On the Crisis in Haiti

As Haitians try to survive on their ruined island after the recent disaster devastated it, US President Barack Obama is sending paratroopers to keep things secure in Haiti. Obama is also sending 100 million dollars in financial aid.

The damage done in Haiti will cost the poor country 15% of its GDP according to the World Bank. Eduardo Gamarra, a political scientist at Florida International University, has said that 15% is an underestimate. The US has sent only 100 million dollars. If Haiti was a big bank that needed a bailout, then the US government would have sent millions upon millions more to help save it. I bet the US could end poverty in Haiti and clean up after the earthquake for the same price as a bailout. Unfortunately, that will never happen because regular people are disposable and rich bankers and businessmen are extremely valuable, at least according to Bush and Obama.

The mainstream media is already trying to portray the poverty-stricken Haitians, who are now disaster victims on top of that, as criminals. Just like they did with the people in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. The US government is mainly concerned with preserving the control of the oppressive Haitian government, which explains the military aid.

I believe Revolution newspaper, despite the many criticisms it has recieved from other left-wing groups (and I'm not trying to make a statement on the criticisms or the RCP), has a good explanation to why Haiti is poor and how it relates to the current situation.

The news reports talk about Haiti’s poverty, but they don’t tell you why Haiti is so poor. Very few people know that Haiti was the scene of the only successful slave revolution in history – when the heroic descendants of African slaves drove out the strongest army in the world at that time, the French. Very few people know that the world’s powers – especially the U.S., which at that time feared the influence of Haiti on the slaves in America and France – embarked on a policy of isolating and impoverishing Haiti. Very few people know that for nearly 20 years in the early 1900's the U.S. Marines occupied Haiti, suppressing a liberation struggle and implanting puppets. Very few people know that the U.S. backed the infamously cruel tyrant “Papa Doc” Duvalier, and then his son “Baby Doc,” in the middle of the century. And all too few know that it then conspired to overthrow the popular president Jean-Bertrand Aristide in the 1990's and then again just a few years ago in 2004. All these criminal actions – this long criminal history of oppression – flowed from the economic and political needs of the U.S. ruling classes during the time when the United States was run, first, by a coalition of capitalist and slave-holding classes, and then more recently (and up to today) by the ruling capitalist-imperialist class. Throughout the last two centuries the U.S. has backed up reactionary ruling classes within Haiti as part of this.

-----

Now, I will give an alternative editorial ending.

The current destruction in Haiti will take years to repair. Even New Orleans is still feeling the shock of Katrina, a deadly hurricane from 2005. My point here is that disasters take years to undo, but not when a collective system of work is applied. Let's take the town of Canutillo for example.

Canutillo was destroyed by the war that was going on in Mexico during the days of Zapata and Pancho Villa. Villa was able to repair the town within three years by simply applying a collectivist fashion of work. Canutillo also gained technology that was considered modern at the time. Three years was quick for back in Villa's time.

With the advanced form of collectivist work Marxism-Leninism-Maoism has developed, communism could restore Haiti a lot faster than the capitalists and their puppet governments. Given the scale of the destruction in Haiti, it might take longer than three years, but it would certainly be faster than current efforts.