Obama is dispatching Presidents Bush and Clinton, and thousands of
Marines and U.S.
soldiers. By contrast, Cuba has over 400 doctors on the ground and
is sending in more; Cubans, Argentinians, Icelanders, Nicaraguans,
Venezuelans, and many others are already on the ground working--saving
lives and treating the injured. Senegal has offered land to Haitians
willing to relocate to Africa.
The United States, on the day after the tragedy struck, confirmed
that an entire Marine Expeditionary Force was being considered "to
help restore order," when the "disorder" had been caused by an
earthquake striking Haiti;
not since 1751, 1770, 1842, 1860, and 1887 had Haiti experienced
an earthquake. But, I remember the bogus reports of chaos and
violence the led to the deployment of military assets, including
Blackwater, in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
One Katrina survivor noted that the people needed food and shelter
and the U.S. government sent men with guns.
Much to my disquiet, it seems, here we go again. From the very
beginning, U.S. assistance to Haiti has looked to me more like an
invasion than a humanitarian relief operation.
On Day Two of the tragedy, a C-130 plane with a military assessment
team landed in Haiti, with the rest of the team expected to land
soon thereafter.
The stated purpose of this team was to determine what military
resources were needed.
An Air Force special operations team was also expected to land to
provide air traffic control. Now, the reports are that the U.S.
is not allowing assistance in, shades of Hurricane Katrina, all
over again.
On President Obama's orders military aircraft "flew over the island,
mapping the destruction." So, the first U.S. contribution to the
humanitarian relief needed in Haiti were reconnaissance drones whose
staffing are more accustomed to looking for hidden weapon sites and
surface-to-air missile batteries than wrecked infrastructure. The
scope of the U.S. response soon became clear:
aircraft carrer, Marine transport ship, four C-140 airlifts, and
evacuations to Guantanamo. By the end of Day Two, according to the
Washington Post report, the United States had evacuated to Guantanamo
Bay about eight [8] severely injured patients, in addition to U.S.
Embassy staffers, who had been "designated as priorities by the
U.S. Ambassador and his staff."
On Day Three we learned that other U.S. ships, including destroyers,
were moving toward Haiti. Interestingly, the Washington Post
reported that the standing task force that coordinates the U.S.
response to mass migration events from Cuba or Haiti was monitoring
events, but had not yet ramped up its operations. That tidbit was
interesting in and of itself, that those two countries are attended
to by a standing task force, but the treatment of their nationals
is vastly different, with Cubans being awarded immediate acceptance
from the U.S. government, and by contrast, internment for Haitian
nationals.
U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral James Watson IV reassured Americans,
"Our focus right now is to prevent that, and we are going to work
with the Defense Department, the State Department, FEMA and all the
agencies of the federal government to minimize the risk of Haitians
who want to flee their country,"
Watson said. "We want to provide them those releif supplies so
they can live in Haiti."
By the end of Day Four, the U.S. reportedly had evacuated over 800
U.S.
nationals.
For those of us who have been following events in Haiti before the
tragic earthquake, it is worth noting that several items have caused
deep concern:
1. the continued exile of Haiti's democratically-elected and
well-loved, yet twice-removed former priest, President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide;
2. the unexplained continued occupation of the country by United
Nations troops who have killed innocent Haitians and are hardly
there for "security"
(I've personally seen them on the roads that only lead to Haiti's
sparsely-populated areas teeming with beautiful beaches);
3. U.S. construction of its fifth-largest embassy in the world in
Port-au-Prince, Haiti;
4. mining and port licenses and contracts, including the privatization
of Haiti's deep water ports, because certain off-shore oil and
transshipment arrangements would not be possible inside the U.S.
for environmental and other considerations; and
5. Extensive foreign NGO presence in Haiti that could be rendered
unnecessary if, instead, appropriate U.S. and other government
policy allowed the Haitian people some modicum of political and
economic self-determination.
Therefore, we note here the writings of Ms. Marguerite Laurent,
whom I met in her capacity as attorney for ousted President of Haiti
Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Ms. Laurent reminds us of Haiti's offshore oil and other mineral
riches and recent revivial of an old idea to use Haiti and an oil
refinery to be built there as a transshipment terminal for U.S.
supertankers. Ms. Laurent, also known as Ezili Danto of the Haitian
Lawyers Leadership Network (HLLN), writes:
"There is evidence that the United States found oil in Haiti decades
ago and due to the geopolitical circumstances and big business
interests of that era made the decision to keep Haitian oil in
reserve for when Middle Eastern oil had dried up. This is detailed
by Dr. Georges Michel in an article dated March 27, 2004 outlining
the history of oil explorations and oil reserves in Haiti and in
the research of Dr. Ginette and Daniel Mathurin.
"There is also good evidence that these very same big US oil companies
and their inter-related monopolies of engineering and defense
contractors made plans, decades ago, to use Haiti's deep water ports
either for oil refineries or to develop oil tank farm sites or
depots where crude oil could be stored and later transferred to
small tankers to serve U.S. and Caribbean ports. This is detailed
in a paper about the Dunn Plantation at Fort Liberte in Haiti.
