23236: InterVision: Another disaster in Haiti: we name the guilty parties - Haiti Support Group press release, 21 September 2004 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: InterVision2000 <info@intervision2000.com>


Why is Haiti prone to deadly flash-floods?
http://www.haitisupport.gn.apc.org/Septfloods.htm

Another disaster in Haiti: we name the guilty parties
Haiti Support Group press release, 21 September 2004
"By, once more, doing everything to preserve the dominance of the country's
immensely rich elite, and nothing to support the poverty-stricken peasantry,
the international community is complicit in the loss of life and misery
caused by this, and the inevitable future, natural disasters in Haiti."

So far the total number of fatalities caused by the recent heavy rains and
flash-floods in north-west Haiti stands at around 600, but the final tally
is sure to be far higher.

This is the second major disaster this year, in addition to numerous other
deadly but less well-reported floods. The news is terrible, but it is not
enough to wring our hands and say 'poor Haiti'. Nor is it sufficient to call
on the international community to provide more and better humanitarian
relief. We must look at the reasons why Haiti is prone to these
catastrophes.

Both the flash-floods in the south-east in May, and now these in the
north-west, are a direct consequence of the over-farming and deforestation
of the country's hills and mountainsides. When heavy rain falls, the water
cannot be absorbed, and instead cascades down valleys and ravines, sweeping
away anything and anybody it its path.

The problems of soil-erosion and deforestation are well-known, and so is the
only possible remedy - land reform. Yet over the course of almost three
decades, during which the country's economic policy has been dictated by
international financal institutions, such as the World Bank, the IMF and the
Inter-American Development Bank, not only has land reform never appeared on
their agenda, but no national government that has proposed it has received
any encouragement to carry it out.

Instead, successive governments have been obliged to carry out neo-liberal
economic policies which give no priority to the countryside whatsoever, even
though some two-thirds of the population live there.

Billions and billions of dollars in international aid has been lent to
Haitian governments, but the focus has remained on governance, security,
elections and support for the private sector. Next to nothing has been done
to support the agricultural sector - no land reform, no subsidies for
fertilisers or storage facilities, no subsidised credit, no reforestation
campaign, no irrigation projects, no protection from cheaper imports, etc.
etc.

Is it any wonder that Haiti's peasant farmers overwork their small plots,
and cut down trees to raise cash from charcoal production?

Even now, after neo-liberal economic policies in Haiti have been shown to
have failed over and over again, the current government - with the support
of the international finance institutions and the European Commission - is
continuing to ignore the needs of the rural population. At the international
donors' conference in Washington DC. in July, yet again the focus was on
support for the urban private sector. Local industrialists - the
government's main source of domestic support - are pushing ahead with their
plans to build more and more sweatshop assembly plants.

Indeed, the attitude of the current interim government was summed up when,
shortly after the May 2004 flood disaster, Prime Minister Gerard Latortue
said perhaps the solution would be to employ former soldiers to shoot
peasants found cutting down trees.

By, once more, doing everything to preserve the dominance of the country's
immensely rich elite, and nothing to support the poverty-stricken peasantry,
the international community is complicit in the loss of life and misery
caused by this, and the inevitable future, natural disasters in Haiti.

Charles Arthur
haitisupport@gn.apc.org
http://www.haitisupport.gn.apc.org