Oil in haiti?

[Willi]

http://open.salon.com/blog/ezili_dan...nus_occupation

[Willi]

Now John Maxwell is saying the same in his latest column.

Haiti sits on top of a huge oilfield. Hmmm

[Gamma]

you mean economic aid is now a loan?

[Sir X]

SHAMELESS AND GRACELESS
John Maxwell

Sunday, February 14, 2010
HENRY Kissinger once said that the United States had no friends, only interests. Watching the US intervention in Haiti makes it clear that the US, in the pursuit of its interests, does not need to exhibit any human attributes such as shame or grace.
ARISTIDE... wants to help Haiti develop
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I said a few weeks ago that it seemed a little counterproductive to send masses of soldiers to Haiti since you can't eat soldiers and soldiers needed to be fed and, in Haiti, one American probably consumes as much as 10 Haitians. Feeding 20,000 US soldiers takes as much resources as feeding the entire population of Cité Soleil -- the biggest slum in the Caribbean.
It is heartbreaking to read of the screwed-up relief efforts -- screwed up mainly by sending in soldiers instead of relief workers, nurses and just ordinary people willing to follow instructions and to use their imagination and initiative. Remember that army put-down from the comic books:
"You're not being paid to think!"
Famines, famously, are not caused by shortages of food but by deficiencies of imagination and planning. In Haiti at this moment, some of the world's most disciplined people are too often being treated like wild animals. The problem is that many of Haiti's self-appointed rescuers are scared witless by their own superstitions and the garbage fed to them by irresponsible journalists and crazy preachers.
You can see it in the pictures, where people have on their own formed orderly queues but are still being harassed by men with rifles and an inflated sense of their own importance. One of the scourges of Haiti -- self-righteous NGOs -- is clearly wasting resources, time and lives, insisting on being protected against starving women and children instead of getting out and doing what they should be doing.
Above it all are the mainstream journalists, busy viewing with alarm, scornful of the heat, the smells and the people, and prophesying outbreaks of mindless violence at any moment.
It is impossible to view Haiti without realising the enormous tax the world pays for ignorance and fear, and without understanding the real cost of journalism in promoting strife, frustration and unhappiness.
The Internet has made it much easier to transmit lies and superstition. A piece that landed on my screen supposedly from a black person in South Africa was so full of misinformation and outright lies that I thought that it must be a production of one of the thousands of right-wing solfataras of hate. Briefly, this farrago of nonsense claimed that no black country had come to the aid of Haiti -- when his own country had been one of the first responders. Venezuela and other Caribbean countries had also made their contributions and, of course, he forgot Cuba, with 1,200 doctors and other emergency workers now there and more to come.
The letter was meant to discredit the poor, the black and the developing countries who are clearly not grateful for the incredible blessings bestowed on them by colonialism.
One of these days someone should try to estimate the real economic cost of 'journalists' like James Anthony Froude, Rudyard Kipling, Bob Novak, Jules Dubois and their more recent versions, the Wolf Blitzers, Judith Millers and their ilk.
These people are among the most important factors in the current confusion about Haiti and about the true state of the world.
Robert Novak, for instance, parachuted into Haiti in 2004 on a mission to sanitise the bloodthirsty La Tortue, and his way of doing that was to malign Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
According to Novak, the Haitian 'Prime Minister' La Tortue was correct in describing the bandits, rapists and murderers backing him as 'freedom fighters'. According to Novak, "The radical president's [Aristide's] reign left a country without electricity, passable roads or public schools, with a devastated economy and, according to La Tortue, a looted treasury."
La Tortue told Novak: "The public finance is in crisis. They (the Aristide regime) took everything they could from the reserve of the country." His estimate: "Over $1 billion stolen in four weeks." (Emphasis added)