"Ezili's HLLN underlines these two papers on Haiti's oil resources
and the works of Dr. Ginette and Daniel Mathurin in order to provide
a view one will not find in the mainstream media nor anywhere else
as to the economic and strategic reasons the US has constructed its
fifth largest embassy in the world - fifth only besides the US
embassy in China, Iraq, Iran and Germany - in tiny Haiti, post the
2004 Haiti Bush regime change."
Unfortunately, before the tragedy struck, and despite pleading to
the Administration by Haiti activists inside the United States,
President Obama failed to stop the deportation of Haitians inside
the United States and failed to grant TPS, temporary protected
status, to Haitians inside the U.S. in peril of being deported due
to visa expirations. That was corrected on Day Three of Haiti's
earthquake tragedy with the January 15, 2010 announcement that Haiti
would join Honduras, Nicaragua, Somalia, El Salvador, and Sudan as
a country granted TPS by the Secretary of Homeland Security.
President Obama's appointment of President Bush to the Haiti relief
effort is a swift left jab to the face, in my opinion. After
President Bush's performance in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina
and the fact that still today, Hurricane Katrina survivors who want
to return still have not been provided a way back home, the appointment
might augur well for fundraising activities, but I doubt that it
bodes well for the Haitian people. Afterall, the coup against and
the kidnapping of President Aristide occurred under the watch of a
Bush Presidency.
Finally, those with an appreciation of French literature know that
among France's most beloved authors are Alexandre Dumas, son of a
Haitian slave, and Victor Hugo who wrote: "Haiti est une lumiere."
[Haiti is a light.] Indeed, Haiti for millions is a light: light
into the methodology and evil of slavery; light into a successful
slave rebellion, light into nationhood and notions of liberty, the
rights of man, and of human dignity. Haiti is a light. And an
example that makes the enemies of black liberation tremble. It is
precisely because of Haiti's light into the evil genius of some
individuals who wield power over others and man's ability, through
unity and purpose, to overcome that evil, that some segments of the
world have been at war with Haiti ever since 1804, the year of
Haiti's creation as a Republic.
I'm not surprised at "Reverend" Pat Robertson's racist vitriol.
Robertson's comments mirror, exactly, statements made by Napoleon's
Cabinet when the Haitians defeated them. But in 2010, Robertson's
statements reveal much more:
Haitians are not the only ones who know their importance to the
struggle against hatred, imperialism, and European domination.
This pesky, persistent, stubbornly non-Western, proudly African
people of this piece of land that we call Haiti know their history
and they know that they militarily defeated the ruling world empire
of the day, Napoleon's France, and the global elite at that time
who supported him. They know that they defeated the armies of
England and Spain.
Haitians know that they used their status as a free state to help
liberate Latin Americans from Spain, by funding and fighting alongside
Simon Bolivar;
their example inspired their still-enslaved African brothers and
sisters on the American mainland; and before Haitians were even
free, they fought against the British inside the U.S. during its
war of independence and won a decisive battle in Savannah, Georgia,
where I have visited the statue commemorating that victory.
Haitians know that France imposed reparations on them for being
free, and Haiti paid them in full, but that President Aristide
called for France to give that money back ($21 billion in 2003
dollars).
Haitians know that their "brother," then-Secretary of State Colin
Powell lied to the world upon the kidnapping and second ouster of
their President.
(Sadly, it wouldn't be the last time that Secretary of State Colin
Powell would lie to the world.) Haitians know, all-too-well, that
high-ranking blacks in the United States are capable of helping
them and of betraying them.
Haitians know, too, that the United States has installed its political
proxies and even its own soldiers onto Haitian soil when the U.S.
felt it was necessary. All in an effort to control the indomitable
Haitian spirit that directs much-needed light to the rest of the
oppressed world.
While the tears of the people of Haiti swell in my own eyes, and I
remember their tremendous capacity for love, my broken heart and
wet eyes don't dampen my ability to understand the grave danger
that now faces my friends in Haiti.
I shudder to think that the "rollback" policies believed in by some
foreign policy advisors to President Obama could use a prolonged
U.S. military presence in Haiti as a springboard for rollback of
areas in Latin America that have liberated themselves from U.S.
neo-colonial domination. I would hate to think that this would
even be attempted under the Presidency of Barack Obama.
All of us must have our eyes wide open on Haiti and other parts of
the world now dripping in blood as a result of the relentless onward
march of the U.S.
military machine.
So, on this remembrance of the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr., I note that it was the U.S. government's own illegal Operation
Lantern Spike that snuffed out the promise and light of Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. Every plane of humanitarian assistance that is
turned away by the U.S. military (so far from CARICOM, the Caribbean
Community, Midecins Sans Frontieres, Brazil, France, Italy, and
even the U.S. Red Cross)--as was done in the wake of Hurricane
Katrina--and the expected arrival on this very day of up to 10,000
U.S. troops, are lasting reminders of the existential threat that
now looms over the valiant, proud people and the Republic of Haiti.
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