Konformist: The Right Testicle of Hell

History of a Haitian Holocaust
Blackwater before drinking water
by Greg Palast for The Huffington Post
Sunday 17 January 2010

1. Bless the President for having rescue teams in the air almost immediately. That was President Olafur Grimsson of Iceland. On Wednesday, the AP reported that the President of the United States promised, "The initial contingent of 2,000 Marines could be deployed to the quake-ravaged country within the next few days." "In a few days," Mr. Obama?

2. There's no such thing as a 'natural' disaster. 200,000 Haitians have been slaughtered by slum housing and IMF "austerity" plans.

3. A friend of mine called. Do I know a journalist who could get medicine to her father? And she added, trying to hold her voice together, "My sister, she's under the rubble. Is anyone going who can help, anyone?" Should I tell her, "Obama will have Marines there in 'a few days'"?

4. China deployed rescuers with sniffer dogs within 48 hours. China, Mr. President. China: 8,000 miles distant. Miami: 700 miles close. US bases in Puerto Rico: right there.

5. Obama's Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, "I don't know how this government could have responded faster or more comprehensively than it has." We know Gates doesn't know.

6. From my own work in the field, I know that FEMA has access to ready-to-go potable water, generators, mobile medical equipment and more for hurricane relief on the Gulf Coast. It's all still there. Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, who served as the task force commander for emergency response after Hurricane Katrina, told the Christian Science Monitor, "I thought we had learned that from Katrina, take food and water and start evacuating people." Maybe we learned but, apparently, Gates and the Defense Department missed school that day.

7. Send in the Marines. That's America's response. That's what we're good at. The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson finally showed up after three days. With what? It was dramatically deployed — without any emergency relief supplies. It has sidewinder missiles and 19 helicopters.

8. But don't worry, the International Search and Rescue Team, fully equipped and self-sufficient for up to seven days in the field, deployed immediately with ten metric tons of tools and equipment, three tons of water, tents, advanced communication equipment and water purifying capability. They're from Iceland.

9. Gates wouldn't send in food and water because, he said, there was no "structure ... to provide security." For Gates, appointed by Bush and allowed to hang around by Obama, it's security first. That was his lesson from Hurricane Katrina. Blackwater before drinking water.

10. Previous US presidents have acted far more swiftly in getting troops on the ground on that island. Haiti is the right half of the island of Hispaniola. It's treated like the right testicle of Hell. The Dominican Republic the left. In 1965, when Dominicans demanded the return of Juan Bosch, their elected President, deposed by a junta, Lyndon Johnson reacted to this crisis rapidly, landing 45,000 US Marines on the beaches to prevent the return of the elected president.

11. How did Haiti end up so economically weakened, with infrastructure, from hospitals to water systems, busted or non-existent - there are two fire stations in the entire nation - and infrastructure so frail that the nation was simply waiting for "nature" to finish it off?

Don't blame Mother Nature for all this death and destruction. That dishonor goes to Papa Doc and Baby Doc, the Duvalier dictatorship, which looted the nation for 28 years. Papa and his Baby put an estimated 80% of world aid into their own pockets - with the complicity of the US government happy to have the Duvaliers and their voodoo militia, Tonton Macoutes, as allies in the Cold War. (The war was easily won: the Duvaliers' death squads murdered as many as 60,000 opponents of the regime.)

12. What Papa and Baby didn't run off with, the IMF finished off through its "austerity" plans. An austerity plan is a form of voodoo orchestrated by economists zomby-fied by an irrational belief that cutting government services will somehow help a nation prosper.

13. In 1991, five years after the murderous Baby fled, Haitians elected a priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who resisted the IMF's austerity diktats. Within months, the military, to the applause of Papa George HW Bush, deposed him.
History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. The farce was George W. Bush. In 2004, after the priest Aristide was re-elected President, he was kidnapped and removed again, to the applause of Baby Bush.

14. Haiti was once a wealthy nation, the wealthiest in the hemisphere, worth more, wrote Voltaire in the 18th century, than that rocky, cold colony known as New England. Haiti's wealth was in black gold: slaves. But then the slaves rebelled - and have been paying for it ever since.

