Monsanto Attacks Haiti With GMO Seeds!

How shall I oppress thee? Let me count the ways...America, her allies and the corporations who rule her, are forever finding new ways to destroy Haiti and her people. For two hundred years they have frustrated the desire of the Haitian people to be fully independent and free. Now with high tech seeds, a new form of oppression is set loose on Haiti. It means the total subservience of Haiti to Monsanto for the ability to grow crops to feed herself. Monsanto, not Haiti, will determine what will grow and how it will be done, and who will profit from Haiti's agriculture. Read about it here and learn what needs to be done.

Monsanto, Haiti's "New Earthquake"

"A new earthquake" is what Haitian peasant farmer leader Chavannes Jean-Baptiste of the Peasant Movement of Papay (MPP) called the news that Monsanto will be dumping 60,000 seed sacks (475 tons) of hybrid corn seeds and vegetable seeds on Haiti, seeds doused with highly toxic fungicides such as thiram, known to be extremely dangerous to farm workers. Hybrid seeds, like GMO seeds (in contrast to Creole heirloom or organic seeds) require lots of water, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides. In addition if a small farmer tries to save hybrid seeds after harvest, hybrid seeds usually do not "breed true" or grow very well in the second season, forcing the now-indentured peasant to buy seeds from Monsanto or one of the other hybrid/GMO seed monopolies in perpetuity. Monsanto wanted initially to dump GMO seeds on Haiti, but even the corrupt Haitian government knew that this would spark a rebellion, so Monsanto cleverly decided to dump hybrid seeds instead. The Haitian small farmers organization has committed to burning Monsanto's seeds, and has called for a march to protest the corporation's presence in Haiti on June 4, for World Environment Day.

Read More

Learn more on OCA's Millions Against Monsanto campaign page.


Alert of the Week
Monsanto's Poison Pills for Haiti
Take Action in Solidarity with Haitian Farmers Who Vow to Burn Monsanto's Toxic Fungicide-Coated Hybrid Seeds

Since gaining their independence from France more than 200 years ago in a bloody slave uprising, Haitian farmers have wisely protected their seeds and nurtured native crop varieties. They know that true food security is maintained by farmers who save, trade and breed indigenous seeds using traditional organic methods.

As Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, the Executive Director of the Peasant Movement of Papay (MPP), wrote earlier this year, "We need to establish seed banks and have silos where we can store our Creole seeds. Local, organic seeds are the basis of food sovereignty. It's urgent that Haitians buy local seeds. ... What's the danger we face today? It's that food aid from USAID and others is getting dumped in the country."

USAID and Monsanto have a poison pill for Haiti, designed to the make the island nation into a slave colony once again, except this time they won't be slaves for France, but rather for Monsanto and corporate agribusiness. Join the Haitian people and the growing global movement of Millions Against Monsanto.

Take Action

You can donate to the distribution of local, organic seeds within Haiti here.

The Imperial Plunder of Haiti

What is taking place now in Haiti? This article which is a collection of articles seems to paint a dismal picture of the hyenas and jackals moving in to rip apart the carcass of a devastated country which has struggled for 500 years to survive. The international 'aid' community is moving in for the kill as if the quake were not bad enough. According to some reports the major food market in Port au Prince has been burnt down by the government in retaliation for refusing to go along with a scheme to sell aid items on the black market. Thousands are being forcibly removed from tent encampments with no where to go, or moved to UN camps with no facilities.

The nightmare continues.

Preparing Haiti For Exploitation And Plunder

By Stephen Lendman
5-1-10

Over 15 weeks post-quake, Haiti's imperial takeover is proceeding. It began straightaway after the calamity, Haitians victimized by denied aid, appalling repression, and now dispossession of their land, homes, and communities. More on that below.

On April 16, The New York Times carried Reuters and AP reports stating Haiti's parliament approved the participation of foreign investors to rebuild the country, meaning, of course, seize, occupy, own, control, and colonize it for profit, using Haitians as exploited serfs.

AP stated:

"Haiti's soon-to-expire parliament has approved the creation of (an Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission - IHRC) co-chaired by former US President Bill Clinton to oversee billions in post-quake reconstruction aid, the Ministry of Communications said Friday (April 16)."

The vote also extended Haiti's state of emergency for 18 months, leaving the Rene Preval-Jean-Max Bellerive government in charge, effectively a dictatorship like Preval instituted in 1999 by not renewing parliament and ruling by decree pending new elections.

Reuters explained that a March 31 "donors" conference established the IHRC to oversee their investment, Preval to have nominal veto power over commission decisions. In fact, he'll rubber stamp what Washington and corporate interests dictate, supervised by the World Bank, a longstanding imperial tool.

Preval asked, "Do we lose our sovereignty because of the creation of this commission? I think the answer is no."

Except for the Aristide years (1991, 1994 - 96, and 2001 -2004), early in Preval's first term (1996 - 2001), and its brief 1804 liberation, Haiti lacked sovereignty throughout its history. Post-quake, it has even less, its people more than ever in jeopardy with imperial plans to gravely harm them, perhaps exterminate hundreds of thousands through neglect or other means.

Laying Imperial Plans

On March 10, prior to the March 31 "donors" conference, Preval was received at the White House, held a joint press conference, ignored the plight of his people, yet Obama thanked him for "showing great courage and determination," when, in fact, he's been largely invisible, and to date has done nothing to engage Haitians directly, including in their makeshift camps the way Jean-Bertrand Aristide would have done straightaway, with a hands-on approach for long hours daily.

Preval prefers White House photo-ops in deference to power and privilege, increasing, not alleviating his peoples' suffering.

The Predators Ball - Nations Gather in New York for Their Share

The web site www.haiticonference.org announced the:

"International Donors' Conference Toward a New Future for Haiti" explaining:

"The United States and the United Nations (UN), in cooperation with the Government of Haiti, and with the support Brazil, Canada, the European Union, France, and Spain co-hosted" the conference and received "over US $5 billion pledged for Haiti's recovery" - around $1 billion promised by Washington, less than the EU's $1.7 billion and Venezuela's $1.3 billion. In total, however, it's a fraction of what Haitians need, and "redevelopment" won't reach them as it's earmarked for profit-making ventures, not poverty-stricken neighborhoods and essential infrastructure to support them.