The problem is that there has never been one billion of anything in Haiti worth stealing, and what is remarkable is that a remark so completely unbelievable and outrageous as to verge on the insane, was published and republished in newspapers and magazines considered reputable in the United States. Aristide, despite his interruptions, left a country better off than he found it. (See http://www.haitiaction.net/News/WWNF/2_28_5.html)
The question, of course, is why the US has such a down on Haiti and why apparently sane people are so ready to believe the rubbish they do about Haiti.
Some of the reasons are:
*Haitian insubordination in declaring themselves independent and offering universal emancipation and universal rights;
* Haiti's strategic position, commanding two of the most important gateways to the Caribbean;
* Haiti's potential as a base to attack Cuba;
* Haiti's position on top of a super-giant oilfield, rivalling Saudi Arabia's in importance; and
* Haiti's potential as an offshore slave plantation from which US companies can import cheap 'manufactures' without worrying about unions or human rights.
Haitians, of course, have completely different ideas.
* They want to be allowed, for the first time at last, to govern themselves without the brutal interference of the former slave-owning states;
* They want back the money -- ¤20,000,000,000 -- extorted from them by the French and the Americans over 120 years, and which robbed them of the resources to develop their own country;
* Haitians driven abroad by US-backed dictators want to go back home and work for the development of their own country;
* Haitians cannot understand why they are denied the benefits of their membership in the United Nations and other international organisations of which they were foundation members.
Part of the problem with any discussion on Haiti with Americans is the political illiteracy of so many Americans -- particularly journalists -- some of whom think Obama is a Socialist or a Nazi. Aristide's opponents, including some so-called journalists, have portrayed him as a blood-drinking, baby-sacrificing, black-magician Communist. This garbage has been spread so wide and so deep that outside of Haiti, most people do not know that Aristide is a gentle, God-fearing priest, a practical man whose ideology is Haiti.
The Haitian people know this and keep telling the world that they want their democracy and their president back. The world press this week is full of stories about the lack of leadership in Haiti. There is no lack of leadership in Haiti; the leadership is there but it is the leadership of the majority, of the Fanmi Lavalas, of people loyal to Aristide. The United States and their clients in the United Nations Security Council do not wish to see this.
Aristide does not want to be president again, but he wants to help Haiti develop. Between him and that aspiration sit a small gang of parasitic margin-gatherers who call themselves businessmen but who are really sophisticated gang leaders operating by remote control.
If Haiti is to regain its integrity and autonomy, there will need to be a programme resembling the post-war de-Nazification in Germany to re-educate people in elementary civics. Otherwise, sooner or later there will be another Papa Doc, or maybe even an Idi Amin.
In 2004, the UN special envoy to Haiti, Reginald Dumas, a Caribbean man, declared that the UN should be committing itself to a long-term mission in Haiti to last about 20 years. "We cannot continue with the start-stop cycle that has characterised relations between the international community and Haiti. You go in, you spend a couple of years, you leave, the Haitians are not necessarily involved and the whole thing collapses. This has to stop," Dumas said.
He told the council: "There has to be a long-term commitment, which I perceive the council is ready and willing to give," Dumas said. "It must be co-ordinated assistance. It must be sustained assistance, and it must be assistance that involves the people of Haiti. It cannot be a situation in which the UN or some other agency goes in and says, 'I have this for you.' There has to be discussion. There has to be cooperation, or else it will fail again."
I agree with Dumas but for one particular point: The Haitians need to get out of the clutches of the Security Council and seek help from the General Assembly, where they have friends.
Copyright©2010 John Maxwell
jankunnu@yahoo.com

