HAITI AND HYPOCRISY

17/01/10

On Saturday President Obama launched one of the biggest aid programmes in the history of the United States, to help Haiti after an earthquake which may have killed 200,000 people.

Obama, flanked by his predecessors George W Bush and Bill Clinton, announced on Saturday that he will lead a national campaign to raise funds for the survivors of the earthquake in Haiti which may be one of the most deadly in history.. “We are preparing for one of the largest aid efforts in our history, to save lives and send help to prevent this catastrophe from becoming even more profound” said Obama in the White House.

The Haitian government has already given control of the country and the airport to the United States.  3500 US Marines have already arrived in the country, and many more are due, expected to stay in the country for some time. 
The Black Past
 Haiti, the poorest country on the American continent, is one of the four principal importers of rice from the US. Up until 30 years ago Haiti produced all the rice (staple diet) that it required. But in 1986, alter the expulsion of the dictator Jean Claude Duvalier (Baby Doc), the International Monetary Fund lent Haiti 24.6 million dollars of which it was in desperate need, as the dictator had appropriated national funds, part of which are still in a Swiss bank, and about which Haiti can do nothing.In order to make the loan, the IMF demanded that the duty on imported rice and other agricultural products was reduced, opening the market to the competition from other markets.

In less than two years the Haitian farmers couldn’t compete with the so-called Miami rice, and the local rice market collapsed. American rice invaded the country and the farmers emigrated to the cities, increasing misery and slums. Coffee and sugar production went the same way.Between 80% and 85% of the population owned a pig, as pigs held an important function in fertilizing the soil and in the domestic economy, representing a sort of home made bank for the rural population. Traditionally one would sell a pig to resolve emergencies or special functions

(weddings, funerals, communions, illnesses, and, if necessary, to pay school fees and buy books at the beginning of the school year).
But in 1982 the international agencies convinced the farmers that their pigs were ill and should be slaughtered. They promised them that the pigs would be replaced by pigs of a superior breed. With devastating efficiency never before seen in a development programme all pigs were slaughtered in a period of 13 months.
Two years later the better bred pigs arrived from Iowa, USA. They were so good that they required clean fresh water for drinking (80% of Haitians don’t have this), imported feed at 90 dollars a year, when the average wage of a Haitian is 130 dollars a year, and purpose built pigsties.
The Haitian farmers called the pigs “four legged princes”, and to add insult to injury they claimed that the meat was no good. It goes without saying that the replacement programme was a total failure. According to a monitor of the process the loss to the Haitian farmers in monetary terms could be calculated at 600 million dollars. Enrolment in rural schools went down by 30%, in these same areas the protein intake reduced dramatically, the undercapitalization of the rural economy was devastating, and the negative impact on the soil and the agricultural production incalculable. Even today the Haitian farmers haven’t recovered. Most of rural Haiti is still isolated from the global markets, so for most farmers the extermination of the creole pigs was their first taste of globalization.
The Black Present
The US government will expropriate and demolish the homes of hundreds of Haitians in the Cité Soleil suburb of Port au Prince in order to extend the UN Occupation Forces’ military base to house the soldiers of the UN Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), at a cost of 5 million dollars. This work, charged to the US Government contractor and quasi official arm of the Pentagon and the CIA, DYNCORP Corporation, was announced after the bureaucrats from the Treasury Department of the Bush administration conspired with the Bank of International Development to obstruct the approved loan for the improvement of the quality of Haiti’s water, one of the worst in the world, for almost ten years.

The lawyer Evel Fanfan, president of the Association of University Graduates Moving for a Haiti with Rights (AUMOHD) said that the extension would destroy around 155 buildings. Most of these buildings are modest homes, but amongst them is a church. Since March 2009 around 80 homes have been demolished. “They started work without a word to the people living there”, said Fanfan. “The authorities haven’t said what’s happening, nor have they said whether the people will be located, or even compensated”.
The Haitian bonded assembly plants: (In other words textile industries which take advantage of cheap labour)

