Americans who want to know what caused Haiti's
devastation need to look in the mirror.
Richer countries
Flex their might,
Holding poor ones
In plight.
Flex their might,
Holding poor ones
In plight.
U.S. media outlets tend to report Haiti strictly as a land of tragedy. Its hapless citizens seem endlessly beset with earthquakes, floods, cholera, hunger, and bad government. Unfortunately, our press isn't making that up.
But what the media fails to explain are the underlying causes of
that devastation. Awkwardly, it has much to do with Uncle Sam — although
France, Canada, and the International Monetary Fund have all pitched in.
Haiti twice enjoyed a moment of decent leadership under
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. But after his first election, we soon
supported the Haitian army in overthrowing him. Later, in a brief about-face
under Bill Clinton, we gave him a hand in running a second time.
After Aristide won that election, and disbanded the army, we quickly soured and sent in our own troops to remove him from office once more. Since then, we have backed each successive, submissive government in disallowing him from ever even running again. We recently went so far as to unsuccessfully oppose his return from foreign exile.
After Aristide won that election, and disbanded the army, we quickly soured and sent in our own troops to remove him from office once more. Since then, we have backed each successive, submissive government in disallowing him from ever even running again. We recently went so far as to unsuccessfully oppose his return from foreign exile.
All this mucking around in Haiti's
affairs hasn't helped its economy either. Thanks to reporters writing in the Nation after finding secret
State Department cables revealed by WikiLeaks, we know that Washington used its political and business
influence to hold Haiti's minimum wage for workers at export-oriented assembly
factories at $3.13 per day.
American apparel companies like Fruit of the Loom, Hanes, and Levi's lobbied hard to prevent the workers employed by their garment manufacturing contractors from getting a raise that boosted the rest of the country's minimum wage to a "high five bucks per day from the previous — and unbelievably measly — $1.75 per day rate.
American apparel companies like Fruit of the Loom, Hanes, and Levi's lobbied hard to prevent the workers employed by their garment manufacturing contractors from getting a raise that boosted the rest of the country's minimum wage to a "high five bucks per day from the previous — and unbelievably measly — $1.75 per day rate.
U.S. rice exporters love Haiti too. In the 1980s, our government
muscled the ruling junta to lower tariffs on U.S. products. Soon America's
cheaper, subsidized rice dominated the market, driving many local producers out
of business.
The 2010 earthquake helped our farmers too. USAID bought
shiploads of U.S. rice, which it sent to Haiti as "food aid." This
glut of rice is driving many Haitian farmers into bankruptcy.
The most valuable assistance to Haiti, both before and after the
earthquake, has come from Venezuela. Following the big earthquake, Caracas
increased its shipments of oil and helped reopen damaged power plants.
In contrast, Washington shipped in soldiers — 20,000 of them —
along with an armada of the same shady contractors who contributed to the
messes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
These basic economic and political realities, writ so large in
Haiti, merely reprise two phenomena the world has come to call neocolonialism
and neoliberalism.
They work like this: The International Monetary Fund and Western
nations pressure poor (often corrupt) governments to squeeze small farmers and
manufacturers by cutting tariffs on imports, thus allowing their markets to be
flooded by foreign products.
Foreign-owned plantations and sweatshops get incentives, such as
tax-free zones, to produce cheap goods for Western consumption. Efforts to make
the local economy more sustainable and self-sufficient get short shrift. These
rules are enforced by the local military, which the United States trains and
subsidizes.
And Haiti is a particularly extreme example of this malevolent
system.
OtherWords columnist William A. Collins is a former
state representative and a former mayor of Norwalk, Connecticut. otherwords.org
