Pack of Lies about Haiti

AP can't stop lying about Haiti.

Haiti had a democratic government. The president of Haiti was a man named Jean-Bertrand Aristide who, besides being a priest who had worked with the poor for years, was legitimately elected. (The elections were legitimate according to everyone except the American government.)

By 2004, the Western powers had had enough of Aristide. He was raising corporate taxes, raising minimum wage and building hospitals and schools - especially medical schools - with the tiny amounts of extra taxes. This was unforgivable. It was causing a rise in the cost of Haitian labour and a rise in the cost of sugar. Corporate profits were at stake.

So the Canadian, French and American governments decided to have Aristide overthrown. They called it "Responsibility to Protect", which came with the clever acronym "R2P". R2P says, basically, that some people simply don't know how to run their own countries. R2P says that, when people democratically choose the wrong leaders, who propel them down the "wrong" path, we have the "responsibility" to "protect" them from their bad choices.

Bad choices include, especially, any intent to use tax money to improve the lot of citizens.

A generation or two ago, "R2P" was simply called "The White Man's Burden". All these silly, illiterate black and brown folk need us to take over their countries and show them how to be exploited ... er ... how to run their economies.

So the Americans exiled Aristide, closed the hospitals and took over the university as their barracks. We helped. So did the French. The people rioted when we tried to impose the rulership of the pro-business party, a party that had 5% of the vote in the last election. The rioting was put down by U.N. "peacekeepers" who declared that these were the vicious human-rights violating leftovers of the Aristide "regime". In actuality, they were the poor people who, after a century of Spanish and American occupation, had finally seen hope in Aristide.

Now look at the lies that the Associated Press continues to churn out. These people are eating dirt. Why? We subsidize our grain and tell them they can't subsidize their production. Then we sell our grain on their market and tell them they can't use tariffs. Free trade, y'know? So they can't make any money and what they do get leaves their country. And they eat dirt.

But AP would have you believe that "world food shortages" are the problem. What a ridiculous lie!

The protesters demand that the 9000 "peacekeepers" leave because they are blamed "in part" for the food shortage. They should be blamed in whole! Those peacekeepers, whom AP tells us "helped usher in a democratic transition", actually hold the status quo of starvation over the Haitian people. AP would have us believe that the protesters are a bunch of ignorant negro villagers lashing out in a stupid fashion when, in reality, they know exactly who is killing them: the international force that overrode - not "ushered in" - their democracy.

The article goes on to discuss Guy Phillipe, formerly Washington's hero in the "liberation" of Haiti, who is now wanted on drug charges. Oh, how fast Eurasia and Eastasia can be confused!

And, oh yes, the Western world "have focused too much on political stability without helping to alleviate poverty".

No. They've focused right where they wanted - on making Haiti in to a miserable, cheap labour market. Who cares how many people starve, as long as North Americans can buy three dollar t-shirts and gorge themselves on sugar until we're all obese diabetics.

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