The Marxist-Leninist Daily

Nearly one month after the January 12 quake struck Haiti, the U.S. military occupation of Haiti, carried out under the guise of providing humanitarian aid, continues to impede the flow of aid into the country and its distribution within the country. There are presently 16,000 U.S. troops in Haiti, in addition to 10,000 UN peacekeepers and U.S. officials announced over the weekend that its Marines will stay there "as long as it takes." Radio Havana Cuba points out that "This confirms that more than assistance and a rescue mission, the United States is involved in the long-term military occupation in the Caribbean nation."

Meanwhile, news reports indicate that hospitals are experiencing dire shortages of medical supplies, including antibiotics and painkillers. Not only is the U.S. military occupation impeding medical care, but aid such as food and shelter for the homeless is also being blocked. According to reports, some one million quake survivors lack food assistance while the issue of housing is becoming more pressing as hurricane season approaches. It was reported that three weeks after the quake, the Toussaint Louverture Boulevard camp with a population of 12,000 people had not been visited even once by international food aid trucks. While 70,000 homeless families have received temporary shelter materials, but another 170,000 families have received no materials at all.

A mass demonstration took place in the neighbourhood of Petionville this past weekend where thousands demanded a better flow of food distribution and denounced the stockpiling of the aid coming from abroad. Mass demonstrations against the blocking of aid have also taken place outside the police station in Port-au-Prince and the U.S. embassy.

Radio Havana Cuba reports that 25 days after the earthquake which devastated Haiti, the tragedy knows no end. "The Caribbean nation continues to suffer the daily increase in the number of its victims, as well as the little aid received to face this unprecedented catastrophe. The situation is compounded by the centuries-old misery in which most of its inhabitants are plunged." The report continues:

"According to recent reports, the death toll is horrific and surpasses 250,000. The destruction reaches 80 percent in Port-au-Prince, the capital, but the quake almost completely destroyed the poorest neighborhoods because of the instability of the buildings. To this, we must add the number of injured, many of them maimed, who will always suffer from their injuries. [...]

"Although the distribution of provisions has improved, the amount is still insufficient. The economy of this Caribbean country is crippled and the Haitian people lack the means to meet their needs. [...]

"Amid the chaos, there are small islands where order, work and organization prevail. We're talking about the five hospitals run by the Cuban medical brigade. Haitian medical professionals and U.S. students who graduated in Cuba have joined in this effort, as well as the work by Venezuela and other member nations of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, ALBA. [...]

"Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez announced Sunday that there's a willingness to expand the number of these facilities and, in this way, to provide a greater number of people with the proper conditions of hygiene, food, health and even education. There are now three camps -- two in the Leogane community and another in Jacmel. About 4,000 people affected by the earthquake receive medical care in these camps. [...]

"Today, there are hundreds of thousands of people, including children, the elderly and women, living in the open. It is an endless tragedy which could still be much worse in the absence of a humane, decisive and radical political will to change the history of the poorest country of the Americas," Radio Havana Cuba concludes.

UNASUR Approves Multilateral Fund to Rebuild Haiti

The Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), in an extraordinary summit on Tuesday in Quito, Ecuador, approved the creation of a $100 million multilateral fund and action plan, dedicated to rebuilding Haiti. This agreement, one of the main accords reached during the summit, aims at increasing the actions already implemented by the UNASUR South American Council on Health, such as the collaboration of doctors and experts to take care of injured people, sick people and to take measures to prevent epidemics. The unanimously approved statement consists of a 13-point program with priorities set by the Haitian government. In it, the UNASUR heads of State and government, foreign ministers and representatives from the 12 countries also requested a long-term low interest $200 million loan be extended to UNASUR by the Inter-American Development Bank (BID) to meet Haiti's urgent needs. According to Bolivian Vice President Alvaro Garcia, each country's contribution to the fund will depend on its capacities and its gross domestic product.

