Haiti protests Monsanto GMOs

SOURCE: Diana Labedz (DianaLaBedz@aol.com)
SUBHEAD: The Haitian government is using the earthquake to sell the country to the multinationals.  

By Ryan Stock on 20 January 2011 for Truthout.org -  
(http://www.truth-out.org/the-new-earthquake-manifest-haiti-monsantos-destiny66930)

 
Image above: Haitians protest Monsanto seed "contribution". From (http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/20100804_hope-for-haiti).
 

"A fabulous Easter gift," commented Monsanto Director of Development Initiatives Elizabeth Vancil. Nearly 60,000 seed sacks of hybrid corn seeds and other vegetable seeds were donated to post-earthquake Haiti by Monsanto. In observance of World Environment Day, June 4, 2010, roughly 10,000 rural Haitian farmers gathered in Papaye to march seven kilometers to Hinche in celebration of this gift. 

Upon arrival, these rewarded farmers took their collective Easter baskets of more than 400 tons of vegetable seeds and burned them all.[i] "Long live the native maize seed!" they chanted in unison. "Monsanto's GMO [genetically modified organism] & hybrid seed violate peasant agriculture!"

According to Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, coordinator of the Papay Peasant Movement (MPP), "there is presently a shortage of seed in Haiti because many rural families used their maize seed to feed refugees."[ii] 

Like any benevolent disaster capitalist corporation, Monsanto extended a hand in a time of crisis to the 65 percent of the population that survives off of subsistence agriculture. But not just any hand was extended in this time of great need, rather: a fistful of seeds. The extended fist was full of corn seeds, one of Haiti's staple crops, treated with the fungicide Maxim XO. 

With similar benevolence, not just any tomato seeds were donated to the agrarian peasants, but tomato seeds treated with Thiram, a chemical so toxic the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has ruled it too toxic to sell for home garden use, further mandating that any agricultural worker planting these seeds must wear special protective clothing.[iii] Happy Easter! 

Monsanto's web site's official explanation for this toxic donation is that "fungicidal seed treatments are often applied to seeds prior to planting to protect them from fungal diseases that arise in the soil and hamper the plant's ability to germinate and grow. The treatments also provide protection against diseases the seed might pick up in transfer between countries."[iv] 

However, according to the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services Hazardous Substance Fact Sheet, "repeated exposure [to Thiram] can affect the kidneys, liver and thyroid gland. High or repeated exposure may damage the nerves."[v] Why would Monsanto be so eager to donate seeds that could potentially compromise the health of so many famished people?

"The Haitian government is using the earthquake to sell the country to the multinationals!" stated Jean-Baptiste. Welcome to the new earthquake.

"[It's] a very strong attack on small agriculture, on farmers, on biodiversity, on Creole seeds ... and on what is left of our environment in Haiti." - Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, executive director of the Peasant Movement of Papay.

A Brief History of Violence 

Monsanto is also responsible for other life-changing inventions, such as the crowd-pleasing Agent Orange. The Vietnamese government claims that it killed or disabled 400,000 Vietnamese people, and 500,000 children were born with birth defects due to exposure to this deadly chemical.[vi] Up until 2000, Monsanto was also the main manufacturer of aspartame, which researchers in Europe concluded, "could have carcinogenic effects."

In a rare demonstration of social justice, in 2005, Monsanto was found guilty by the US government of bribing high-level Indonesian officials to legalize genetically-modified cotton. A year earlier in Brazil, Monsanto sold a farm to a senator for one-third of its value in exchange for his work to legalize glyphosate, the world's most widely used herbicide.[vii] 

In Colombia, Monsanto has received $25 million from the US government for providing its trademark herbicide, Roundup Ultra, in the anti-drug fumigation efforts of Plan Colombia. Roundup Ultra is a highly concentrated version of Monsanto's glyphosate herbicide, with additional ingredients to increase its lethality. Colombian communities and human rights organizations have charged that the herbicide has destroyed food crops, water sources and protected areas and has led to increased incidents of birth defects and cancer.

With more than 11.7 billion dollars in sales in 2009 and more than 650 biotechnology patents - most of them for cotton, corn and soy - Monsanto is an economic powerhouse. Nine out of ten soybean seeds in the US are also linked to Monsanto. 

Together with Syngenta, Dupont and Bayer, Monsanto controls more than half the world's seeds with no effective anti-trust oversight. One of the world's most powerful corporations, Monsanto teamed up with United Parcel Service to have the 60,000 hybrid seed sacks transported to their intended destination for Easter 2010 in its drive to trickle down some good to the little guys. 

 Distributing Monsanto's seeds on this auspicious occasion was a $127 million project funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), called "Winner," designed to promote "agricultural intensification."[viii] According to Monsanto, the original decision to donate seeds was made at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland,[ix] unbeknownst to Haiti.

