13375 : Pina posts Hinton on Inter-American Dialogue conference in D.C.

[corbetre@webster.edu]

From: kevin pina <kpinbox@hotmail.com>


I was just sent a copy of this speech and wanted to share it with the list.
I believe it offers an important analysis of the question of U.S. foreign
policy towards Haiti.



Presentation by Charles Hinton of the Let Haiti Live!! campaign for the May
23 Demonstration at the Inter-American Dialogue conference on Haiti in
Washington D.C.

As we meet here today, the Inter-American Dialogue, which calls itself the
"leading U.S. center for policy analysis, communication, and exchange on
Western Hemisphere affairs," is holding a one-day conference on Haiti,
supported by the World Bank, to talk about the "stalemate" in Haiti's
politics and what to do if the "impasse" continues.  It will "review Haiti's
political and economic circumstances" and "explore the role of external
assistance in addressing the country's social problems . . . "
Who's attending this conference?  There will be private sector Haitians, who
get 2 speakers.  International Donor Agencies get three.  The World Bank
will speak, the International Monetary Fund, and the Inter-American
Development Bank.  The Organization of American States will speak, and the
United States Agency for International Development.  The Heritage Foundation
will be there, along with former CIA Director Anthony Lake, now
re-incarnated as an academic from Georgetown University, and our good friend
Otto Reich, former Under-Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs
during Reagan and Iran-Contra.
So who will speak for the more than 60% of Haiti's voting population that
elected Jean Bertrand Aristide president?  Out of 106 invitees to the
conference, three people will represent the government of Haiti, one of them
a former World Bank official.  Not one is invited to speak.
Since 1982, the Inter-American Dialogue has "helped shape the agenda of
issues and choices on inter-American relations."  Composed of a "select
membership of 100 distinguished citizens from throughout the Americas" the
dialogue formed the "Corporate Circle" two years ago to "increase the
involvement of business and financial leaders in Dialogue activities."  This
Corporate Circle includes corporations like AT&T, BankBoston, General
Electric, and Time Warner.
How ironic that the World Bank is supporting this conference. The World Bank
and the IMF have cut off loans to Haiti. This is the same World Bank that
cut off loans to Chile after it elected President Allende, then restored
them after General Pinochet murdered Allende and seized power.  Is history
repeating itself in Haiti?
And speaking of history repeating itself, who can tell us when Haiti's debt
crisis started?  Yes, in 1825 Haiti agreed to pay France 100 million gold
francs as reparations for freeing itself from slavery, in exchange for
diplomatic recognition.   Haiti became independent in 1804, but no European
slave trading country would recognize history's first and only government of
freed slaves.  The Europeans did not want to make Haiti a successful model
for other enslaved populations, or a successful alternative model for
development, so they forced Haiti into debt to pay for its independence.  It
took one hundred years to pay off this debt, and by then, other debts had
accumulated, so it's said that Haiti still owes, that it's a "debtor
nation."
  We have seen this history repeat itself with the isolation,
destabilization, and sometimes overthrow of revolutionary governments in the
Soviet Union, in Cuba, Nicaragua, the Congo, Mozambique, and in Haiti
itself, when President Aristide was first elected in 1991. Now is the time
to learn the lessons of history and change its course.  We understand what
is happening in Haiti.  That is why we're here today to thank Barbara Lee,
to support House Resolution 382, and to support the government of President
Aristide.
The plans of the United States and Europe for Haiti have not changed for the
past 200 years.  One percent of US aid goes to agriculture in a country that
is 75% rural.  In 1971 the United States allowed Baby Doc Duvalier to
succeed his father, Papa Doc, without holding elections, in exchange for
economic incentives, which included the establishment of maquila industrial
zones to guarantee cheap labor and lowered tariffs on imports, policies now
part of the structural adjustment programs of the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund.
After Aristide was forced from power in 1991, the Haitian military
dictatorship agreed to lower tariffs on imported rice, so now Haiti imports
75% of their rice from the United States, when fifteen years ago, they grew
90% of their own crop.  World Bank and IMF structural adjustment policies
forbid that Haiti should subsidize her farmers, or protect her rice market
with tariffs, but last month George W. Bush signed into law tariffs to
protect U.S. steel companies, and just last week signed a multi-billion
agricultural bill that, among other things, will subsidize big American rice
farmers to drive small Haitian rice farmers out of business.
Now the Treasury Department is blocking a loan for Haiti from the
Inter-American Development Bank to fund potable water, rural roads,
education, and healthcare.  (Haiti does still have to pay interest on the
loan, however, even though they haven't received any of the money.)  The
population that would benefit from this loan is the very same population
that votes overwhelmingly for President Aristide every chance it gets.
These structural adjustment policies force rural Haitians off the land, like
small farmers all over the developing world, and into cities, sweatshops,
and the informal economy of street vending, drugs, prostitution, and petty
crime.   These policies force the privatization of any public services that
could offer support to people, so you can't see a doctor, or go to school,
or even drink clean water unless you can pay for it in cold hard cash, which
you can't do, because it doesn't even pay to grow your own food.
What we are seeing here is a form of genocide.  The destruction of the
ability of rural Haitians to feed and support themselves.  The genocidal
effects of this process also attack social cohesion and culture as these
policies literally starve people into unstable lives of economic
desperation.  That is why Haiti is called a "debtor nation" - it is forced
to borrow, because it's prevented from feeding and supporting its own
people, and has been since 1804.
So we understand what the World Bank is doing, and the International
Monetary Fund, and the Treasury Department and the State Department, and the
Inter-American Dialogue.  We have been here before!!!  They don't like the
politics of the man Haiti has chosen to be its president, so they're trying
to figure out how to discredit him, and who to put in his place.  They have
to be careful with this, because they just got their fingers burned in
Venezuela, but that's what today's conference on Haiti is about.  And what
WE'RE about is supporting House Resolution 382, supporting the legitimate
government of President Aristide, and making sure that history stops
repeating itself in Haiti, because we and the Haitian people, won't let it.
Let Haiti Live!

Thank you.


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