Haiti Public Meeting

Plebian

Hi. Next week there will be a public meeting at Solidarity Books, 43 Douglas Street (near junction with Nicholas Street, opposite Fionn Barra's pub), Cork, titled,

"Haiti: Solidarity Not Occupation"

the start time is at 8pm, Tuesday, February 2nd
Speakers:
Elsie Haas (Haitian filmmaker) &
Jose Antonio Gutierrez (Latin American Solidarity Centre)



Facebook_link

Max001

Given that the U.S. is the only super power left and Haiti is on its doorstep and given the military is the only organisation able to respond quickly with aid, medical support and the security necessary to enable all responding organisations to operate and given the Haitian government has ceased to exist, who the **** else would you suggest went to the aid of our fellow human beings in Haiti?

Get your paranoid, twisted, naive head out of your ass!

run_Forrest_run

Max001 wrote: »

Given that the U.S. is the only super power left and Haiti is on its doorstep and given the military is the only organisation able to respond quickly with aid, medical support and the security necessary to enable all responding organisations to operate and given the Haitian government has ceased to exist, who the **** else would you suggest went to the aid of our fellow human beings in Haiti?

Get your paranoid, twisted, naive head out of your ass!

while I sort of hear what you are saying I also got a bit annoyed with the OP. Right now we need action in the form of aid to help Haiti and not some meeting to voice the hidden agenda of some group. And also, why the hell is this on in Cork? What good will it do to those homeless in Haiti??? Sweet f**k all is what I'd guess.

Pompey Magnus

What Haiti needs is more US influence in its running not less. It really should go the Puerto Rico route and become an unincorportated territory of the US because independence just hasn't worked for them.

murphym7

I heard the French were giving out and accusing the US of accupation last week - shock horror, the bloody French left Haiti in the sh#t and now have the cheek to give out about the US. Who else was going to get the airport open as quick, who else got troops on the ground. Who was shipping in helicopters from other coutries etc etc This meeting is a joke - go hug a tree or something useful.

cornbb

I think the fact that the US Military does some horrible things doesn't mean that they're not doing good work in Haiti at the moment.

run_Forrest_run

Anyway, isn't this type of thread valid in the first place for boards? Are groups allowed to advertise their activities and meetings here? I might post my adverts for 'Embrace Naked Tuesdays' so.

two wheels good

Charco wrote: »

What Haiti needs is more US influence in its running not less. It really should go the Puerto Rico route and become an unincorportated territory of the US because independence just hasn't worked for them.

I think that shows a real lack of understanding of Haiti's history. France and the US and then the IMF's neo-colonial financial regimes have dominated Haiti since it's (first) independence.

Here are a few relevant links:

1.
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/61979
(from paragraph 5)

2.
John Pilger has witnessed the reality on the ground that explains Western interest in the country:

“When I was last in Haiti, I watched very young girls stooped in front of whirring, hissing, binding machines at the Port-au-Prince Superior Baseball Plant. Many had swollen eyes and lacerated arms. I produced a camera and was thrown out. Haiti is where America makes the equipment for its hallowed national game, for next to nothing. Haiti is where Walt Disney contractors make Mickey Mouse pyjamas, for next to nothing. The US controls Haiti's sugar, bauxite and sisal. Rice-growing was replaced by imported American rice, driving people into the cities and towns and jerry-built housing. Years after year, Haiti was invaded by US marines, infamous for atrocities that have been their specialty from the Philippines to Afghanistan.” (Pilger, ‘The kidnapping of Haiti,‘ http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/commentaries/4123)

3.
Peter Hallward examined recent US policy in Haiti in the Guardian:

“Ever since the US invaded and occupied the country in 1915, every serious political attempt to allow Haiti's people to move (in former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide's phrase) ‘from absolute misery to a dignified poverty’ has been violently and deliberately blocked by the US government and some of its allies.” (Hallward, ‘Our role in Haiti's plight,’ The Guardian, January 13, 2010; http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/13/our-role-in-haitis-plight)

Pompey Magnus

two wheels good wrote: »

I think that shows a real lack of understanding of Haiti's history. France and the US and then the IMF's neo-colonial financial regimes have dominated Haiti since it's (first) independence.

