Bertolt Brecht wrote, "In democratic countries the violent character inherent in the economy doesn't show itself; in authoritarian countries the same holds for the economic character of the violence."...Indeed.
Twice, in 1991 and 2004, democratically elected governments in Haiti led by Aristide have been overthrown in US-backed coups that led to the murder of thousands of Lavalas partisans as well as disinterested citizens. Under the Duvalier dictatorship Haiti became the ninth largest assembler of manufactured goods for the US market. How convenient! A sweatshop at our backdoor. Alas that door is only open to products not the people who make them: it remains firmly closed to Haitians. Unlike their Caribean brothers and sisters in Cuba it takes more than setting foot on a Miami beach for a Haitians to find sanctuary in America. "Send us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." as long as they are not Haitians, eh?
By the mid-80's Baby Doc's hellish minions had destroyed thee nation's agricultural economy, US goods flooded the markets and farmers were driven en masse from their land into urban areas. In 1990 when - to the West's dismay: "It was supposed to be fixed" - Jean Bertrand Aristide won Haiti's first free elections, Duvalier supports and their industrialist backers rallied the troops and attacked Fanmi Lavalas. And attacked and attacked and attacked.
Whatever emerges from the rubble left behind by the earthquake, it isn't hard to see why America's first response was military, not humanitarian. Because 'disaster capitalism' knows how to work a crowd...
- KBOO