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April 07, 2003
Haiti's punishment
A hostile US goverment is exacting a harsh aid embargo on Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. The issue? A demand for a recount in an election! (This coming from the Bush administration?):
Huge sums of bilateral aid are now being denied Haiti due to the recalcitrance of the White House and other opponents of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, as well as by other U.S.-influenced donor nations. This is owing to Washington's unremitting hostility to Aristide and his Lavalas Family Party rule. The Republicans leading the charge against him, in this rabidly partisan battle, argue that USAID already delivers sufficient, if minimum, funds to Haiti. Last year's $73 million released to provide emergency rations for throngs of starving Haitians, however, is scheduled to be slashed this year to a trifling $20 million, based on remarks made by Secretary of State Colin Powell at June's OAS General Assembly in Barbados. Moreover, the Quixote Center, a Haitian advocacy organization, maintains that U.S. assistance often ends up as consultancies to foreign nationals, in foreign financial accounts of U.S. venders or in accounts held by the tiny minority of wealthy Haitian nationals. A USAID official in Haiti recently told visitors that "79 cents of every USAID dollar worldwide is actually spent in the U.S.," when such funds are eventually disbursed.A total of over $500 million in approved international loans and grants have been blocked under the guise of demands made by Aristide's enemies that they be frozen until a political consensus can be reached in Haiti between the legitimate, democratically-based administration and a loose, largely discredited coalition of oppositional factions, the Democratic Convergence.
The real issue at stake, however, is the status of privatization of public facilities on the island. International financial institutions—true to their unbudging formulae—have conditioned all development assistance on the implementation of structural adjustment policies in order to open up Haiti's economy and increase the exportation of raw materials such as sugar. While sugarcane grows in the island's fields, starving families are forced to buy "Domino sugar," processed duty free in the U.S. to support over-consumption and retard Haiti's economy. The IDB claims that no loans can be sent to Haiti simply because the country is in arrears, but the State Department has made it clear that the noose will be loosened only if its agenda is met.
At the root of this unforgiving policy, as well as the hard-hearted freezing of nearly $100 million in additional IDB funds, is the International Republican Institute (IRI) and its Hill allies. Under the philosophical guidance of Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC), this rightwing operation, financed by the paper funds laundered through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), has orchestrated a sweeping embargo of Western aid for the island.
Posted by Tyrone at April 7, 2003 09:18 PM