by COHA Research Associate Ethan Katz and Visiting Scholar Daniel Boscov-Ellen

Over the last few months there has been a surfeit of talk in the international community over what should be done for Haiti. However, in almost all of these discussions Haiti’s historical context is completely excised – it is almost as if the country had only come into being as a result of January’s earthquake. This collective amnesia is damning. The hurricanes of 2008 and the recent earthquake brought unfathomable damage upon Haiti, but their effects have been greatly exacerbated by Haiti’s widespread poverty, lack of adequate public infrastructure, food insecurity and an utterly bleak horizon. Unlike the hurricanes and earthquake, these are not natural phenomena. The devastating nature of these natural disasters cannot be understood apart from over two centuries of Haiti’s colonial and postcolonial subjugation, foreign occupation, economic exploitation and the degrading conditions faced by most of its population.

If one chooses wisely (and not selectively), one can learn from Haiti’s history in order to assure that this cycle of oppression, destitution, and destruction is not repeated. As a first step, providing Haiti with unconditional disaster relief on an urgent basis remains critical. However, so long as the developed countries that played such a significant role in creating Haiti’s present ruinous political and economic conditions continue to ignore and evade their responsibility for Haiti’s impoverishment, the country will remain vulnerable. Recognition of and restitution for past wrongs, coupled with an authentic commitment to end the sabotage and exploitation of this tortured nation, would be the best way to help Haiti achieve the stability and freedom to determine its own future.

Regrettably, such a recognition rarely can be found in the mainstream reporting on Haiti’s situation. In the words of Noam Chomsky, “the facts are extensively documented, appalling, and shameful. And they are deemed irrelevant for the usual reasons: they do not conform to the required self-image, and so are efficiently dispatched deep into the memory hole…” However, if we are to talk in good faith about what must be done for Haiti, we must first confront what we already have rendered there.

Continue reading at…

http://www.coha.org/justice-for-haiti-beyond-aid-and-debt-forgiveness/

by COHA Research Associate Leah Chavla

Did President Clinton and other recent White House tenants condemn Haiti to a future of endemic poverty through a self-serving U.S. rice export policy? An examination of Haiti’s economic liberalization strategies of the 1980s and 1990s indicates that the answer in part is “yes.”

continue reading at…

http://www.coha.org/haiti-research-file-neoliberalism’s-heavy-hand-on-haiti’s-vulnerable-agricultural-economy-the-american-rice-scandal/