#4400: Fwd: US Colonialism in Haiti (fwd)

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From: radman <resist@best.com>


>From: "Common Courage Political Literacy Course" 
><webmaster@commoncouragepress.com>
>
>Monday, June 26, 2000
>
>=== Origin of the Dam at Peligre ===
>
>The "Organisme de Developpement de la Vallee de l'Artibonite" (ODVA) was
>born of an agreement, signed in 1949 in Washington, D.C., between the
>Haitian government and the Export-Import Bank. Initial plans for the dam
>were older still, having been drawn up during the U.S. military occupation
>of Haiti (1915-1934). It was during the U.S. occupation that Haiti's
>constitution was rewritten to abolish one of its most famous articles: the
>prohibition of foreign ownership of land in Haiti. This change lent a
>legal facade to the rapid growth of U.S.-owned agribusiness, which was
>even then treated as a form of development assistance to a "backward"
>peasant society. Inspired in part by what was to become the Tennessee
>Valley Authority, proponents of agribusiness in Haiti needed reliable
>irrigation for rice production in the fertile plains that had once been
>home to French plantations. In a sense, then, the dam at Peligre was an
>early installment of what later became known as "the American Plan."
>
>--From "Dying for Growth: Global Inequality and the Health of the Poor"
>http://www.commoncouragepress.com/kim_growth.html
>
>(also check out www.eyesoftheheart.org)
>==========================================================================