A recovery and development roadmap outlined short and longer-term priorities, with participating countries lining up for their take, the lion's share, of course for America, then France and Canada, and what they have in mind is more sweatshops, gentrified elite areas, expanded tourism, free trade zones, and the grand prize - exploiting Haiti's resources, including what's believed to be abundant untapped oil reserves, what US oil giants made plans for decades ago. They intend deep water ports, refineries, and other facilities to fully exploit the treasure, not mentioned in major media reports, now largely silent on Haiti and its long-suffering people.

Ahead of the conference on March 27, a New York Times editorial headlined, "Making Haiti Whole," endorsed it, saying:

It marks "the beginning of the long, slow birth of a new Haiti. Representative of the Haitian government, the United States and other nations and aid organizations will be discussing large, ambitious, farsighted plans," far different ones from what The Times suggests.

On April 28, Reuters headlined, "Lawmakers agree on trade bill to help Haiti," saying:

"Top US lawmakers said on Wednesday they have reached a bipartisan deal to help Haiti rebuild its earthquake-shattered economy by opening the US market to more Haitian clothing and textiles" - to be produced in rebuilt sweatshops, where workers are treated like slaves, not human beings. They pay starvation wages, no benefits, and no overtime for up to 70 hours a week in harsh or hazardous environments. They're inhumane workplaces, dimly lit in stifling heat, with no way to organize for redress or avoid being fired if complain.

Yet according to Congressman Charles Rangel (representing his black Harlem constituents):

"The Haitian garment sector, Haiti's flagship industry, was making important strides prior to the earthquake and helping the country's economy establish a stable foothold. With this legislation, we will help to get the garment sector and Haiti's economy back on that critical trajectory," mindless of how it affects exploited workers.

Mindless also of haitian-truth.org's April 27 report headlined, "Preval Instigated Fire rips through major Haitian market," saying:

"A large incendiary fire" destroyed much of Port-au-Prince's main public market, Marche du Port, affecting hundreds of stalls and two surrounding blocks. UN Blue Helmets (MINUSTAH) were notably absent. Firefighters had inadequate resources, and shopkeepers rushed to save what they could.

One seller, Pierre Elian, said:

"The front of the market place is already burned down. We don't know if the area where we kept our merchandise is also burning, because they won't let us go near it."

Merchants blamed Preval-controlled instigators, saying "recognized gang members were seen pouring gasoline over material to" ignite the blaze - as "political pressure against the poor" who need the food and merchandise to survive.

Patrick Servius, who lost his clothing business, said:

"Preval is angry with us for our refusal to sell relief supplies in our places. These are (donated goods) for the earthquake victims, not for Preval's profits. Now we pay for our patriotism."

They'll soon know what else Preval has in mind. More on that below.

The Next Shoe to Drop - Forced Relocations

On April 7, the Haiti Response Coalition (HRC, a network of urban and rural civil society groups) issued an alert saying:

An encampment of 11,000 Haitians on Saint Louis de Gonzague school land face forced displacement. They've "been offered a plot of land that will hold 500 in a different location. No regard has been given to the fact that the majority of the 11,000 will end up in the street," or that mass forced relocations are coming next.

On April 12, AFP headlined, "Haiti evacuates quake victims camp, faces critics," saying:

"....authorities ramped up moves to forcibly evacuate dozens of tent cities across the capital....After evicting some 7,000 people at the weekend (from the national stadium), the government began the forced removal of a further 10,000" from camps around the city, early steps preceding mass numbers to follow, ahead of preparing the area for redevelopment.

One camp member said he was given a week to leave for Tabarre Issa, a UN camp where there are "No toilets, no showers....there's nothing there."

On April 11, Reuters reported that "Haiti starts moving quake victims to safer refuge," saying:

"Haiti's government and foreign aid agencies started an operation....to move thousands of earthquake survivors," on the pretext of sending them to safer areas ahead of seasonal rains that cause flooding.

On April 29, Los Angeles Times writer Ken Ellingwood headlined, "Tensions rise over Haiti tent camps," saying:

Tensions are "playing out at stadiums, in churchyards and factory lots, almost anywhere there is enough land to pitch a tent. (Authorities face) the tricky task of balancing the needs of more than a million homeless with the urge of many others to resume a more normal life," ignoring the real "urge" for imperial plunder.

Haiti's constitution recognizes the rights of all citizens to "decent housing, education, food and social security."

The "United Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement....reflect and are consistent with international human rights law and international humanitarian law." They:

-- assure "full equality, the same rights and freedoms under international and domestic law as do other persons in their country. They shall not be discriminated against in the enjoyment of any rights and freedoms on the ground that they are internally displaced;

-- shall be observed by all authorities....;

-- (assure) protection and humanitarian assistance from these authorities....without discrimination of any kind....;

-- (guarantee) "the right to be protected against forcible return to or resettlement in any place where their life, safety, liberty, and/or health would be at risk," among other provisions, 30 in all recognizing the needs of displaced people when they're most vulnerable.

TransArica Forum Alert

On April 12, Transafricaforum.org issued a memorandum headlined "Forced IDP Relocations," saying:

"Throughout our network of contacts (on the ground in Haiti), we received a report of a forceful removal of an IDP camp in Caradeux Delas 75, Port-au-Prince. The exact number affected isn't yet known....all reported a complete lack of latrines....no water sources....and no food distributions.

The Refugee Camp community members reported that they did not receive warning before the large Conseil Nationale Equipements (CNE) bulldozers and graters came to their community with Haitian National Police escorts late on Sunday evening (April 4)....threaten(ing) the families with violence if they did not leave their home immediately."

Batons were used, firearms discharged in the air, and their homes were destroyed, by officers, then bulldozers. The process continued for three days and nights. Where those displaced were sent isn't known. The only answer given was they're "now living on the streets."

Around 1.2 million Haitians remain in makeshift tent cities throughout Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas with little aid or concern for their welfare or safety. Now in preparation for redevelopment, hundreds of thousands, perhaps all, will be ordered to move or be forcibly displaced to even grimmer locations, on their own, with little beyond their own ingenuity to survive.