In proposing the fund, Ecuador's President and UNASUR's pro tempore president, Rafael Correa, explained that it would be used to finance teams corresponding to the priorities expressed by Haiti's President Rene Preval, namely rebuilding Haiti's highway infrastructure including material resources, machinery and the collaboration of a group of engineers. In the field of agriculture assistance was requested in the form of the donation of seeds, supplies, fertilizers and agricultural experts. Medical assistance was also requested.

Cuban Vice President Lazo Visits Haiti

On Tuesday, Cuban Vice President Esteban Lazo concluded a two-day visit to Haiti, during which he observed the devastation caused by the earthquake as well as international relief efforts.

Lazo visited the devastated locality of Leoganne, about 12 miles southwest of Port-au-Prince, where a Cuban-run field hospital (one of five) is located. He talked with the medical personnel there, as well as several patients who expressed gratitude for the aid provided by Cuba.

Following his visit to the hospital, Lazo went to the Simon Bolivar Community, one of several camps set up by the Joint Task Force in Haiti to shelter the victims by mandate of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The camp was set up on January 25 with capacity to house 2,000 persons and an infrastructure that guarantees medical attention, education, water and food, among other benefits. Talking to community leaders, Lazo asked them about living conditions there and highlighted the great help given by Venezuela to the Haitian people which, together with Cuba, started long before the earthquake. The Cuban Vice President recalled that Venezuela, as part of ALBA has been one of the most generous in offering assistance to Haiti following the quake. "A big load of food, equipment, fuel arrived here. One of the first steps taken by Venezuela was forgiving Haiti's debts. There are also tractors from ALBA to help in agriculture [and] rice seed, grains [and] fertilizers," said Lazo. A camp resident expressed the people's profound gratitude, saying "[You] have helped us a lot with tents that protect us from the sun and the rain and in many other ways, for which we thank you."

Several of these tents are equipped as classrooms, some for literacy instruction and others so that children can continue their studies, as most of the schools were destroyed by the quake. Sixty-two residents of the camp, children and adults, are participating in the literacy program. The children attend daily classes in the morning, combining classes by TV with games, while adults attend class in the evenings. "This is one of the most humane tasks that can be carried out. I don't know if you have ever heard of Jose Marti, the Cuban patriot who said something to the effect that every person at birth has the right to be taught and in return has the duty to help in the education of others," said Lazo in a talk with students. He insisted that for the human being it is very important to know, to read and write, that is why a great literacy campaign is being developed in ALBA member countries.

"What is in our minds and hearts, is that after this terrible earthquake, everyone together, starting with the Haitian people, will build a more beautiful Haiti for the children of today and of the future," he stressed, encourgaging them to undertake their studies so as to contribute to this aim.

Lazo also delivered a message of appreciation from the leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, addressed to the Cuban medical mission in charge of aiding the Haitian population after the earthquake. "You are writing one of the most beautiful pages in the history of human medicine," wrote Fidel to the members of the International Medical Brigade Henry Reeve, and to the graduates and fifth and sixth year students of the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) who are working in Haiti.

On Monday, Lazo met with President Rene Preval and toured several medical centres where Cuban personnel are working, among them two hospitals in the capital, two field hospitals and one of the seven Integral Diagnostic Centres in operation, the fruit of cooperation between Venezuela, Cuba and Haiti.

Shortly before leaving for Cuba after two working days in Haiti, Lazo was received by Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive who, on behalf of the Haitian government, reiterated his people's gratitude to Cuba.

"I have to thank you for the help provided by Cuba since long before the earthquake. It is fantastic, free, unconditional, and it is in the heart of every Haitian man and woman," Bellerive said. He went on to note two fundamental aspects: "first that that the Cuban cooperation is going to continue. It is important for Haiti to know that the programs will continue and moreover, outside of the capital, outside of the area where the earthquake occurred."

"The second issue is that you didn't come to talk about building a hospital or a healthcare centre. You are talking about helping us to build a healthcare system and that is more important. A system that is going to allow us to improve Haitians' health has never been within the framework of cooperation. Because many people come and say that they want to build a hospital but not an integral system that will help attain more health, greater levels of hygiene. With that cooperation we can raise the level of health of our people, which they deserve."