Those who have benefited most from cheap labour are the multinationals, mainly in the textile sector. There are currently many “free zones” to protect foreign enterprises, mostly North American. The country has become a veritable slave factory. It is being said that Haiti could be a “cheaper” option than China for American companies.
But our Europe, so supportive, hasn’t surrendered it’s slice of cake: the Caribbean countries have been obliged to sign the new “Economic Partnership Agreements” (EPA or APE, as they like to be called) which replace the Cotonou Agreement, which, although not perfect was at least acceptable, and which involves the total opening of their markets to our merchandise, without the aid for our agricultural products having been eliminated. On the EU delegation’s webpage the agreements are set up as a “great opportunity” for the Haitians. It’s possible that this will be the case for the very reduced élite who have continued to line their pockets during the 4 years since the coup d’état against Jean-Bertrand Aristide, but not for the 80% of the population who will be gravely affected. It is easy to imagine the blackmail involved in getting them to sign the EPA. The EU’s presence in Haiti in the last few years has intensified, and in the period 2004 – 2006 (the years of the Latortue dictatorship) we were the “leading donor country”, although recently the USA have overtaken us.

Michel Chossudovsky writes:

With a growing part of the world population under the poverty line the sudden increase in the price of foodstuffs is having a devastating effect. There are millions of people in the world who are not able to buy food for their survival. In reality this is contributing to the elimination of the poor through starvation. Henry Kissinger once said “Control oil and you control the countries, control food and you control the populations”.
In this respect Kissinger declared in 1974, in the context of the “National Security Study: implications of increase in world population for the security of the USA and it’s overseas interests” that “hunger could represent an instrument “de facto” for population control”.

And the self-styled humanitarian aid?

“Starvation is not the result of scarcity of food, quite the contrary: a surplus of foodstuffs is used to destabilise agricultural production in developing countries” (Michel Chossudovsky “Global Starvation” – Globalresearch, 02 May 2008.
The journalist Kevin Pina, who witnesses the situation in Haiti, lived through the poorest years, the violence of the 2004 coup, the shocking repression that followed, brutality, threats, insults from the UN soldiers, and prison.
The ONGs sent to take charge of the UN aid are marking time: despite the fact that, according to statistics, they receive 45% of the foreign aid, 15% of it is returned to the donor countries; compare, in passing, the average annual salary of a ONG boss in Haiti, of USD 60,000, with that of average Haitian citizen, of even less than USD 250 a year. In Haiti at the moment everything benefits the private sector, whilst the rest of the population is in the hands of “charity”. This is the legacy that Bush, the UN and the teams of economic experts have left for Haiti.
Anyone with capital to invest is clearly favoured, while the “generosity” of the foreigners is increasingly relied upon by the rest. It’s clearly not to wonder at, whilst the economic monopoly is the hands of the few, we are hearing more and more often about the mud cakes that the inhabitants of the Cité Soleil in Port au Prince are being forced to eat.
Haiti is currently receiving emergency aid, but it won’t last long, and anyway, as it’s still a matter of charity, although it resolves the immediate problem, it won’t resolve the people’s long term problems.

Because Haiti doesn’t need charity and ill-intentioned “solidarity”. It is owed justice and reparations.

What hypocrisy on the part of those in power, the humanitarians, dishing out alms to the poor, when they deny the people a life of dignity.

Agencia Reuters
Alma Giraudo
Bill Quigley: USA Role in Haiti Hunger Riots
Jean-Bertrand Aristide: Eyes of the Heart
Michel Chossudovsky: Global Famine
Kevin Pina: Mud Cookie economics in Haiti
Agence Haitienne de Presse

Martha

Hola, gente de Mediterránea 
As you will remember, Martha was in Mallorca this summer in order to be operated on for a very serious scoliosis that at could endanger her future heath, due to the fact that the severe deformities to the thorax, could produce breathing problems. 
Curvatures of 50 degrees, generally require surgery as in Martha’s case.
The idea of the surgery was to correct (although not fully) this curvature and fusión the bones which are held in place with metal joints.

Unfortunately after two months, these cervical metal joints gave way and therefore meant she needed to be operated on again. 
After sorting out the necessary paperwork and getting the visas required, Martha finally arrives tomorrow Saturday, with her father Argaw.

