The fraud of ‘humanitarian aid’ in Haiti
It is guesswork, but the figures are so far: 200,000 dead, one-and-a-half million homeless, hundreds of thousands of orphans. Just a few days ago, three weeks after the quake, the UN said that it was "still far short" of providing food and water to those who need it. There are now around 20,000 US soldiers in Haiti or offshore, billeted, fed and provisioned. Most onshore are carrying heavy machine guns and grenades with the occasional small box marked "aid" for the TV cameras. In controlling the airport, the US army has prevented massive amounts of help from landing and being distributed. Last week, the US stopped planes from flying out the critically injured for four days at least. This is an operation undertaken not on behalf of the Haitian masses but of US imperialism. The CIA is probably already involved building up its local gangsters once again.
All the usual suspects of the "international community" are involved but it is America that is stamping its feet on the grounds of this misery in order to defend its imperialist interests against all and any rivals who might want to exert their influence. This sickening response by the US also shows the seamless continuity of the Clinton/Bush/Obama administrations in the interests of US imperialism, and particularly the wretched hollowness of Obama.
The general tone of the British media was "security". Just like New Orleans the hurt and damaged masses were seen as a threat. The BBC news vied with Sky to play this up with a reporter giving warnings of violence and "insecurity" over an image that clearly showed laughing young men flattening cardboard boxes to help people make some sort of shelter. It was all about to kick off according to the BBC and its supine reporters and this explained the woeful lack of assistance. Dr. Evan Lyon of a medical aid group which had been working up to 3am every morning in the heart of the capital where reporters feared to tread, said on January 20th: "There's no US military presence, no UN guards, no Haitian police, no violence and no insecurity". Indeed, for the great part, the Haitian masses, even amongst the devastation, showed great spirit, mutual aid and self-organisation (just like in New Orleans and almost every other major disaster) up to the point of organising committees and patrols in Port-au-Prince to keep criminal elements out.
But it's not all bad news; James Dobbins, Clinton's envoy to Haiti said that "This disaster is an opportunity to accelerate oft-delayed reforms". What he means is US imperialism picking up what's left for its own profit. And more good news: while food and medical aid was being turned away by US military control of the airport, a plane-load of Scientologists landed with their healing hands. The Mormons also came, and then the Baptists, who, with the help of the US military, rounded up and abducted who knows how many "orphans", in an operation reminiscent of South American military juntas. Given the modern history of child abuse by the Christian churches and the US/Haitian connections in people trafficking, it's not surprising that the Baptists thought that they could just scoop up dozens of children, without a change of clothes and anything to eat, and spirit them away into God knows what. What's also shown here is the connection between US imperialism and Christian fundamentalism.
"Rebuilding" Haiti is a sick joke. All that will be rebuilt is the security forces, some symbolic structures and what's profitable to the US. Proper rebuilding to protect the masses will not take place because it is not profitable for capitalism. The same will apply to whole swathes of the Caribbean likely to be hit by the continuing subduction where millions more are at risk (of the 600,000 killed by earthquakes in the last ten years, 99% have been killed in urban sprawls).
Aid as imperialism
"Aid" is another lie that is also part of any imperialist strategy. We've seen it in Britain regarding British "aid" to Palestine, which ignores the plight and basic wants of the poor and is mainly directed to building up the security forces. US General Colin Powell said that NGO's were the "force multipliers for the US government". They are sometimes set up, used or infiltrated by the intelligence services. Already groaning under IMF debt, the loans given to Haiti by governments will have to be paid back with interest (while donations freely given go to pay for overpriced goods and services). A recent UN account of 21 disasters over the last 20 years show "a 25% increase in their external debt as a result of aid". In such situations what services there are will be cut and taxes and energy prices will go up in order to pay back the loans.
The poor of Haiti have been remorselessly attacked and abused by the "international community" and particularly the USA. The extent of this disaster shows capitalism's responsibility for it and its total incapacity to be able to deal with its aftermath because profits are its key. This is one of the greatest disasters of our time and our solidarity must go to the Haitian masses.
Baboon 5/2/10.