The prime minister acknowledged the attitude assumed by the Haitians after the tragedy, when many of them rushed into the streets to help save thousands of people. "Up until now, I think that they have dealt with the situation very calmly and intelligently and have not let themselves get caught up in violence, a situation which can occur after a disaster like this."

For his part Lazo informed Bellerive of the Cuban delegation's activities in Haiti, also informing him that the Commander in Chief Fidel Castro had called him several times out of concern for the situation in Haiti.

"It has been an intense working visit. It was not possible to come immediately after the earthquake but our hearts have always been here." Lazo reiterated that the idea was to concentrate aid on recovery and the creation of a national healthcare system in Haiti. "At this point, it has to be at that level, above all in something as significant as the population's health. We would like everyone who wants to do so, to help, without exception. But Haiti will be the principal player in the development of the program," Lazo stated.

Report on Cuba's Steadfast
Internationalist Assistance

In spite of the U.S. military occupation, the inherent challenges of disaster relief and while relief personnel from many countries are withdrawing, Cuba is intensifying its unconditional internationalist assistance to Haiti, particularly through its medical brigades, comprised of a core of 938 Cuban doctors and 380 Cuban-trained Haitian doctors.

The organization and dedication of the Cubans means their operations are also a converging point for some 100 medical professionals from Venezuela, Chile, Spain, Mexico, Colombia, Canada and even the U.S. On February 5, Granma International reported that seven young women doctors had arrived from the U.S. to provide assistance to work at Cuban-run hospitals in Haiti, bringing with them backpacks full of medical supplies. Elsie Walter, speaking on behalf of the group, explained that they are graduates from the Latin American School of Medicine in Cuba (ELAM). They responded to a call from Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization, the agency that administers scholarships for U.S. students at the Cuban university. "There were lots of us who wanted to come, but given our responsibilities [in the U.S.], only seven of us could come for now; others are thinking of joining later on, because we know that the Cuban medical brigade is going to be here for a good long time," said Walter.

Meanwhile, Cuba solidarity groups in Canada are organizing assistance for Haiti by putting their weight behind the battle-hardened capabilities and internationalist spirit of Cuba's humanitarian brigades through the Canadian Network on Cuba's "Cuba for Haiti" campaign (see TML Daily, January 28, 2010 - No. 20).

In a February 2 item in Granma International, Leticia Martinez details Cuba's medical assistance to Haiti:

"Twenty days after the earthquake that mercilessly shook this capital, when many foreign aid workers were leaving for their peaceful worlds with the final photo confirming their presence on Haitian soil, 938 doctors from Cuba, including 380 Haitian doctors trained in Cuba, are still saving lives here, despite the difficult situation they have experienced and the one seen approaching.

"Cuba was the first country to reach out to the desperate Haitian people when the clouds of dust left by the quake had not yet dissipated. That night of January 12, hundreds of Haitians were running with family members in their arms to the place where, for 10 years, the Cuban doctors have been located. A legion of the wounded, of the dead flooded the streets. And while chaos overwhelmed medical attention in the initial hours, now organization prevails in the capital's three hospitals and the four field hospitals where our doctors are working.

"According to Dr. Carlos Alberto García, a member of the Cuban coordination team, many collaborators from other nations are returning to their countries, considering the emergency situation to be over. 'For us, the emergency continues, but in another dimension, not now from the surgical point of view, but with other sicknesses that are appearing as a consequence of the disaster, among them diarrhea and respiratory infections, skin lesions, and malaria, parasites and typhoid fever.'

"Twenty days after the earthquake, the most significant aspect of Cuban aid is having provided comprehensive attention to patients. That is confirmed by their curative work, health promotion, vector controls and rehabilitation, this last service essential for a population greatly affected by traumatic injuries and amputations. These are some of the figures: as of January 31, more than 50,000 patients had received medical attention, 3,400 of whom underwent operations, 1,500 of which were complex, and which include approximately 1,100 amputations.

"Dr. Carlos Alberto informed us that nine rehabilitation wards have been set up, which will have a major impact, 'because even before the earthquake, Haiti had no public service of this kind.'