We are pending on getting confirmation from the hospital to see if Mykias, the boy with cronic  osteomielitis (bone infection) can come. 
I would like to explain the policy that Mediterránea has in relation to the children that we bring to Mallorca to be operated on. 
These children are selected by:
1º Their illness.  They have to have a problem that can be solved or one that can be improved with surgery, that does not imply explorations or difficult tests that need doing in their own countries before and above all, after the operation.

2º They are children with family support.  They must have a family member that can accompany them, watch their convalescence and inform of any problems that may occur.

We continue supervising all the cases when they return to Ethiopia (country from which the children are coming at this time), because we believe that once operated on, they need to continue being monitored.  If we take Martha’s case as an example and we hadn’t continued in contact with her, we wouldn’t know that her cervical joints had failed.

Another matter that worries us is that of erroneous diagnosis.  This past summer, another Mykias came from the Black Lion Hospital, diagnosed with a brain cyst by the Neurological department.

In reality, what he had was a muscular disorder like Duchenne, a degenerative neuromuscular illness. 
To give this boy and his family false hopes as to a posible solution or cure, we feel is very cruel.
For this reason and at this time, we are limiting ourselves to bringing children with problems of infantile trauma and although we leave the door open to other illnesses, we need to make sure that other cases like that of Mykias do not occur again. 
The tickets for getting these children here are paid for by Mediterránea. 
The obtaining of all necessary paperwork and visas, is also paid for by Mediterránea. 
The accommodation for these children and their families is offered by local families or as in the case of Martha and her father, is thanks to the generosity of two hotels.

Welcome Martha and Argaw.

Miracles happen…. 2/1/2010

Well, Martha and her father arrived because miracles do happen. 
When Martha’s father arrived in Barcelona he got confused and thought that they had arrived at the final destination, Palma de Mallorca. They missed the flight to Mallorca and got lost themselves. Thanks to Air Europa, the most complicit aviation company in the world (and we know them for years already) and an emergency team that looks for lost people (thanks a lot to both of them), they were found wandering about, already outside the airport. 

The real anonimous heroes

 The Cuban doctors

Why does our press never mention the Cuban doctors helping in Haiti?

Not only are they not mentioned  but also deleted from the lists that state the countries that are helping in Haiti. This happened in “El Pais” in the issue published on 15th of January.

Is it because up to now nobody has been to Cite Soleil, where the Cuban doctors are working? Or is it because they don’t want to see them?

The Cuban doctors have already been in Haiti for 12 years. There are more than 400. They haven’t even got their own homes. They share houses with the locals. They live with and like them.

They go to places where  there has never been a doctor before. They give medical support in the poorest areas. Areas where nobody ever wanted to work before.

152 Cuban doctors were in Porto Prince at the time of the earthquake.
They improvised under extremely difficult circumstances and erected two hospitals in tents, in order to help the local people from the very first moment. The actual building where they worked before got destroyed. More doctors came from the rest of Haiti and from Cuba to offer first aid.
A thousand people were attended by them from the very first moment.
The Cuban doctors have been working in 6 different sanitary centres and on the night of the 14th, they had already attended 2000 people and carried out 111 operations.

Whilst donations, food and equipment keep being retained in the airports for so called security reasons, the security diminishes proportionally with the rise of hunger and desperation of the population.
The food should be distributed as quickly as possible amongst the population, unless it is considered that the people of Haiti can stay without food for a couple of days; unless the helpers are busy doing something else.

At the same time it seems that the Cuban doctors are not governed by the security dictated by the UN and the marines. They give the 1st world a lesson in first aid.

President René Preval:”The people of Haiti say that after God come the Cuban doctors”

Around a thousand of the local doctors were educated in Cuba. Doctors who can now help their fellowmen.

http://www.goodnesstv.org/en/videos/voir/45663: Medicos cubanos salvan vidas en Haití.


Raymundo Gómez Navia (AIN)

Puerto Prince, 16/01/10(AIN): Dr Carlos Alberto Garcia, coordinator of the Cuban Medical Cooperation in Haiti, informed today that the Cuban sanitary workers will work continuously in various medical centres in the capital. Together with the support of the fishermen and other sectors they will work night and day. Surgeons will work 18 hours a day and more, in order to assist the Haitian population in the best possible way.
An important group offers their help in Aquin, Oakay and other locations. The demand is much bigger then the help being offered at the moment.
 “University Delmas 33” hospital, one of the most important  of Puerto Prince, was able to re-open at 7 o’clock Wednesday morning. The hospital suffered major damage the night before and was without doctors and resources in order to be able to work.

