Any Port During the Haitian Earthquake

On 23 January Link.TV posted its Mosaic Report about the Middle Eastern reaction to the Haiti tragedy. The report was for the most part fair and balanced. They noted the prompt arrival of the Israeli field hospital and the tardiness of some of the rich Arab states in presenting aid. Some of the newscasters wasted time speculating on the motives behind the US and Israeli relief efforts. A few made noises similar to those coming from Rush Limbaugh. They spoke about propaganda and made invidious comparisons with Gaza City and Fallujah.
They should have heeded the advice of Ari Sharon. He noted his country would be bull whipped and damned no matter what they did. The best course for any nation is to ignore the critics and do the right thing. I am sure the Haitians welcome and use the aid given by any donor.

Debt Slavery as a Way of Life

The Haitian Slave Revolt ousted the French slave masters. They insisted on compensation in gold [150 millions francs] for their human "property." That was in 1821. By 1900 service of this debt absorbed 80% of Haiti's national product and it continued to cripple the economy. By the time Haiti retired this debt in 1947, she had accumulated many more.
From the beginning of the current earthquake catastrophe the French have urged other donor nations to give aid in the form of grants with no expectation of repayment. It was fitting for France to make this suggestion, as she has made the Haitians debt slaves for 189 years. It is arguable the Haitians were better treated when they they were held in physical bondage.
A similar case can be made for the population in many Third World nations. A web of international banks, cartels and holding companies have captured the economies of many former colonies. Virtually any setback can expand the debt burden for a less developed nation and, increasingly, for richer countries as well.
The debt burden expands yearly through administered rates of interest. The creditor always has the upper hand in dealings with the debtor who must endure natural and man made disasters. He is under the force of law to make repayment. In locales where regulation is weak and law enforcement is lax, the creditors can game the system shamefully. The debtors haven't a hope.
Throughout history many thinkers have put forward conspiracy theories to explain these disasters. Somehow, a small group can generate a war or a depression to serve personal interests. There are many groups that promote grandiose aspirations, but few that can implement even the most humble plan. Human beings are simply not that clever.
Debt Slavery as a Way of Life
The French slave owners had no idea the reparations would continue until 1947. Few of them would have wished the curse of slavery to continue for 189 years. Certainly, the newly freed slaves imagined rosier prospects. We live in a world of unintended consequences.

Caribbean Food Shortages

'Caribbean: Food Shortages'

by Janine Mendes-Franco

"If music be the food of love, play on", wrote Shakespeare, who could not possibly have anticipated the global food crisis the world is facing today. Rising food prices are a hot topic with bloggers the world over - and the Caribbean is no different. The "music" coming out of the regional blogosphere is anything but lovely - in fact, it's downright discordant - as the Caribbean struggles to find solutions to a crisis that is hitting regional territories hard.

Haiti seems to be feeling the effects of the food shortages the most and The Haitian Blogger thinks that claims of "success" in the island by the United States seem hollow in the face of such dire need:

What of the suffering of the people in indefinite detention, or the hunger of the poor that is so acute that people are eating dirt and describing their hunger pains as “grangou Clorox”; like having your insides eaten away by Clorox?

Haiti is being occupied right now. These occupiers are being paid with money that adds to Haiti’s debt, money that could be used to feed the Haitian people is going to feed, house and train their oppressors.

Blog de Port-au-Prince also believes that the U.S. bears some responsibility in the obstacles Haiti faces:

Thirty years ago, Haiti raised nearly all the rice it needed. What happened? Haiti is far from alone in this crisis...but in poor countries, where malnutrition and hunger were widespread before the rise in prices, there is nothing to cut back on except eating. That leads to hunger riots.

Rice shiptment in Haiti - Photo by Giuseppe Bizzarri for the UN WFP

Bajan Global Report has been keeping an eye on the global food shortage and reports that "Haiti on Sunday named a new prime minister two weeks after his predecessor was ousted over rocketing food and fuel prices that sparked violent demonstrations claiming several lives."

Living in Barbados chimes in:

A few weeks after reports that people in Haiti rioted about the high cost of food and reports that in Egypt the army had been ordered to bake bread, the ramifications of a major international food crisis are just dawning on lots of ordinary people. Here in Barbados, people have just been struck by the news that local flour prices were increased 30 percent and now wait to see what impact that will have on bread prices and the cost of other baked goods. Gasolene and diesel prices were increased here last week and that too may soon start to factor into the prices of many food items.