From 1825 to 1947, France forced Haiti to pay an annual fee to reimburse the profits lost by French slaveholders caused by their slaves' successful uprising. Rather than enslave individual Haitians, France thought it more efficient to simply enslave the entire nation.

15. Secretary Gates tells us, "There are just some certain facts of life that affect how quickly you can do some of these things." The Navy's hospital boat will be there in, oh, a week or so. Heckuva job, Brownie!

16. Note just received from my friend. Her sister was found, dead; and her other sister had to bury her. Her father needs his anti-seizure medicines. That's a fact of life too, Mr. President.
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Through our journalism network, we are trying to get my friend's medicines to her father. If any reader does have someone getting into or near Port-au-Prince, please contact Haiti@GregPalast.com immediately.

Urgently recommended reading - The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, the history of the successful slave uprising in Hispaniola by the brilliant CLR James.

Greg Palast is author of the New York Times bestseller, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy." His investigations for BBC TV and Democracy Now! can be seen by subscribing to Palast's reports at www.GregPalast.com.

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http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/517482/we_are_a_forgotten_people

An Interview with Haitian NBA Vet Olden Polynice
Dave Zirin
01/15/2010

Olden Polynice played center in the NBA for 15 seasons. During that time, he distinguished himself as more than a hardnosed rebounder. He was the most visible Haitian athlete in the history of the United States. In 1993, Polynice was the first U.S. athlete to ever join a hunger strike during the season to protest the treatment of H.I.V. positive Haitian refugees imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay. Today Polynice lives in Los Angeles and runs the Olden Polynice Hoop Foundation. He calls himself "an activist for Haiti until the day I die.... whether it's chic or not." I spoke with him about the current post-earthquake calamity.

Dave Zirin: First question. How are your loved ones?

Olden Polynice: I just spoke to my father for the first time. He's in Port au Prince: He's good. He's alive. No injuries or nothing major. But we know that we've lost at least one cousin. The roof of her house fell on her. We are waiting to hear from an uncle and other cousins. We don't know if all four of them are dead. We've just heard nothing.

DZ: Where were you when you first heard what happened?

OP: Ahhhh! The irony of it all. I was at a funeral for my girlfriend's cousin sitting there at the church. This is about an hour before I heard the news. And for whatever reason, I'm thinking about my dad, Lester. Then after the funeral ended, my girlfriend and I walked to the cemetery and she showed me her father's gravestone and I swear on everything holy that this is true - her Dad's name was Lester as well.

And then at that moment my phone rings and I hear about the earthquake. I thought first that it was a joke. Earthquake? In Haiti? Haiti doesn't have earthquakes! We have everything else, but not earthquakes! Then I spent days trying to get through to my father and here we are.

DZ: Many people are giving to help rebuild Haiti...

OP: Yes people have been really good. Giving to Wyclef's group, the Red Cross, my group, the Olden Polynice Hoop Foundation. Everything helps. But Haiti needs the help when it's not chic as well. I remember when I went on the hunger strike to protest the treatment of the Haitian refugees in '93 and everyone got so mad at me doing it. If I did it now there would probably be a parade for me. But I didn't care about any of the criticism. That's my home. I've always done stuff for Haiti. I've always been an activist and I continue to be one. I want everyone to know: this earthquake is not a Haiti problem. It's a world problem. Anything that affects Haiti, affects the world and if you think that's not true, then you are sadly mistaken.

DZ: Do you think the Haitian people should be granted temporary asylum status in the US?

OP: Why not? We open our doors to everyone else. Cubans are granted asylum. I'm not saying bring the whole country up here but Haitians are the forgotten people. That cannot happen now. It is absurd to me that on an island like Hispaniola, which Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic, that the Dominican Republic can possess wealth while Haiti suffers. How is that possible? It's all political. ... I'm very thankful President Obama has acted as swiftly as he has but I'll say it again: we are a forgotten people.

DZ: I have to ask you your thoughts about Pat Robertson saying the earthquake happened because Haiti made a pact with the devil for independence.

OP: Pat Robertson can suck a big one--you can quote me on that. He is not a man of God and shouldn't claim to be. And you can quote me on that. Please.

DZ: New subject: Have you tried to contact Haitian players like Samuel Dalembert of the Philadelphia 76ers?

