|
Transcript #162 No Amount Of Earthquake Relief Can Cleanse Us:
The U.S. Is Up To Its Eyeballs In Haitian Blood Partially hyperlinked to sources.
For all sources, see the data
resources page. Your sources today include: the New
York Times, the Miami Herald, the Washington Post, commondreams.org, salon.com,
the Nation magazine, Human Rights Watch, the Boston Globe, the CIA Factbook, and
the Times of London. To start off, how about you take a
listen to Bill O'Reilly's Talking Points Memo from January 13?
That was the day after the earthquake walloped Haiti.
I usually don't play such long clips, but you need to hear the whole
thing. audio: Bill O'Reilly Hi, I'm Bill O'Reilly—thanks for watching us
tonight. Haiti, liberalism, and
America—that is the subject of this
evening's talking points memo. A terrible earthquake, as you know, has crushed the
Caribbean nation of Haiti—the poorest country in the western hemisphere.
Reports say thousands are dead, and this beleaguered nation may
completely collapse. The question is how much should the world do to save
Haiti? Now some conservative
commentators today pointed out it took President Obama three days to talk about
the Christmas Day terror incident, but just hours to address the disaster in
Haiti. Talking Points believes the President should have
reacted quicker to the underwear bomber, but it is certainly appropriate for Mr.
Obama to address Haiti quickly. The United States is a noble nation and the world
needs to hear that over and over and over. Already
the U.S. Coast Guard is saving lives in Haiti, and America will respond
generously to this devastation. We
always do. Always.
Now as far as Haiti is concerned, the USA has given
that country more than 1 billion dollars over the past five years.
Compare that to the World Bank, which has donated about 300 million over
the same time. It is clear that America is very concerned about the
world's poor. And Talking Points
would like to know how much money Russia and China have donated.
I myself donate money to the Haitian Health Foundation run by a
Connecticut patriot, Dr. Jerry Lowney. I
give the money directly to the doctor, because I know if I send it to the
island, Haitian authorities will most likely steal it. And therein lies the problem with Haiti—massive
corruption. There are nine million
Haitians on the island, so there is enough aid to provide for all of them.
The nation could be a tourist mecca; it is rich in folklore and culture,
including voodoo. It has the
Caribbean Sea and very nice people. But there is little tourism in Haiti.
My travels there have been illuminating.
Only half the population can read and write.
Unemployment's more than 50%. Most
Haitians live on less than $2 a day. No matter how much charity is given, no matter how
many good intentions there are, Haiti will remain chaotic until discipline is
imposed. Many liberals don't want to
hear that. They believe that the
nanny state can provide, but it can't. No society will prosper unless there are rules of
conduct, mandatory education, and fairness by those in power. None
of that happens in Haiti. And so the
USA will once again pour millions into that country, much of which will be
stolen. Once again, we will do more
than anyone else on the planet. And
one year from today, Haiti will be just as bad as it is right now.
And that's the memo. Ok, O'Reilly gives you the corporate
media take on Haiti. Now you're
going to hear the truth. Here's an
overview of what
you're going to find out: Haiti's vulnerability to
natural disasters, its food shortages, poverty, deforestation and lack of
infrastructure, are not accidental. To say that it is the poorest nation in the
Western hemisphere is to miss the point; Haiti was made poor--by France, the
United States, Great Britain, other Western powers and by the IMF and the World
Bank. Haiti's every attempt at
self-government has been undermined by the West, particularly France and the
United States. Before we get into this, I want to
remind you about my Four Pillars concept. It's
my analysis of the major ways the First World economically exploits the Third
World. The Four Pillars are how the right effectuates the supreme right-wing
directive: transfer wealth from everyone else to the already rich. I go over these Four Pillars in
detail in podcast 137.
That's a seminal podcast that I urge you to listen to if you haven't. In short, the Four Pillars are: 1 - sweetheart contracts for natural
resources 2 - unfair conditions of
international trade 3 - dubious loans that ensnare Third
World countries on a debt treadmill, and 4 - imposition of so-called
"structural adjustment programs" You'll see how at least three of
these right-wing methods were employed in the destruction of the Haitian nation
by the West. Let's begin where one needs to begin,
with Saint-Domingue, which was what Haiti was
called
when it was a French colony. Back in colonial days sugar was an
important cash crop. A half-million
enslaved Africans produced so much sugar cane that Saint-Domingue became the
largest exporter of sugar in the world. The
French nation was enormously enriched. The French imposed brutal conditions
on the slaves. So many died that
tens of thousands of new slaves had to be imported every year to maintain
production. Well, the slaves revolted in 1791.
