23326: radtimes: Haiti, Hurricane Jeanne & class struggle (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: radtimes <resist@best.com>

Haiti, Hurricane Jeanne & class struggle

http://www.workers.org/ww/2004/haiti1007.php

By Pat Chin
Reprinted from the Oct. 7, 2004, issue of Workers World newspaper

Flash floods and mudslides killed over 1,500 people when Tropical Storm
Jeanne drenched the city of Gonaives and surrounding areas in north and
northwest Haiti with torrential rain for two straight days. Many people are
faced with starvation.

More than 1,000 remain missing, at least 300,000 are reportedly without
shelter, and close to 3,000 have been injured. With many areas still
inaccessible, the number of casualties is expected to rise.

In Gonaives alone over 600 people were killed.

"Piles of bodies grew in morgues as rescuers found more victims in mud and
rubble. Carcasses of pigs, goats and dogs still floated in muddy waters
slowly receding from the streets... No house escaped damage. The homeless
sloshed through the streets carrying belongings on their heads, while
people in homes that still had roofs tried to dry scavenged clothes...
Flies buzzed around bloated corpses piled high at the city's three morgues.
The electricity was off, and the stench of death hung over the city."
(Associated Press, Sept. 21)

Venezuela has donated $1 million in aid, along with other resources. The
Euro pean Union is sending $1.8 million. But the U.S.--the world's richest
country--has offered a miserly $60,000, while Cuba, a socialist country
with fewer resources, continues to provide free medical care and other
types of assistance to Haiti.

It's been only seven months since Washington kidnapped and exiled the
popularly elected Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in collusion
with the French government. And just four months since May floods killed
some 3,000 people in southeastern Haiti.

Jeanne, which grew into a hurricane that churned on to ravage the Bahamas
and Florida, has triggered yet another cataclysmic disaster in Haiti. This
is due to widespread deforestation and soil erosion --symptoms of centuries
of forced poverty under colonial and imperialist domination and capitalist
super-exploitation.

A 1931 report explains part of the problem but distorts the overall
reality: "The great local uses of the forests of Haiti are for fuel and
charcoal. These two are much more important than all other forest uses
combined, since forests mean the only source of fuel for over 2 million
people. Protection of forests is important for Haiti because of the heavy,
sudden storms, and the fact that most of the large rivers are used for
irrigation." ("Tropical Forests of the Caribbean")

The report, however--written while U.S. Marines occupied Haiti--failed to
point out that the problem had also been caused when Haiti's forests "were
razed in the 17th and 18th centuries by French colonists to fuel their
booming sugar mills. Then during the 19th and 20th centuries, thousands of
acres of precious wood, principally mahogany, were cut down to satisfy
foreign appetites for furniture and tourist carvings." (Haiti Progres,
Sept. 22)

A Sept. 21 Haiti Support Group press release, "Another disaster in Haiti:
we name the guilty parties," points out that soil erosion is also caused by
over-farming since most peasants are forced to work and rework very small
parcels of land. Trees are cut not only for cooking food but to make
charcoal to raise cash.

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

"Instead, successive governments have been obliged to carry out neoliberal
economic policies which give no priority to the countryside whatsoever,
even though some two-thirds of the population live there. Billions and
billions in international aid have been lent to Haitian governments, but
the focus has remained on governance, security, elections and support for
the private sector...."

These policies, dictated by U.S.-controlled capitalist financial
institutions, have kept the great majority of Haitians mired in poverty.
They prevent, among many other things, the development of infrastructure
that would provide resour ces and planning for natural disasters, as well
as electricity and other energy sources to the masses. This, in turn, would
obviate the need to fell trees for fuel and cash and would ultimately save
lives.

Aristide's February overthrow only made matters worse as the country slid
into further social and economic chaos. Then came the May floods. And now
Jeanne.

Unnatural disaster of capitalism

The U.S.-installed regime of interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue has
unleashed a wave of repression--aided by the occupation forces--against
Aristide's supporters and former government officials. The big-business
friendly regime has also opened an economic war on the poor, reversing many
of the progressive measures Aristide instituted.

The reversals include the armed retaking--by the big landowners who made up
part of the "opposition"--of land distributed to peasants and the dropping
of crucial subsidies to rice farmers, whose entire crops have since been
decimated by Jeanne.

Latortue has hailed the armed terror gangs that helped overthrow the
constitutional government and that run the peasants off their land as
"freedom fighters." After the May floods killed thousands, he suggested the
solution to deforestation was to hire soldiers of the disbanded Haitian
army to shoot peasants who cut down trees for firewood.

Despite the repression, thousands defied police intimidation and marched on
Sept. 11 to protest Aristide's kidnapping. They also demanded an end to
foreign occupation.

Called by the National Cell for Reflection of Popular Organizations of
Aristide's Lavalas Family Party--and supported by other grassroots
groups--protestors also "denounced the current offensive by former Haitian
soldiers to re-establish the Armed Forces of Haiti, dissolved by Aristide
in 1995." (Haiti Progres, Sept. 11) These ex-soldiers have been taking over
police stations around Haiti.

Another demonstration is set for Sept. 30, the 13th anniversary of the
first coup against Aristide and yet another on Oct. 17, the anniversary of
the assassination of Gen. Jean Jacques Dessalines, who declared Haiti's
independence in 1804. Ruling class forces opposed to land reform later
killed this hero. Oct. 17 is also the date of the Million Worker March on
Washington, D.C.

Donations are needed to help the Haitian victims of Tropical Storm Jeanne.
Send checks payable to MUDHA or Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees, 335
Maple Street, 2nd Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11225. For tax deductible donations,
make checks payable to IFCO/MUDHA or IFCO/HWHR. For more info, call (718)
735-4660.

You can also send checks to Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti,
Box 806, Key Biscayne, FL 33149, with "Gonaives Hurricane Relief" in the
memo line. For more information, contact IJDH at info@ijdh.org, or call
(541) 432-0597.

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