The Clintons’ crimes against Haiti go back two decades, making Bill singularly unsuitable to act as United Nations envoy to Haiti. “Bill’s friendly relations with Haiti’s current President Michael Martelly, who is linked to Duvalier-era thugs and their kin, is well known.”

Bill and Hillary Clinton: “Friends of Haiti?”

by Marty Goodman

“When he gave money to the farmer (in the US) to grow rice and to compete with Haitian rice he is not the friend of Haiti.”

Bill Clinton and Obama’s Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are called “the Friends of Haiti.” Oh, really?

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Both Bill and Hillary are promoters of the U.S. dominated World Bank low-wage sweatshop plan for Haiti, angrily dubbed “the American Plan” by Haitians.Last year, Hillary signed an agreement committing $124 million tax dollars to the building of the Caracol sweatshop assembly park in the north of Haiti. The agreement includes massive tax breaks for sweatshop bosses. Workers there are making the starvation wage of about $3.50 a day.

On Oct 22, 2012 Bill and Hillary were on hand for the inaugural ceremony in Caracol. Also there was Haitian President Michael Martelly, a pro-coup right-winger linked to Duvalier era thugs. Hillary praised Martelly as Haiti’s “chief dreamer and believer.” Martelly, once again, declared Haiti “open for business.”

The sweatshop park was launched with $3 million from the “Clinton Bush Haiti Fund,” set up by the two Obama appointees to spearhead so-called earthquake relief fundraising. One park occupant, Sae-A Trading, is a large textile company cited by the AFL-CIO for “acts of violence and intimidation” against workers in Guatemala.

“Last year, Hillary signed an agreement committing $124 million tax dollars to the building of the Caracol sweatshop assembly park in the north of Haiti.”

In 1993, during Bill Clinton’s administration, he appointed his close friend Ron Brown as Secretary of Commerce. In the early 1980s, Brown was a partner in the powerful Washington law firm of Patton, Boggs & Blow. Brown was a paid attorney and a lobbyist for Haitian dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier and his family. Brown was also personally linked to wealthy Haitian pro-Duvalier figures.

In 1983, Ron Brown wrote a report addressed to the dictator detailing his successes on Duvalier’s behalf in overcoming Haiti’s “unfair image,” not once mentioning Baby Doc’s appalling human rights record. As Commerce Secretary (1993-1996) Brown was in a position to help steer Haiti’s World Bank economic plan. Brown was named Democratic National Chairman in 1989. President Clinton established the “Ron Brown Award” for corporate leadership and responsibility.

As first-time presidential candidate, Bill correctly called Bush Sr’s Haitian immigration policy “racist.” Bush intercepted refugee boats in international waters as they fled a brutal CIA-backed military coup in 1991. Bush erected a racist U.S. naval blockade around Haiti to intercept refugees, in violation of U.S. and international political asylum law. The desperate refugees, dubbed “the Black Boat People” by refugee advocates, were handed over by the US to the military regime, which viewed refugees as “dissidents.” Once in office, Clinton dramatically intensified Bush’s racist blockade, which former Preside Jean-Bertrand Aristide called a “floating Berlin Wall.”

In 1994, Aristide got Clinton to agree to restore his presidency with a US/UN military occupation that his supporters lobbied for. Included in the occupation agreement was a World Bank economic plan for Haiti based on assembly sweatshops; reconciliation with coup makers; and the slashing of tariffs on U.S. subsidized goods such as rice, which soon destroyed the domestic production of this Haitian staple. The policy drove rural Haitians into overcrowded, poorly constructed housing in Port au Prince, devastated by the deadly 2010 earthquake. Mario Joseph, a prominent Haitian human rights attorney, told Socialist Action, “When he gave money to the farmer (in the US) to grow rice and to compete with Haitian rice he is not the friend of Haiti.”

The Clinton administration further pressured the Haitian government into accepting the reintegration hundreds of former Haitian army thugs into the “new” Haitian police. The CIA admitted that it openly recruiting police trainees, including members of the paramilitary goons in FRAPH, which was key to the success of the bloody 1991 coup. So blatant was the CIA that Jan Stromsem, head of the US police training program (ICITAP) in Haiti, quit in 1999 due, in part, to the CIA role.

Today, Bill’s friendly relations with Haiti’s current President Michael Martelly, who is linked to Duvalier-era thugs and their kin, is well known. Martelly became president in a sham election in 2011 engineered by the US. Secret U.S. embassy cables, released by Wikileaks, partially revealed extensive U.S. involvement in the Haitian election, which surely included Clinton. According to a Haitian journalist friendly with someone who was in the room with Clinton at a private meeting with candidates, Clinton arrogantly told a leading candidate, Jude Celestin, that he could not run and then offered Celestin a job in return. In sum, Clinton lent credibility to a sham election that excluded the largest party, Fanmi Lavalas, the party of Aristide supporters.

