Comments on: A Step Up for Haiti?

By: kenny

kenny — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 10:35:25 +0000

its been while since i’v been on here but i wanted to make one last point to mr. alex. The fact that the ruling class of the army and the so called “elites” are haitians doesnt mean they have democracy for the majority of haitians as a goal. It seems like it is safe to assume that you think some people are prone to violence and some are not. that has been disproved by every decent social study thats ever been conducted. I dont presume to know the dynamics of S. African social behavior but if you look at the patterns of violence in haiti, it is clear to everyone with half a brain that violence is worst when foreign interference is the highest. you can go back to as early as the american occupation to the last occupation with Latortue. the pattern has been consistent. rapes and murders increase during times of foreign political influence and fall after haitians were left to thier own devices.
to render ur point of people being prone to violence moot, the south in america was known for its rapes and murders of african americans,making them work as slaves even after the Civil War, would that make then more prone to violence? if yes than, you have a valid point and also need to have ur head examined. :)

By: Jeremy Sapienza

Jeremy Sapienza — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 23:17:36 +0000

The only damage the embargo has done is keep Castro in power by giving him something to blame for the demonstrated failures of socialism to meet human needs and wants. The pressure of trade and continuing and strengthening of the close ties Floridians and other North Americans had with Cuba in the first part of the last century would have had Cubans tossing the Beard out on his ass decades ago. The embargo is a disaster — but it did not create the disaster that is the Cuban economy.

By: Jeremy Sapienza

Jeremy Sapienza — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 23:08:27 +0000

Ridiculous hyperbole. Neocons don’t even believe what you say they do, let alone myself.

By: Jeremy Sapienza

Jeremy Sapienza — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 23:06:55 +0000

TJ originally planned to help the French capture revolutionary leader Toussaint L’Ouverture and retake Haiti, and though later changed his mind (due to fears that Napoleon wanted to also move his army onto the North American mainland), did nothing to prevent the retaking of Haiti. He later enacted the equivalent of sanctions on the Haitians, reasoning that the US couldn’t consider blacks here slaves and there as equals and trading partners.

By: Jeremy Sapienza

Jeremy Sapienza — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 23:00:06 +0000

This is about “phase 2″ of the ratification vote. Otherwise, a rather less than simple Google search did indeed reveal Aristide is in South Africa, not his original exile location of Central African Republic. In this case, I think “woe” is a rather strong word.

By: Fact checker

Fact checker — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 14:49:38 +0000

Not only is the article mean sprited, it is woefully inaccurate. Aristide has been in exile in South Africa where he teaches at the university level and recently earned a Ph.D in the Zulu language. Furthermore, Ms. Pierre-Louis was ratified as prime minister last month. A simple google search would have revealed these facts. This seriously calls into question the authors credibilty.

By: Rowan Berkeley

Rowan Berkeley — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 05:24:56 +0000

This is a curious place to find the fascist view of Aristide repeated with approval.

By: Tom Mauel

Tom Mauel — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 05:28:53 +0000

Absolutely, the US should keep out of the internal affairs of Haiti, and Iraq, and Iran,
and Cuba.

By: Erik

Erik — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 22:38:48 +0000

I’ve visited Haiti twice. The last time was in 2004. Like most places in the world it is not easy to just say “Imperialism is at fault” or “Aristide is at fault” and have those statements be either true or false.

Many people assume that the poor in Haiti supported Aristide but the rich opposed him. That is not true. In the slums of La Saline and Cite Soliel there are Aristide supporters but the slums of Cap Hatien had some of his most virulent opponents.

When I was in Cite Soliel (and shot at by a teenage Aristide supporter known only to me as “Billy’s Soldier”…while he was on a bicycle and I was in a speeding beat up Honda) the people I talked to before the encounter with the homocidal teen wanted Aristide to be in power because they hoped that “Aid” money would trickle down to them. They had no idea what “aid” was or where it came from, but only that gang leaders would get a cut and that would then be distrubted to the gang members themselves. In the mean time the gangs fought for turf and extorted passengers and drivers of Tap-Taps (Haitian public transport) that gathered nearby.

In the slum of Cap Haitien I ran accross a similar but more docile group who hoped that “aid” money would come to them from their support of Guy Phillipe.

Now if you break things down to simple relations on the US level , you will see that Democrats tended to want to give aid to Aristide and Republicans tended to want to give aid to Phillipe. So in Haiti in 2004 the Republicans and Democrats had a proxy war being fought with real guns and real blood over the promise of aid money.

In conclusion, no matter what the opinion of who is at fault for Haitis condition we can see that even the presumption of aid money has caused violence and will probably continue to cause violence. Therefore it should be stopped and never promised at all by anyone.

By: alex

alex — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 22:36:56 +0000

And who are the majority of the ruling class and army? Aren’t they also Haitians? People that are already prone to extreme violence will commit it anyway. And how do you explain horrendous murder and rape rate in South Africa? Country is ran by ANC since 1994. Are people there still enraged and desperate for change?

By: Tom Mauel

Tom Mauel — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 19:57:46 +0000

How exactly is Haiti suppose to stop the most powerful nation on earth from continuous
interference in there internal affairs? Your racist uninformed comments are not worthy of
the space taken on a supposedly progressive site. Your attitude towards the exploited masses of poor in Haiti is similar to the so called neo cons who believe that wealthy white
US citizens have a right to steal the land, labor, and resources of any country because we are a cut above everyone else. They believe we are gods chosen few. That might makes right.
In short: RACISM.

By: Tom Mauel

Tom Mauel — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 19:42:06 +0000

Racist is the word I would give to this elitist comment. Anyone who has bothered to study the record of US imperialism in the Caribbean and Latin America would know that the people of Haiti have been destroyed by Western multi national exploitation of its land, government, and desperately poor citizens.

The same smug attitude is directed towards Iraq by many American politicians. We utterly
destroyed your country form end to end, now pay for your own reconstruction.

As for the comment about Cuba, your editor Raimondo must feel its necessary to attack Cuba on a regular basis in order to keep the cash flowing in these quarterly funding drives.
Raimondo somehow doesn’t get the connection between free market capitalism and its role in the destruction of Iraq. And he does not understand the tremendous struggle the Cuban people have endured to prevent a similar fate.