![\"foto1\"](\"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/foto1.jpg\")
<\/a>Picture (left): Original caption \u201cBack in 2011, the U.N. and Oxfam promised that a new system of cisterns and kiosks would soon provide residents with water from the state water agency. Two years later, the faucets remain dry [see photo]. Residents buy water at 5 gourdes (about US$0.12 cents) a bucket from private vendors or from the committees that manage the few still-functioning water \u201cbladders\u201d left over from the camp\u2019s early days when water and food were free and when agencies provided \u201ccash for work\u201d jobs and start-up funds for would-be entrepreneurs.\u201d\u00a0(Reconstruction\u2019s Massive Slum Will Cost \u201cHundreds Of Millions\u201d<\/a>\u00a0Reconstruction\u2019s Massive Slum Will Cost \u201cHundreds Of Millions\u201d Haiti Grassroots Watch, June 17, 2013)<\/i><\/p>\n\u201cSeveral new luxury hotels in\u00a0Haiti\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n
A year ago the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund invested humanitarian aid money in a five star hotel, as some 500,000 Haitians were still in displaced camps:<\/p>\n
As part of the country\u2019s \u201cReconstruction\u201d, The Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund recently invested $2 million in the Royal Oasis Hotel, a deluxe structure to be built in a poverty-stricken metropolitan area \u201cfilled with displaced-persons camps housing hundreds of thousands\u201d. (Julie L\u00e9vesque,\u00a0HAITI: Humanitarian Aid for Earthquake Victims Used to Build Five Star Hotels<\/a>, Global Research, June 28, 2012)<\/p>\n Now, as 300,000 Haitians are still living in camps, a \u201cnew Marriott hotel rising from the rubble in Haiti is getting a $26.5\u00a0million financial boost\u201d from the International Financial Corporation (IFC), member of the World Bank Group:<\/p>\n Marriott International and telecom giant Digicel broke ground on the hotel\u00a0last year, and it is expected to open in 2015<\/b>. It will be among\u00a0several new luxury hotels in Haiti<\/b>\u00a0after the devastating Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake. Spain\u2019s Occidental Hotels & Resort and U.S.-based Best Western have\u00a0both opened hotels in the last six months in Petionville<\/b>, a Port-au-Prince suburb. Spanish hotel chain NH Hotels also\u00a0will open a new El Rancho in Petionville over the next few months<\/b>.<\/p>\n IFC officials say the Marriott\u2019s construction is expected to create about 300 jobs. The hotel itself will offer 200 permanent jobs. Marriott Hotels & Resorts will operate the hotel under a long-term management agreement.<\/p>\n The\u00a0IFC currently has about $78.5 million worth of investments in Haiti<\/b>, which continues to limp toward recovery more than three years after the quake nearly wiped out its economy. The\u00a0investments are aimed at creating jobs, access to basic infrastructure, and income opportunities for Haitians<\/b>, the IFC said.<\/p>\n \u201cHaiti has the fundamental conditions for sustainable economic growth, including a\u00a0competitive workforce<\/b>,\u00a0proximity to major markets<\/b>, and unique cultural and tourist attractions,\u201d said Ary Naim, IFC Representative for Haiti. \u201cWith our long-term financing support for this new and important piece of business infrastructure, we are confirming our commitment and confidence in Haiti\u2019s future.\u201d (Jacqueline Charles\u00a0New Marriott under construction in Haiti getting financial boost<\/a>, Miami Herald, July 3, 2013)<\/p>\n Picture: Best Western Petionville, Haiti.