This is Washington's imperial plan, being implemented for exploitation and plunder. This writer's previous article explained Haiti is no stranger to adversity and anguish, having endured over 500 years of oppression, slavery, despotism, colonization, reparations, embargoes, sanctions, extreme poverty, starvation, unrepayable debt, and calamities like the January 12 quake killing around 300,000, destroying their homes and belongings, and leaving them vulnerable to imperial plunder of their land, resources and lives - again, on their own, out of luck, and out of major media focus that ignores the greater disaster awaiting them, and the trashing of their human rights and freedoms.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

Food Self-Sufficiency for Haiti

Haiti is a perfect example of how globalism and free-trade policies wreck whole countries. How could little Haiti - long a producer of enough rice to feed her own people with some left over for export - compete with low-cost subsidized rice from abroad? Developing countries like Haiti have to have protectionism policies that shield them from unfair foreign competition, otherwise all local agriculture and manufacturing will wither on the vine. That's how Alexander Hamilton set up the American System of economy to break free from the economic shackles imposed by Great Britain, the 'Mother Country'. The policy for Haiti has to be ; "No cheap imports!" That will allow for the development of Hatian agricultlure and economy. Globalism and free trade should be exposed for what they truly are - velvet gloved genocide, without the velvet. The best part of this article of Bill Clinton's confession that it was he, as President, who ruined Haiti's agriculture.


Boost Haiti's Self-Sufficiency by "Buying Local" Rice
07 April 2010
by: The Center for Economic and Policy Research
Washington, D.C. - The international community could, in the words of former President Bill Clinton, help Haiti "become more self-sufficient" by purchasing the entire Haitian rice crop over the next two years for just 2.35 percent of total current committed aid funds. A new issue brief from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) finds that buying up all of Haiti's rice should be close to the amount of food aid for rice that the international community is likely to provide this year, and would provide a tremendous boost to Haitian farmers, who currently are unable to compete with low-cost rice imports from the U.S.
"The international donors have said that they do not want to repeat the mistakes of the past, which have destroyed much of Haiti's agriculture," said Mark Weisbrot, economist and CEPR Co-Director, and lead author of the paper. "It would be very easy and inexpensive for them to keep this promise. Now we will see if they mean it."
There has been a growing recognition that past food aid to Haiti has had a significant negative impact on local food production and contributed to the sharp decline of Haiti's rice sector. Last month, Bill Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that exporting cheap rice to Haiti "was a mistake … I had to live everyday with the consequences of the loss of capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people because of what I did."
The paper notes that while there is much that can and should be done to support Haitian agriculture and the rebuilding of the economy, it is most important to immediately reduce the harm caused by imported, subsidized rice. The authors propose that this can be done by having the international community immediately commit to buying Haitian rice for the next two years. Since food aid was 13 percent of the total rice supply last year, and Haitian rice production is about 15 percent of total supply, buying up all of Haiti's rice would be close to the amount of food aid for rice that the international community would be expected to provide this year.
The paper also suggests the aid donors buy the rice at a price that is high enough to encourage local production. Even though this would have to be somewhat higher than an average of past years' market prices, the cost would only be between $62.1million and $82.8 million per year. Since international donors have committed $5.3 billion in aid for the next 18 months, or $3.53 billion annually, the cost of buying Haiti's rice crop would be only 1.76 to 2.35 percent of committed international aid funds.
Since there are funds allocated to bringing in a similar amount of rice in any case, the additional cost of buying the Haitian rice crop would actually be considerably less than the high estimate of $82.8 million, or 2.35 percent of committed funds.
On March 25, former President Clinton and UN special envoy to Haiti told representatives of aid groups: "Every time we spend a dollar in Haiti from now on we have to ask ourselves, 'Does this have a long-term return? Are we helping them become more self-sufficient? ... Are we serious about working ourselves out of a job?"
CEPR maintains a blog, "Haiti: Relief and Reconstruction Watch" that tracks the multinational Haiti relief and reconstruction efforts with an eye towards ensuring that they are oriented toward the most urgent and important needs of the Haitian people, and that aid is not used to undermine Haitians' right to self-

How the US Impoverished Haiti

The following article give a brief, ie incomplete, history of the economic crisis in Haiti up til 2003. Things have only worsened since then. The earthquake of January 12 dealt the crushing blow. The article makes clear the culpability and responsibility of not just France, but of the United States in whose sphere of influence Haiti lies.

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How the US Impoverished Haiti

