Millions of dollars from around the world are pouring into Haiti to provide basic aid for the earthquake devastated nation.
And millions of dollars in foreign investments are also flowing into the country to help it rebuild and shape its future.
However, many Haitians see the expansion of foreign companies as a way to take advantage of the widespread poverty plaguing the country, where the unemployment rate is up to 80 per cent.
The exploitation concerns come as former US presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush prepare to visit the Caribbean nation on Monday to discuss long-term recovery efforts with Haitian officials.
And a part of their plans will be to discuss the expansion of clothing industries in the country - in which workers earn less than $4 a day - one of the lowest wages in the world.
Al Jazeera's Sebastian Walker reports from the city of Ouanaminthe - home to some of the country's biggest textile businesses.
Posts
In the haste to rebuild a new Haiti, let's become aware of the following:
ReplyDeleteHaiti will not become a model of western democracy. Haitian value system and life mode is communal. The new Haiti will not function as dictated by Haitian scholars who represent western ideologies. There's a lot of "big talk" using "big words" but the new Haiti will not be influenced by those concepts because they do not fit our make up. The outside views that Haitians are incapable need to be immediately abolished. It is important to reshape the scope of evaluation for Haiti because change is coming reguardless.
Is it so wise to pin point Haitian failure on every attempt? This (U.S.A.) is a country where nothing works for the poor. The poor pays taxes and gets zero representation to influence. The politicians and government lie, steal, plot, extort, bribe, conspire, invade, kill, torment, torture, denigrate... yet, we do not insist on their ineffectiveness and poor judgment.
Who are the people who have been enjoying Haiti and its beauty? It is not the massive poor Haitians. More than 45 thousand international personnel along with well to do Haitians enjoy the best plot of land, housing, the best hotels, the beaches, the delicacies, an the resources. In this case Haiti has been functioning well! It has managed to uplift the rich and privileged while downing the massive poor. This is in perfect alliance with western ideology. The massive poor Haitian says no to this arrangement and it is best to listen and adhere.
So one cannot blame anyone for the state of Haiti because this society does not cast blames and does not take ownership for ill doings, only accepts the awards and the bravado.
Haitians are responsible for allowing the enemy to infiltrate Haitian systems. It is Haitians who have sold over the country, it will have to be Haitians who take charge of its renewal. We should forget the international sanctions, we should forget the importation of 30 yr old frozen goods New Yorkers wouldn't even feed their rats. We should forget the destruction of the black pigs, rice fields, or coffee, cocoa, sugar, molasses, the avocados and mangoes. Forget that while Haiti has been under major international debts, the nations that owe Haiti reparation are primary in the list of the nations stifling its growth.
How can one expect Haiti to mimic the organization of any other state, especially the super powers, when the ideals grounding the formation of Haiti are based on maintaining A FREE BLACK NATION?
The demise of Haiti has been the struggle to maintain a free state and the influence of its most prominent western educated scholars who obviously regurgitate "massa" language and law. In the presence of chaos, hunger, illiteracy, political upheavals, floods, cyclones, earthquakes, when one lands on Haiti soil it is love at first breath. Why? For most folks it is the first time they breathe freedom air (what is left of it). Ask any Haitian and she/he will say, stepping off that plane into Haiti soil, all the bills and the stress of a so-titled democratic nation go AWAY.
In the community of life one is as strong as the next being.
CNN updates on drug trafficking in Haiti, DR and the rest of Latin America. Absurd! This recent news update only reinforces the fact that US intention to deliver aid to Haiti is tinted with outside motives. That is why more than 22,000 troops are off the coast of Haiti. 900 UN troops inside the country not to mentions US troops inside and OMG we cannot forget Brazilian troops...
So what if all these personnel and military folks were to really focus on relief, to focus on providing aid to the massive poor? The results would be different but the results would not play into the master plan.
What is the master plan? The master plan has always been the same when it comes to providing Haitians in Haiti with international aid. "We let them starve till they riot. That only gives us more ground to stay down there and monitor the Latin American drug trade.
lp