<\/p><\/div>\n How a luxury hotel in a rich suburban area helps give the 300,000 displaced and most impoverished Haitians \u201caccess to basic infrastructure\u201d has yet to be demonstrated. Moreover, it won\u2019t create jobs for those who need it the most. It is very unlikely that a deluxe hotel in the plush suburb of Petionville will hire many poor, needy, often illiterate Haitians who only speak Creole to work for rich foreigners. These people are the \u201ccompetitive work force\u201d and end up in sweat shops and mines. What\u00a0\u201ccompetitive workforce\u201d and \u201cproximity to major markets\u201d actually mean is \u201ccheap labor for the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n On its web site the IFC says its investments are \u201cfocused on helping rebuild Haiti and reactivate growth through investment and advisory services, in priority sectors such as garment, infrastructure, telecom, tourism, and finance.\u201d In addition to the $26.5\u00a0million for the Marriott, the IFC has invested $7.7 million to the aforementioned Oasis hotel, also located in Petionville. (IFC Investment Generation in Haiti<\/a>)<\/p>\n In total, almost half of IFC investments have helped the construction of deluxe hotels in a rich suburb, home to the Haitian elite.<\/p>\n The World Bank: An Imperial Tool<\/b><\/p>\n The IFC is part of the World Bank Group. The World Bank has been criticized for previous initiatives like the\u00a0Project for Participatory Community Development (PRODEP)<\/a>. An eight month investigation by Haiti Grassroots Watch found that PRODEP \u201chelped undermine an already weak state, damaged Haiti\u2019s \u2018social tissue,\u2019 carried out what could be called \u2018social and political reengineering,\u2019\u2026 raised questions of waste and corruption\u2026 contributed to Haiti\u2019s growing status as an \u2018NGO Republic\u2019\u2026 damaged traditional solidarity systems and in some cases even strengthened the power of local elites.\u201d (World Bank \u201csuccess\u201d undermines Haitian democracy<\/a>, Haiti Grassroots Watch, December 20, 2012)<\/p>\n Recently, in May 2013, Alexandre Abrantes, the World Bank special envoy to Haiti announced that the \u201cWorld Bank is supporting the Haitian government in improving the frameworks for mining, including legal provisions which are largely considered inadequate for current requirements,\u201d Daniel Trenton, (World Bank says its helping Haiti draft mining legislation<\/a>, The Gazette, May 17, 2013)<\/p>\n For Ezili Dant\u00f2, the U.S. and the World Bank are simply rewriting Haiti\u2019s constitution to benefit mining companies:<\/p>\n Oxfam, [the] World Bank and the other fake philanthropic folks [are] involved in protecting the interests of the one percenters, re-writing Haiti mining laws\u2026<\/p>\n ARTICLE 36-5 of the Haitian Constitution, states:<\/p>\n \u201cThe right to own property does not extend to the coasts, springs, rivers, water courses, mines and quarries. They are part of the State\u2019s public domain.\u201d<\/p>\n Haiti\u2019s current law doesn\u2019t allow drilling without a signed mining convention. But US Newmont mining got a \u201cwaiver\u201d to the current Haiti law without the approval of even the puppet Haiti legislature. Martelly signed it in violation of the Haiti Constitution. (Ezili Dant\u00f2,\u00a0Haiti: US to Re-Write Haiti Constitution to Better Service the One Percent<\/a>, Black Agenda Report July 2, 2013)<\/p>\n Haitian mineral resources alone have been estimated at $20 billion. \u201cU.S. and Canadian investors have spent more than $30 million in recent years on exploratory drilling and other mining-related activities in Haiti.\u201d (Trenton,\u00a0op. cit.)<\/i><\/p>\n Slow Reconstruction, Slave Labor and the International Aid Deception<\/b><\/p>\n Unlike the fast-growing luxury hotel industry, the reconstruction efforts face many delays and various financial hurdles. Last June, a U.S.\u00a0Government Accountability Office (GAO) report<\/a>\u00a0criticised USAID for its lack of transparency, multiple delays, cost overruns and reduced goals. The report points to a striking paradox: although the sums allocated to sheltering have almost doubled, the number of houses to be built has been reduced by an astonishing 80\u00a0percent:<\/p>\n In 2010, just months after Haiti was struck by a devastating earthquake, the United States passed legislation allocating\u00a0$651 million to USAID to support relief and reconstruction efforts<\/b>. Three years later,\u00a0just 31 percent of these funds have been spent<\/b>\u00a0as delays mount and goals are scaled back\u2026 The report also criticizes USAID for a lack of transparency\u2026<\/p>\n The GAO found that inaccurate cost estimates and delays led to an\u00a0increase in the amount dedicated to providing shelter from $59 million to $97 million<\/b>\u00a0while at the same time \u201cdecreased the projected number of houses to be built by over 80 percent, from 15,000 to 2,649.