19775: Bellegarde-Smith: Globalization Created Chaos In Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: P D Bellegarde-Smith <pbs@csd.uwm.edu>

From: Robert Miranda <rmiranda@wi.rr.com>

Globalization Created Chaos In Haiti
By Robert Miranda

The small Caribbean island known as Haiti marks 200 years of independence this year. The island won its independence when enslaved Africans rose up against French colonial rule. In 1804, the island's leaders declared their independence officially making Haiti the only successful revolution in the world led by enslaved people.

But the freedom was short lived as the people found themselves fighting to practice free market economics in a world dominated by European market forces. Haiti soon found itself being isolated
because other nations feared that this notion of freedom could pose a danger to the worldwide system of slavery. Subsequently the United States supported a worldwide boycott against the island and did not recognize Haiti as a nation until 1864.

Haiti's heritage of self-rule and self-determination is a ! model for nations who yearn to be free from debt, dependence and the indignity of foreign control.

President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected by the people of Haiti in 2000, his rise to power has signaled a resolve to lead his nation in a way which ensured that his country would not get bankrupted by the loan sharking practices of world banking and lending institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Aristide held to a solid agenda of steady economic growth free from the influences of the U.S. government and corporations who constantly pressed for the Aristide government to negotiate with international lenders to secure investment, loans and create new low-wage jobs. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, its 70% unemployment rate was caused in part by the economic embargo brought on by the U.S. This practice is a far cry from allowing Haiti the space it needs to carry out its own sovereign agenda.

Bush, ho! lding true to his loyalty to world investment bankers, continues his g lobal campaign and allows what is being done to Haiti, as what was attempted when he supported efforts to topple the elected government of Venezuela, an open effort to destroy a progressive, popular government opposed to globalization and privatization of that sovereign nation's resources.

The Haitian people and government have resisted the pressure to practice neoliberal economic policies, such as the opening of markets to U.S. goods, and the privatization of state-owned enterprises.

When Aristide assumed power in Haiti in the early 1990's, it was thought by many in the Clinton administration that Aristide would turn over the nation's public enterprises (the telephone company,
electrical company, airports, ports, banks) to private corporations, preferably to U.S. multinationals working in partnership with the Haitian elite class and that these resources would be sold for a
small price.

President Aristide however did not move forward with privati! zation, he first called for a national dialogue on the issue instead. Because he choose to protect his country's resources from the control of corporations not within his country, $550 million in promised international aid was stopped and in time, his nation slowly started to feel the pinch of an economic embargo designed to force Haiti to surrender its wealth to global market interests close to the United States.

The demise of the Haitian government was caused because Haitian leaders decided instead to make major investments in agriculture, public transportation and infrastructure. Despite strong opposition from the business elite in Haiti, Aristide directed his resources to go towards smaller road projects designed to link many living in the countryside to the cities, thus enabling farmers to get their food to markets faster and cheaper.

In the end, because Aristide decided to move most of his countrymen out of poverty, his actions crossed those who profited! from poverty. This ultimately ended his presidency and gave rise to a new effort by the multinational corporations to move in and control Haiti's resources.