"Without chemicals, life itself would be impossible." -Monsanto's former motto.

The genetically-modified seeds such as those donated and later immolated, cannot be saved from year to year. Some so-called terminator seeds - the DNA of which is altered so as to not drop seed after harvest - require the farmer to buy new seeds from Monsanto the following year in a legally binding contract, instead of collecting the seeds that would have naturally developed on the plant before its DNA was modified. 

Other GMO seed which do drop fertile seed may not be replanted by contract. Diminished yields, health problems and weakened prospects to buy the next season's seeds in consequence of and combined with that binding contract with Monsanto have driven many rural farmers to poverty, and subsequently led to a rash of farmer suicides in rural India. 

Since 1997, more than 182,936 Indian farmers have committed suicide, according to a recent study by the National Crime Records Bureau.[x] "As seed saving is prevented by patents as well as by the engineering of seeds with non-renewable traits, seed has to be bought for every planting season by poor peasants. A free resource available on farms became a commodity which farmers were forced to buy every year. This increases poverty and leads to indebtedness. As debts increase and become unpayable, farmers are compelled to sell kidneys or even commit suicide," Indian author Vandana Shiva noted in her 2004 article "The Suicide Economy Of Corporate Globalisation."[xi]

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Foreign farmers are not the only ones affected by these product features and associated business practices. As of 2007, Monsanto had filed 112 lawsuits against US farmers for alleged technology contract violations on GMO patents, involving 372 farmers and 49 small agricultural businesses in 27 different states. From these, Monsanto has won more than $21.5 million in judgments. In estimates based on Monsanto's own documents and media reports, the multinational corporation appears to investigate 500 farmers a year.[xii] 

"Farmers have been sued after their field was contaminated by pollen or seed from someone else's genetically engineered crop [or] when genetically engineered seed from a previous year's crop has sprouted, or 'volunteered,' in fields planted with non-genetically engineered varieties the following year," said Andrew Kimbrell and Joseph Mendelson of the Center for Food Safety.[xiii] 

A Monsanto seed will often magically appear in an ordinarily organic field, giving Monsanto grounds for an onerous lawsuit that will eventually lead to the complete occupation of the innocent farm.

Nothing New Under the Caribbean Sun 

Jean-Robert Estimé, who served as Foreign Minister during the murderous Duvalier dictatorships, is Monsanto's representative in Haiti,[xiv] and refuses to acknowledge his involvement in furthering the impoverishment of his own people. However, Monsanto's "Manifest Destiny"-like intentions for Haiti are hardly anything new. Many Haitians consider Monsanto's seed donation to be part of a broader strategy of US economic and political imperialism. Haiti's agricultural sector has already been decimated by United States' interference once. Jean Bertrande Aristide was overthrown by a coup supported by the US government in 1991. 

The World Bank and International Monetary Fund collectively decided that if he were to return to power, a condition upon his return would be that he open the country to free trade. Shortly thereafter, the tariffs on rice fell from 35 percent to 3 percent and the money that was originally reserved for agricultural development went into paying off the country's external debt. Under the Clinton White House, the Haitian market was flooded with subsidized rice from Arkansas. Since then, almost all of Haiti's rice is imported and subsequently, much of that local knowledge and expertise of rice cultivation is lost.[xv]

Food Sovereignty, Not Agricultural Slavery 

As the new earthquake continues to shake, this seemingly benevolent donation of vegetable seeds will forever change the paradigm of Haitian agriculture and thus lead to its further dependence on seeds that poison both the soil they are grown in and the bodies that consume them and that create financial dependency on the biotechnology firm Monsanto. "Our people will never be autonomous if Haiti has to suffer through what is called generosity, but makes us dependent on corporate control in agricultural production," said Catherine Thélémaque of Action SOS Haiti in Montreal.[xvi]

 

Agroecologists Ivette Perfecto and John Vandermeer, at the University of Michigan, have recently published a study showing that sustainable, small-scale farming is more efficient at conserving and increasing biodiversity and forests than industrial agriculture.[xvii] With less than 1 percent of its original forest coverage remaining, Haiti cannot gamble on the disastrous environmental effects of hybridized industrial monoculture to feed its many hungry. "If the US government truly wants to help Haiti, it would help the Haitians to build food sovereignty and sustainable agriculture, based on their own native seed and access to land and credit. That is the way to help Haiti," says Dena Hoff, a diversified organic farmer in Montana and member of Via Campesina's International Coordinating Committee.

The Impending Storm 

In his 1780 History of European Colonization, Guillame Raynal remarked that there were signs of an "impending storm."[xviii] This storm erupted into a full-fledged monsoon on August 22, 1791, when Dutty Boukman sounded the conch shell and the slaves of Saint Domingue rose in revolt against the French imperialists. 

