Just weeks after the earthquake that took more than 200,000 lives and devastated Haiti's capital city, a new normalcy is taking shape in Port-au-Prince.
The shock of so much loss has barely worn off, but the mountains of rubble are slowly being cleared. And where landmarks like the national palace and the cathedral once towered a new architecture has appeared.
These structures might be temporary, but at the makeshift government head quarters, in donor conferences, and in the boardrooms of international financial institutions, attention is turning to the long-term plan.
As pledges of billions of dollars of international aid and investment are made, Avi Lewis travels to Port-au-Prince and to the Plateau Central and finds that debates over the vision of a new Haiti are already underway.
This episode of Fault Lines airs from Thursday, Feburary 11, at the following times GMT: Thursday: 0600, 1630; Friday: 0130, 0830; Saturday: 1130, 2330;Sunday: 0630, 2030; Monday: 1430; Tuesday: 1230, 1930; Wednesday: 0300.
Engdahl: Geo-physics suggest there could be massive oil and mineral deposits in Haiti
BioF William Engdahl is an economist and author and the writer of the best selling book "A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order." Mr Engdhahl has written on issues of energy, politics and economics for more than 30 years, beginning with the first oil shock in the early 1970s. Mr. Engdahl contributes regularly to a number of publications including Asia Times Online, Asia, Inc, Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Foresight magazine; Freitag and ZeitFragen newspapers in Germany and Switzerland respectively. He is based in Germany. TranscriptPAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay, coming to you from Washington. And joining us now from Frankfurt, Germany, is William F. Engdahl. He's the author of Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order. Thanks for joining us, William. WILLIAM F. ENGDAHL, ECONOMIST AND AUTHOR: Thank you, Paul.JAY: So, William, you've written recently about the possibility of a massive oil find underneath Haiti and how this might connect to US strategy in the Caribbean. Talk a bit about what you've heard. ENGDAHL: Well, if you look at a geophysical map of Haiti and the Caribbean, it jumps out that Haiti and Port-au-Prince, Haiti, lies right along the conjunction of what are called tectonic plates, but three separate tectonic plates. If you can imagine a China vase that falls off the table and gets broken in many pieces and you glue it back together, well, these tectonic plates are a bit similar in terms of images. But three of those converge right at the land area that's called Haiti, and generally where we have such a conversion of tectonic plates, we have a great amount of geophysical motion, energy, and so forth. They tend to be along—in the Pacific you have the Ring of Fire, which is literally the ring of vulcanic activity—. Indonesia is in one such zone; Saudi Arabia and the giant oil fields of the Middle East, from Kuwait and so forth, the Persian Gulf, are another such convergence of such plates. And up until now there's been very little talk about petroleum and Haiti, but it's not because there hasn't been interest in petroleum in Haiti. My take on it is that there are—according to geophysicists knowledgeable about the geophysics of the Caribbean basin—you probably have large multinational oil companies, US, British oil companies and their allies, who are aware that with a little bit of exploration onshore and offshore, that there are probably enormous oil finds. And you just had, two years ago, offshore Cuba, just north of Haiti, a giant—supergiant, actually, oil discovery, with several billion barrels of believed reserves of oil there that the Russians are helping the Cubans to exploit. So it stands to reason that the same geological fault line of these tectonic plates—the Caribbean plate, the North American plate, and the South American plate—they all converge north of Venezuela and in the area that's called Haiti. That also makes Haiti ripe for other unusual minerals, such as uranium, gold, and so forth. And my own sense from talking with geophysicists on this whole Haiti question is that Haiti is probably one of the undeveloped treasures of mineral wealth on the planet. JAY: Now, why do think it's been so undeveloped for so long? Because there's been some suggestions of oil and perhaps other minerals, if I understand correctly, even as far back as the 1970s. ENGDAHL: I think for the following reason. As I wrote in an earlier book, A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics, the question for the United States and Britain since World War II, the question of oil reserves around the world, has not been an economic question, a business question of developing new oil fields, to sell it at so many dollars a barrel for the profit of Exxon Mobil, Chevron, whatever, but it has been a geopolitical question. It's been one of the power pillars, if you want to call it that, of the United States' power projection in the post-World War II world. The United States, through its control of the Middle East oil supplies, especially Saudi, Kuwait, earlier control of Iran when the Shah was in power, that gave the United States an enormous weapon over the European economies, over the world economy, actually, and over the Soviet Union during the Cold War era, because they had the power, by controlling the quantities of oil in the world market, to raise the price of oil at their behest, and also, as they did in 1986, to collapse the price of oil. Why has Haiti not been exploited? I think the very reason the world is swimming in oil, and the US oil multinationals, and the US government that works intimately with them around the world, wants to prevent that anyone else develops the oil resources of a place like Haiti. They're