24061: Arthur (discuss) Remarkable advice on agricultural sector revival (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Tttnhm@aol.com

Did anyone notice the quite remarkable advice given by Gabriel Marcella of
the U.S. Army War College in his recent Miami Herald piece in support of the
idea of Haiti becoming a protectorate?

Marcella was one of the lead authors of a November 8, 2004, report on defense
issues for Latin America, widely circulated among top Pentagon officials,
which urged policy-makers to consider making the country a protectorate because
it is "on the verge of an outward explosion of boat people and an inward
immolation of gang-on-gang violence.''

The truly remarkable thing was that Marcella advocates a focus on reviving
Haitian agriculture and assisting peasant farmers!!!! After all the things done
to destroy this sector over decades - the creole pig eradication, violent
repression of peasant organisations, promotion of industrial parks and the
assembly sector, elimination of import tariffs, etc, etc. - is the US suddenly waking
up to the enormity of the damage and destruction that its policies have
brought about in Haiti?

In his Miami Herald piece, Marcella wrote, "Fundamental would be a massive
ecologically-based strategy to plant trees, restore soil, resuscitate
agricultural production, and provide incentives for people to resume a more dignified
existence in the countryside. Less than 2 percent of the tree cover survives,
down from 17 percent some 30 years ago. Heavy rains simply wash the topsoil into
the Caribbean. By the mid 1990s an estimated 20 percent of the topsoil was
depleted. Trees have to be planted and protected. In the 1980s the United States
Agency for International Development helped plant millions of trees, but
Haitians cut them down almost as fast in order to make firewood to cook with.
Ecologically and administratively, Port-au-Prince's population is too large. With
unemployment levels hovering at 80 percent, some of these people should return
to the land." Source: January 2, 2005, The Miami Herald