"Not everything has been death and disaster in the wake of the earthquake. The Cuban and Haitian doctors trained on the island have attended 280 births, 183 of them by cesarean section, above all in the field hospitals where, as the doctor confirmed, the basic conditions are in place to perform them.

"In addition, our doctors are 'assaulting' plazas and parks where thousands of Haitians are living crammed together. Yesterday Granma was present to witness the anti-tetanus vaccination campaign which transformed the day in the Port-au-Prince football stadium, flooded by hundreds of Haitians made homeless by the quake. [...] As a consequence, Dr. García confirmed that 20,000 people in Port-au-Prince had been vaccinated. And that they were also incorporating a triple vaccine against diphtheria, measles and whooping cough.

"In order not to leave any loose ends, the medical cooperation also includes mental health care and, to that end, a team of psychologists and psychiatrists have arrived from Cuba and are preparing to work with children and young adults in the camps, plazas and parks of Port-au-Prince.

"In order to support this health 'invasion,' construction workers are speeding up repairs on five Comprehensive Diagnostic Centers that were shut down after the earthquake. Two of them will be ready in a few days' time. They will bring to seven the number that are providing services in various Haitian departments. The other three, to make a total of 10, will be delayed for some weeks more."

Legislative Elections Postponed

Haitian authorities on February 2 indefinitely postponed upcoming legislative elections. "The electoral council has decided to postpone the legislative elections of February 28 and March 3, 2010, to a later unspecified date," the authorities announced, giving no further details.

Protecting Haiti's Interest

It would be ironic, if you like your irony flavored with blood and disinfectant, to discover that moored off Port au Prince at this moment is the U.S. hospital ship, the USS Comfort, one of two employed in 1994 as floating slave barracoons in Kingston Harbor. Today the Comfort is providing medical care for people injured in the great earthquake of January 12.

In 1994, the Comfort and its consort functioned as temporary "processing facilities" for Haitian refugees fleeing from a U.S. supported coup and attendant tyranny. The refugees had been picked up either on the high seas or in Jamaican waters, running for their lives from a U.S.-backed hoodlum-state, whose favorite law and order procedures were murder by dismemberment and disemboweling with bodies left in the streets; and women and children, beaten, publicly raped and disfigured and otherwise terrorized to encourage the others. Of those kidnapped either in Jamaican waters or on the high seas, 78.5% were sent back to their murderers while the rest were sent to Guantanamo Bay.

This barbarous triage was a joint venture operated by President William Jefferson Clinton of the United States and Jamaican Prime Minister Percival James Patterson. It was ended by Clinton's deciding he couldn't afford the death of a prominent black American leader on his record, if not on his conscience. Randall Robinson, President of TransAfrica, in one last desperate initiative, began a fast to the death in protest against his President's callous behavior.

Clinton had inherited "the Haitian problem" from his predecessor who could tolerate any number of fair-skinned Cubans dropping in on Miami Beach, but was revolted by the idea of Haitians doing the same thing. It didn't matter that the Cubans, like Jamaicans and Mexicans, were economic refugees while the Haitians were literally in fear of their lives.

This point was made explicit in 2002, by a former U.S. Ambassador to Haiti, Timothy Carney, at the launching of the Haiti Democracy Project, the most important U.S. NGO operating in Haiti. The launching was at the Brookings Institution, one of the most eminent right wing "think-tanks" in Washington.

"Ambassador Roger Noriega mentioned that one of our interests is to defend human rights, but he didn't mention the fundamental interest, which is to defend Miami Beach. We don't want Haitians on Miami Beach ... That is a fundamental interest of the United States Now that you have realized that interest, you hopefully will have policies by which Haitians can realize their prosperity and their future at home.

That was a job for the Haiti Democracy Project and other U.S. backed subversive NGOs whose function was simply to make sure that the President of Haiti, legally elected, would be unable to govern. These NGOs, dozens of them, using tactics honed in the "peaceful overthrow" of former Communist states, didn't work well in Haiti; violence and provocation were introduced. The most effective weapons against Aristide were the press releases of the NGOs, swallowed whole by a criminally compliant U.S. press. Even now, six years after Aristide was kidnapped by the then U.S. Ambassador, U.S. news agencies are printing garbage about "Aristide, deposed amid a violent uprising."