http://politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/9249

Author’s update: The horrific disaster that has befallen Haiti is perhaps unprecedented in the Western Hemisphere. Estimates now say that perhaps hundreds of thousands have died as a result of the Jan. 12 earthquake. The media have constantly recited, as a mantra, that Haiti’s weak infrastructure and poor quality of construction account for the large number of deaths. The implication is that Haitians are unable to govern and build a reliable, sustainable society. The truth of the matter is that, left to their own efforts, Haitians would have been more than able to build a reliable democracy with adequate infrastructure. But they have never been allowed to do so – not by Europe and certainly not by the United States. The article below was written in 2003. It attempts to describe how Haiti has been by design maintained as the most impoverished nation in our hemisphere. Contact your congressional representatives and urge them to move Congress to increase aid to Haiti. For more on direct aid and action, go to Haitiaction.net.
Like this earthquake victim, Haiti has been crushed under U.S. exploitation and debt for most of its existence. Though the demand by Haiti for reparations from France is just, it obscures the role the United States played in the process to impoverish Haiti – a role that continues to this day. Today Haiti is a severely indebted country whose debt-to-export ratio is nearly 300 percent, far above what is considered sustainable even by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Both institutions are dominated by the U.S. In 1980 Haiti’s debt was $302 million. Since then it has more than tripled to $1.1 billion, approximately 40 percent of the nation’s gross national product. Last year Haiti paid more in debt service than it did on medical services for the people. Haitian officials say nearly 80 percent of the current debt was accumulated by the regimes of Francois and Jean-Claude Duvalier, Papa Doc and Baby Doc. Both regimes operated under the benign gaze of the United States that has had a long and sordid history of keeping Haiti well within its sphere of economic and political influence. It is now well known that the primary source of Haiti’s chronic impoverishment is the reparations it was forced to pay to the former plantation owners who left following the 1804 revolution. Some of the white descendants of the former plantation owners, who now live in New Orleans, still have the indemnity coupons issued by France. So in fact, at least part of the reparations paid by Haiti went toward the development of the United States. In 1825 Haiti was forced to borrow 24 million francs from private French banks to begin paying off the crippling indemnity debt. Haiti only acknowledged this debt in exchange for French recognition of her independence, a principle that would continue to characterize Haiti’s international relationships. These indemnity payments caused continual financial emergencies and political upheavals. In a 51-year period, Haiti had 16 different presidents – new presidents often coming to power at the head of a rebel army.
Nevertheless, Haiti always made the indemnity payments – and, following those, the bank loan payments – on time. The 1915 intervention by the Marines on behalf of U.S. financial interests changed all of that, however. The prelude to the 1915 U.S. intervention began in 1910 when the National Bank of Haiti, founded in 1881 with French capital and entrusted from the start with the administration of the Haitian treasury, disappeared. It was replaced by the financial institution known as the National Bank of the Republic of Haiti. Part of the capital of the new national bank was subscribed by the National City Bank of New York, signaling, for the first time, U.S. interest in the financial affairs of Haiti. The motivation for the original U.S. financial interest in Haiti was the schemes of several U.S. corporations with ties to National City Bank to build a railroad system there. In order for these corporations – including the W.R. Grace Corp. – to protect their investments, they pressured President Woodrow Wilson and his secretary of state, William Jennings Bryan, to find ways to stabilize the Haitian economy, namely by taking a controlling interest in the Haitian custom houses, the main source of revenue for the government. After Secretary of State Bryan was fully briefed on Haiti by his advisers, he exclaimed, “Dear me, think of it! Niggers speaking French.” Ironically, however, Bryan, a longtime anti-imperialist, was against any exploitative relationship between the U.S. and Haiti or any other nation in the Western Hemisphere. In fact he had long called for canceling the debts of smaller nations as a means by which they could normally grow and develop. Not surprisingly, Bryan’s views were not well received in Washington or on Wall Street. Due to the near total ignorance at the State Department and in Washington generally about Haiti, Bryan was forced to rely on anyone who had first hand information. That person turned out to be Roger L. Farnham, one of the few people thoroughly familiar with Haitian affairs.
Farnham was thoroughly familiar with Haitian affairs because he was vice-president of the National City Bank of New York and of the new National Bank of the Republic of Haiti and president of the National Railway of Haiti. In spite of the secretary of state’s hostility to Wall Street and Farnham’s obvious conflict of interest, Bryan leaned heavily on Farnham for information and advice. As vice president of both National City Bank and the National Bank of the Republic of Haiti, Farnham played a cat and mouse game with the Haitian legislature and president. Alternately, he would threaten direct U.S. intervention or to withhold government funds if they did not turn over control of the Haitian custom houses to National City Bank. In defense of Haitian independence, lawmakers refused at every juncture. Finally, in 1914, with the outbreak of World War I, Farnham was able to convince Washington that France and Germany posed direct threats to the U.S. by their presence in Haiti. Each had a small colony of business people there. In December of 1914, Farnham arranged for the U.S. Marines to come ashore at Port Au Prince, march into the new National Bank of Haiti and steal two strongboxes containing $500,000 in Haitian currency and sail to New York, where the money was placed in New York City Bank. This made the Haitian government totally dependent on Farnham for finances with which to operate. The final and immediate decision to intervene in Haiti came in July of 1915 with yet another overthrow of a Haitian president, this time the bloody demise of Vilbrun Guillaume Sam. For the next 19 years, the U.S. Marine Corps wielded supreme authority throughout Haiti, often dispensing medicines and food as mild forms of pacification. Within several years, however, charges of massacres of Haitian peasants were made against the military as Haitians revolted against the road building programs that required forced labor. In one such incident at Fort Reviere, the Marines killed 51 Haitians without sustaining any casualties themselves. Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt awarded Major Smedley D. Butler the Congressional Medal of Honor. That’s not unlike the awarding of Medals of Honor to the “heroes” of the massacre at Wounded Knee, in which hundreds of Sioux Native Americans were slaughtered in 1890.
Reports of U.S. military abuses against the Haitians became so widespread that NAACP official James Weldon Johnson headed a delegation to investigate the charges, which they deemed to be true. While the U.S. occupation was not without some successes – the health care system was improved and the currency was stabilized – it was in other economic spheres where the most damage was done. For the entire 19-year duration of the intervention, maximum attention was given to paying off Haiti’s U.S. creditors, with little to no attention given to developing the economy. In 1922 former Marine Brigade Commander John Russell was named High Commissioner of Haiti, a post he held until the final days of the occupation. Under Russell’s influence, all political dissent was stifled and revenue from the custom houses was turned over, often months ahead of schedule, to Haiti’s U.S. bond creditors, who had assumed loans originally extended to Haiti to pay off the French plantation owners’ reparations! By 1929, however, with the Western world’s economic depression and the lowering of living standards throughout Haiti, serious student strikes and worker revolts, combined with Wall Street’s inability to lure serious business investors there, Washington decided it was time to end the military occupation. When then President Franklin D. Roosevelt visited Haiti in 1934 to announce the pullout, he was the first head of a foreign nation in Haiti’s history to extend a visit. Despite the American military pullout, U.S. financial administrators continued to dominate the Haitian economy until the final debt on the earlier loans was retired in 1947. Soon after the U.S. withdrew from Haiti, a Black consciousness movement of sorts took hold that was the precursor of the “negritude” movement popularized by Aimee Cesaire and Leopold Senghor. Francois Duvalier, an early believer in “negritude,” came to power in the late 1950s, popularizing ideas that resonated with a population that had withstood a white foreign occupation for many years.
By the time Duvalier grabbed the presidency of the world’s first Black republic established by formerly enslaved peoples, Haiti had experienced more than 150 years of chronic impoverishment and discriminatory lending policies by the world’s leading financial institutions and powers. The economic forecast for Haiti has not improved, even with the democratic election of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, since he has been consistently demonized in the U.S. and world press. --Jean Damu is the former western regional representative for N’COBRA, National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America, and a former member of the International Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, taught Black Studies at the University of New Mexico, has traveled and written extensively in the Caribbean and Africa and currently serves as a member of the Steering Committee of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration. Email him at jdamu2@yahoo.com. This story first appeared in the San Francisco Bay View in 2003.
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Mahdi Ibn-Ziyad, Ph.D., Adjunct Professor Philosophy/Religion & Graduate Liberal StudiesRutgers University, Camden, NJRutgers @ Atlantic Cape Community College, Mays Landing, NJziyad@camden.rutgers.eduHonors History Teacher, Camden High School Social Studies, Dept.Chair, PAC/Fundraisers, Camden Education AssociationCEA Rep. District Curriculum and Professional Development Committeesmibnziyad@camden.k12.nj.usHome address:
Box 1906 Camden, NJ 08101; cell 856.655.9488; ibnziyadd@aol.com------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Frederick Douglass' "Philosophy Born of Struggle", 1857"Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of struggle. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one ... but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without demand. It never did and it never will".