[Sir X]

CRY FOR ZIMBABWE: A GREAT COUNTRY IN RUIN
Sir Ronald Sanders

Sunday, February 14, 2010
IN what is clearly an act of madness, the Robert Mugabe government in Zimbabwe published on February 9 regulations governing "Indigenization and Economic Empowerment", making it compulsory for white-owned companies in Zimbabwe to hand majority control to black persons.
Authoritative reports state that "the regulations require every existing business, partnership, association or sole proprietorship with an asset value of US$500,000 or more to submit a report to the Indigenization and Economic Empowerment Minister Saviour Kasukuwere by April 15, outlining their operations and plans for ensuring that they will be owned or controlled by indigenous persons within five years".
TSVANGIRAI... knew absolutely nothing about the new regulations until they were published
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Failure to do so, after a further 30-day reminder, would render the owner of the business or every director guilty of an offence and liable to a fine and/or imprisonment for up to five years.
The new regulations demand that all foreign and locally owned companies hand over at least 51 per cent ownership to black Zimbabweans. Thousands of firms, including the Zimbabwean operations of firms such as Barclays Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and the mining company Rio Tinto, will be affected.
These developments come on top of other property seizures. Sue Lloyd Roberts of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reports that in the last year, "four thousand white commercial farmers have now had their farms confiscated and given to black farmers, many of whom are supporters of Mr Mugabe. A diamond mine has been taken from its white Zimbabwean owner and is being operated by a government-owned company, protected by soldiers".
Amazingly, the prime minister in the Zimbabwe coalition government, who has responsibility for policy formulation, knew absolutely nothing about the new regulations until they were published.
The prime minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, who is the leader of the former opposition party, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said the move had been made without his knowledge. He said: "They were published without due process and in contravention of the global political agreement [which set up the coalition] and constitution of Zimbabwe and are therefore null and void."
Tsvangirai may consider the regulations null and void but they are being implemented anyway, demonstrating his complete impotence as prime minister and Mugabe's utter disregard for him.
This is not the first time that Mugabe has openly shown his contempt for Tsvangirai, nor is it the first time that Tsvangirai has displayed the powerlessness of his position as prime minister.
The most glaring example of Tsvangirai's weakness is the fact that a top MDC leader, Roy Bennett, is still being prosecuted on charges widely believed to be trumped up, and many other MDC members have been arrested or harassed - cases well documented by Amnesty International and human rights groups within Zimbabwe.
While some of these human rights violations strike at property owned by white people, they are perpetrated mostly against Zimbabwean blacks, including women, who are perceived to oppose the Mugabe regime, but in reality are simply fighting for better lives for their families and for an end to physical abuse by the military and gangs organised by Mugabe's ZANU-PF.
Amid the farce of a coalition government in which Mugabe is president and Tsvangirai prime minister, ZANU-PF and MDC have been holding talks to implement the "Global Political Agreement" brokered since September 2008 by South Africa's government. ZANU-PF has given nothing of any substance and MDC holds on in the hope of a breakthrough.
The South African government continues to chair the deadlocked negotiations with no favourable end in sight.
In 2009, the Zimbabwean economy, which had sunk into a deep morass with the Zimbabwean dollar less than worthless, grew by an estimated four per cent on the back of a virtual abolition of the Zimbabwe dollar and the adoption of the US dollar as its currency. Last year's growth was the first in 10 years and came after a 60 per cent decline.
Experts report that much of last year's growth was due to good rains and a decent harvest. This year the rains have been sporadic, crops are failing and a poor harvest is expected. By the end of 2010, as many as three million Zimbabweans could again be dependent on food aid.
Before the announcement of the new regulations, the Zimbabwe minister of finance, Tendai Biti, had been seeking new foreign investment in Zimbabwe. The chances of this happening now are pretty remote, except from the government of the People's Republic of China.
In November last year, the Zimbabwe government announced that China Sonangol, a Chinese-Angolan joint venture company, would invest US$8 million in five deals involving gold and platinum refining, oil and gas exploration, fuel purchase and distribution, and housing. It will be interesting to see if the Chinese-owned company will be exempt from the new regulations to give 51 per cent of foreign-owned companies to black Zimbabweans.
So where is all this going? Zimbabwe has always required a complete restructuring of land ownership. Five per cent of the Zimbabwean population, mostly white, owned 80 per cent of the arable land at the time of independence in 1981. Only the most resolute white racists would have objected to reformation of land ownership to correct the ancient wrong by which black Zimbabweans were deprived and denied land ownership in the country of their birth. The failure to achieve this reformation resides squarely with the British government and to a lesser extent the US government who reneged on their promise to provide the funding that would have effected this transformation when Mugabe was elected president in 1981.
Instead of seeking international support for his just cause against the UK and US, Mugabe turned the issue into a means of retaining domestic support in the face of his increasing unpopularity among black Zimbabweans. Two rigged elections and atrocities, including savage beatings, against his political opponents kept him in power, but not in favour with the majority of Zimbabweans.
Instead of transferring farms to capable people with the knowledge and capital to keep them productive, they were seized and given to political cronies including the top brass of the military who keep Mugabe in power. The latest regulations appear to be more of the same. It will drive even more talent, knowledge and money out of Zimbabwe and contribute little if anything to the investment of nearly US$10 billion desperately needed to reconstruct the economy.
The international community should act together to curtail Mugabe's abuse, and Morgan Tsvangirai should give them the lead. He should start by abandoning the farce that parades as a coalition government, putting an end to Mugabe's claim of racism against him and his policies. That claim seems to paralyse European governments and to limit the actions of African ones while Zimbabwe withers.