<\/b>\u201d Originally estimated to cost less than $10,000 for a completed house, actual costs have been greater than $33,000.\u00a0USAID has awarded over $46 million to contractors for housing<\/b>. Meanwhile, some 300,000 people remain in camps over three years after the earthquake. Overall, the humanitarian community has\u00a0constructed just 7,000 new homes, about 40 percent of what is currently planned<\/b>\u2026<\/p>\n Further, the GAO report is critical of U.S. investments supporting the Caracol Industrial Park. \u00a0Randal C. Archibold of the\u00a0New York Times\u00a0reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n A big portion of Agency for International Development money,\u00a0$170.3 million, went toward a power plant and port for an industrial park<\/b>\u00a0in northern Haiti that was the centerpiece of United States reconstruction efforts and had been heavily promoted by the State Department and former President Bill Clinton\u2026<\/p>\n Although the aid agency completed the power plant under budget, the port, crucial to the industrial park\u2019s long-term success, is\u00a0two years behind schedule \u201cdue in part to a lack of U.S.A.I.D. expertise in port planning<\/b>\u00a0in Haiti,\u201d the report said, and is now vulnerable to cost overruns. (GAO Report Critical of USAID in Haiti, Bolsters Calls for Increased Oversight<\/a>, Center for Economic and Policy Research, June 26, 2013)<\/p>\n The delays and potential cost overruns related to the construction of Caracol\u2019s essential port are easily explained by the fact that USAID received $72 million for its planning and construction, despite its cruel lack of expertise. Indeed USAID has not built such a structure in the past 40 years:<\/p>\n Despite having \u201cnot constructed a port anywhere in the world since the 1970s\u201d, USAID allocated $72 million dollars to build one, according to [the] GAO report\u00a0released last week.<\/a>\u00a0The port is meant to help support the Caracol Industrial Park (CIP) which was constructed with funding from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and $170 million in funding from the U.S. for related infrastructure. \u00a0The\u00a0CIP has been held up as the flagship reconstruction project undertaken by the international community in Haiti<\/b>. Even after putting aside criticisms of\u00a0the location, types of jobs<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0environmental impact<\/a>\u00a0of the CIP, the \u201csuccess\u201d of the entire project hinges on the new port\u2026<\/p>\n Without any in-house expertise in port construction at USAID, the mission turned to private contractors<\/b>.\u00a0HRRW reported in January 2012<\/a>\u00a0that\u00a0MWH Americas was awarded a \u201c$2.8 million contract\u00a0<\/b>to conduct a feasibility study for port infrastructure in northern Haiti.\u201d The\u00a0expected completion date was May 2012<\/b>.\u00a0MWH Americas had previously been criticized for their work in New Orleans<\/b>, with the\u00a0Times-Picayune reporting that MWH had \u201cbeen operating for more than two years under a\u00a0dubiously awarded contract that has allowed it to overbill the city repeatedly<\/b>\u00a0even as the bricks-and-mortar recovery work it oversees has lagged.