Three Presidents in Haiti (video)

So what are they there to do? Are they the solution or the problem?

What exactly is the Obama plan for the rebuilding of Haiti?

The handshake ?

Maybe it's the Haitian people who should be cleaning off their hands

of the Bush-Clinton slime!

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Clintons Rape Haiti

Remember when we were all perplexed over the appointment of the first black President,Bill Clinton, by the second black President, Barrack Obama, (along with George W Bush), to oversee the Haitian relief effort being mounted by the US government?

Why would Mr Obama do such a thing?

Well, according to a Mr Pumphrey, it's all about the hundreds of millions of Haitian dollars that ends up in the pockets of the Clintons from the privatization of the Haitian phone system.

Did Obama know about that?

What else don't we know about related to the continuing rape of Haiti?

Check out the interview below for the details,

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Clinton Family Pockets Haiti Assets in Telephone Company Privatization, Says Pumphrey
by Glen FordA Black Agenda Radio interview by Glen Ford

Backed by the might of the United States military and their own official positions, the Clinton power couple plus brother-in-law have muscled themselves into the Haitian telephone monopoly. This cozy public-private partnership poses huge conflicts of interest, says Paul Pumphrey, of Brothers and Sisters International – and robs the Haitian people of hundreds of millions in revenues a year. But then, that's what empires are for, isn't it?
Interview, click here:

http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/clinton-family-pockets-haiti-assets-telephone-company-privatization-says-pumphrey

Report From Haiti

4 March 2010

Report from Haiti

(excerpts from a letter to the Hon Minister Louis Farrakhan)

What I expected to do was to go to Haiti and be able to come back with some clear ideas about what to do and how to proceed. Actually, going to Haiti and working for 8 days literally blew my mind. I was not prepared for what I saw. The destruction of property in Haiti is nearly total in the Port au Prince area. All but the most modern buildings are destroyed. One third are reduced to rubble heaps, another third are collapsed and another third are still standing but structurally damaged. I believe less than 1/10^th of the buildings will be salvageable. There is very little heavy machinery available to remove the debris and people are picking through the rubble with bare hands. They are looking for bodies, and personal belongings that have been lost, including money.

The Haitian people are in shock. They are deeply wounded –physically and in spirit. The whole nation is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, as it is now called. Nobody knows the true death toll. It is probably close to half a million. It will continue to rise with the onset of the rainy season. The worst could be ahead of us. Hundreds of thousands are injured and many are permanently disabled and unable to work to earn a living. Many are now amputees in need of physical therapy and rehabilitation, which is not available. There are hundreds of thousands of orphaned children who have no support, no education, or even a place to live.

I worked at a makeshift orphanage on the last day I was there. There were 83 orphans there who had been orphans before the quake. They had lived in 3 separate orphanages that collapsed in the quake. Out of 300 – 400 orphans only these 83 survived. The make shift orphanage was in a cleared out junkyard, with one large yellow tent and several smaller ones. A ‘kitchen’ of sorts was set up in an old rusted out truck bed. I did medical exams and set up a tetanus clinic to try and prevent tetanus (lock-jaw), which is epidemic in Haiti. The children were running around barefoot on broken glass and metal.

Nearly everybody in Port au Prince is homeless. They live in contrived ‘shelters’ made of pieces of plastic and whatever they can find in so-called ‘tent cities’. Only there are hardly any tents. One of biggest needs as the rainy season begins – there are already heavy downpours and flooding- is for tents and other temporary shelters. At least 200,000 tents are needed right away. The Rotary Club has a campaign to get tents into Haiti – they shipped 2000 that I know of.

Most of the people in Port au Prince need to be relocated. They were tricked into leaving their rural homes in the first place under the Clinton Administration. An ‘interpretation’ was made that they could earn more gold for their labor in sweat shops set up in Port au Prince. My understanding is that Haiti was to be made into the new Taiwan – cheap labor for producing export goods. For the most part that never materialized – just like the promises made to Haiti down through history by other American Presidents have never been kept. From Washington, to Lincoln, to FDR, to Obama, they have all been liars when it came to Haiti.

The most vulnerable Haitians should be evacuated to the United States where they can receive the kind of help they need and deserve. Others need to be relocated to other locations inside Haiti – to higher ground to escape the flooding.

The rainy season presents mortal danger to tens of thousands of highly vulnerable and weakened people living in intensely over-crowded conditions. There is no sewage treatment in Haiti. There is no clean up in the makeshift camps. The floodwaters will carry disease far and wide – malaria, typhus, cholera, dengue fever, etc. Many will die unless they are evacuated as soon as possible. It will take many years to rebuild the city and the homes for the people to live in.

There is much Haitian history to learn. And there are all of the political, economic, and cultural issues that are relevant as well. However, I will leave those issues to the scholars who know about such things. We had plenty of scholars on hand at the workshop at Saviour’s Day. While I enjoyed their presentations and learned a lot, to me, in an ongoing crisis emergency like the one in Haiti, everything done has to have a practical survival value. I don’t think the Haitian people need more rhetoric.

It is crucial to recognize the important things that must be done or lives will be lost needlessly. The fact of it is that the magnitude of the tragedy is not due to the earthquake itself, but to the on-going policies of the United States, France and other nations toward Haiti. Hundreds of thousands are dead due to bad and immoral policy.

It is true that the Haitian government has been dysfunctional in this crisis. But when I saw the utter destruction of the National Palace, the symbol of Haitian independence, and the other government buildings, it is clear why the Haitian government’s response is lacking. The government has been crushed. How many government workers are dead or mortally wounded, homeless? Certainly, their documents, equipment and work places no longer exist. There is no communication infrastructure. The government has to be re-organized if that is possible. How long will that take? The US military – along with the UN- has taken over, and is the de facto government. Entrée into or out of Haiti is controlled by the US military.