UN envoy Bill Clinton must answer for the UN’s refusal to take responsibility for numerous sexual assaults by MINUSTAH troops, some caught on video. In addition, the UN’s refusal to respond to calls for a moratorium on “forced evictions” of earthquake victims still living in Haiti’s tent cities, which numbers about 400,000. The forced evictions violate laws protecting the rights of “internal refugees.” Lastly, the UN’s refusal to respond to suits by human rights organizations such as the Office of International Lawyers (BAI) concerning the UN role in the Cholera epidemic. Two scientific studies and photographic evidence demonstrated the direct cause of the outbreak is linked to MINUSTAH troops from Nepal.

An easily treated water born disease, cholera killed over 7,000 Haitians and hundreds of thousands were stricken ill starting in 2010. BAI President Mario Joseph told Socialist Action, “If this kind of cholera happened in the U.S., France, in Canada or in London, the UN would act fast. Because we are Haitian, because we are black people, they don’t respect us.” Joseph called the lack of action, “genocide.”


http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/bill-and-hillary-clinton-%E2%80%9Cfriends-haiti%E2%80%9D


]Plan Lanmó – the Death Plan: The Clintons, foreign aid and NGOs in Haiti
August 26, 2015

by Charlie Hinton

....International assistance followed the same pattern. After the earthquake, the U.S. ambassador to Haiti wrote an email saying, “The gold rush is on,” and indeed it was. For everyone but Haitians.

Instead of building infrastructure and providing aid to those most in need, Haiti’s international rulers continue their same old neo-liberal formula of promoting tourism, sweatshops, natural resource extraction, and cash crop exports. As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton promoted this very policy, demonstrated particularly in the imposition of Michel Martelly as president.

In January, 2011, at the height of the Egyptian Arab Spring revolution, Clinton flew to Port-au-Prince to demand that Martelly be named one of the two runoff candidates, although he was not announced originally by the Electoral Council as one of the two top vote getters.

After the earthquake, the U.S. ambassador to Haiti wrote an email saying, “The gold rush is on,” and indeed it was. For everyone but Haitians.

Despite a voter boycott, with fewer than 20 percent of the electorate voting, Martelly was announced the winner of the “runoff,” and the results were accepted by the international community. The results have been catastrophic for the Haitian majority, as Martelly appointed Duvalierists throughout his administration and has sanctioned privatization, repression, death squads, corruption, illegally appointed judges and illegal changes to the Constitution, while bringing a particularly greedy and arrogant entourage into his government.

His administration has granted mineral concessions with no accountability and cut down the only forest on the island of Ile a Vache, displacing hundreds of peasant families, to build a tourist resort.

“At least seven hotels are under construction or are in the planning stage in Port-au-Prince and its surrounding areas, raising hopes that thousands of investors will soon fill their air-conditioned rooms looking to build factories and tourist infrastructure that will help Haiti bounce back from a 2010 earthquake,” according to USA Today. The Clinton Bush fund invested $2 million of earthquake money in the new luxury Royal Oasis Hotel.

The Clinton Foundation invested earthquake money in the Caracol Northern Industrial Park, with Korean apparel manufacturer Sae-A Trading Co. Ltd., known for its sweatshops, as the anchor tenant. Sae-A makes clothes for Walmart, Gap and other retailers.

“The Red Cross says it has provided homes to more than 130,000 Haitians. But the actual number of permanent homes the group has built in all of Haiti: six,” reports ProPublica, and this house in Port-au-Prince was actually constructed by the Spanish Red Cross. – Photo: Marie Arago, special to ProPublica

“The Red Cross says it has provided homes to more than 130,000 Haitians. But the actual number of permanent homes the group has built in all of Haiti: six,” reports ProPublica, and this house in Port-au-Prince was actually constructed by the Spanish Red Cross. – Photo: Marie Arago, special to ProPublica

The earthquake did not touch this part of Haiti. Projected to provide 65,000 jobs, as of September 2014, only 4,156 people worked there. At the opening ceremony, Secretary of State Clinton said, “I want to begin by thanking President Martelly for his leadership and his vision and his passion about the people of his country and for your administration’s commitment to show the world Haiti is open for business.”

In June, 2015 Pro Publica and NPR published an analysis of the Red Cross called “How the Red Cross raised half a billion dollars for Haiti and built 6 homes.” “The Red Cross says it has provided homes to more than 130,000 people. But the actual number of permanent homes the group has built in all of Haiti: six. …

“After the earthquake, Red Cross CEO Gail McGovern unveiled ambitious plans to ‘develop brand-new communities.’ None has ever been built.” The donations, however, “helped the group erase its more than $100 million deficit.”


http://sfbayview.com/2015/08/plan-lanmo-the-death-plan-the-clintons-foreign-aid-and-ngos-in-haiti/