[Sir X]

CARICOM AS HAITI'S 'ADVOCATE'
Will we join the campaign for French compensation?
Analysis by Rickey Singh
Sunday, February 14, 2010
WITH all the reporting on the dislocation and enormous sufferings of Haitian earthquake victims and the blame-shifting for what's not going right, citizens of the Caribbean Community should know that Caricom has received a mandate from what functions as a government in Haiti -- amid the rubble in Port-au-Prince -- to act as its "international advocate", or "voice" in the daunting task ahead for national reconstruction..
This development occurred last weekend when another Caricom fact-finding/assessment mission to Port-au-Prince met with President René Préval, his prime minister, Jean-Max Bellerive, and other Haitian government officials.
Included in the Community's team, headed by current chairman Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit of Dominica and Secretary General Edwin Carrington, was recognised elder statesman of Caricom and Jamaica's former long-serving prime minister, PJ Patterson.
Now functioning as the Community's special envoy, or point man on post-earthquake Haiti, Patterson disclosed the "advocacy" mandate during a telephone interview last week.
He said he would prefer to avoid going into details at this stage, but noted that Caricom was committed to doing its "utmost" in helping to sensitise nations of this hemisphere and the international donors and financial institutions to their obligations to the Haitian people "who are very much part of our Caribbean family" .
Well, following last month's Montreal Conference on Haiti, organised and hosted by the Canadian government, at which Patterson and Bellerive were part of the Caricom delegation, the Community will have the opportunity to give more meaning to its "advocacy" mandate at next month's United Nations 'technical conference' in New York on coordination of economic assistance and emergency relief aid to the earthquake-wrecked Caribbean state.
Envoy's advisors
To help make Patterson an effective special envoy, Caricom needs to give priority consideration to enabling him with a team of experienced advisors -- drawn from the region's public and private sectors, labour, church and women's organisations -- as well as academe and private individuals such as retired diplomats and educators with special knowledge about Haiti and its people.
Funding support for the work of Patterson and his team of advisors, it is felt, could be sought from regional (CDB) and international financial institutions, among others.
However, as plans are being laid by Caricom to give substance for its international "advocacy" role, there is one issue that the Community's governments should not be reluctant to address seriously. It is the pursuit of creative initiatives to influence France in honouring, as much as possible, its moral obligation to repay that historical debt incurred by the infamous financial demands made for Haitian independence.
This could be done by Caricom as an extension of an expected vigorous and sustained campaign to secure cancellation of all debts owed by Haiti, which has, as of last week, lost as many lives (some 240,000) as the four countries affected by the horrendous Asian tsunami five years ago.
It is argued that a government in Paris, of whatever ideological persuasion and standing in the international community, should not be allowed to remain contemptuous of Haiti's demand for reparations totalling approximately US$21 billion (the equivalent of an estimated 150 million gold francs) -- a sum that Haitians were compelled to pay for securing their freedom in 1804.
It should certainly not display contempt in the face of the horrendous tragedies resulting from that earthquake on the night of January 12; nor while Caribbean governments, organisations, institutions and peoples of all walks of life are scrambling to share what little they have with their fellow nationals of the Caribbean Community of which Haiti is one of its 14 sovereign member states.
And certainly not as Haitian children, mothers and fathers continue to die from hunger and lack of medical care weeks after thousands of earthquake victims were buried in mass graves and many more thousands reduced to refugee status in their homeland, crying out for food, water and medicine and robbed of what dignity they are still courageously trying to preserve.
Debt burden
It was amusing to read last week an Agence France Press (AFP) report out of Canada that the world's seven most industrialised countries (the G-7) had agreed to "cancel" Haiti's outstanding debts to them - debts "already relatively small after being reduced by past relief efforts".
France, which is among the G-7 nations, has agreed to cancel the remaining euro58 million that Haiti still owed it at the time of the earthquake disaster.
This kind of money can hardly cause even a ripple in the contaminated water that Haitian earthquake victims are being urged to avoid by health officials.
The UK-based charity, Oxfam, has reminded us that Haiti remains saddled with foreign debts amounting to approximately US$900 million, owed largely to international financial institutions.
The case for compensation from France had been officially submitted by President Jean-Bertrand Aristide before he was ousted in a coup - an American and French collaboration in which two emissaries of the then government in Paris had travelled to Port-au-Prince where they made "direct threats" to the former priest turned head of state, according to a subsequent published interview with him.
Some Haiti watchers in and outside of the Caribbean feel that France should be made to feel a sense of shame in the current heart-wrenching sufferings of Haitians.
Caricom's Special Envoy Patterson has made an interesting distinction in speaking of the region's role on behalf of Haiti. When Caricom participates at international fora it does so "not as a regional organisation", but he stressed, "a Community of 14 sovereign states, among them Haiti". It is a point that should not be overlooked by foreign governments and international financial institutions when they engage the 36-year-old Community.
The upcoming UN conference on Haiti may be a good opportunity to reinforce this concept as initial lobbying takes place for both cancellations of Haiti's international debt as well as telegraphing the message that Caricom intends to engage France in considering the Haitian compensation case.