What role do I see for the Nation of Islam in Haiti? Frankly, I don’t really know. What is needed physically is beyond the physical resources that we have. Adoption of orphans would help. What is needed is the rebuilding of the country from the ground up. What is needed for Haiti is covered in point No. 4 of What the Muslims Want. Maybe our role is a political one – to get the US government to do by Haiti what is required by all that is moral and decent to rectify past injustices that have now been amplified by the devastation of the earthquake.

The government of the United States should:

Undertake an immediate evacuation of perhaps as many as 1 million Haitians to safety and security in Haiti and elsewhere

Undertake the establishment of temporary shelter communities out of the flood plain of Port au Prince

Undertake the building of basic infrastructure in Haiti: roads, ports, sewage and water treatment, and electricity

Undertake the reforestation of Haiti and environmental remediation

Undertake the rebuilding of Port au Prince and other areas, and even the construction of new cities

Undertake the redevelopment of agriculture and industry to reestablish a viable Haitian economy

Undertake to support education and training of the Haitian people

Undertake to immediately dismiss the so-called ‘debt’

Undertake to immediately investigate the more than 10,000 NGO’s - some of which are corrupt and have exploited Haiti’s poverty to their own advantage

Undertake an investigation into the literal enslavement of children and others in Haiti

Undertake to work through the thousands of Haitian-American organizations in the diaspora on behalf of Haiti as a whole

And finally,

To disavow any US interest or intention to expropriate Haiti oil, gold, uranium and other natural and human resources and to investigate the possibility that the US military triggered the earthquake from the HAARP facility in Alaska

The recent discovery of vast oil reserves under the Port au Prince harbor, if developed for the benefit of Haiti, is more than sufficient to elevate Haiti’s economic status and pay for the rebuilding efforts. But the thieves must be held at bay.

Floods Hit Haiti

Haiti is now at the beginning of the rainy season when torrential rains produce yearly floods and mud-slides. This year as a result of the 7.0 magnitude quake that struck January 12, the risk of death during this rainy season has risen to incalculable levels. With at least 1.5 million homeless there is no doubt that unless large scale evacuations are mounted right now, the death toll in Haiti will rise dramatically. Already 13 have died since the rains have begun. Without proper sewage treatment and drainage epidemic disease will soon be raging through the refugee shelter camps that are housing the homeless in less than sanitary and healthy conditions.

Haiti needs at least 200,000 tents and a massive evacuations of the most vulnerable immediately.



Quake-torn Haiti hit by floods
Heavy rain has caused flooding in Haiti, killing at least 13 and trapping people in their homes and cars
Heavy rain has caused flooding in Haiti, killing at least 13 people as swollen rivers forced people on to roofs and trapped people in cars and homes.
With 1.3 million homeless and many living in makeshift camps with little or no sanitation as a result of January's earthquake, aid agencies have warned of another humanitarian disaster as the rainy season looms.
Several towns and villages in southern Haiti have been flooded since Saturday, a spokesman for the civil emergency unit said. UN troops and Haitian police moved 500 prisoners from a jail in Les Cayes as 1.5 metres of water swamped the coastal city. Witnesses said houses collapsed and people fled for high ground.
"At one point, people had to climb on the roofs of their homes," Joseph Yves-Marie Aubourg, the government's representative in the region, told Reuters. Five people died when their car was carried away, and others on foot were swept away in the torrent.
Les Cayes largely escaped the 12 January quake which devastated Port-au-Prince and killed more than 220,000, according to government figures. Its population was swollen by families fleeing the capital.
The government, the UN, and aid agencies have all raised the alarm about the rainy season, which starts in March or April and continues until autumn.
The scale of Haiti's catastrophe means that even a huge relief effort has not provided adequate shelter to hundreds of thousands of people. There are 415 temporary settlements housing roughly 550,000 quake survivors, according to the Organisation of International Migration. Others are living in rubble or with relatives.
The UN aims to provide every family with two plastic tarpaulins by 1 May. So far about 40% of the 1.3 million in need have received tents, tarpaulins or shelter toolkits, according to the Red Cross. Even if the UN reaches its target, rains could turn camps into disease-ridden swamps.
Already the stench of human waste is overpowering at settlements like Saint-Louis de Gonzague, which has one portable toilet for 10,000 people. Doctors have reported widespread cases of diarrhoea, abdominal pain, fever and infections. The big fears are cholera and typhoid.
It took just a few hours of rain one night last month to turn some Port-au-Prince camps into muddy quagmires. The rainy season brings tropical torrents and, from summer, hurricanes.
Nature's deadline has prompted the authorities to try to thin the makeshift camps by registering families whose homes can be swiftly repaired and rebuilt. Others will be encouraged to move in with relatives or friends.

Has the US Military Occupied Haiti?

The following video details exactly what I saw with my own eyes while on the ground in Haiti. US and UN troops in control of the airports and the streets of Haiti, while ignoring the plight of the Haitian people. They are acting like an occupying force that has taken over the government of Haiti without declaring that to be so. They are turning away aid trying to enter the country. I saw them guarding banks - not delivering food or other aid. The aid is piling up at the airport surrounded by military and razor wire. What's going on? We deserve answers and the Haitian people deserve help.

Was the US Earthquake Weapon Used on Haiti?

The writer of this blog has long contended that the earthquake in Haiti may not have been a natural event. There is substantial evidence that the 7.0 quake that struck Haiti, killing over 300,000 and wounding many, many more, was a military action, some say by the United States. The Japanese, who have a avid interest in watching out for such acts, having been victimized themselves, detected the signal from the HAARP array in Alaska which may have triggered the Haiti quake 2 days later. What about the Chile quake of 8.8 magnitude? Was it man-made too? Are we now in the era of earthquake warfare? If so, who are the players and what are the stakes? Below is an interview of former Secretary of Defense William Cohen who talks about the reality of such things. Enjoy. Learn. Share.

1997 DoD Briefing: 'Others' can set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely using electromagnetic waves --By Lori Price, www.legitgov.org 28 Feb 2010

DoD News Briefing

Presenter: Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen April 28, 1997 8:45 AM EDT

DoD News Briefing: Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen

Q: Let me ask you specifically about last week's scare here in Washington, and what we might have learned from how prepared we are to deal with that (inaudible), at B'nai Brith.

