------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the June 10, 2004 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
UNNATURAL DISASTER: BEHIND HAITI'S FLOOD DEVASTATION
By G. Dunkel
The recent floods in southwestern Haiti have caused great devastation-- so great, in fact, that the authorities have stopped counting the dead. Bodies are being piled in common graves 10 feet wide, 10 feet long and 20 feet deep. Up to 3,000 deaths are estimated in Haiti alone. There has also been much devastation in nearby areas of the Dominican Republic.
There will be more deaths. Three dams in Haiti were close to bursting May 30. The flood waters are filled with dead bodies that will become breeding grounds for dengue, cholera, typhoid, hepatitis and insects that carry pathogens.
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, in a statement released as he left Jamaica for South Africa May 30, connected this ecological disaster with the political disaster of the U.S.-backed coup that struck Haiti on Feb. 29.
Aristide said: "While on one side thousands are being killed for supporting their elected government, on the other side, more than 2,000 people lost their lives because of the ecological disaster that we all recently witnessed. We stand in solidarity with the residents of Mapou, Fonds Verette, Jimani, and with all Haitians and Dominicans directly affected."
The floods, produced by up to 5 feet of rainfall over the past month, wiped out whole villages. Some refugees walked for days over 8,000-foot- high mountains to reach the safety of the coast, but not everyone had the strength.
In flooded areas on the Dominican side of the border, the Dominican Air Force sprayed disinfectant and insecticide on flood waters to curb the spread of disease. Haiti doesn't have an air force but officials of the coup regime say they are trying to arrange similar measures.
MARINES SENT IN FOR PHOTO-OPS
The United States announced it would grant Haiti a mere $50,000 to help with the costs of the floods, which as of May 29 had affected between 75,000 and 150,000 people. The Organization of American States will chip in another $25,000. France, which has about 1,000 soldiers occupying Haiti, and the European Union have promised aid, but haven't delivered yet.
Some 1,900 U.S. Marines currently occupy Haiti to back up the U.S.- trained and -financed contras that overthrew Aristide's elected government. Following a plan by the U.S. ambassador, the Marines kidnapped President Aristide and removed him from the country last Feb. 29.
Since then, the Marines have aided the contras--former death-squad members and soldiers--in house-to-house searches and arrests of Aristide supporters.
On May 18, Haitian Flag Day, Marines presided over a police massacre that left several protesters dead on the streets of Port-au-Prince.
What have the U.S. forces done to help flood-stricken Haitian communities? Not much. Marine helicopters have transported some supplies from the capital to the flooded areas.
Heavy-lift helicopters like those used by the Marines are the only practical way of supplying aid, since all roads in the area have been washed out. The coup regime's "public works minister," Jean-Paul Toussaint, said it would be late autumn before the roads are repaired.
But the Marines, having facilitated the kidnapping of Aristide, began pulling out of Haiti on June 1. They are scheduled to be gone by June 20. They and their helicopters are headed to Iraq.
The United Nations force replacing them will include soldiers from Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, China, Nepal, Bangladesh and France. This force has yet to be organized--and won't have heavy-lift helicopters.
So much for the U.S. military's humanitarianism, lauded by President George W. Bush in the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal.
Relief organizations say they will try to replace the helicopters with stopgap measures. Barges will carry aid from Port-au-Prince to small ports in southwestern Haiti. The supplies will then have to be carried inland by mule caravans.
POVERTY AND DEFORESTATION
Anyone flying over the island of Hispaniola, shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic, can easily see the border. The Dominican side is verdant and lush. The Haitian side is parched brown.
Haiti has almost no forests--less than 4 percent of its land, according to a survey made in 2000. What forest it does have is shrinking rapidly.
Without forests, the soil is unable to absorb the abundant rains. Rainwater flows out to sea in torrents, stripping the land. Floods are common.
Most Haitians don't have access to safe drinking water--70 percent, according to the World Health Organization. People must drink from rivers, polluted wells or stagnant reservoirs. A 2003 survey ranked Haiti last out of 147 countries surveyed on access to potable water.
Haiti's deforestation began in the 18th century when the French slave owners chopped down every mahogany tree they could find. In the 19th century, after Haiti won a revolutionary war for independence, it endured a 56-year boycott imposed by the U.S. and subsequent economic strangulation. Charcoal was the only practical way for most Haitians to cook their food. The forests were further depleted by the need to make charcoal.
Millions of trees were planted over the past 80 years, but most have been converted to charcoal. Peasants need the cash they get by selling it and poor people in the cities have no other way of cooking.
Two U.S. occupations in the past decade, costing workers here well over a billion dollars, have only reinforced Haiti's poverty by tightening the grip of transnational companies and the local ruling class over the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation.
"Many Haitians eat one meal a day," reported the June 1 New York Times. "The main course is rice, and the price of a 110-pound sack doubled, to $45 from $22.50, between late January and early May. That price has dropped to about $37 in the past few weeks but is still too high, said Clermathe Baron, 29, who sells the big white sacks across the street from the Haitian customs office near the port."
The U.S.-coup regime removed price controls enforced by Aristide to keep this staple within the reach of Haitian workers. While rice prices have doubled, the new regime has cut the daily minimum wage in half.
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe wwnews- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
