A-Infos (en) Ireland, Anarchist Workers Solidarity 114 - Haiti: Intervention and Imperialism by Andrew Flood

The horrific death toll from the earthquake in Haiti briefly focused the world’s attention 
on the plight of the Haitian people. The earthquake was a natural disaster coming on top 
of decades of human disasters imposed upon the people as its economy has been forced to 
transform to suit the needs of transnational corporations. This is the reason so many 
people were packed into substandard accommodation in Port-au-prince. ---- Those who want 
to turn all of Haiti into one vast low wage sweatshop have used the earthquake to advance 
their agenda. On the day it occurred, the US Heritage Foundation issued a statement 
arguing that "the U.S. response to the tragic earthquake in Haiti earthquake offers 
opportunities to re-shape Haiti’s long-dysfunctional government and economy."

There is a very long history of the US ‘re-shaping’ the Haitian economy in the interests 
of US corporations. This has taken the usual form of the carrot of IMF loans (conditional 
on Haiti raising prices for electricity and refusing pay increases) and the stick of 
military occupation. US troops have repeatedly invaded Haiti and occupied the country; the 
immediate response to the earthquake was to send thousands more troops to the country, as 
if it had been destroyed by a civil war rather than an earthquake. These occupations have 
then been used to dictate policy. In 2005 exiled president Jean-Bertrand Aristide told 
Naomi Klein how “Washington’s negotiators [demanded] the immediate selloff of Haiti’s 
state-owned enterprises, including phones and electricity” when sending troops to depose 
the military junta in 1994.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas today, with 70% of its population living on 
less than 2 dollars a day. Haitian workers in the garment sector, making clothes to be 
exported to the US, have been fighting for a minimum wage of five dollars a day. Yet the 
UN considered that even this miniscule minimum was too much. In a 2008 report released 
ahead of a parliamentary vote, it threatened that while clothing exports to the US could 
create hundreds of thousands of jobs "factories' overhead costs must be kept low." Haitian 
president Rene Preval refused to sign the minimum wage law in 2008, saying the workers 
should only receive three dollars a day! When 2000 workers protested the decision, he 
deployed police to use tear gas to disperse them.

At the same time workers are facing rising food prices due to the deliberate destruction 
of the domestic peasant agriculture that once allowed Haiti to be self-sufficient in 
staple foodstuffs. The World Bank development strategy had the goal of forcing the economy 
into “deeper market interdependence with the United States." In agriculture this meant 
shifting 30% of the arable land from food for local consumption to export cash crops. 
Haiti was also forced to allow rice from heavily subsidized US agriculture to be dumped in 
its domestic market, driving domestic producers out of business, after which prices 
started to rise. In the space of only 20 years these policies meant that Haiti shifted 
from being self-sufficient to being the third largest importer of US rice. In a similar 
fashion chicken and pork production was destroyed. These policies drove hundreds of 
thousands of peasants off the land and into the slums in the cities.

2008 saw a global rise in food prices, which resulted in riots in many poor countries 
including Haiti. In April of that year, Crowds chanting "We are hungry! He must go!" tried 
to storm the presidential palace demanding the resignation of President Rene Preval. They 
were attacked by Brazilian UN troops with assault rifles, tear gas and rubber bullets, 
killing several people and wounding dozens.

The people of Haiti will need ongoing support and solidarity in their attempts to 
reconstruct their country in the years to some and to prevent reoccurrences of events such 
as those outlined above.

Haiti Solidarity Ireland is a broad-based coalition to support Haitians in their struggle 
against foreign intervention and for an inclusive, democratic and equitable Haiti. We are 
organised on the principles of international solidarity and anti-imperialism and have 
branches in Cork and Dublin.

We call for the immediate departure of international troops from Haiti, and for aid and 
reconstruction efforts to be controlled by Haitians themselves through their unions nd 
community organisations. Haiti Solidarity Ireland can be contacted at 
http://haitisolidarity.wordpress.com/

For a more detailed exposition of Haiti sufferings under imperialism see
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/andrewnflood/haiti-history-slave-intervention-occupation-resistance
http://www.wsm.ie/story/6356
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