Under the leadership of Touissant L'Overture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the slave rebels overthrew the imperialist occupation of Napoleon Bonaparte and in 1804, Haiti was declared a free republic. Lest we forget the lessons of history, we cannot discount the power of unity. Much as Napoleon himself did, a tyrannical corporation such as Monsanto exports poverty, would keep the people as agricultural slaves and must be resisted. It's time for Boukman to sound his conch once more: La liberté ou la mort!

Footnotes: 

i. Bell, Beverly. "Haitian farmers commit to burning Monsanto hybrid seed." Huffington Post, May 17, 2010.  

ii. La Via Campesina, "Haitian peasants march against Monsanto Company for food and seed sovereignty," June 16,2010.

iii. Extension Toxicology Network, Pesticide Information Project of the Cooperative Extension Offices of Cornell University, Michigan State University, Oregon State University and University of California at Davis.

iv. Veihman, Mica. "Five Answers on Monsanto's Haiti Seed Donation," Beyond the Rows, May 20, 2010.

v. New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services. "Hazardous Substance Fact Sheet."

vi. MSNBC, "Study Finds Link Between Agent Orange, Cancer," January 23, 2004, The Globe and Mail, "Last Ghost of the Vietnam War," June 12, 2008.

vii. Kenfield, Isabella, "Monsanto's seed of corruption in Brazil." North American Congress on Latin America, October 16, 2010.

viii. PR Newswire. "Monsanto Company Donates Conventional Maizeand Vegetable Seed to Haitian Farmers to Help Address Food Security Needs," May 13, 2010.

ix. Monsanto Company, "Monsanto donates maizeand vegetable seed to Haiti." Monsanto Blog, May 13, 2010.

x. Shiva, Vandana, "The Suicide Economy Of Corporate Globalisation." ZNet, February 19, 2004.

xi. Chopra, Anuj, "Debt drives farmers to suicide." The National, January 20, 2009.

xii. Center for Food Safety, "Monsanto vs. US Farmers," Nov. 2007.

xiii. Andrew Kimbrell and Joseph Mendelson, "Monsanto vs. US Farmers," Center for Food Safety, 2005.

xiv. Urfie, Fr. Jean-Yves, "A new earthquake hits Haiti: Monsanto's deadly gift of 475 tons of genetically-modified seed to Haitian farmers." Global Research. Canada. May 11, 2010.

xv. Holt-Gimenez, Eric. "Haiti: roots of liberty, roots of disaster." Huffington Post, January 21 2010.

xvi. Organic Consumers Association. "Canadian Groups Support Haitian Rejection of Monsanto's Seed Donation," June 3, 2010.

xvii. University of Michigan. "SNRE Professor Perfecto co-authors PNAS paper on family farms, biodiversity and food production." Ann Arbor, Michigan, February 22, 2010.

xviii. Center and Hunt, "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity," 119.

WikiLeak's lesson on Haiti

SUBHEAD: People who do not understand U.S. foreign policy think that control over Haiti does not matter to Washington.

By Marv Weisbrot on 17 December 2010 for the Guardian - (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/dec/17/haiti-wikileaks)

Image above: Demonstration to free Haiti from occupation in Calgary, Canada. From (http://www.flickr.com/photos/grantneufeld/1799669476).

The polarization of the debate around Wikileaks is pretty simple, really. Of all the governments in the world, the United States government is the greatest threat to world peace and security today. This is obvious to anyone who looks at the facts with a modicum of objectivity. The Iraq war has claimed hundreds of thousands, and most likely more than a million lives. It was completely unnecessary and unjustifiable, and based on lies. Now, Washington is moving toward a military confrontation with Iran.

As Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, pointed out in an interview recently, in the preparation for a war with Iran, we are at about the level of 1998 in the build-up to the Iraq war.

On this basis, even ignoring the tremendous harm that Washington causes to developing countries in such areas as economic development (through such institutions as the International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization), or climate change, it is clear that any information which sheds light on U.S. "diplomacy" is more than useful. It has the potential to help save millions of human lives.

You either get this or you don't. Brazil's president Lula da Silva, who earned Washington's displeasure last May when he tried to help defuse the confrontation with Iran, gets it. That's why he defended and declared his "solidarity" with embattled WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, even though the leaked cables were not pleasant reading for his own government.

One area of U.S. foreign policy that the WikiLeaks cables help illuminate, which the major media has predictably ignored, is the occupation of Haiti. In 2004, the country's democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was overthrown for the second time, through an effort led by the United States government. Officials of the constitutional government were jailed and thousands of its supporters were killed.

