrenreich
http://www.slate.com/id/2242078/
2. “Cuban-run hospital performs amputations” by Shasta Darlington
http://michaelmoore.com/words/latest-news/cuban-run-hospital-performs-amputations
3. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, “Eyes of the Heart: Seeking a Path for the Poor in the Age of Globalization”
Common Courage Press, 2000, 11
4. Vincent A. Gallagher, “The True Cost of Low Prices: The Violence of Globalization”
Orbis Books, 2007, pages 79-80
5. Democracy Now! Interview, “Journalist Kim Ives on How Western Domination Has Undermined Haiti’s Ability to Recover from Natural Devastation”
Interviewed by Amy Goodman near the Port-au-Prince airport after the January 2010 earthquake. Kim Ives works for Haití Liberté
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