The Struggle for Land Justice Knows No Borders”: Corporate Pillaging in Haiti

[Judi Lynn]

The Struggle for Land Justice Knows No Borders”: Corporate Pillaging in Haiti

Written by Nixon Boumba
Tuesday, 22 December 2015 16:12

An interview with Nixon Boumba, Democratic Popular Movement (MODEP) and American Jewish World Service

Edited by Natalie Miller, Other Worlds

Since the earthquake of January, 2010, Haiti has increasingly become a target of extraction and private business development by Haitian and foreign investors. Income and trade - if the wages are livable and the trade is fair - would, of course, be helpful for the poverty statistics-topping nation. This would be especially important for the majority of the population who survive on agriculture. However, much of the new business is being planned or executed on lands those farmers’ families have lived on since they were enslaved, leaving them landless and without livelihood.



The January 2010 earthquake provided a perfect opportunity for many to come and do business in Haiti. Even prior to the earthquake, Bill Clinton led the discussion on developing Haiti through corporate investment. President Martelly turned that approach into a credo: “Haiti is open for business.”

We understand the pretext for this so-called development. The concept of extraction isn’t very well known in Haiti, but the country has had a long history of pillaging by colonial and imperial powers.

There is a massive transfer of public resources being planned, from collective to private property. Public funding that should be spent on the population is being used to facilitate business investment. This happened in the construction of the free trade zone in Caracol, in which funds from US Agency for International Development and the Inter-American Development Bank that should have been spent on the Haitian people were instead used to develop private business.

When corporations arrive in countries like Haiti - where extreme poverty is so prevalent - they cast a spell on the people by promising a brighter future. When people don’t know what the consequences may be, they tend to welcome any proposal for potential progress. However, once the development projects begin, the promises start to break.

More:
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/haiti-archives-51/5546-the-struggle-for-land-justice-knows-no-borders-corporate-pillaging-in-haiti

[Human101948]

1. How the U.S. destroyed Haiti's rice growers...

In 1986, after the expulsion of Haitian dictator Jean Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) loaned Haiti $24.6 million in desperately needed funds (Baby Doc had raided the treasury on the way out). But, in order to get the IMF loan, Haiti was required to reduce tariff protections for their Haitian rice and other agricultural products and some industries to open up the country's markets to competition from outside countries. The US has by far the largest voice in decisions of the IMF. "American rice invaded the country," recalled Charles Suffrard, a leading rice grower in Haiti, in an interview with the Washington Post in 2000. By 1987 and 1988, there was so much rice coming into the country that many stopped working the land.

Quigley interviewed Father Gerard Jean-Juste, a Haitian priest and human rights advocate. "In the 1980s, imported rice poured into Haiti, below the cost of what our farmers could produce it," Fr. Jean-Juste said. "Farmers lost their businesses. People from the countryside started losing their jobs and moving to the cities. After a few years of cheap imported rice, local production went way down." By 2008, Haiti was the world's third largest importer of US rice, receiving some 240,000 tons that year alone.

US rice growers are heavily subsidized by the government. Between 1995-2006 they received $11 billion. The American rice industry is also protected by tariffs - the same sorts of tariffs the IMF demanded Haiti remove. With the average family income standing at about $400 a year, most Haitians couldn't afford to pay international prices for a product they once grew for themselves - so they had to have aid. The US sponsored the aid, but half the money didn't go to buy the food; it went to US farmers, to processors and to shipping companies, because the food had to be transported in US ships. A good part of the so-called handout to Haiti actually went to US agribusiness, which needed markets for its overflowing bins of farm products.

http://www.fourwinds10.net/siterun_data/history/american/news.php?q=1264014431

[Judi Lynn]

2. Thank you for sharing this important information. Most US Americans have no idea about this. n/t