By YVES ENGLER Why did Canada help overthrow Haiti’s elected government in 2004? That’s a question I heard over and over when speaking about Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority, a book Anthony Fenton and I co-wrote. Most people had difficulty understanding why their country – and the US to some extent – would intervene in a country so poor, so seemingly marginal to world affairs. Why would they bother? I would answer that Canada participated in the coup as a way to make good with Washington, especially after (officially) declining the Bush administration’s invitation (order) to join the “coalition of the willing” in Iraq. It is also worth noting that at the start of 2003 the Haitian minimum wage was 36 Gourdes ($1) a day, which was nearly doubled to 70 Gourdes by the Aristide government. […]
Haiti: Where a Wage of $2 a Day is Too Much for the Lords of Industry to Pay
If Stones Could Float: The British Press and the Turks and Caicos Boat Disaster
By: Peter Hallward – HaitiAnalysis.com Updated on 6 September 2007 [1] Every now and then something happens which helps to shed a little light on the way our newspapers distinguish between what counts as news and what doesn�t. Consider how the British press handled two very different disappearances, the nights of 3 and 4 May 2007. In early May two British doctors, Kate and Gerry McCann, were on holiday in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz. The McCanns say that on the night of 3 May they went out to dinner at a tapas bar near their hotel, leaving their three-year old daughter Madeleine behind with their two other young children. At some point that evening, Madeleine was apparently abducted or otherwise removed from their unlocked apartment, and she hasn�t been seen since. Nobody who lived within reach of […]
Dr. Paul Farmer: Commentary
Paul Farmer Steve Case: Launching a Revolution in Health In Pictures: Solutions: Health Care Slimming Down The Workforce Solutions/Contributors: Dr. Julie Louise Gerberding Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Jeanne Lambrew and John Podesta Center for American Progress Leslie Norwalk Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Paul H. O’Neill Special Advisor, the Blackstone Group/Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Uwe Reinhardt Professor, Princeton University Senator Ron Wyden Co-Sponsor, Healthy Americans Act I was lucky enough to make my first trip to Haiti almost 25 years ago. Haiti has been the best teacher I’ve ever had (and that’s saying a lot). Working there taught me several things: that all enduring, good work is done by teams (no doctor can be effective alone); that public health and public infrastructure is always important (even the biggest and most beautiful mission hospital cannot serve the […]
Latin American nations back 1-year extension of U.N. force in Haiti
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti: Nine Latin American nations with U.N. peacekeepers deployed in Haiti voiced support for extending the mission for another year but declined to say when they would remove their troops. The U.N. Security Council is expected to renew the mandate of the 8,800-strong, Brazilian-led force on Oct. 14. On Tuesday, defense ministers from Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guatemala, Peru, Uruguay and Paraguay traveled to Haiti to show their support for Haitian President Rene Preval, who last year authorized the U.N. force to take a firmer hand against street gangs blamed for violence. Chilean Defense Minister Jose Goni said the countries agreed to support a 12-month extension of the U.N. mission, which arrived in 2004 to restore order after a violent uprising ousted former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. “Our work (in the U.N. mission) has helped achieve a notable level […]
Amazing Grace: Whitewashing the History of Abolition
By BRIAN CONCANNON This week the world officially commemorated one of the pivotal events of modern history with deafening silence. On August 23, 1791, a group of slaves in Haiti led by a man named Boukman ignited a revolt that changed the world. They attacked their French masters, and kept fighting until Haiti wrested independence from Napoleon in 1804. Haiti’s rebellion metastasized: the independent nation run by former slaves inspired people held in bondage throughout the world, and forever undermined the “moral” and philosophical underpinnings of slavery. Slavery held on for decades- more than seven decades in the U.S. – but from that time on it was fighting a losing battle. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) proclaims August 23 the official “International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and Its Abolition,” but there is […]
New Reality in Haiti: Re-ascendance of the Wealthy Elite Protected by US/UN Occupation
by Leslie Mullin It was 9:30 on a mid-July morning in Haiti�s capital, Port-au-Prince. Classes were well underway at this school for poor children located in the wealthy Delmas neighborhood on Rue Freres Jacques. The two-story cinderblock building holds 700 students and 40 teachers. The children had been at their studies since 7AM. Without warning, a local Mayor named Wilson Jeudi, pistol in hand, raided the building with eight armed thugs. The group began to wreck the school, destroying the modest furniture and equipment carefully accumulated over years. They roamed through the building, breaking every single blackboard. The broken blackboards still show algebra problems, French vocabulary lessons, and alphabets. They smashed the wooden benches and desks where the children sit for their lessons, and shattered the precious water fountain. Confronted by the attackers, the Head Teacher refused to leave. In […]