The Haitian coup, besides being a repeat of Aristide's overthrow in 1991, was also very similar to the attempted coup in Venezuela in 2002 -- which also had Washington's fingerprints all over it. Some of the same people in Washington were even involved in both efforts. But the Venezuelan coup failed -- partly because Latin American governments immediately and forcefully declared that they would not recognize the coup government.

In the case of Haiti, Washington had learned from its mistakes in the Venezuelan coup and had gathered support for an illegitimate government in advance. A UN resolution was passed just days after the coup, and UN forces, headed by Brazil, were sent to the country. The mission is still headed by Brazil, and has troops from a number of other Latin American governments that are left of center, including Bolivia, Argentina and Uruguay. They are also joined by Chile, Peru and Guatemala from Latin America.

Would these governments have sent troops to occupy Venezuela if that coup had succeeded? Clearly they would not have considered such a move, yet the occupation of Haiti is no more justifiable. South America's progressive governments have strongly challenged U.S. foreign policy in the region and the world, with some of them regularly using words like imperialism and empire as synonyms for Washington. They have built new institutions such as UNASUR to prevent these kinds of abuses from the north. Bolivia expelled the U.S. ambassador in September of 2008 for interfering in its own internal affairs.

Is it because Haitians are poor and black that their most fundamental human and democratic rights can be trampled upon?

The participation of these governments in the occupation of Haiti is a serious political contradiction for them, and it is getting worse. The WikiLeaks cables illustrate how important the control of Haiti is to the United States.

A long memo from the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince to the U.S. Secretary of State answers detailed questions about Haitian president Rene Preval's political, personal, and family life, including such vital national security questions as "How many drinks can Preval consume before he shows signs of inebriation?" It also expresses one of Washington's main concerns:

"...his reflexive nationalism, and his disinterest in managing bilateral relations in a broad diplomatic sense, will lead to periodic frictions as we move forward our bilateral agenda. Case in point, we believe that in terms of foreign policy, Preval is most interested in gaining increased assistance from any available resource. He is likely to be tempted to frame his relationship with Venezuela and Chavez-allies in the hemisphere in a way that he hopes will create a competitive atmosphere as far as who can provide the most to Haiti."

This is why they got rid of Aristide -- who was much to the left of Preval -- and won't let him back in the country. This is why Washington funded the recent "elections" that excluded Haiti's largest political party, the equivalent of shutting out the Democrats and Republicans in the United States. And this is why MINUSTAH is still occupying the country, more than six years after the coup, without any apparent mission other than replacing the hated Haitian army - which Aristide abolished - as a repressive force.

People who do not understand U.S. foreign policy think that control over Haiti does not matter to Washington, because it is so poor and has no strategic minerals or resources. But that is not how Washington operates, as the Wikileaks cables repeatedly illustrate. For the State Department and its allies, it is all a ruthless chess game, and the pawns matter. Left governments will be removed or prevented from taking power where it is possible to do so; and the poorest countries -- like Honduras last year -- present the most opportune targets. A democratically elected government in Haiti, due to the country's history and the population's consciousness, will inevitably be a left government -- and one that will not line up with Washington's foreign policy priorities for the region. Hence, democracy is not allowed.

Thousands of Haitians have been protesting the sham elections, as well as MINUSTAH's role in causing the cholera epidemic, which has already taken more than 2,300 lives and can be expected to kill thousands more in the coming months and years. Judging from the rapid spread of the disease, there may have been gross criminal negligence on the part of MINUSTAH - i.e. large-scale dumping of fecal waste into the Artibonite river. This is another huge reason for them to leave Haiti.

This is a mission that costs over $500 million a year, when the UN can't even raise a third of that to fight the epidemic that the mission caused, or to provide clean water for Haitians. And now the UN is asking for an increase to over $850 million for MINUSTAH.

It is high time that the progressive governments of Latin America quit this occupation, which goes against their own principles and deeply held beliefs, and is against the will of the Haitian people.

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Haiti will Refuse Monsanto Seed

SUBHEAD: Haitian farmers refuse Monsanto's seeds and instead commit to burning them. Image above: Monique, a mother of five, bakes biscuits from clay mixed with a little margarine and sugar on a public playing field. The "mud cakes" are now eaten widely to stave off hunger pangs. From (http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/gallery/2008/jun/10/internationalaidanddevelopment?picture=334697070). By Sara Novak on 30 May 2010 in Tree Hugger - (http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/05/haitian_farmers_refuse_monsantos_seeds_and_instead_commit_to_burning_them.php)

Food Freedom recently reported that Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, peasant farmer leader of the Peasant Movement of Papay (MPP) called the entry of Monsanto seeds into Haiti "a very strong attack on small agriculture, on farmers, on biodiversity, on Creole seeds. Monsanto's seed donations were an unwelcomed gift to a country with vocal opposition to GMO seeds for fear they would ruin what little agriculture the country has left.