extremely unhappy, no doubt, about the discovery in Cuba, and I think they would like to keep this oil off the market as long as possible. Haiti for them is a stone's throw away, and they could develop it any time they have need. But to keep it off the development market, I think, is their strategy—strategic denial of those oil resources. JAY: Now, certainly while Aristide was in power, but even some of the Caribbean countries have very good relations with Venezuela, with Bolivia, some of the CARICOM [Caribbean Community] countries actually get cheap oil from Venezuela. So in terms of the geopolitics of the region, what would the significance be of Haitian oil? And how would that affect US strategy in the region? ENGDAHL: Well, I think the answer to that depends on who's controlling the government of Haiti, and by all accounts, the Préval government that's been essentially put into power with US backing since they ousted Aristide in 2004 and put him into exile in South Africa, the government has been intimately tied to the five families (as they call it in Haiti, the "little mafia" that run Haiti). And these five families are like in Russia after the collapse of communism, like the oligarchs in Russia: they literally control the economy of Haiti like their own plantation. And the question is: who would control, and for what purposes, the oil resources? If those five families are in control and Préval is doing their bidding, then, by all accounts I've seen, it wouldn't matter, because it wouldn't benefit the economy and the livelihood of the ordinary Haitians. So if that were to be developed as a national resource in a way that could benefit the overall economy of the Haitian people, then that would be a different question. So I think it's a question of who controls the politics of Haiti. JAY: Which must be somewhat in flux when you have the country in such chaos and all the normal infrastructures of the state in disarray, other than—I guess the US military is kind of taking up the role of the state, other than the private armies that work for these five, six families. So the real issue connected to oil is going to be: is this kind of tradition of popular politics in Haiti going to be able to assert itself? Or do they get back to politics as usual? ENGDAHL: Yeah, that I have no means of calling. I think the fact that the latest figures are 13,000 US troops on that tiny little island, that's quite a lot of military power. I think probably the need is for less military projection and more humanitarian—food, water, and shelter aid from—. And this is what the Haitian websites have been pleading for ever since the January earthquake. But I'm a little bit uneasy about the agenda of the Pentagon in Haiti, with their overwhelming military presence. The Doctors Without Borders in Geneva protested immediately after the quake that their planes, their transport planes, were turned back from Haitian airports by US soldiers who refused them landing rights—and they had emergency humanitarian aid. This wasn't some kind of a, you know, Soviet, Cold War-era spy game; this was a humanitarian effort, and they protested quite loudly that the US was hindering that. So it's unclear at this point what the US agenda is for Haiti, but the signs and the fact that George W. Bush was appointed special envoy, along with Bill Clinton as UN envoy, gives one grounds for pause here, I think. JAY: Well, where George W. Bush seems to be, there usually is oil. Thanks very much for joining us, William. ENGDAHL: Thank you. JAY: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network. |
Angry demonstrators demand Sarkozy to pay up and return Aristide to Haiti
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| Demonstrators show photos in support of ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Feb. 17, 2010 |
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| Supporter of Jean-Bertrand Aristide calls for his return to help in relief and recovery efforts |
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| Haitian president Rene Preval turns his back on the crowd and leaves after demonstrators demand he allow ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide to return |
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Port au Prince, Haiti - HIP — Thousands of supporters of ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide took to the streets on Wednesday as French president Nicolas Sarkozy toured the earthquake ravaged capital of Port au Prince. Holding pictures of the ousted president aloft they chanted for France to pay more then 21 billion dollars in restitution and reparations and to return Aristide as Sarkozy's helicopter landed near Haiti's quake damaged national palace. Their demands stem from a long held dispute over compensation a nascent Haiti was forced to pay French slave owners in exchange for recognition of their independence and France's role in ousting Aristide in 2004.
Aristide, who remains widely popular among Haiti's poor, first raised the issue of restitution and reparations in April 2003. His government argued that an agreement reached in 1825 forcing Haiti to pay 90 million gold francs to compensate their former slave masters severely crippled Haiti's economic development. The debt included massive interest and took 122 years to pay off with the final installment made in 1947. His government calculated that the total sum of the debt Haiti was forced to pay with interest, along with reparations for the unpaid labor of millions of slaves kidnapped from Africa and forced to work on French plantations in Haiti, came to more that 21 billion dollars. Aristide's administration pushed the issue on the international stage while airing commercials several times a day in Haiti that said, "We demand reparations and restitution. France, pay me my money, $21,685,135,571.48."
