U.S. reinforces occupation as Haitians mourn, rebuild

Haiti remains a country devastated by the Jan. 12 earthquake. The disaster has been successfully used by the United States as a pretext for reoccupying the country with thousands of military troops.

On Feb. 12, Haiti mourned its dead. Tens of thousands came out to the ceremonies in Port-au-Prince at the ruined National Palace.

The mourning was made heavier because tens of thousands of the dead were tossed, unidentified, into mass graves. The Haitian government estimates the death toll at 213,000. Thousands of the living are amputees, facing a hard life made harder because of the loss of a limb. Over a million Haitians are now homeless in the cities devastated by the earthquake — Port-au-Prince, Petionville, Carrefour, Jacmel, Leogane and Petit-Goave. Hundreds of thousands have fled to cities not touched by the earthquake, where they are living doubled up with family and friends, scrambling and scraping to survive.

Even as Haitians grieve, rebuild and struggle, the country is occupied by 20,000 U.S. troops that do little to help the population.

Food is still in short supply, but the United Nations’ World Food Program appears to be getting enough distributed so nobody is starving to death. Many Haitians complain of graft, corruption and insensitive incompetence in its operation and food being used as a tool to force the hungry homeless to go to where the authorities want to send them. (Publico, Feb. 5)

Epidemics of diarrhea, flu, scabies, ringworm and many other preventable diseases are raging throughout the makeshift camps that are estimated to be home to more than 300,000 people in the capital alone. People in these camps have scant water, which means no baths, no sanitation, no latrines and no way to dispose of their garbage.

A few maquiladora shops have opened, but getting supplies in and product out is dicey. The U.N. has hired a few thousand Haitians to clear the streets and remove tottering buildings. However, some estimates put the unemployment rate at 70 percent before the earthquake. (National Public Radio, June 14) Saying it has gotten “significantly worse” means almost nobody has a job.

Adding to the desperation, the U.S. Coast Guard returned 78 Haitians who were seized near the Bahamas in an overloaded sailboat. A Coast Guard spokesperson said there was no sign that more Haitians than usual were fleeing by sea, but it had still stepped up patrols. (AFP, Feb. 12)

The USS Bataan has arrived in Haitian waters. (Haiti-Liberté, Feb. 10-16) Although the Pentagon has both denied and admitted that the Bataan is outfitted as a floating prison to be used outside the U.S., the Guardian (U.K.) has established that it was previously anchored in the Indian Ocean and used to hold prisoners from Afghanistan.

According to the Washington Post (Jan. 22), the 20,000 or so members of the U.S. armed forces currently in Haiti are operating under an agreement with the U.N. to “oversee all Haitian air and sea ports, and to help secure Haitian roads.” They also have “broad scope to intervene in civil disturbances, subject to a request by Haitian authorities.” They will, however, operate under their own “autonomous” command structure.

This agreement appears to put Haiti under a U.N. and U.S. protectorate.

But Haitians, no matter how desperate their situation, have not remained passive. Some of them are going through collapsed buildings, salvaging metal reinforcement, lumber and furniture to reuse or resell.

When about an inch of rain fell on Feb. 11 around 4:30 a.m., the first response was wails of helplessness and misery. Then anger at the U.N. and the René Préval government took hold and spontaneous, large demonstrations began marching to U.N. headquarters and the Haitian government’s headquarters, both located near the airport, which is currently a U.S. base. (Kevin Pina, www.haitiaction.net, Feb. 11)

The protesters chanted, “If Aristide was here, he would be soaked along with us.” They also chanted that they had nothing to keep off the rain and that they needed tents. They confronted the Haitian cops who came out to stop them. There was some pushing and shoving, but no injuries resulted.

There have been a number of earlier demonstrations at the government’s current headquarters, which is the former headquarters of the judicial police. On Feb. 5, when Bill Clinton and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon came to visit Préval, a group called PLONBAVIL came out to demand that aid be given to the true victims of the earthquake. The organization includes a number of former public employees in the telephone company, the ports and so on, who were illegally laid off.

Berthony Dupont, the editorial director of Haïti-Liberté, points out, “Indeed, the finishing stroke that the country received Jan. 12, despite the immense suffering of the people, seems to be a good thing for a group of speculators and mercenaries in the pay of the occupiers. That’s the reason why the imperialists’ aid never reached the masses of the people.”

Those in the U.S. in solidarity with the people of Haiti must continue to demand that U.S. troops be withdrawn immediately, that exiled and democratically elected President Bertrand Aristide be allowed to return, and that the Haitian people be able to rebuild their country free from imperialist domination and military occupation.