These days, the USS Comfort, Bill Clinton and P.J Patterson are back in the organized hypocrisy game, along with new players like Ban Ki Moon who is proving as clueless about Haiti as his predecessor, Kofi Annan. Obama has brought back G. W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice's mouthpiece. No doubt there is room for old Haiti hands like Roger Noriega and Otto Reich. Pity they can't reanimate Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms, both eminent authorities on black people. But there's always Luigi Einaudi: "The only thing wrong with Haiti is that it is being run by Haitians."

Encouraging News

There is good news for those people, and there are many, who worried that valuable American cash was being squandered on hapless Haitians who specialize in provoking Acts of God.

"Only 1 cent of each dollar the U.S. is spending on earthquake relief in Haiti is going in the form of cash to the Haitian government, according to an Associated Press review of relief efforts.

Less than two weeks after President Obama announced an initial $100 million for Haiti earthquake relief, U.S. government spending on the disaster has tripled to $317 million at latest count. That's just over $1 each from everyone in the United States.

Relief experts say it would be a mistake to send too much direct cash to the Haitian government, which is in disarray and has a history of failure and corruption.

"'I really believe Americans are the most generous people who ever lived, but they want accountability,' said Timothy R. Knight, a former USAID assistant director who spent 25 years distributing disaster aid. 'In this situation they're being very deliberate not to just throw money at the situation but to analyze based on a clear assessment and make sure that money goes to the best place possible.'

"The AP review of federal budget spreadsheets, procurement reports and contract databases shows the vast majority of U.S. funds going to established and tested providers, who are getting everything from 40-cent pounds of pinto beans to a $3.4 million barge into the disaster zone."

For one thing the Canadians and Europeans have donated more per capita to Haitian relief than the U.S. and deserve a larger part in the immediate relief works.

Organizations like the Haiti Democracy Project and John McCain's International Republican Institute will make certain that American money is spent on strengthening American democracy and defeating the populist interests which have made governance in Haiti a problem ever since the peasant rebellion 90 years ago which required the machine gunning of entire villages to restore law and order.

Meanwhile the United States, Canada, France and the rest of the (rapidly diminishing) civilized world met in Montreal a few days ago to devise a plan for developing a Haiti for the Age of Globalization.

The participants were more or less the same countries who plotted to depose Aristide. "Shortly after Aristide's overwhelming victory in Haiti's first democratic presidential election in 1990, the relicts of the Jim Crow Marine occupation managed to convince the Americans, first John McCain's International Republican Institute and then elements of Bill Clinton's government and various Canadian politicos and officials that Haiti under Aristide was a threat to civilization as they knew it.

"Denis Paradis, a Canadian Minister, convened a coven of like-minded fascists, 'who decided that Aristide must go, and the Canadians and Americans through the Canadian aid agency (CIDA), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and John McCain's International Republican Institute financed a whole panoply of Haitian francs tireurs, pimps and wannabe-presidents and face-card NGOs to support the program of the elites which was simply to grab back from the Haitian people, the Universal Human Rights promulgated 200 years earlier for the first time on Earth by Jean Jacques Dessalines and the other illustrious fathers and mothers of the Haitian Revolution." ("Common Sense -- Canada's Bloody Hands," John Maxwell, The Jamaica Observer, April 19,2009)

It would appear to me that a people who fought for their freedom incessantly, for 300 years and finally won it 200 years ago deserve to be accorded considerable respect. Moreso, because they fought as slaves, entrapped and circumscribed by the system itself and despite this, defeated three of the world's most powerful armies, one of them twice. They are the only people in history to have broken their shackles themselves. Spartacus, who tried valiantly but failed, is revered as a European hero. Bouckman, Toussaint and Dessalines are ignored by the same historians. It is not so odd; TIME recognized Margaret Thatcher but not Fidel Castro as a revolutionary.