A: Well, it points out the nature of the threat. It turned out to be a false threat under the circumstances. But as we've learned in the intelligence community, we had something called -- and we have James Woolsey here [*puke*] to perhaps even address this question about phantom moles. The mere fear that there is a mole within an agency can set off a chain reaction and a hunt for that particular mole which can paralyze the agency for weeks and months and years even, in a search. The same thing is true about just the false scare of a threat of using some kind of a chemical weapon or a biological one. There are some reports, for example, that some countries have been trying to construct something like an Ebola Virus [OMG! Who would do such a thing?], and that would be a very dangerous phenomenon, to say the least. Alvin Toeffler has written about this in terms of some scientists in their laboratories trying to devise certain types of pathogens that would be ethnic specific so that they could just eliminate certain ethnic groups and races; and others [LOL] are designing some sort of engineering, some sort of insects that can destroy specific crops. Others are engaging even in an eco- type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves.'

Just switch 'yours,' 'others' and 'they' with 'U.S.,' 'U.S.' and 'U.S.' This was in 1997. Imagine, after eight years of George W. Bush turbo-funding these lunatics, with no end to funding in sight... what they can do now. Oh, BTW. See, also, the list of dead scientists.

The most fascinating might be the Harvard scientist, Dr. Don C Wiley, 'one of the foremost infectious disease researchers' in the United States, who 'got dizzy' and his car fell off a bridge in Memphis, TN.

The bridge where his car was found is only a five-minute drive away and in the wrong direction from where he was staying, leaving authorities with a four-hour, unexplained gap until his vehicle was found. Now Memphis police are exploring several theories involving suicide, robbery and murder.

That's just a 'we-know-we're-f*cking-with-you-and-there's-not-a-damned-thing-you-can-do-about-it' assassination that any detective on 'Law & Order: Criminal Intent' could wrap up in the first half-hour of the episode.

High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program 27 Feb 2010 The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) is an ionospheric research program jointly funded by the US Air Force, the US Navy, the University of Alaska and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Its purpose is to analyze the ionosphere and investigate the potential for developing ionospheric enhancement technology for radio communications and surveillance purposes (such as missile detection). The HAARP program operates a major Arctic facility, known as the HAARP Research Station, on an Air Force owned site near Gakona, Alaska. The most outstanding instrument at the HAARP Station is the Ionospheric Research Instrument (IRI), a high power transmitter facility operating in the high frequency range. The IRI is used to temporarily excite a limited area of the ionosphere... As of 2008, HAARP had incurred around $250 million in tax-funded construction and operating costs.

Click here for full DoD News Transcript.
Credit to Samantha G. on Faceboook for unearthing this briefing.

Permanent URL for this article: http://legitgov.org/DoD_1997_set_off_earthquakes_280210.html

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Utter and Total Destruction in Haiti

In this short video is revealed the devastating damage done to the heart of Port au Prince in Haiti. It partially answers why the Haitian government did not respond quickly to the disaster as many expected. It shows the total destruction that can not be overcome through mere relief aid by NGO's. It shows clearly that a massive international effort of rebuilding over a prolonged period of time is required. Otherwise many more people will die. The fate of Haiti hangs now in the balance of what the world community decides to do. We have the power and the means in our hands to save. Or we can choose to add the tragedy of human indifference to the destructive nature of the 7.0 earthquake that struck on January 12, 2010.

Relocate One Million Haitians Before the Rains

LaRouche Calls For Emergency Measures To Relocate A Million Haitians Before The Rainy Season Hits
Lyndon LaRouche
2-23-10

(LPAC)-Lyndon LaRouche issued an urgent call for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to work with the Haitian government to help relocate up to a million Haitians, now homeless and living amid the rubble of shattered Port-au-Prince in the aftermath of the Jan. 12 earthquake that killed some 300,000 Haitians.

The immediate emergency, LaRouche noted, is that the rainy season is upon us, and under current conditions, Port-au-Prince within a month or two will be subjected to floods, hit by mudslides, and become inundated in deadly sewage from the 1.5 million people who are now homeless and destitute in that city. These people have been forced to live in the streets and slums under ramshackle pieces of plastic, and amid human excrement that is not being removed-because there is no ability to do so, nor even a place to take it.

Even before the earthquake, Haiti-long the victim of the globalization and free trade policies of London-centered financial predators-did not have a single sewage treatment plant.

If we do not act, LaRouche stressed, Haiti will soon face conditions in which dengue, cholera, malaria, typhoid and other epidemics will spread, with devastating consequences. Haiti is the image of what awaits all of humanity under the current, bankrupt British-imperial international financial system: it is the face of the New Dark Age. We must stop it in Haiti, if we are to have the moral fitness to survive on this planet.

To prevent another wave of mass deaths and total national disintegration, a bilateral treaty agreement between the United States and Haiti should be promptly reached to evacuate up to a million people from this potentially deadly situation into the United States on an interim basis, and possibly into inland parts of Haiti as well. Under a reasonable Presidency, the U.S. can mobilize the capacity to do that, and we can further use our military capacity, through the Army Corps of Engineers, to either rebuild semi-permanent housing, or reopen military bases with barracks, including those shut down under the BRAC commission.

Full reconstruction in Haiti will take up to 25 years, LaRouche has pointed out, but in the short term it is possible to build new relocation camps and even cities outside of Port-au-Prince, where the essentials of life can be provided: food, water, sanitation, a roof over their heads, and sufficient energy and electricity to make all this possible. Even under a dysfunctional, impeachable President Obama, the United States must act, and act quickly, LaRouche stated.

In his Jan. 30 international webcast, LaRouche responded to a question about Haiti, saying that the United States has to take the kind of approach that Presidents like Lincoln and Roosevelt did:

"You cannot apply a band-aid to Haiti. And you can not bring in many other countries, because the objective is, if the country is going to be viable, coming out of this mess, you have to have a sovereign Haiti. So, the contract has to be essentially, a United States treaty agreement, a treaty agreement to re-establish the efficient sovereignty of the nation of Haiti, after the destructive effect of this and preceding difficulties...