Monsanto will be donating 60,000 seed sacks of hybrid corn and vegetable seeds to Haiti and MPP leader Chavannes Jean-Baptiste has vowed to burn them. According to Food Freedom,

"The hybrid corn seeds Monsanto has donated to Haiti are treated with the fungicide Maxim XO, and the calypso tomato seeds are treated with thiram.[3] Thiram belongs to a highly toxic class of chemicals called ethylene bisdithiocarbamates (EBDCs). The EPA determined that EBDC-treated plants are so dangerous to agricultural workers that they must wear special protective clothing when handling them"

Monsanto is trying to create the same addiction it created at home, abroad. Considering that more than 9 out of 10 soybean seeds in the U.S. are linked to Monsanto. It's the same for cotton and just a little lower for corn. That gives Monsanto complete control over seed companies because no seed company could survive without selling Monsanto's Round Up Ready Seeds.

I wrote last year that with a monopoly on the industry the company can increase prices. In the end, this cycle will hurt farmers who depend on the seeds because farmers can't risk the litigation that would ensue should they replant the seeds. While the initial donation would be free, peasant farmers could never afford to continually pay from them year after year. It's a heartless scheme.

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Military first to use the Huakai

SUBHEAD: The Superferry, as was suspected, finds itself used for military transport after all.


By Mike Holtzclaw on 27 January 2010 in the Daily Press - 
(http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-now-eustis-superferry.j27,0,6399746.story)

 
Image above: Still from video (see below) of military load-in of Hawaiian Superferry at Fort Eustis in Newport News, VA. From (http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-super-ferry-pg,0,3481330.photogallery)  

 The Superferry Huakai was loaded up at Fort Eustis today with equipment and soldiers bound for Haiti and the ongoing earthquake relief effort. The U.S. Army's Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command (SDDC) will send its 597th Transportation Brigade to Port-au-Prince to deliver humanitarian supplies. In a press release, the SDDC noted that the Huakai "traditionally only moves passengers," but for this mission the Maritime Administration has given operational control of the vessel to the Military Sealift Command to deliver equipment and cargo as well as military personnel.  

NEWS FLASH: Thursday, January 28, 2010 "Austal Awarded $204 million to build 2nd and 3rd JHSV's"

Announced the day after the Huakai is used for the first time...by the military:

 CONTRACTS NAVY
Austal USA, Mobile Ala., is being awarded a $204,238,728 modification to previously awarded contract (N00024-08-C-2217) to exercise options for Ships 2 and 3 of the Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV) program. The JHSV will provide high speed, shallow draft transportation capability to support the intra-theater maneuver of personnel, supplies, and equipment for the Navy, Marine Corps and Army. Work will be performed in Mobile, Ala., and is expected to be completed by July 2012. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity.  

"Austal awarded $204 million to build second, third Joint High Speed Vessel"

 By Kaija Wilkinson January 28, 2010, 4:22PM
(http://blog.al.com/live/2010/01/austal_awarded_204_million_to.html)

The U.S. Navy has awarded $204.2 million to Mobile's Austal USA shipyard for the Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV) program, part of a potential 10-vessel, $1.6 billion contract Austal landed in November 2008, Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Tuscaloosa, announced today. The funding will allow for construction of the second and third vessels, high-speed transport ferries that will be used by both the U.S. Army and Navy, according to Shelby's office. Austal began work on the first JHSV in December...

 See also:
Island Breath: The Superferry Redux 6/23/06
Island Breath: Superferry Hidden Agenda 10/13/06
Island Breath: The Superferry & US Military 10/23/06