Those Haitians whose savagery, indiscipline and general lawlessness the western "press" celebrated in slavering anticipation failed to show. The Haitians who survived behaved as those who know them expected, patient, disciplined, and displaying an exemplary solidarity, sharing their crusts while starving.

It was these same people who declared universal emancipation and universal human rights two centuries ago and who have told anyone who wants to listen that they know what they want and who they want to lead them and speak for them.

They know how to develop their nation, if only, for the first time at last, they are allowed to do what they want. They need help, but help on their own terms.

They want to go back to feeding themselves. They want to be complete Haitians again; the people who helped Bolivar liberate South America.

The world needs to get out of the way. France, the United States and Canada owe the Haitians billions in damages. It is not for them to tell the Haitians what to spend it on. France used Haitian money to conquer Algeria.

If the General Assembly wants to prove its worth it should move quickly to take the Haitian initiative away from the clueless and overtaxed Security Council. The Assembly can -- guided by the Haitians and with the expert help of Cuba, Venezuela, South Africa, Kerala (India), Brazil, China and other parts of the developing world -- map out an agenda and organise help from wherever it is available without strings. The object is not to defend Miami Beach but to protect the vital interests of the Haitians, and, by extension, the vital interests of humanity.

And, if anyone wants to know what to do right now: Land 10 thousand wheelbarrows on the streets, handing them over to neighborhood groups. Let the groups decide how they are going to move the rubble and what they are going to do with it. Give the groups money and supplies to set up 10 thousand street kitchens -- say about $200 a group. Let the groups pay the wheelbarrow men if necessary. In three weeks the casual journalist would be hard put to find any of the "usual" stories. Total cost $2 million plus $1 million for wheelbarrows.

Meanwhile the UN can be assembling a real security force to protect the Haitians and particularly their president and under his direction, design and install the apparatus allowing Haitians to run their own country and to make their own mistakes, for the first time at last.

* John Maxwell is a veteran Jamaican journalist. He has covered Caribbean affairs for more than 40 years and is currently a columnist for The Jamaica Observer. He can be contacted at jankunnu@gmail.com.

Calendar of Events

Toronto
February Film Series on Haiti's Fight for Self-Determination
All screenings will take place in Room 2-211 (2nd floor) at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE); 252 Bloor Street West (next to the St. George subway station)
Free admission -- donations welcome
Organized by: Pan-African Solidarity Network (U of T) and CUPE Local 3902
For information: cupe3907@gmail.com / 416-978-2403.

"Rezistans" (1997), Directed by Katherine Kean
Friday, February 12 -- 7:00 pm
Speaker: Claire-Hélene Heese-Boutin, Toronto Haiti Action Committee and University of Toronto

"Aristide and the Endless Revolution" (2005), Directed by Nicolas Rossier
Friday, February 19 -- 7:00 pm
Speaker: Niraj Joshi, Toronto Haiti Action Committee

"Haiti: We Must Kill The Bandits" (2007) Directed by Kevin Pina
Friday, February 26 -- 7:00 pm
Speaker: Adelin Brunal, University of Toronto

Guelph
"Aristide and the Endless Revolution" (2005), Directed by Nicolas Rossier
Saturday, March 6 -- 12:30 pm
Location TBA
For Information: mary.skerrett@gmail.com

The Endless Tragedy

The Endless Tragedy

UNASUR Approves Multilateral Fund to Rebuild Haiti

Cuban Vice President Lazo Visits Haiti

Report on Cuba's Steadfast
Internationalist Assistance

Legislative Elections Postponed

Protecting Haiti's Interest

Encouraging News

Calendar of Events

The Endless Tragedy

The Endless Tragedy

UNASUR Approves Multilateral Fund to Rebuild Haiti

Cuban Vice President Lazo Visits Haiti

Report on Cuba's Steadfast Internationalist Assistance

Legislative Elections Postponed

Protecting Haiti's Interest

Encouraging News

Calendar of Events

Report on Cuba's Steadfast
Internationalist Assistance