\u201d (USAID\u2019s Lack of Expertise, Reliance on Contractors Puts Sustainability of Caracol in Doubt<\/a>, Center for Economic and Policy Research, July 2, 2013)<\/p>\n These examples illustrate perfectly what \u201cinternational aid\u201d is all about. Ezili Dant\u00f2 explains:<\/p>\n The NGOs carry out US imperial policies in Haiti in exchange for \u201ccharity funding\u201d \u2013 which means, they money launder US tax payer and donor dollars and put it in their\u00a0pockets<\/a>. US imperial policies is about destroying Haiti manufacturing and local economy, expropriating Haiti natural resources and making a larger Haiti market for their subsidized Wall Street monopolies.<\/p>\n The economic elites made billions upon billions before the\u00a0$9-billion<\/a>\u00a0the US \u201cbig-hearted humanitarians\u201d would add to their coffers from laundering earthquake relief dollars\u00a0largely back to US groups<\/a>.<\/p>\n But the NGOs and their Hollywood, media and academic cohorts play firemen to the US government\u2019s arsonist role in Haiti and the global south. The professional posers \u2013 the white industrial charitable complex \u2013 play an underhanded game. For instance \u201cThe Center for Economic and Policy Research<\/a>\u00a0(CEPR)\u00a0analyzed<\/a>\u00a0the $1.15 billion pledged after the January 2010 quake to Haiti and found that the \u201cvast majority\u201d of the money it could follow went straight to U.S. companies or organizations, more than half in the Washington area alone<\/b>.\u201d (Ezili Dant\u00f2,\u00a0op. cit<\/i>.).<\/p>\n \u201cHaitians earn less today than they did under the Duvalier dictatorship\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n The giant Caracol Industrial Park was inaugurated in March 2013 in the presence of President Martelly, as well as \u201cHaitian and foreign diplomats, the Clinton power couple, millionaires and actors, all present to celebrate the government\u2019s clarion call: \u2018Haiti is open for business.\u2019\u201d\u00a0(The Caracol Industrial Park: Worth the risk?<\/a>\u00a0Haiti Grassroots Watch, March 7, 2013)<\/p>\n Caracol was promoted as a way to decentralize the country and potentially create between 20,000 and 65,000 jobs. The results one year later are far from expectations:<\/p>\n One year after it started operations, only 1,388 people work in the park\u2026 Also, HGW research amongst a sampling of workers found that\u00a0at the end of the day, most have only 57 gourdes, or US$1.36,<\/b>\u00a0in hand after paying for transportation and food out of their minimum wage 200-gourde (US$4.75) salary.<\/p>\n HGW also learned that\u00a0most of the farmers kicked off their plots to make way for the park are still without land<\/b>.<\/p>\n \u201cBefore, Caracol was the breadbasket of the Northeast department<\/b>,\u201d said Bre\u00fcs Wilcien, one of the farmers expelled from the 250-hectare zone. \u201cRight\u00a0now there is a shortage of some products in the local markets<\/b>. We are just sitting here in misery.\u201d (Ibid<\/i>.)<\/p>\n Destroying food sovereignty in the global south is a common practice used by the global north through international bodies like the World Bank and the IMF. The goal is to keep the South dependent on the North and create a market for exportation, deceptively labelled \u201cfood aid\u201d for photo ops and to conceal the real intent: dumping.<\/p>\n Clearly, in addition to providing slave labor for U.S. and other foreign garment companies, the Caracol Industrial Park has contributed to reduce even more what remains of the local farming in Haiti, eradicated over the years by a barbaric U.S. foreign policy. A 2010 report from the Council on Hemispheric Affairs found that Haiti\u2019s \u201csavior\u201d \u201cPresident Clinton and other recent White House tenants [condemned] Haiti to a future of endemic poverty through a self-serving U.S. rice export policy.