Masters of disaster bring cholera to Haiti and polio to Syria

By Michael Collins
COTO Report

Deliver them from their rescuers …

Haiti and Syria are victims of their rescuers.  The two nations are now sites of major disease outbreaks.  Cholera in Haiti and polio in Syria didn’t just happen.   Through negligence, those who claim to rescue the people imported the disease entities and fostered the conditions for wider outbreaks.

680,000 cases of cholera in Haiti since UN rescue mission

Defying U.S., Former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide Returns Home

By Democracy Now
March 18, 2011

In defiance of the Obama administration, former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is headed back to Haiti today for the first time since being ousted in a 2004 U.S.-backed coup. Hours ago, Aristide, his family, and a delegation of supporters boarded a plane in South Africa bound for Port-au-Prince. Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman is with the Aristides to document their journey home. She filed this report from Johannesburg.

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G-20 Nations: Race to the Bottom will Continue

A critical analysis of the G-20’s Toronto Declaration

By Dawn Paley
Vancouver Media Co-op

As the G-20 summit winds down behind the fences surrounding fortress Toronto, there are at least 560 folks in jail, and anyone left out on the streets is facing detentions, beatings, searches and arrests.

This is the context in which the Group of 20 gathered to write the Toronto Summit Declaration, a 27 page document released earlier this evening. An early critical reading of this text makes it evident that those who have taken great risk to mobilize against the G20 have done so on behalf of the health of communities, and the planet.

Because though the Toronto Declaration begins with a populist appeal to sustainability, job creation and financial regulation, it enshrines a commitment to force the poor and working class around the world to tighten their belts yet again as states implement strict new austerity programmes.

Haiti copes with a nightmare

By Cindy Kaffen
Socialist Worker

Los Angeles filmmaker and environmental educator Dave Chameides traveled to Haiti two weeks after the earthquake as part of a camera crew for a documentary being made about the humanitarian organization Partners in Health. He talked to Cindy Kaffen about what he saw.

InvAID: The Militarisation of Aid to Haiti

By Richard Sanders
Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade

This list of 100+ links—in reverse chronological order—was created in preparation for the next issue of Press for Conversion! (the magazine of Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade).  The theme of that issue (#65) will be the hyper-militarisation of development assistance to Haiti.

I hope this compilation of articles serves as a useful resource for activists, researchers and others concerned about the latest military invasion of Haiti, the pretexts for that invasion and the real reasons behind it.

Island of Lost Children

By Nicolette Grams
The Atlantic

In Haiti’s unstable post-quake atmosphere, at least one industry is poised to flourish. For those who buy and sell children for sex and cheap labor, Haiti is ripe with opportunity.

African Union to consider “land for Haitians” plan (Called Senegal!)

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – The African Union (AU) agreed on Sunday to consider a Senegalese proposal to resettle Haiti’s earthquake homeless and possibly create a state for them in Africa.

World |  Natural Disasters

The idea was first floated by Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade who said the history of Haitians as descendants of African slaves gave them the right to a new life on the continent.

AU chairman Jean Ping told African leaders at its annual summit in Addis Ababa that they would discuss the proposal during the three-day event. The AU had opened an account for Haiti with the African Development Bank, he said.

“It is out of a sense of duty and memory and solidarity that we can further the proposal of Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade to create in Africa the conditions for the return of Haitians who wish to return after the effect of the disaster that ravaged Haiti,” Ping said.

Wade said Senegal and other African states should naturalize any Haitians who sought new nationality, and he urged a mass adoption programme across the continent for orphans of the quake, feared to have killed as many as 200,000.

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The Fateful Geological Prize Called Haiti

By F. William Engdahl
Global Research

President becomes UN Special Envoy to earthquake-stricken Haiti. A born-again neo-conservative US business wheeler-dealer preacher claims Haitians are condemned for making a literal ‘pact with the Devil.’ Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, Bolivian, French and Swiss rescue organizations accuse the US military of refusing landing rights to planes bearing necessary medicines and urgently needed potable water to the millions of Haitians stricken, injured and homeless.

Hitting bottom at the top – White House forgets to lead on Haiti

People are dying in Haiti because they can’t get out, Dr. Green said. Shala Dewan, New York Times, January 29

Many of us wanted to think that the dreadful behavior during the Bush administration was some sort of aberration. We had a relatively clean election and ended up with a more intelligent and compassionate president who would reflect our views. There would be no more foreign invasions (wrong); we’d take care of the people before the Wall Street failures (wrong); and there would be no more Katrinas, without any doubt!

MIAMI — The United States has suspended its medical evacuations of critically injured Haitian earthquake victims until a dispute over who will pay for their care is settled, military officials said Friday. NYT

Why are “military officials” saying anything in a situation where the lives of people are involved and the reputation of the United States is on the line. Where’s the White House?

The kidnapping of Haiti

By John Pilger
New Statesman

With US troops in control of their country, the outlook for the people of Haiti is bleak

The theft of Haiti has been swift and crude. On 22 January, the United States secured “formal approval” from the United Nations to take over all air and sea ports in Haiti, and to “secure” roads. No Haitian signed the agreement, which has no basis in law. Power rules in a US naval blockade and the arrival of 13,000 marines, special forces, spooks and mercenaries, none with humanitarian relief training.

Haiti: Lots of foreign guns, not much aid

BrasscheckTV

Tragic and sadly predictable.

The only thing the US can produce these days is guns and gunmen.

Aid is piling up at the airport because the US claims it’s not safe to distribute it.

Same old, sick propaganda: “The Haitians are wild. The Haitians are dangerous. The Haitians are savages.”

The real savages in Haiti: the world powers.

Did mining and oil drilling trigger the Haiti earthquake?