OP: I spoke to Samuel last night. I am trying to reach out to as many as possible. I want to organize all the Haitian players with one goal in mind. The goal is to make sure that they continue to represent Haiti and their families: they are Haitian and proud. There are many players, unlike Samuel, who are Haitian and don't want to claim it. I am Haitian and proud of it! You always have to be proud. We actually have ethnicity. We have culture. I want to organize all the Haitian athletes and have them claim a sense of responsibility. Not just right now when it is chic but every day of our lives. As we play and we make money, as we make the highlight films, we should let the world know that we come from a different place, a special place. Let the world know: Haiti is already hurting, before any earthquake. Haiti has BEEN hurt. Don't wait for a major catastrophe to be involved. Claim your home. Don't let us be a forgotten people.

Dave Zirin is the author of the forthcoming "Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games we Love" (Scribner) Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com .

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http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/01/16/world/international-us-quake-haiti.html

U.S. Pours Aid Into Haiti as Survivors Flee City
January 16, 2010

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Saturday declared one of the largest relief efforts in U.S. history to help Haiti four days after an earthquake killed up to 200,000 people and devastated the Caribbean nation's capital.

Even as aid poured into wrecked Port-au-Prince, thousands of Haitians streamed out of the city on foot with suitcases on their heads or jammed into cars trying to reach the countryside to escape aftershocks and the threat of looting, and to find food, water and shelter.

Four days after the quake, logjams still slowed relief reaching victims and gangs of robbers had begun preying on survivors struggling without supplies in makeshift camps on streets strewn with debris and decomposing bodies.

Obama promised help as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton flew to Haiti carrying relief aid and the shell-shocked government gave the United States control over its main airport to bring order to aid flights from around the world.

"At this moment we're moving forward with one of the largest relief efforts in our history to save lives and deliver relief that averts an even larger catastrophe," Obama said, flanked by his predecessors George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, in the White House Rose Garden. "The two leaders with me today will ensure that this is matched by a historic effort that extends beyond our government."

Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest country, has for years struggled with devastating storms, floods and political unrest. Around 9,000 U.N. peacekeepers have provided security in the country since a 2004 uprising ousted one president.

Hillary Clinton left for Port-au-Prince on Saturday to meet with Haitian President Rene Preval at the airport. Her plane was to bring in supplies and return with evacuated Americans.

Even four days after the 7.0 magnitude quake, aftershocks were felt every few hours in the capital, terrifying survivors and sending rubble and dust tumbling from buildings.

Trucks piled with corpses have been ferrying bodies to hurriedly excavated mass graves outside the city, but thousands of bodies still are believed buried under rubble.

U.S. rescuers worked through the night to dig out survivors from one collapsed supermarket where as many as 100 people could have been trapped inside. They were about to give up, when they were told a supermarket cashier had managed to call someone in Miami to say she was still alive inside.

"We have already collected around 50,000 dead bodies," Interior Minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aime told Reuters. "We anticipate there will be between 100,000 and 200,000 dead in total, although we will never know the exact number."

If the casualty figures prove accurate, the quake that hit Haiti on Tuesday and flattened much of its capital city, would be one of the 10 deadliest ever. Some 40,000 bodies have already been buried in mass graves, the government says.

LOOTING, FIGHTING FOR FOOD

Scores of police were on the streets of downtown Port-au-Prince on Saturday, rounding up looters in the biggest security operation since the earthquake struck, witnesses said.

A Reuters photographer saw police shooting in the air, grabbing and throwing people to the ground, and occasionally kicking detainees in parts of the city. But there was still no sign of widespread looting and riots that many feared.

Underlying the desperate nature of the quake aid effort, a U.S. helicopter landed in one open space, near the port, and threw out boxes full of plastic bags and bottles of water before taking off again.

Haitians flocked around the boxes to grab the water, many drinking immediately and sharing with family members and friends. Hungry residents fought each other for bags of foods handed out from U.N. trucks in downtown Port-au-Prince.

A senior U.N. official warned hunger will fuel trouble if aid does not arrive soon, although the law and order situation remains under control "for the time being."

The U.N. mission responsible for security in Haiti lost at least 36 of its 9,000 members when its headquarters collapsed. Two top officials are missing.