Comments
A bit more on the BBC
A bit more on the BBC "reporting" coming from Haiti: It was its prestigious "World News" output and its senior reporter, Matt Frei, which was winding up the "insecurity and violence" angle. As said above, on one occasion this unfolded as a number of young men, courageously I thought, laughed and messed about as they were flattening cardboard boxes for rudimentary shelter for other people it seemed. Fronting this scene, Frei, ignored the uplifting reality of it, and slagged-off these young men to the world with innuendo about violence and 'hidden guns'.
This "analysis" was directly contradicted from an apparantly unlikely source; Fox News, USA, demolished the BBC's reporting without directly referring to it, contradicting it in every detail. I think that there are certain financial and, more importantly, certain imperialist considerations here. There is something of a war going on between the Murdoch empire and the BBC that has echoes of tensions between the interests of US and British imperialism. The Frei piece was stirring up trouble in the USA's back-yard in a similar way that the US press reported on the "troubles" in Britain's back-yard. And the tensions between some elements of the British bourgeoisie and the Murdoch empire haven't been assauged by the latter's support for two British Prime Ministers, Thatcher and Blair, who were very close to their respective US administrations.
I know that I'm a bit
I know that I'm a bit obsessed with TV news channels but they are an important vector, probably on of the most important vectors, for maintaining and reinforcing the atomisation of the working class.
Channel 4 News likes to present itself as a serious news programmes and while some of it reporting has more "depth", it's only because the bulletin lasts longer. In fact its "serious" front makes it more insidious than the rest. To report on Haiti it sent a whole team to the country whereas they could have reported just as effectively from Britain. But our intrepid reporters went like bloodsuckers using up precious space and resources under the control of the US military (just as in the Gaza War they were used by Israeli imperialism). Instead of going there like Hollywood celebrities they could have done better reporting by reading the wires. Now, along with other channels, 4 News on Haiti is largely forgotten and is about "what can only be described as a miracle" type shit. Channel 4 News has now adopted a young baby girl whose life hangs in the balance. Nothing wrong with trying to save this child's life - but to make a nightly news item out of it is sick.
But to my point about Haiti - something that Channel 4 News hasn't reported: It's a fine example of Catch 22 from the Haitian authorities. They immediately announced after the quake that all medical care was free - but, it was only free as long as it wasn't available. Once it becomes available then it has to be paid for. Thus, according to AP, about a dozen private and public hospitals in and outside the capital, have begun charging for medicines now that they have become available. This medicine is provided free by the UN and the labour of health workers is being paid for out of donations freely given. "The money is huge", said Christopher Rerat of the Pan American Health Organisation. Everything, labour and medicine has been paid for, and yet after saying it was free (when it wasn't available) the authorities are now charging for it. Fraud on top of fraud in this whole obscene episode.
"War Games" by Linda Polman
"War Games" by Linda Polman is an interesting book on humanitarian aid and is reviewed in last Sunday's Observer.
Polman makes the case that this multi-billion-dollar industry prolongs wars and aids the ruling classes.
She links the proliferation of this industry - by 2004 there were more than 2500 INGOs (international non-governmental organisations)in Afghanistan alone - to the collapse of the eastern bloc. In Rwanda after the genocide, the Hutu factions that committed the atrocities received food, shelter and support - allowing them to continue their war in the DRC from the security of the UNHCR camps in Goma - while the Tutsi victims were left in destitution and suffering. She says that those who benefit most from aid are the powerful rather than the needy: taxes on aid and on the movement of personnel, the stealing and diversion of funds by armies and how the elites have learnt how to trigger aid towards themselves. Like the capitalist institutions they represent, the aid agencies are in competition with each other, often for strategic interests - which poses the question of imperialist interest (which she doesn't appear to pose). She notes how the Taleban view aid as "an instrument of war" and how it is in fact, from Sudan to Afghanistan, an instrument of war.
She doesn't agree with the criticism that charity efforts, including Band Aid in the war-created famine in Ethopia, supported the rebels (a position put forward in a recent BBC critique), but rather says that "it did nothing to stop the situation..and facilitated the regime, ie, kept the war going.
She says that a case could be made for war crimes against some NGOs.
According to a UN report a
According to a UN report a couple of days ago, estimates are that less than 1% of the $5 billion promised "aid" has arrived in Haiti.