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Solar Recovery In Haiti

SUBHEAD: As the rebuilding beings, expanding the role of renewables in Haiti could make it more resistant to the impacts of future natural disasters. Image above: Haitians sleep in the streets for fear of further building collapse. From (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2010/01/photogalleries/100113-haiti-earthquake-pictures/#025610_600x450.jpg) By Alex Aylett on 21 January 2010 in Openalex - (http://openalex.blogspot.com/2010/01/solar-recovery-in-haiti-building-tough.html) Last week's quake cut electricity to most of Haiti's capital. Without power, residents and aid workers are struggling to maintain basic communication, lighting and water purification systems. The CBC news had reports of officials cuing to recharge their mobile phones. What power there is comes from gas powered generators, but diesel is running low. In the aftermath of the quake, Reuters reported that at night the only lights visible over the city came from solar powered traffic signals. Since then the hot sun hasn't stopped shining. Now there is a push to roll-out more solar. But beyond the emergency, renewables are key to making cities more resilient to natural disasters. Solar in the Recovery Solar setups are quick to install, mobile, and relatively inexpensive compared to the price of rebuilding a damaged electricity grid. They can also be incredibly robust. In a great post Alan Doyle, science editor at MSNBC, has a story about a solar water purification system recovered from the rubble by the Red Cross that is now purifying 30,000 gallons (over 110,000 liters) of water a day. Sol Inc, a US based solar street lighting company has sent a first shipment of lights for roadways, food distribtion, and triage sites. This may sound mundane, until you imagine trying to perform street side surgery or find family members in the dark. The LED lights can also withstand hurricane force winds – no small thing in a country that has also recently been hit by tropical cyclones. Sol Inc has promised to match donations for people wanting to contribute to the program. Communications are another crucial need being met by solar. China's ZTE corporation has donated 1,500 solar cellphones and 300 digital trunking base station. The same technology was used in China when an earthquake hit Sichuan province in May of 2008. A similar project is being set up by a group from Holland. Renewable energy in Haiti is not a new. Walt Ratterman, CEO of non-profit SunEnergy Power International was working on the electrification of Haitian hospitals at the time of the quake. He is currently still missing. Sun Ovens, another non-profit, has been working in Haiti for 11 years. Their solar ovens can bake, roast, boil and steam meals. They also give families an alternative to charcoal which is both costly and the root cause of much of Haiti's deforestation. They currently have one commercial sized oven already up an running in Port-au-Prince capable of cooking 1,200 meals a day. A larger shippment will be sent out at the end of the month and they too are accepting donations. Building Tough Solar Cities But the role of renewables can go far beyond this initial recovery period. People are talking a lot about the possibility that this might be an opportunity to rebuild Haiti on a more solid and equitable footing. Some are more optimistic than others. But if there is one small area where this might be true, it is energy infrastructure. Those solar traffic signals, still cycling through their colours over the streets of Port-au-Prince, are proof of the advantages of doing things differently. As the rebuilding beings, expanding the role of renewables in Haiti could make it more resistant to the impacts of future natural disasters than many of its African neighbours. It would also be an affordable way to increase access in a country where -- even before the quake -- only 25% of the population had regular access to electricity. All cities, not just African ones, are vulnerable to the disruption of a centralized energy grid. Think New Orleans, or the 1998 Ice Stom in Quebec, that left Canadian families without power for weeks in sub-freezing temperatures. "Real" Electricity In some circles there is the perception that solar energy is somehow a second rate power supply. I've heard people refer to grid delivered power as "real" electricity. As we look to a future where extreme weather events are increasingly likely, I'd say in many cases it is actually the other way around. As new electricity systems begin to go up in Haiti, they will help to support the difficult work of recovery and rebuilding. As well as helping in any way possible, now is a good time for us to start thinking about the ways that renewable energy could make our cities more resilient to similar disasters.

Alakai Headed to Haiti Too

SUBHEAD: Both Superferries, now owned by the Maritime Administration, to deliver Haiti relief.

By Kaija Wilkinson on 20 January 2010 in Alabama Press Register - 
(http://blog.al.com/press-register-business/2010/01/hawaii_superferry_built_at_aus.html)  

 
Image above: The Hawaii Superferry Akakai being tyrned away from Nawiliwili Harbor by Kauai surfers. From (http://www.hawaiibusiness.com/Hawaii-Business/June-2008/Somethings-Happening-Here)

 Huakai, a catamaran designed and built by Austal USA, has been mobilized along with its sister ship Alakai by MARAD for relief efforts in Haiti. MARAD reposessed the vessels in summer 2009 after Hawaii Superferry Inc. went bankrupt. Two high-speed catamarans built at Austal USA in Mobile for Hawaii Superferry Inc. are headed to Haiti to assist with relief efforts, the U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD) announced today.

Alakai and Huakai were designed and built by Austal for Hawaii Superferry. MARAD reposessed the vessels in July after Hawaii Superferry filed for bankruptcy. Now based in Virginia, the catamarans are two of six ships being mobilized for relief after an earthquake devastated the country over a week ago.

Completed in 2007 and 2009, respectively, Alakai and Huakai move people, vehicles and other cargo at speeds of up to 40 knots, according to Austal. They have folding ramps that enable them to be loaded and unloaded without relying on shoreside facilities such as cranes.

Although no details have been released about how they will be used, the ships may serve as a link between Haiti and Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba or Miami, carrying relief supplies and personnel to and from Haiti.

The catamarans can carry nearly 800 tons per voyage, Austal said. They will be crewed by Hornblower Marine Services of Albany, Indiana.

Operation link: http://www.hmshaiti.com/

Never before seen pictures of the Huakai: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hms-corp/ 

Superferry Headed to Haiti

SUBHEAD: The never-used Superferry vessel the Huakai mobilized to aid Haiti relief effort.