They defeated Napoleon and two other Western armies.
It was a savage war. One of
the rebelling slaves' slogans was "Burn houses!
Cut off their heads!" This was the only successful slave
revolt in history. When Haiti
declared independence in 1804, it became the first black republic in the world. Remember, in the Bible, God had to
intervene to make the Israelites' escape from slavery successful.
Haitians didn't have a Deity performing the equivalent of the Ten Plagues
or of parting the Red Sea for them. They
did it on their own. Against the
superpowers of the day. And there's the rub. Much of the wealth of the world's
superpowers was based on the labor of enslaved Africans.
What would happen if other slaves got ideas? Slaveholders in the United States
were truly terrified that the rebellion could spread a few hundred miles
northward and endanger their Dixie paradise. So America refused
to recognize free Haiti for six decades. But
non-recognition was the least of it. The United States and France imposed
a crippling trade embargo on Haiti. Even worse, 12 French warships with
150 cannon surrounded the devastated island and demanded reparations for the
loss of the slaves and the income they would have produced. Haiti had no defense, no navy, no
protection against any onslaught from offshore cannon fire.
So it was forced to agree to pay the reparations the French demanded. It was an obscene sum, 150 million
Francs. Five times the value of all
of Haiti's exports. The formerly enslaved Haitians,
worked to death for centuries, now had to pay for their freedom.
To make its payments, Haiti had to take out loans
from U.S., German and French banks, at extortionate rates. At times 80 percent of the Haitian
national budget went to these reparation payments.
It took 122 years for Haiti to pay off the debt.
Until 1947. A debt that not a single franc should
have been paid for. Haiti was essentially destroyed
by the West from its very beginning. Money that might have been
spent on building a stable economy went to foreign bankers…Haiti’s economy
was hopelessly distorted, its land deforested, mired in poverty… This all reminds me of what happened
after the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua in 1979.
Unlike U.S.-supported dictators, the Sandinistas governed in the
interests of the poor majority. The
U.S. did all it could to destroy that country and make it ungovernable by the
Sandinistas. The threat of a good
example could not be tolerated. Back to Haiti. Beyond the sheer economic devastation
inflicted upon that nation, the embargo and forced reparations also helped lead
to a terribly
malformed Haitian political structure: … Haiti’s peculiar
political system took shape, mirroring in distorted form, like a wax model
placed too close to the fire, the slave society of colonial times. At its apex, the white
colonists were supplanted by a new ruling class, made up largely of black and
mulatto officers. Though these groups soon became bitter political rivals, they
were as one in their determination to maintain in independent Haiti the cardinal
principle of governance inherited from Saint-Domingue: the brutal predatory
extraction of the country’s wealth by a chosen powerful few.
Fragility of rule and
uncertainty of tenure multiplied the imperative to plunder. If all this sounds horrible, there's
a lot more to come. Stay tuned. BREAK In 1910 the U.S. effectively bought
the Haitian debt. In order to ensure
debt payments, and restore some order in the country -- there has to be order to
produce some wealth to make the debt payments, right -- in 1915 we invaded and
occupied Haiti for 19 years. We installed a puppet government,
changed the constitution to allow foreigners to own land, took over the economy,
and according to an article
in the Miami Herald, instituted a system of compulsory labor for poor Haitians. And anyone who resisted the
occupation? They were crushed with
military force. Over 2000 Haitians
were killed in one battle alone. As an aside, it seems that our
interventions come in clusters. We
also invaded and occupied Nicaragua during that time period, from 1912-1933, for
example. In a mid-century cluster,
we overthrow the Iranian government in 1953, the Guatemalan government in 1954,
and in 1956 refused to allow elections promised under the Geneva Accords to take
place in Vietnam. You're of course presently familiar
with our invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
More to come, I fear. Yemen,
anyone? Anyway, you can imagine the mess we
left behind in Haiti when we pulled our troops out in 1934. America to the rescue, again.