\u201d (Leah Chavla,\u00a0Bill Clinton\u2019s heavy hand on Haiti\u2019s vulnerable agricultural economy: The American rice scandal<\/a>, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, April 13, 2010)<\/p>\n Haiti expert Isabeau Doucet notes:<\/p>\n In the 1950s, agriculture made up\u00a090 per cent<\/a>\u00a0of Haiti\u2019s exports; today,\u00a090 per cent<\/a>\u00a0of exports are from the apparel sector, while more than\u00a0half<\/a>\u00a0the country\u2019s food is imported\u2026<\/p>\n Preferential free-trade deals signed between Haiti and the United States\u2014named HOPE (Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement Act, 2006), HOPE II (2008) and HELP (Haiti Economic Lift Program, 2008)\u2014have been part of a push to expand Haiti\u2019s apparel industry by branding \u201cMade in Haiti\u201d garments as somehow humanitarian, socially responsible, and good for Haiti\u2019s \u201cdevelopment,\u201d while also giving duty-free access to US markets.<\/p>\n According to a 2011 study by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the estimated cost of living in Port-au-Prince is $29 a day. Two hundred gourdes for an eight-hour work shift is one-sixth the AFL-CIO\u2019s estimated living wage. Transport to and from work and a modest lunch could easily cost a worker 120 gourdes. Indeed,\u00a0Haitians earn less today than they did under the Duvalier dictatorship; wages have barely increased and are worth half their 1984 purchasing power<\/b>. (Isabeau Doucet,\u00a0Made in Haiti, Dumped in Haiti: Slave Labor and the Garment Industry<\/a>, The Dominion 10 July 2013)<\/p>\n Displaced people dumped on a wasteland<\/b><\/p>\n While the tourism industry is rapidly growing, people have been evicted from the city and dumped on a wasteland in a camp called Corail-Cesselesse, also known as \u201cCanaan,\u201d \u201cJerusalem\u201d and \u201cONAville\u201d. The camp on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince could \u201cbecome the country\u2019s most expansive \u2013 and most expensive \u2013 slum\u201d where there are no jobs and water is hard to find.<\/p>\n Picture: City Hall annex in Croix-des-Bouquets, Canaan.<\/p><\/div>\n Today, all of the big agencies have abandoned the Corail camp and its 10,000 residents. Trumpeting their success and claiming to have prepared a \u201ctransition\u201d to the local authorities, [International Organization of Migration] IOM, [American Refugee Committee] ARC and World Vision all pulled out (although World Vision still supports the Corail School, which it built). (Reconstruction\u2019s Massive Slum Will Cost \u201cHundreds Of Millions\u201d<\/a>\u00a0Reconstruction\u2019s Massive Slum Will Cost \u201cHundreds Of Millions\u201d Haiti Grassroots Watch, June 17, 2013)<\/p>\n The international community is not helping rebuild Haiti. It is improving colonialism in Haiti with its companies, using the country\u2019s population as slave labor to boost profits. The startling difference between the slow reconstruction efforts for Haitians as opposed to the rapid rise of the luxury hotel industry shows that in Haiti, the foreigners come first. Sadly white supremacy and slavery are still alive and well in the \u201cpearl of the Antilles\u201d.<\/p>\n ______________________<\/p>\n Julie L\u00e9vesque is a journalist and researcher with the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal. She was among the first independent journalists to visit Haiti in the wake of the January 2010 earthquake. In 2011, she was on board “The Spirit of Rachel Corrie”, the only humanitarian vessel which penetrated Gaza territorial waters before being shot at by the Israeli Navy.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>Picture left: Jean-Marie Vincent camp, January 2013. AP\/Dieu Nalio Chery<\/i><\/p>\n<\/a>\u00a0Picture: Notice workers who earn less than $5 a day do not smile. Clinton is the only one smiling.\u00a0Original caption: \u201cFormer U.S. President and U.N. Special Envoy to Haiti, Bill Clinton, smiles as he is greeted by\u00a0garment workers<\/a>\u00a0at the Caracol Industrial Park Monday, Oct. 22, 2012, in Caracol, Haiti. The industrial park in northern Haiti is expected to create up to 65, 000 new jobs. It is a $300 million initiative by the governments of Haiti, the U.S. and the Inter-American Development Bank.\u201d (Clintons visit Haiti to inaugurate new industrial park<\/a>, The Bee. Picture: Carl Juste, Miami Herald)\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<\/a>