“The Struggle for Land Justice Knows No Borders”: Corporate Pillaging in Haiti

December 22, 2015 Nixon Boumba 0

The January 2010 earthquake provided a perfect opportunity for many to come and do business in Haiti. Even prior to the earthquake, Bill Clinton led the discussion on developing Haiti through corporate investment. President Martelly turned that approach into a credo: “Haiti is open for business.” We understand the pretext for this so-called development. The concept of extraction isn’t very well known in Haiti, but the country has had a long history of pillaging by colonial and imperial powers.

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Four Years After Haiti’s Earthquake, Still Waiting for a Roof

January 22, 2014 Jane Regan and Milo Milfort 0

Overall, of the $6.43 billion disbursed by bilateral and multilateral donors to Haiti from 2010 to 2012, just nine percent went through the Haitian government while the rest went to foreign contractors. “It’s a really profitable business for U.S. contractors to make money off of this disaster,” CEPR’s Dan Beeton told IPS. “This was an opportunity to turn a disaster into something that could benefit Haitians as they rebuild their own country, but they were just bypassed.”

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Made in Haiti, Dumped in Haiti

July 17, 2013 Isabeau Doucet 0

In a market driven by the profit-making of multinationals, the garment sector isn’t about creating jobs for Haitians so much as displacing jobs from one poor country to another, poorer one, making Haiti’s poverty its “comparative advantage. “The state hasn’t done anything to force the minimum-wage law to be respected,” says Pierre. “Workers do revolt, but timidly, and factories put a lot of pressure on workers to not join the union.”

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Haitian Senate Calls for Halt to Mining Activities

February 26, 2013 Jane Regan 0

Outraged that they have not been consulted, this week Haitian senators called for a moratorium on all activities connected with recently granted gold and copper mining permits. In a resolution approved by 15 of 16 senators present, the lawmakers also demanded the establishment of a commission to review all of the current mining contracts and “a national debate on the country’s mineral resources.”

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Sovereignty vs. Intervention: A Review of Haiti’s New Dictatorship

January 30, 2013 Isabeau Doucet 0

Justin Podur, Associate Professor in environmental studies at Toronto’s York University, in his new book, Haiti’s New Dictatorship: The Coup, the Earthquake and the UN Occupation, offers a timely and concise political history of contemporary Haiti and a case study in “how a multilateral violation of sovereignty is organized and carried out.” He draws on a wide range of academic, journalistic, and human rights reports, as well as U.S. embassy cables released by Wikileaks, to document how Haiti became a laboratory “experiment in a new kind of imperialism.”

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What Are ‘Peacekeepers’ Doing in a Haitian Industrial Park?

January 14, 2013 David L. Wilson 0

Wages and working conditions are a major issue for the 29,000 Haitians who work long hours in garment factories for about $5 a day. Anger over the situation erupted in August 2009, when thousands of SONAPI workers shut down their machines and marched into the center of Port-au-Prince to demand an increase in the minimum wage. Batay Ouvriye organizers say MINUSTAH began stepping up its presence in the park after the protests.

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