Under CIA direction in 1956, Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier was
installed as president-for-life. His
Ton-Ton Macoutes death squads killed
tens of thousand of Haitians. In 1971, after Papa Doc died, his
even worse son, nicknamed Baby Doc, took over.
He stole hundreds of millions of dollars from the national treasury. And let me not forget to mention,
father and son ran up hundreds of
millions of dollars in international debt. Seeing the world through
right-wing-colored glasses, the U.S. supported the Duvaliers for 29 years,
considering them bulwarks against Castro's communist Cuba.
Then what happened? The Duvalier era…came to
an end in 1986 when President Ronald Reagan ordered U.S. forces to whisk Baby
Doc to exile in France, saving him from a popular uprising. Several years of instability
followed, until an event second in import only to the 1791 slave revolt
occurred. Nearly two centuries later, in 1990,
Haitians, in an internationally-recognized democratic election, chose a
priest--a very popular priest--Jean Bertrand Aristide -- as President.
And the liberation-theology-preaching Aristide didn’t want to follow
our orders on how to rule. He
actually wanted to spend money to
help
the starving, disease-ridden, poor majority who had elected him. So merely nine months into Aristide's
term, the George H.W. Bush administration overthrew
him. A
CIA-backed junta, led by a U.S.- military-trained Haitian army officer, took
power. Once Bill Clinton became president,
congressional Democrats pressured him to restore Aristide to power.
Clinton, through threat of military intervention, did so. But, surprise, surprise, the U.S.
followed the Haitian historical pattern by forcing Aristide to accept onerous
economic reforms. Now here comes George W. Bush.
The U.S., joined by Canada and France, started pressuring Aristide, for
example, by cutting off
international aid. We wanted to
topple his government by further destroying the economy and making the country
ungovernable. Then Aristide really sealed his fate.
He demanded restitution from France, including interest, for those
reparations the Haitians had made at gunpoint.
The sum came to over $21 billion dollars. Mere months later, Aristide faced an
armed rebellion and the Bush administration flew Aristide out of the country
into exile. There's a lot of evidence that
right-wing Republicans in Congress, led by Sen. Jesse Helms, played the lead
role in fomenting opposition to Aristide during this time period and sabotaging
his rule. There's also evidence that
the GOP's Haitian contacts played a leading role in the violent insurgency that
overthrew Aristide. Max Blumenthal
wrote a long piece
for salon.com setting forth the evidence. The
article is entitled "The Other Regime Change: Did the Bush Administration
Allow a Network of Right-Wing Republicans to Foment a Violent Coup in
Haiti?" There's no time here to get into all
the gory details. I'd suggest you go
check out the article if the subject is of interest to you.
Now, the U.S. government will deny
being involved in either the 1991 or 2004 coups.
But given our 100-year history in Latin America, if you believe that, I
have a large metal structure in an aquatic setting in New York that I'd like to
sell you. Please email me at
rational@roadrunner.com for the particulars. A couple of asides here: Do you find it as fascinating as I
do, that first Papa Bush waged war against Iraq and overthrew Aristide in Haiti,
and then his son George W. Bush also waged war against Iraq and overthrew
Aristide in Haiti? Also, you should be aware of the
outrageous conduct of our nation in the case of Emmanuel Constant.