Dozens of bloated bodies were still dumped in the yard outside the main hospital, decomposing in the sun. The hospital gardens on Saturday were a mass of beds with injured people, with drips hanging from trees and tubes.

The weakened Haitian government was in little position to handle the crisis. The quake destroyed the presidential palace and knocked out communications and power. Preval and Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive are living and working in the judicial police headquarters.

"I do not have a home, I do not have a telephone. This is my palace now," Preval told Reuters in an interview.

The U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort, a full service medical facility that can handle up to 1,000 patients, left the port of Baltimore on Saturday and was due in Haiti next week.

STILL NO WATER

Obama said the United States, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, France, Colombia, Russia, Japan, Britain and other countries managed to fly in rescue and logistics personnel and supplies. While some aid was getting in, the White House hoped improved logistics would accelerate the effort.

Planes and ships arrived with rescue teams, search dogs, tents, water purification units, food, doctors and telecom teams, but faced a bottleneck at the small airport.

Air traffic control, hampered by damage to the airport's tower, will be handled by the U.S. military with backup from a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.

The USS Carl Vinson with 19 helicopters arrived off Haiti on Friday, opening a second significant channel to deliver help. Navy helicopters had begun taking water ashore and ferrying injured people to a field hospital near the airport.

The U.S. military aimed to have 9,000 to 10,000 troops on the ground in Haiti in ships offshore by Monday.

The Pan American Health Organization said at least eight hospitals and health centers in Port-au-Prince had collapsed or sustained damage and were unable to function.

At one collapsed supermarket, scores of people swarmed over the rubble to try to reach the food underneath. Just outside the Cite Soleil slum, desperate people crowded around a burst water pipe jostling to drink from the pipe or fill buckets.

(Reporting by Tom Brown, Joseph Guyler Delva and Eduardo Munoz in Port-au-Prince, Patrick Worsnip at the United Nations, Phil Stewart, Andrew Quinn and John Crawley in Washington; writing by Patrick Markey and Anthony Boadle; editing by Vicki Allen and Sandra Maler)

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http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b162495_wyclef_jean_i_spent_day_picking_up_dead.html

Wyclef Jean: "I Spent the Day Picking Up Dead Bodies"
Sat., Jan. 16, 2010
Brandi Fowler

Wyclef Jean is working hard to help Haiti—and to defend himself.

The Haitian-born singer spent time in his homeland with his wife, pulling dead bodies from the rubble of the earthquake-ravaged country.

"We've been picking up dead bodies because the morgues ain't taking no more bodies," Jean said Saturday after arriving back from Haiti, where casualties estimates could climb as high as 100,000. "We're literally picking them up...some are identified with tags, putting them in the trucks and bringing them to the cemeteries. The whole Port-au-Prince is starting to smell like dead bodies, because every two blocks that's what you have."

The 37-year-old Grammy winner said what disturbed him the most was that under the rubble he could hear voices of people saying "save me."

The devastating conditions in the Caribbean nation have impeded efforts to get equipment inside that could lift the large concrete slabs trapping untold numbers of victims underneath. To make matters worse, the former Fugee said, many Haitians are still waiting for life-saving supplies.

"Aid is finally coming in, but it still isn't getting to the people," said Jean, who has also found himself standing up for his under-fire charitable efforts.

Critics have accused his Yéle Haiti Foundation of squandering funds, with some even suggesting Jean might be skimming off the top. The organization launched a campaign in the wake of the disaster, encouraging people to donate $5 to relief efforts by texting "YELE" to 501501.

Jean issued a video statement Saturday on the organization's website regarding those accusations.

"My commitment to Haiti is a unique and everlasting bond," he said. "It is impossible for me to even comprehend the recent attacks on my character and the integrity of my foundation, Yéle Haiti. The fact that these attacks come as we are mobilized to meet the greatest human tragedy in the history of Haiti only serves to perplex me even further."

He says Yéle will be shipping food, water and medical supplies to Haiti next week. He has also kicked in $1 million of his own money to aid his countrymen.

Jean managed to get back to Haiti only 12 hours after the earthquake struck, and has been in and out of the country. He met with George Clooney on Friday to discuss next week's telethon.