Well known hospitals like Rennaissance and Ofatma are two more centres where Cuban specialists can be found.

The heroism of the Cuban staff as much as the tragedies that this capital suffers after the earthquake is impressive; like the little boy who was taken to the university hospital by the rescue brigades after having spent three days buried under the ruins of a building.

E and Z's story.

This is the third year that Mediterranea has been in Abugida.
The 4 and 5 year old children that we met three years ago have grown up, finished pre-school and are now studying in the local state school.
There are always some children who stand out more due to hardship and terrible living conditions. This is the case of E. She was only 4 years old when we took up the task of the Abugida school. She was the type of little girl that you were drawn to straight away because of her permanent wide smile and perfect plaits, never a hair out of place.
After one of our school parent meetings, we were left at the end with some mothers and grandmothers of the most needy children. To our great concern, we noticed one very young mother who was pathetically thin and whose face was etched with extreme sadness. She didn't say one word during the meeting but at the end approached us and asked us to accompany her to her home.
It turned out that Z suffered from HIV and was E's mother. Due to her illness they had both been ostracized to live in a corner of the family land. Mother and daughter lived in an unsafe, cardboard and tin, make-shift dwelling. They were not allowed to eat with the rest of the family.
E was being used by her relatives as a maid and in exchange they fed her.

While we were visiting another family, Z came into the house to see us and showed us a picture album of her life before HIV.She wanted to let us see how she used to live, to make us understand that once-upon-a-time she had been "normal".Z used to be a model. She had been married. She had baby E. She showed us the photos of when she had been a model; her wedding photos with her husband (what a spectacularly beautiful bride she had been);the lovely baby photos of E.Then tragedy struck. Her husband died of AIDS and she was diagnosed with HIV.Her whole family life just fell apart. She had to return with E to her home town of Akaki because she had nowhere else to go.
Her health was getting worse.
One day when we returned to Akaki, the official version was, quite simply, that Z had left home.E went to live with her aunt and grandmother. The child we had known had changed. She was unhappy. She wasn't smiling. E left the Abugida school at the end of the academic year. She, along with a group of children attends the state school but she comes to have breakfast and lunch in Abugida.

During our last trip, as chance would have it, we found Z. She was emaciated. The family had thrown her out of the house but she left E with them so that her child could continue attending school. Z had found a job working in a bar 20 kilometres away from Addis Ababa. They were paying her 10 birrs a month (0.55 euros). She would use the money to visit her daughter every month. At one point her situation became so bad that she almost ended up prostituting herself. She would cry and cry while her daughter did her best to console her mother during her visits.

Z's life has now changed. She is working in Abugida and is living with her daughter. She is happy and has put on weight.She has dreams and hopes for a better future. She aspires to become a teacher.

Z's experience is a drop in the ocean. At the moment her story has a happy ending but there are so many more mothers like her, victims of poverty, illness and fate.

Mothers who can't live with their children... children who can't live with their mothers. All of them are victims. Gulity of nothing but circumstance, of poverty. Like all of us, all they want is to survive, prosper, live without fear, hunger or suffering. They dream of a better life and of ways of improving their lot and of being independent.

Every day, one fifth of the inhabitants of this planet, 1.200 million people, are unable to fulfill their basic needs never mind have dreams or aspirations. So many of them, through circumstances, cannot even live under the same roof as their children.

The building project in the Abugida school is underway.

Construction work underway.
The walls of the two new classrooms and the dining-room have now been built.
The kitchen that Mediterranea built in 2008 is too small now, therefore, we will soon start extending this area. We will also start soon on the building of a nursery school for the one to two year old children.

We have already started to construct 8 new latrines in the public school Fitauri Abeyh Metekia situated in Akaki near Abugida.
Some of the labourers involved in the construction work are unemployed mothers and fathers of our pupils.