Here are a few relevant links:

1.
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/61979
(from paragraph 5)

2.
John Pilger has witnessed the reality on the ground that explains Western interest in the country:

“When I was last in Haiti, I watched very young girls stooped in front of whirring, hissing, binding machines at the Port-au-Prince Superior Baseball Plant. Many had swollen eyes and lacerated arms. I produced a camera and was thrown out. Haiti is where America makes the equipment for its hallowed national game, for next to nothing. Haiti is where Walt Disney contractors make Mickey Mouse pyjamas, for next to nothing. The US controls Haiti's sugar, bauxite and sisal. Rice-growing was replaced by imported American rice, driving people into the cities and towns and jerry-built housing. Years after year, Haiti was invaded by US marines, infamous for atrocities that have been their specialty from the Philippines to Afghanistan.” (Pilger, ‘The kidnapping of Haiti,‘ http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/commentaries/4123)

3.
Peter Hallward examined recent US policy in Haiti in the Guardian:

“Ever since the US invaded and occupied the country in 1915, every serious political attempt to allow Haiti's people to move (in former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide's phrase) ‘from absolute misery to a dignified poverty’ has been violently and deliberately blocked by the US government and some of its allies.” (Hallward, ‘Our role in Haiti's plight,’ The Guardian, January 13, 2010; http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/13/our-role-in-haitis-plight)

Firstly lets get this whole "neo-colonial" nonsense out of the way, there would be no Haitian state if it were not for colonialism, and the economic interaction between dominant powers such as the US and neighbouring regions is inevitable, this is not a form of neo-colonialism at all.

Secondly, the John Pilger quote becomes completely irrelevant should Haiti gain some form of unincorporated status within the US as it would allow duty free access of trade to the US as well as minimum wage laws becoming applicable there. That this is not present currently in Haiti cannot be blamed on the US, and to suggest so is ridiculous.

murphym7

two wheels good wrote: »

I think that shows a real lack of understanding of Haiti's history. France and the US and then the IMF's neo-colonial financial regimes have dominated Haiti since it's (first) independence.

Here are a few relevant links:

1.
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/61979
(from paragraph 5)

2.
John Pilger has witnessed the reality on the ground that explains Western interest in the country:

“When I was last in Haiti, I watched very young girls stooped in front of whirring, hissing, binding machines at the Port-au-Prince Superior Baseball Plant. Many had swollen eyes and lacerated arms. I produced a camera and was thrown out. Haiti is where America makes the equipment for its hallowed national game, for next to nothing. Haiti is where Walt Disney contractors make Mickey Mouse pyjamas, for next to nothing. The US controls Haiti's sugar, bauxite and sisal. Rice-growing was replaced by imported American rice, driving people into the cities and towns and jerry-built housing. Years after year, Haiti was invaded by US marines, infamous for atrocities that have been their specialty from the Philippines to Afghanistan.” (Pilger, ‘The kidnapping of Haiti,‘ http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/commentaries/4123)

3.
Peter Hallward examined recent US policy in Haiti in the Guardian:

“Ever since the US invaded and occupied the country in 1915, every serious political attempt to allow Haiti's people to move (in former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide's phrase) ‘from absolute misery to a dignified poverty’ has been violently and deliberately blocked by the US government and some of its allies.” (Hallward, ‘Our role in Haiti's plight,’ The Guardian, January 13, 2010; http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/13/our-role-in-haitis-plight)

"US Goverment in causing the Haiti earthquake scadall"

Come on now and get real for a minute - arguments are getting mixed up here big time. This is a common used method of using facts to fool the stupid people in the world to prove an argument (in this case that the US are an occupying force in Haiti at the moment). What have the quotes you have listed above have anything to do with the US being accused of being an occupying military force ---- Nothing at all.

Yes there are other issues that occured in Haiti's past - none of which have anything to do with the US coming into to Haiti to lend a helping hand after a disaster like this one. Would it be better for the US to do nothing? Lets keep the argument's honest please.

You are free to open another thread over in politics giving out about the mess Haiti is as a country due to the French, American's et al... I may even agree with you on that thread - not here though. Different conversation, I don't think that anyone caused this earthquake

two wheels good

murphym7 wrote: »

"US Goverment in causing the Haiti earthquake scadall"

I'm not making that claim at all. And you're right I am "off-topic". My previous post wasn't in response to the OP and the suggestion that the US presence in Haiti was an occupation (It wouldn't be the first time though - or the second).

I think it is excellent that the US has sent so much assistance. But let's not forget that it is also in the interests of the US to re-establish some kind of normality there. Let's also remember how other natural disasters (Katrina, Asian tsunami) have been used to further the cause of privatisation for the benefit of corporations.

I replied to the following quotation; particularly the "independence hasn't worked" claim.

Charco wrote: »

What Haiti needs is more US influence in its running not less. It really should go the Puerto Rico route and become an unincorportated territory of the US because independence just hasn't worked for them.

The fact is that the Haitian's have never been allowed to take charge of their own affairs without outside meddling. Their struggle for freedom has been remarkable.
The payment of reparations to the French for more than a hundred years has been scandalous - just to mention one thing. (Aristide requested the money be repaid but he was ousted not long afterwards in 2004.)

BTW What a load of crap Mr Hook was talking on RTE last night; comparing Cap Haiti to Bangkok. And saying there was "no commercial activity " in the city as he rode in air-conditioned comfort past a line of shops and a street teeming with activity and vendors.
Now I really am off-topic!