The horrific squandering
of Haitian lives and earthquake relief and aid dollars by the occupying
powers over the past two years are direct consequences of previous
imperial crimes. “Since 2004, Haiti has been methodically stripped of
its sovereignty, made into a protectorate of the United Nations,” which
is merely a front for the United States. “The earthquake of January 2010
was a natural phenomenon that happened to take place while a rape was
in progress.”
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
“The United States has flexed every superpower muscle to prolong Haiti’s agony.”
In the American media,
Haiti is most often spoken of as a tragedy – when it is actually the
scene of horrific crimes, mainly perpetrated by the United States over
the span of two centuries. For the past two years, since the earthquake
that shook the life out of hundreds of thousands of already deeply
wounded people, the United States has flexed every superpower muscle to
prolong Haiti’s agony.
Half a million people are
still homeless, two years after the quake, despite the billions in
relief and recovery aid pledged by international donors. Sixty percent
of the rubble has yet to be removed from the capital and its suburbs,
and 6,000 people have died from a cholera epidemic brought into the
country by United Nations troops. The UN has still not seen fit to
apologize for being the vector of disease, because the UN is not
accountable to the people of Haiti – only to the United States. The
Americans used a huge chunk of their so-called aid money to reimburse themselves
for the cost of their military occupation of the country. Dead, dying,
sick, starving, homeless Haitians are made to pay for their own
imprisonment in their native land, while Washington gloats that it is
Haiti’s last, best hope, and that the catastrophic earthquake might have
been a good thing, a chance for a “new beginning” under Washington's
firm guidance.
Millions were spent to
choreograph crooked elections that brought to office a government with
no power, even less money, and not a shred of dignity – a puppet regime
held in absolute disrespect by its American puppeteers.
“Washington gloats that it is Haiti’s last, best hope, and that the catastrophic earthquake might have been a good thing.”
Meanwhile, Haiti’s most
popular political party remains, for all official purposes, an outlaw,
effectively banned from civic participation. The Haitian people are not
allowed to speak. And this is the heart of the crime, from which all the
grand and petty assaults on the Haitian nation, flow. This week’s
anniversary of the killer earthquake is full of morbid statistics on
physical destruction, death and disease, but the appalling numbers
cannot separate these two years of horror from the crimes that came
before: the isolation and armed extortion of Haiti by United States and
Europe following her 1804 victory against French slavery, leaving the
Black republic with a debt that was not paid off until the 1940s; the 26
separate invasions of Haiti by the United States from 1849 to 1915,
followed by a nearly 20-year occupation that lasted until 1934; and the
U.S. overthrow of Haiti's popularly elected president, Jean Bertrand
Aristide, in 2004, the 200th
anniversary of Haiti's independence. Since 2004, Haiti has been
methodically stripped of its sovereignty, made into a protectorate of
the United Nations, which is merely a front for the real rulers, the
United States and its junior partners, France and Canada.
The earthquake of January
2010 was a natural phenomenon that happened to take place while a rape
was in progress. The rapists in Washington take their greatest pleasure
in Haiti's degradation. Haiti needs nothing from the United States,
except to be left alone, as a free nation in the world, to make friends
as it chooses. It is not natural disaster that holds her back, but naked
U.S. aggression – because all people have the capacity to rise, unless
they are held down by overwhelming force.
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