The irony of the situation is not lost on him, as he adds:

The situation will be more complicated as the world tries to get "green" by using food stuffs to make fuel. Now, we have the oil and nothing to cook in it. Instead of putting corn into your stomach you will be feeding it, in a sense, to your car. I wonder what the emissions will be like. Odourless, I hope. I just love progress.

But Cuban blogger Ninety miles away...in another country is taking the issue seriously:

Let's start by forgetting this corn ethanol nonsense. It is a negative proposition to begin with. It sounds sexy in this politically correct world of global warming, but take a look at it. First it takes more to create than the energy produced. It is physically impossible to plant enough corn to cover our energy needs, even if we had the infrastructure in place to distribute the ethanol, which we do not, and the cars capable of using it as fuel, which we do not. Let's get real. All we are doing at the moment is allowing the vilest element in our markets to speculate at the expense of the global population, much of which can ill afford it.

In Trinidad and Tobago, even as the mainstream media reports that "Minister of Agriculture, Land and Marine Resources, Senator Arnold Piggott, says there is no food crisis..." blogger Elspeth Duncan at Now is Wow is seeing the signs of the times:

Today the front page of the papers announced: chicken prices going up, flour going up...is there any sign of the Gov't putting things in place for us to grow our own food so we can be self sufficient? Or is it that agricultural land is only good for housing? The other day some friends and I were discussing growing our own food crops and sharing our produce among ourselves.

Her concerns are echoed by Craig Butler at Bahama Pundit, who warns:

If you think that a problem is not on the horizon then think again. The problem as I see it is that far too many of our brothers and sisters are going to bed hungry every night. Don’t just think that this is a problem for the poor because it is not. The Bahamian middle class has practically evaporated and can at best be described as the working poor.

Transporting bananas in Cuba (2006), photo by Pietro Izzo

The Cuban Triangle examines Raul Castro's proposed agriculture policy, saying:

It looks promising. One step alone, the distribution of additional land to private farmers, is almost guaranteed to raise production and put Cuba on a path toward lower imports and lower food prices. But much remains to be seen.

The same could be said of agriculture in Trinidad and Tobago - in considering the reality of food prices in the twin island nation, KnowProSE.com says:

While the Prime Minister tells his political supporters that all will be well, one has to wonder what sort of mindset permitted the use of agricultural lands for residences. And because of that, agricultural crops are also being grown where heavier fertilizers are required due to poor soil. And that, in turn, skews development.

But he doesn't stop there:

With the global food prices on the rise with less and less food available, one thing I have been considering is getting into farming. Imagine that. While everyone is getting out of agriculture, I'm considering diving into agriculture.

...which may not be a bad idea, given Bajan Global Report's comprehensive roundup of "how the global food crisis is affecting our Caricom neighbours as they too try to grapple with the rising food costs in their countries."

Blogging from St. Lucia, Looshan Ramblings writes:

Hind sight is always 20/20 and we should have not allowed our Agricultural Stock to be marginalised to only production of cash crops but a a balance should have been struck in order to ensure a greater level of food security. Now we are faced with food inflation as has not seen in recent times.

Both can cook, must cook and Living in Barbados agree, saying "the crisis is having some worrying ripple effects":

Rice is being rationed! Not in Africa or India, but in England and the heartlands of the USA. In Britain rice is being rationed by shopkeepers in Asian neighbourhoods to prevent hoarding; while in the US Wal-Mart has created a first--there has never been food rationing in the US. The restrictions are being imposed on retail and wholesale customers.

But Jamaican Gordon Swaby tries to put a positive (if slightly controversial) spin on the whole situation:

What this food crisis is doing is forcing us to be self reliant; and for that I am very happy, after we realize that products are getting too expensive to be imported, then we will have no choice but to produce our own. And after that happens, we’ll have more than we need,

You may view the latest post at

http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2008/04/30/caribbean-food-shortages/

Skyrocketing Food Prices

'Haiti, Congo, and the politics of hunger'

by Jennifer Brea

Skyrocketing food prices have already sparked riots in Haiti, Egypt and Mozambique this month as a worsening crisis not only threatens to leave thousands vulnerable to starvation, but will test weak and ineffective governments in poor countries around the world.