By Nina Wu 19 January 2010 in the Honolulu Star Bulletin -  
(http://www.starbulletin.com/business/20100119_Never-used_Superferry_vessel_mobilized_to_aid_Haiti_relief_effort.html)

Image above: The second Superferry Huakai shortly after completion docked in Austal's Mobile, Alabama, shipyard. From (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hawaii_Superferry.jpg)  

The M/V Huakai, the high-speed ferry that never fulfilled its purpose as part of Hawaii Superferry operations last year, will be mobilized for relief duty in Haiti. U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood announced yesterday that the department's Maritime Administration was sending five ships, including the Huakai, to assist with relief efforts in Haiti. "Sending these ships will help those on the front line of this effort save as many lives in Haiti as possible," said LaHood.

"These ships will add crucial capabilities by supporting operations to move large volumes of people and cargo." The Huakai joins the Gopher State, Petersburg, Cornhusker State and Cape May, which are being prepared to sail the Caribbean Sea from different U.S. ports. A projected departure date has not yet been announced.

 The Huakai, which was obtained by the Maritime Administration after Hawaii Superferry filed for bankruptcy in May, is a new high-speed passenger and vehicle ferry capable of speeds of nearly 40 knots in the open ocean. It can carry up to 866 passengers and 282 cars. The Hawaii Superferry, which aimed to provide interisland ferry services in the state, suspended service of its ship the Alakai and laid off more than 200 employees in March due to a state Supreme Court ruling that effectively shut down its operations.

The Superferry filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy two months later and abandoned the ships to lenders. The Maritime Administration was owed more than $135.7 million. Hawaii Superferry commissioned both ferries from Austal USA in Mobile, Ala. Only the Alakai had a brief run between Oahu and Maui. The Huakai never made it to Hawaii. It has been undergoing preparations in Norfolk, Va., since late last week for its mission to Haiti.

Haiti - US Troops Deployed

SUBHEAD: Washington’s principal concerns have been maintaining order and preventing Haitians fleeing the oppressive conditions of their homeland from reaching US shores.

By Bill Van Auken on 16 January 2010 in WSWS
(http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jan2010/hait-j16.shtml)


 
Image above: U.S. troops with the 82nd Airborne Division stack water supplies at Port-au-Prince airport. From (http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-haiti-quake17-2010jan17,0,3017051.story)  

The first contingents of a US military force expected to reach 10,000 troops arrived in Haiti as anger mounted over the failure of international aid to reach the millions left injured, homeless and destitute by Tuesday’s earthquake.

There were reports of looting and Port-au-Prince residents creating street barricades with the bodies of the dead to protest the lack of assistance. Thousands upon thousands of corpses line streets and are piled up outside hospitals and morgues.

Haitian officials reported Friday that 40,000 bodies have already been buried, many of them in common landfill-style mass graves. They estimate that there are 100,000 corpses still to be recovered. In some areas the number of dead is so overwhelming that bodies have been piled up and burned.

Haitian Health Minister Alex Larsen said the death toll from the January 12 earthquake would climb to half a million, with another 250,000 injured.

More than 300 combat-equipped paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division landed at the Port-au-Prince airport from Fort Bragg, North Carolina Thursday night, and a US naval flotilla led by the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson arrived off the coast on Friday.

The paratroopers, the advance guard of a force of about 3,000, are to be joined by some 2,000 marines from the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit based in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Brought in on the amphibious landing ship, the USS Bataan, the Marines will remain at the ready in Port-au-Prince harbor to be called in if needed to deal with social unrest.

US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mike Mullen said that even more than 10,000 US troops would be deployed in the ravaged Caribbean nation if required.

For the estimated 3 million people affected by the earthquake, conditions are growing increasingly desperate. They are unable to find adequate food or water; medical care is rudimentary or non-existent; and electrical power and telephone communications remain down.

Correspondents in the Haitian capital Friday reported little if any sign that aid had reached the population.

At least 300,000 people have been rendered homeless as structures of every kind collapsed in the magnitude 7.0 quake, which struck Port-au-Prince and the surrounding area with a force equal to 500,000 tons of TNT, or 25 times that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

While such a catastrophic event would have inflicted enormous damage anywhere, the effects in Haiti are multiplied by the pre-existing conditions of intense poverty and economic backwardness, the product of a century of imperialist oppression primarily at the hands of Washington.

With time running out for many of the earthquake’s victims, both those trapped in the rubble and those who have suffered internal injuries, multiple fractures and severe wounds that are going untreated, the so-called bottle neck impeding the flow of aid amounts to a death sentence.

“People are without water; children are without food and without shelter,” Ian Rodgers, a senior adviser to Save the Children told the CNN cable news network. “What we will see with the lack of water is the possibility of diarrheal diseases and, of course, that can kill children in a matter of hours if not tended to appropriately.”