He was a Haitian mass
murderer who founded a paramilitary group called the Front for the
Advancement of Progress in Haiti, or FRAPH. When Aristide was overthrown in 1991,
FRAPH was the organ of state terror used by the resulting dictatorship in those
years of the early '90's. Thousands of Haitians were killed in
order to terrorize the population into submission. Emmanuel Constant was tried in
absentia on charges that he had helped mastermind a 1994 massacre, convicted,
and sentenced to life in prison. The United States has repeatedly refused
Haiti's requests to extradite Constant. And get a load of
this: in 2008, Emmanuel Constant was sentenced
to up to 37 ˝ years in jail in the U.S. for his role in a mortgage fraud
scheme! Speaking of ripping
off people…. Remember the Four Pillars I mentioned
at the beginning of today's show? Three of them are enticing Third
World nations into dubious loans, imposing economically destructive structural
adjustment programs, and unfair conditions of international trade. Ok, you heard earlier how the
Duvaliers ran up huge international debts. These
loans were made by Western lending institutions that knew the dictators were
stealing the loan money. But no
matter. Haiti was firmly put on a
spiraling downward debt treadmill. Money
that could have gone to help the Haitian people, instead went to international
bankers and the like. It's progressives worldwide who fight
for Third World debt relief. You can
check out podcasts 90
and 121
about that. Structural adjustment programs are
right-wing-type economic policies imposed on Third World nations by the
International Monetary Fund, the IMF, and other global financial institutions,
as a condition for assistance. Among the usual elements of an
structural adjustment program are: --cutting subsidies for basic goods --cutting social spending --shrinking government --privatization --elimination of tariffs --elimination of restrictions on
foreign ownership of businesses A bit of info about an especially
egregious element in the
International Monetary Fund's impoverishment
of Haiti: The IMF forced
Haiti to virtually eliminate
tariffs on rice.
Hundreds of thousands of tons of cheaper, U.S. government-subsidized rice, and
sugar as well, flooded the Haitian market. Haitian
farmers went bankrupt. Haiti went from exporting rice and sugar to importing
these products. Countless thousands
of Haitian farmers went bankrupt and fled the countryside, migrating to the
slums of the capital city. There
they can provide cheap labor for garment industry sweatshops. So the IMF basically destroyed
Haitian agriculture. Of course, the unfair conditions of
international trade vis a vis Haiti took the form of the U.S. subsidizing its
own rice and sugar production, lowering the price so foreign domestic
competitors could be eliminated. What is the upshot of all this abuse
of Haiti by the West through the ages? How poor is Haiti? Fifty percent of Haitian children
suffer from malnutrition.
Its infant mortality rate is ten times that of the United States.
If Haiti had the same infant mortality rate as the United States, 14,000
Haitian infants would
live,
not die every year before they reached one year old. Already rock-bottom, Haitian per
capita income has actually been dropping. Yet in 2003, for example, Haiti spend
over $57 million to pay off its debt, run up by the dictators, while total
foreign aid for social services was less than $40 million.
As one commentator astringently
put it:
In other words, under a
system of putative benevolence, Haiti paid back more than it received. Along these lines, in light of the
Haitian earthquake disaster, has the IMF mended its ways? No. Reports are, new IMF assistance will
come with the usual structural adjustment program, right-wing economic policy
strings attached. Keep on exploiting Haiti, no matter
how beaten and bloodied the Haitian people are. In a moment, we'll wrap things up. BREAK Let me wrap this up. All indications are that Aristide is
still enormously
popular in Haiti,
and that he would win any free and fair election there. That's why the Haitian puppet
government has banned Aristide's party from participating in the upcoming
election, which was originally scheduled for next month. The United States has sent thousands
and thousands of troops to post-earthquake Haiti, ostensibly to ensure security.
Yet reports
on the ground indicate there are no security concerns to warrant such an influx
of heavily-armed foreign troops. You know why we want troops there.
We don't want the Haitian people to get any 1791 or 1990 ideas about
freeing themselves from Western economic domination. You and I have covered a lot ground
here. Mark Weisbrot is the Co-Director of
the Center for Economic and Policy Research in
Washington, DC. Here he, ties all of
what you've heard today together: To understand the US
government's obsession with "security concerns," we must look at the
recent history of Washington's involvement there.
Unlike the two centuries
of looting and pillage of Haiti since its founding by a slave revolt in 1804,
the brutal occupation by US marines from 1915 to 1934, the countless atrocities
under dictatorships aided and abetted by Washington, the 2004 coup cannot be
dismissed as "ancient history." It was just six years ago, and it is
directly relevant to what is happening there now.
The US, together with
Canada and France, conspired openly for four years to topple Haiti's elected
government, cutting off almost all international aid in order to destroy the
economy and make the country ungovernable. They succeeded. For those who wonder
why there are no Haitian government institutions to help with the earthquake
relief efforts, this is a big reason. Or why there are 3 million people crowded
into the area where the earthquake hit. US policy over the years also helped
destroy Haitian agriculture, for example, by forcing the import of subsidized US
rice and wiping out thousands of Haitian rice farmers.