Two francophone bloggers, one Haitian, one Congolese, respond, but rather than blame the proximate cause--subsidies for biofuels in rich countries--they criticize the politics and the politicians who left their countries this vulnerable to begin with. They write that the riots of these last few weeks and the riots to come, like the crisis itself, are symptomatic of deeper problems that cannot be solved by the simple magic of foreign aid.

Haitian blogger Natifnatal wrote an angry, heartbreaking post as she watched events in Haiti unfolding from thousands of miles away, in Abu Dhabi, which she suggests is a sort of self-imposed exile. It's called "When politicians serve hunger to score points."

These last few weeks, Haiti has returned to the front pages. As far away as you are, the news pulls you in, the images shake you, your throat chokes with embarrassment, and you burn with anger. You are, in effect, angry at the way in which your country is reduced in the press: to , destroying the few shops operating in a country that has not functioned in a long time. You are angry because it is impossible to respond to the reactions of foreigners who are watching like you and who understand nothing. Should I begin with 1492, talking about discovery, slavery, and the prosperity of the ex-Pearl of the Antilles, of the struggle for independence, of Toussaint Louverture? Or should I tell about the degradation that has punctuated our daily lives since 1804: occupation, dictatorship, massacres, the allure of democracy with Aristide that gave way to demogoguery, and then end with the kidnappings, coups d'etat, poverty, indigence, and the hopelessness that haunts us daily. For
those who don't even know the basics can present the equation: hunger + poverty + rising prices=demonstrations + the Prime Minister's resignation + violence, and argue that an increase in food aid would suffice to reduce hunger.

But those of you who know Haiti, who still breathe her air in spite of the distance between you, who still cry silently when you have a parent on the telephone, you know that the situation is far from that simple. You know that these demonstrations are not innocent, that there is an invisible hand behind these acts of violence, that these so-called demands are not the result of accident, that the dismissal of the Prime Minister or cash payments won't change much, and that the rioters are nothing more than pawns in the skilled hands of the maniacs in power.

Because you know the cold truth, and you are sick of it. You have run away from the political machinations, you have broken your ties with Haiti, you have resigned yourself to you condition of being "stateless," these moments are enough to make your pulse race, your heartbeat go irregular, to make you want to pull out your hair, to curse destiny, and prove to you, for the umpteenth time, that you were right to leave.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Musengeshi Katata at Forum Realisance, watching events in Haiti and Egypt, writes a post called, "Today, Haiti. Tomorrow, the world."

Katata touches on the relationship between the current food crisis, the ecological devastation of the planet, energy demand, biofuels, and how India and China, developing rapidly and without the latest in energy-saving technologies, are coming to Africa in search of natural resources.

He asks "Why is Africa so slow to understand that it's only going to get more difficult [to develop] in the future?" and predicts that "the next few years will be bad, so bad that we will ask ourselves if Hell is African" because "rich countries will, as they always have, place the heavy weight of this intensifying crisis on the shoulders of poor countries" [Fr]

But in the end, Katata puts most of the responsibility on African elites themselves, predicting that "many incapable governments and puppet regimes are going to implode" in the coming years unless they recognize their own self-interest lies with protecting the interests of their people.

...the Tsunami, as one of our Internet brothers wrote, will soon reach Africa with, as the World Bank has predicted, the inevitable revolts and famines. How can we present things to our black and African elites so that they will understand that they are asleep at the helm, that their view of things is disastrous and detrimental to their own well-being and future? Must Africans and their descendants continue to let themselves be run by the West, and to fail to see what threatens to happen, after decades and decades of the vicissitudes of chronic need and poverty? It's enough to ask, do blacks refuse to think and draw useful conclusions or are they just incapable?

All of those countries who live off foreign aid, all those under the aid and false promises of the industrialized countries who have not developed their own domestic agriculture will come to know, in the years that follow, hard years of bitterness. The economic crisis that we have known since what will soon be 30 years will intensify and eat away at the meager means of all the poor countries. And those who hope or believe that foreign aid can help ease the situation are fooling themselves yet again: this help, although a salve, is at the same time actually a poison, and in spite of the misery and the poverty, a stepped-up effort cannot make up for this type of shortfall in the future. Because, let's be honest, aid corrupts and enables deceptive appearances; that's what often stops people, as we know, from seeing [the forest for the trees], from seeing the problem as it is and remedying it as wisely as possible...

You may view the latest post at

http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2008/04/18/haiti-congo-and-the-politics-of-hunger/