What about the Haitian embargo?

[G_j]

I heard Maxine Waters (on Democracy Now) and others mention this as a factor leading to the recent crisis in Haiti, but not a mention in the mainstream media reports I have heard.

I found this:
http://www.pih.org/inthenews/021230farmersmithoped.htm

Unjust embargo deepens Haiti's health crisis

op-ed by Dr. Paul Farmer and Mary C. Smith Fawzi

Boston Globe , December 30, 2002

ON HAITI'S central plateau, lack of resources and medical personnel combined with a growing burden of disease are responsible for increasingly desperate social conditions. The causes of worsening conditions are many, but the connection between unnecessary suffering and an aid embargo led by the United States is undeniable.

US-sponsored embargoes against Haiti have a long history. From 1804-62, the United States, a major slave-owning economy, simply refused to recognize the existence of Haiti. According to a US senator from South Carolina speaking on the Senate floor in 1824, ''the peace and safety of a large portion of our union forbids us even to discuss'' it. The United States occupied Haiti militarily from 1915-34, and since that time has supported a number of undemocratic governments. Under the Duvalier dictatorships, generous aid, primarily from the United States, flowed steadily, as it did during the military juntas later convicted of war crimes after the violent overthrow of Haiti's first democratically elected president, the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

During the early 1990s, the UN imposed a trade embargo in order to push forward the restoration of Aristide. When in 1994 he returned to office and a devastated country, $500 million in development aid was promised by the United States and multilateral organizations. This aid might have helped resuscitate the hemisphere's poorest country, but it has been withheld.
<snip>

After the presidential election of November 2000 (widely recognized as free and fair), the funds were to be released, but the Bush administration used its veto power to continue to block release of funds on the grounds that Haiti has not demonstrated an adequate commitment to governing the country in a democratic manner - objections not heard during the long years of dictatorship.
...more..

[La_Serpiente]

1. Here is her interview

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/02/16/1746202

[G_j]

2. thanks n/t

[G_j]

3. will we be hearing about this as events unfold? n/t

[chookie]

4. Jeez -- why would * abandon Haiti?

Here we go again -- are they incompetent, or is everything going exactly according to plan?

Was this "policy" just a kneejerk 180 degree reversal of Clinton's interest in this long-suffering island nation?

Or does His Chimperial Highness have some interest in Haiti totally melting down?

[G_j]

5. they have not been

happy that the army was dissolved

[4morewars]

7. The only thing I can think of......

is this admin's intense hatred of brown skin. What else could it be?? A jumping off point to invade Cuba ?? We already have that.I just don't understand shrub's* reasoning on this one. Did someone find oil there ???

[wuushew]

6. I heard on NPR that Bush cut off U.S. aid in 2001

and the country has gone to shit since then. I don't what good an embargo would be since Haiti is the poorest nation in the western hemisphere.