“It is very possible,” Rodgers added, “that the situation can go from dire to absolutely catastrophic if we don’t get enough food and medicine and work with children and their families to help them.”

In other words, hundreds of thousands more who survived the initial destruction may die from injuries and disease.

The lack of adequate infrastructure in terms of airports, roads and port facilities to bring in supplies, together with the virtual absence of any government presence coordinating rescue operations are the result not just of Tuesday’s natural disaster. Nor are they—as US Defense Secretary Robert Gates described them Friday—merely “facts of life.”

Rather, they are a manifestation of the enforced backwardness to which Haiti has been condemned by the major banks and corporations represented by the US government and the international finance agencies. Their sole interest in Haiti has been a predatory one, based on the ability to make profits off of near-starvation wages. Together they have systematically undermined the Haitian government ever since the 1986 mass upheavals that brought an end to the three decades of US-backed dictatorship by the Duvaliers.

The president first elected in the wake of the dictatorship, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was overthrown in US-backed coups not once, but twice—in 1991 and 2004. Meanwhile, Washington and the lending agencies pushed through one round of privatizations after another, stripping the Haitian state of any real power or resources.

Even in the best of times, essential services in Haiti such as health care, housing, transportation, communications, electricity, water and sewerage are grossly inadequate and tenuous.

Rather than developing the country’s infrastructure or ameliorating its desperate poverty, Washington’s principal concerns have been maintaining order and preventing Haitians fleeing the oppressive conditions of their homeland from reaching US shores.

The present intervention being mounted by the Obama administration and the Pentagon is based on similar motives. It is also driven by Washington’s stepped-up efforts to assert its dominance in the hemisphere, expressed in recent months in the right-wing military coup in Honduras and the agreement to set up US military bases in Colombia.

The deployment of troops has taken priority over the distribution of aid. As the Miami Herald reported Friday, “US air-cargo traffic was grounded to give the military airlift priority to bring moving equipment and the first 100 of a planned 900-paratrooper deployment of the 82nd Airborne Division from North Carolina.”

UNICEF, which has massed relief supplies in Panama, sent a plane full of medical kits, blankets and tents, but was denied permission to land and forced to return to Panama.

Initial rescue operations were noticeably focused on aiding US citizens and other foreign nationals. Search and rescue teams brought in from the US and France focused their initial efforts on the flattened four-star Hotel Montana, a watering hole for the Haitian ruling elite and foreign visitors, and the United Nations peacekeeping mission’s headquarters. Haitians were left to dig for their loved-ones and neighbors using their bare hands and pieces of rubble.

The first to be evacuated from the damaged Port-au-Prince airport, which has been taken over by American military controllers, were US citizens.

Haitians are conscious that the lives of foreigners are given more value than their own. “They were furious, though not surprised, that they were left to themselves to dig out the trapped, haul off the dead, beg for help for the dying,” reported the Los Angeles Times.

There are increasing reports of anger among the earthquake’s survivors over the delay in aid. Gunfire has also been reported, along with looting by young men armed with machetes. International officials warn that the longer the situation continues, the greater the chances it will turn into mass revolt.

“Unfortunately, they’re slowly getting more angry and impatient,” said David Wimhurst, spokesman for the Brazilian-led United Nations peacekeeping mission. “I fear we’re all aware that the situation is getting more tense as the poorest people who need so much are waiting for deliveries. I think tempers might be frayed.”

Kim Boldue, the acting chief of the UN Mission, said that “the risk of having social unrest very soon” made it imperative that relief supplies begin arriving.

The real attitude of US imperialism toward the Haitian people found expression in an article posted by Time magazine and entitled, “Will Criminal Gangs Take Control in Haiti’s Chaos?” The article declared, “As Haitian and international officials try to coordinate an effective response to what is probably the worst disaster to ever hit the western hemisphere’s poorest country, they’ll need to be mindful of the human rats that come out of the capital’s woodwork at times like these.”

The article went on to warn that “criminal bands from poor neighborhoods like Cité Soleil and La Saline are almost certain to try to exploit the security void.” It quoted Roberto Perito, described as an expert on Haitian gangs at the Institute of Peace, a government-funded agency with close ties to US intelligence and the Pentagon, saying that the supposed threat is “surely why the US military deployment is adding a security component.”

Time added: “The US military has had its share of experience with Port-au-Prince’s gangs,” noting that they are often “political in nature,” coalescing, as Perito put it, “around charismatic and ruthless Robin Hood figures.”

There is every likelihood that the US military deployment will be turned against the people of Haiti in the suppression of mass unrest. Having occupied the country for 20 years in the first part of the 20th century and intervened twice more in 1994 and 2004, the US military is once again assuming control in what senior commanders say will be a long-term operation.

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