How about I play you O'Reilly again?
At the beginning of the show when you heard it, you knew what he was
saying sounded offensive and wrong. Now
as you listen along again, you have all the historical facts you need to be able
to truly understand why O'Reilly and all the other right-wing corporate media
are so murderously off-base: audio: Bill O'Reilly Hi, I'm Bill O'Reilly—thanks for watching us
tonight. Haiti, liberalism, and
America—that is the subject of this
evening's talking points memo. A terrible earthquake, as you know, has crushed the
Caribbean nation of Haiti—the poorest country in the western hemisphere.
Reports say thousands are dead, and this beleaguered nation may
completely collapse. The question is how much should the world do to save
Haiti? Now some conservative
commentators today pointed out it took President Obama three days to talk about
the Christmas Day terror incident, but just hours to address the disaster in
Haiti. Talking Points believes the President should have
reacted quicker to the underwear bomber, but it is certainly appropriate for Mr.
Obama to address Haiti quickly. The United States is a noble nation and the world
needs to hear that over and over and over. Already
the U.S. Coast Guard is saving lives in Haiti, and America will respond
generously to this devastation. We
always do. Always. Now as far as Haiti is concerned, the USA has given
that country more than 1 billion dollars over the past five years.
Compare that to the World Bank, which has donated about 300 million over
the same time. It is clear that America is very concerned about the
world's poor. And Talking Points
would like to know how much money Russia and China have donated.
I myself donate money to the Haitian Health Foundation run by a
Connecticut patriot, Dr. Jerry Lowney. I
give the money directly to the doctor, because I know if I send it to the
island, Haitian authorities will most likely steal it. And therein lies the problem with Haiti—massive
corruption. There are nine million
Haitians on the island, so there is enough aid to provide for all of them.
The nation could be a tourist mecca; it is rich in folklore and culture,
including voodoo. It has the
Caribbean Sea and very nice people. But there is little tourism in Haiti.
My travels there have been illuminating.
Only half the population can read and write.
Unemployment's more than 50%. Most
Haitians live on less than $2 a day. No matter how much charity is given, no matter how
many good intentions there are, Haiti will remain chaotic until discipline is
imposed. Many liberals don't want to
hear that. They believe that the
nanny state can provide, but it can't. No society will prosper unless there
are rules of conduct, mandatory education, and fairness by those in power.
None of that happens in Haiti. And
so the USA will once again pour millions into that country, much of which will
be stolen. Once again, we will do
more than anyone else on the planet. And
one year from today, Haiti will be just as bad as it is right now.
And that's the memo.Let's see: we in the Western world enslave, blockade,
embargo, squeeze out reparations, invade, occupy, impose bloody dictatorships,
and force the Haitians to destroy their own economy. We're up to our eyeballs in Haitian
blood. Then if we also send some charity
over there, Bill O'Reilly says we're noble. And, O'Reilly proclaims, the Haitians
need discipline. No, the Haitians don't need
discipline, although they do need the fair government O'Reilly briefly and
disingenuously mentions, without acknowledging, perhaps not even knowing about
the history you've heard a bit about here today. No, what Haitians need is economic
and political justice. Here are eight steps
for progressives to demand: 1. Make future aid to Haiti in the
form of grants, not loans 2. Hire Haitian workers at good wages
in all reconstruction projects 3. Cancel all of Haiti's
international debt 4. End the IMF imposition of
structural adjustment, right-wing economic policies on Haiti 5. Throw
open U.S. markets to Haitian crops and manufactured goods
6. Pay $21 billion in restitution to
Haiti for the illegitimate reparations it was forced to pay to France and other
Western powers for 122 years 7. Lift the ban on Aristide's
political party 8. Allow Aristide to return to Haiti I know, I know.
You may well be thinking, fat chance of these eight policy prescriptions
being implemented any time soon. But I want you to put things in
perspective. The Haitian people
suffered and worked diligently for 200 years after their slave revolt, before
they could democratically elect their first president.
Unfortunately, progress is often not something you can measure in your
own lifetime. But for it to ever occur, you have to keep working for it. Take heart, and actively take the
side of the Haitian people, and all other peoples in the Third World struggling
to breathe free.
|