"[Haiti] is a small nation, of people who have been subjected to all kinds of terrible history; who have been promised this, and betrayed, and promised that, and betrayed, and promised and betrayed. Never delivered. It's in a group of national territories which has also tended to be somewhat of a mess, in one way or the other. So, therefore, it's a model approach: We make a contract with the government, as a treaty agreement, between the United States and Haiti, to assure the rebuilding of their country, in a form in which it will actually be a functioning country which can survive."

Haiti Kanaval 2010

This video somewhat captures the spirit of 'Haiti Kanaval Past'. The Earthquake of 2010 has changed the joy and mirthfulness seen here to somber mourning and a careful, but hopeful expectation for a rebuilt Haiti in the future. One sign of recovery for Haiti will be the regained ability to celebrate Haiti Kanaval in the old way again. That may be a long way off.

In Haiti, Carnival is Replaced by Mourning
Monday 15 February 2010
by: Jacqueline Charles

The Miami Herald
It is a manifestation of the Haitian spirit, the enduring buoyancy and optimism that has guided Haiti for more than 200 years.
For as long as anyone can remember, carnival or kanaval has taken place. Until this year. Haiti carnival has now become a wake.
As quake-struck Haitians ended three days of national mourning and fasting Sunday, the satirical drumbeats of the traditional "meringues" ridiculing politicians and rivaling musicians that would have marked the beginning of the three-day carnival have been silenced.
They have been replaced with strings of sorrow, and cries to rise from the rubble and move forward -- avanse -- as Haiti continues to mourn its 200,000-plus dead: fallen artists, struggling neighbors, loving family, inspiring leaders.
Carnival would have ended Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday.
"Is Haiti finished? I say, No, No. We have to rise again," Miami-based T-Vice sings in Nou Pap Lage (We Won't Give Up). "Don't be discouraged. I have faith, I have hope, the Haitian people will find victory. Together we shall overcome."
If Haiti's pre-Lent colorful street party has always been the barometer of the Caribbean nation's ailing temperatures, then its cancellation by the government is a sign that the country barely has a pulse. Even if the spirit is willing, Haitians in Miami and on the island say the heart is just too crushed to cooperate.
"Are we broken? Yes," said Eric Gaillard, a devoted carnival reveler who captured on video the horror and screams of a collapsing capital from the balcony of his house in Port-au-Prince's Pacot residential neighborhood. "The worst: there is no leadership. The government is not providing strong guidelines. It's not giving us a vision of hope, saying 'Haitian people, Port-au-Prince is destroyed, we are going to construct again. We have a plan, be patient with us.'"
Just as reggae and rhythm and blues artists have recorded tributes chronicling the destruction and despair following the Jan. 12, 7.0-magnitude earthquake, so have many Haitian artists.
Instead of preparing to perform live on the Champs de Mars, they are releasing their songs on iTunes, posting them on Facebook and YouTube and handing them to Haitian deejays to fill the airwaves -- and to help raise money for charities.
The dark cloud cast by the quake stretches from the empty carnival viewing stands lining the rubble-strewn streets of downtown Port-au-Prince to the empty dance halls of Miami, quieted since the quake.
"I don't think anybody's heart is on the music," Michel Martelly, Haiti's charismatic konpa king best known to fans as Sweet Micky, said from his Port-au-Prince home, where he and his wife Sophia were preparing to distribute food to the ravaged Bel-Air neighborhood, a stone's throw from the crumbled presidential palace.
"The dimension of this tragedy is beyond peoples' imagination."
In Miami when the earthquake struck and unable to reach his wife, Martelly grabbed son Olivier, called in Haitian-born rapper Black Dada and saxophonist Jowee Omicil to help him capture the dispiriting moment in song.
"From far, I see my peoples dying. From far, I hear the kids, they're crying. They have no place to go," Olivier sings in English as his famous father and Black Dada pipe in: "What's going on? Put your heads together. What's going on."
Trying to make sense of the tragedy, they sing, "Tell me what we did to end up like this....Show me a sign from above. All I want to do is stop this misery."
In recent days, Haiti's political and religious leaders have called on Haitians to be strong, put their heads together to build a new society.
Ironically, this year's carnival theme was "Building a New Path."
"It was the first time I had my carnival song ready a month early," said T-Vice lead singer Roberto Martino, who was in the group's Miami recording studio, minutes from recording his voice tracks, when word of the quake hit. "There was such a positive vibe before the quake, everything was moving forward in the country."
Like many, he can't recall ever a time when carnival was canceled. Not through the coup d'etats, perennial political unrest or economic hard times; not even in 2005, when musicians and fans were dodging bullets from warring thugs in front of the presidential palace.
"This is supposed to be the most festive time out of the whole year for the Haitian people; a time when they forget about their misery, forget about everything. Now, they have to think 100 times more about their problems," Martino said. "There is no tomorrow, no hope. That is how the people are looking at it now."
But even as life in Haiti seems to hopelessly stand still, musicians and instruments remain buried in the rubble, and the Champs de Mars bursts with tens of thousands of homeless rather than hundreds of thousands of revelers, some like Miami musician Ralph Cassagnol see a lining of hope. He ponders this year's carnival theme to which his group Mawon penned its carnival tune Avancé. The song, written a month before the quake, seems especially appropriate now as Haitians, battered and broken, look for deliverance in another kind of way.
"There's no time to talk. There's no time to play around. What's happened has happened. It's our time to move forward. We have a country to save," Mawon's seven-piece band sings. "Don't look back. There are no more tears left to cry."
"We've been through a lot of pain," Cassagnol said from Miami, where Mawon has been doing concert fundraisers to aid Haiti and plans to donate proceeds from the single to charities working to help Haitians recover.
"If we keep looking back we'll never move forward," he said. "We have to let the shedding of tears be done during the mourning period. Let's get that emotion out and move forward."
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The Haiti Interview on BlogTalkRadio - WBCN NETWORK

Last night I did a two hour interview with Dennis Speed on WBCN blog radio concerning Haiti. The show was called 'Everything Politics' and was listened to by over 338,000 people. It was a lengthy report of my recent visit to Haiti as a medical aid worker and as an observer with an eye towards what must be done to continue the needed relief efforts and the rebuilding of Haiti.

Click on the link below to hear the complete 2 hour show.

Enjoy. Learn. Share.

BlogTalkRadio - WBCN NETWORK