Aristide was forced out of the country in a coup ten months later on Feb. 29, 2004 and flown to the former French colony of the Central African Republic. Although the main author of the coup is still seen as the administration of George W. Bush, Haitians have never forgotten the role that France played in supporting the opposition movement to Aristide and their demands that he resign.
Several weeks before Aristide was forced onto a plane and flown into exile, the government of then French president Jacques Chirac dispatched Véronique Albanel and Régis Debray to demand that he resign. In an interview with writer Claude Ribbe one year after his ouster Aristide said, "These two French personalities came to the National Palace and asked me so. That is already known. The threats were groundless, they were evident and direct. As good Haitians, we are respectful but we demand to be respected and we replied with respect and dignity. The threats were evident and direct: you resign or you might be [killed]!"
Before his tour of the destruction in Haiti's capital and during an address to Haitian dignitaries, French president Sarkozy offered $400 million dollars in emergency assistance, reconstruction funds, and support for the Haitian government's operating budget. This was in addition to France's earlier decision to cancel Haiti's debt of $77 million dollars.
Paulette Joseph, a member of the Lavalas Mobilization Commission and one of the organizers of the demonstration responded, "That's great that Sarkozy has come to give France's support to the Haitian people in this difficult moment after the terrible earthquake that killed so many of our people and now forces us to live in greater misery." Joseph continued, "But $477 million dollars doesn't even come close to the damage France inflicted upon Haiti before the earthquake. We were suffering from poverty before this crisis as a result of the debt Haiti was forced to pay the slave masters to recognize our independence. If our country is not equipped to handle this crisis and we are suffering more after the earthquake it is a direct result of that debt."
"We need Aristide to return!" shouted demonstrators as Haitian president Preval made a rare appearance on the lawn in front of Haiti's destroyed seat of government following Sarkozy's visit. Waving photos of Aristide they also began chanting, "If Aristide were here he would be suffering along with us!" as Preval turned his back on the crowd and withdrew to his luxury jeep amid tight security.
| France pledges $450m to Haiti | |||||||||||
The amount includes a cancellation of Haiti's debt to France of $77m, Sarkozy said during a brief visit to the Caribbean nation on Wednesday. Sarkozy arrived in Haiti to support international relief efforts after last month's deadly earthquake which killed around 230,000 people and left more than a million homeless. His visit is the first ever by a French president to the former French slave colony, which fought for and won its independence in 1804, becoming the first independent black republic.
Later speaking alongside Rene Preval, the Haitian president, Sarkozy said he wanted to turn the page in France's long history of troubled relations with its former colony. But for many Haitians, Sarkozy's visit highlighted the bitter legacy of the price paid by Haiti to secure its freedom from French rule. Following a succesful revolt in 1804, Haiti was forced to pay compensation to France – a debt that took more than half a century to pay off. 'Clear responsibility' In today's money the payments amount to more than $20bn.
"France has played an important role in the way the country is suffering economically, and it has a clear responsibility to pay reparations," Camille Chalmers, a Haitian economist, told Al Jazeera. During his visit Sarkozy acknowledged that France and Haiti had had a troubled relationship, saying he was conscious that France "did not leave a good legacy" in its former colony. "We are staring at history in its face, we have not discarded it and we assume responsibility," he said. However, asked by Al Jazeera about the issue of reparations for Haiti's post-independence payments to France he appeared dismissive. "Non, non, non (No, no, no)", he said. 'New era' Al Jazeera's Steve Chao, reporting from the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, said that French officials hoped that the visit "will summon a new era between France and its former colony".
Sarkozy surveyed the devastated Haitian capital and other affected areas by helicopter, and was also to visit a French-run field hospital. He was also due to meet Haiti's leaders to offer France's financial support for a plan for post-quake recovery and reconstruction that is being put together by foreign donors with the Haitian government. Economists from the Inter-American Development Bank have estimated the cost of rebuilding Haiti after the quake, which killed more than 200,000 people and left more than one million homeless, could reach nearly $14 billion, making it proportionately the most destructive natural disaster in modern times. Besides providing immediate emergency aid to the hurt and homeless from the quake, international donors are looking to support Haiti's long-term recovery to try to pull the country out of a cycle of poverty and political instability. While aid workers rush to distribute tarpaulins before the rainy season starts, the United Nations says only about 272,000 people have been provided with shelter materials so far. Missionaries freed In a separate development late on Wednesday, a Haitian judge ordered the release of eight American missionaries who had been charged with child kidnapping. The eight were expected to be flown out of the capital, Port-au-Prince, aboard a US military transport plane. Two others remain in detention after the judge said he wanted to question them about previous visits to the country. The ten missionaries were arrested last month after trying to take 33 children out of the country without proper documentation. The group members have denied any wrongdoing. http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/02/2010217161123953477.html | |||||||||||
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