By Ezili Danto
OpenSalon

Did the mining of Haiti’s riches since 2004 GW Bush regime change cause the earthquake? Listen to Ezili Dantò on mining Haiti’s riches and concern for environmental degradation by the foreign companies. (Read the transcript with reference links.)

“The idea that human activity can cause seismic activity is widely accepted in the scientific community …the connection between oil production and earthquakes dates back to at least the 1920s, when geologists in South Texas noted faulting near the Goose Creek oil field…A 1967 human-triggered earthquake in western India linked to the Koyna Dam registered a 7.0 earthquake.”

Since the earthquake, I’ve had occasion to ponder, like many others, about what may have caused this heretofore-unknown natural disaster in Haiti? 

Haiti the Spectacle

By Robert C. Koehler

Haiti falls apart and America’s journalists are on the ground, bringing us the spectacle of devastation. We care, we donate, we shake our heads in horror at the human toll of poverty.

A bare foot sticks out of a pile of cinder blocks.

“They’ve been digging for five hours,” says Anderson Cooper. He sticks his mike in the rubble. Oh my God, she’s alive. We can hear her screaming! “They only have this one shovel.”

OK, freeze frame. Something is so wrong with this picture, this moment: to be watching — live! — in comfortable detachment as a group of men dig desperately, by hand and with that single shovel, to free a 15-year-old girl trapped in the wreckage of a building.

It’s the ‘New Haiti!’

By Michael Collins

The appointment of former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush as key players in Haitian relief should cause the people of Haiti grave concern, if they weren’t otherwise preoccupied with survival. These former presidents’ records as pro-life advocates on the international scene is tarnished by real world outcomes.

During his eight years as president, Clinton was responsible for sanctions on Iraq that resulted in the deaths of 170,000 children under five. Former President George W. Bush exceeded that death toll by invading Iraq.   That  caused civil chaos and conflict among Iraqis leading to the deaths of over one million citizens in that tragic nation. When you see these two coming, their record speaks for itself.  (Image)

15 Minutes

copyright © 2010 Betsy L. Angert. BeThink.org

Today, Americans are engrossed in earthquake coverage. The tremor in Haiti bought unimaginable death and destruction just south of our borders. Events related to the recovery and rescues emerge as banner headlines. Haitians Seek Solace Amid the Ruins. For a week now, the struggle to survive, revive the injured, and retrieve the bodies strewn on the streets of Port-au-Prince was also the central theme of most every broadcast. In the midst of the misery, many Americans, felt desperate for a reprieve from the devastation that emotionally drained them. Millions took time to escape in a welcome distraction. Sassy, former Governor and Vice Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin Made Her Debut appearance on Fox. Tomorrow another reality will replace these stories, just as each superseded the hoopla over Harry Reid’s reference to race. Metaphorically, the tales provide persons, policies, and, or practices fifteen minutes of fame. In actuality, these fade from our mind quickly.

Drs sans Borders Blockaded from Haiti: US as ‘Facehugger’

By Lori Price
CLG

I’ve come to the conclusion that the US government most resembles the ‘facehugger,’ a stage in the life cycle of an alien, the ‘primary antagonist’ of the film series ‘Alien.’

An alien, the prized bioweapon of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation (Blackwater/Xe)

A refresher: Unlike many other recurring enemy extraterrestrial races in science fiction, the aliens are not an intelligent civilization, but predatory creatures with no higher goals than the propagation of their species and the destruction of life that could pose a threat.

 

Haiti Airport Closed Saturday for Hillary Clinton Arrival

“Aid officials in Haiti complained of the lack of co-ordination between the UN, the US and aid agencies and were enraged when the airport was closed on Saturday so that Mrs Clinton could visit.”

Aid agencies and donor countries accused the US military of giving its own aircraft priority. Outside the airport, aid and rescue workers protested that nobody seemed to be in charge as looting and lawlessness rose sharply on the streets of Port-au-Prince.

Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) complained that it had had five aircraft carrying medical supplies and doctors diverted to the Dominican Republic since Saturday, and that the earliest landing slot it could secure at Port-au-Prince for a relief aircraft supposed to leave today was January 26.

US accused of annexing airport as squabbling hinders aid effort in Haiti

The US military’s takeover of emergency operations in Haiti has triggered a diplomatic row with countries and aid agencies furious at having flights redirected.

By Rory Carroll and Daniel Nasaw
Guardian UK

Brazil and France lodged an official ­protest with Washington after US military aircraft were given priority at Port-au-Prince’s congested airport, forcing many non-US flights to divert to the Dominican Republic.  (Image – Port au Prince)

Brasilia warned it would not ­relinquish command of UN forces in Haiti, and Paris complained the airport had become a US “annexe”, exposing a brewing power struggle amid the global relief effort. The Red Cross and Médecins Sans Frontières also complained about diverted flights.

UN thugs in Haiti

By Rady Ananda

For those interested in a populist view of Haitian neocolonialism, recommended are two independently produced documentaries. The Media Haiti site has posted a 15-minute film, Haiti as Invisible and BrassCheck TV has posted an 88-minute film, Haiti: We would rather die standing.

CIA Agent Captured in Cuba

By Eva Golinger

An employee of a CIA front organization that also funds opposition groups in Venezuela was detained in Cuba last week

An article published in the December 12th edition of the New York Times revealed the detention of a US government contract employee in Havana this past December 5th. The employee, whose name has not yet been disclosed, works for Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI), one of the largest US government contractors providing services to the State Department, the Pentagon and the US Agency for International Development (USAID). The employee was detained while distributing cellular telephones, computers and other communications equipment to Cuban dissident and counterrevolutionary groups that work to promote US agenda on the Caribbean island.