[THE HELL THAT IS PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti—Oct…]

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THE HELL THAT IS PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti—Oct. 22 was a romantic rendezvous for Bill and Hillary Clinton in Haiti, their one-time honeymoon destination. Hollywood celebs were there too—Sean Penn, Ben Stiller and sweat­ shop magnate Donna Karan, along with members of the Haitian elite, led by President Michael Martelly, a Washington-backed military coup supporter. “Haiti is open for business and we mean it,” Martelly said to his beaming guests.

The occasion was the opening of a new $300 mil­ lion sweatshop industrial park in Caracol in northern Haiti, $124 million of it paid for by the U.S. taxpayers. Signing the Caracol agreement on Jan. 11, 2011, were Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the U.S.-dominated Inter-American Development Bank, and the Korean textile assembly giant, Sae-A Trading. Officials say the park may employ up to 20,000 workers. The promo­ tional material claimed it was created, “without com­ promising on labor and environmental standards.” Hillary called it “a new Haiti.” It was all lies.

The AFL-CIO had urged American and international officials to reconsider Sae-A Trading, citing “acts of vi­ olence and intimidation” in Guatemala. Homero Fuent­ es, who monitors factories for American retailers, calls Sae-A “one of the major labor violators.” Sae-A Trading closed shop in Guatemala and moved its operation to Haiti. It will now receive tax breaks and duty-free ac­ cess to the U. S. market. The company’s export to the U.S. has been estimated at about $900 million.

An initial corporate study claimed that the Caracol area was “devoid” of people. But the week the Cara­ col deal was signed, Robert Ettienne, an elderly farm­ er near Caracol, told Haiti Grassroots Watch (HGW), “The first week of January tractors moved across all this area and broke down everyone’s fences. Thieves and animals followed, and our crops were gone.” (See the series “Open for Business” at www.Haitigrassroot­ swatch.org.) Farmers were promised compensation but, so far, haven’t received it.

Some 300 farmers, like Ettienne, lost their land, in what is considered a fertile, ecologically fragile re­ gion. The nearby port at Forte Liberté is Haiti’s only UN-designated ecologically “protected” area. An in­ ternal government document obtained by HGW cited the “significant adverse environmental impact” of the Caracol project. “The fact of having chosen this site, 6 SOCIALIST ACTION NOVEMBER 2012 I’d call it heresy,” said Arnaud Dupuy, head of Haiti’s Audubon Society.

Caracol also has deep historical significance. It is close to Chavert, the site where rebellious peasants of the North, followers of guerrilla leader Charlemagne Peralte, were held by U.S. Marines during the first U.S. occupation. Racist U.S. troops attached hoses to truck exhausts that led to imprisoned Haitians, creating a Nazi-like death chamber.

Hurricane Sandy Two days after the Oct. 22 Caracol gala, hurricane Sandy ripped through Haiti’s South, smashing through tent cities erected after the January 2010 earthquake. They are still inhabited by 400,000 desperate “internal refugees,” despite $5 billion raised internationally for earthquake relief. Ordinarily, tent cities, concentrated in Port au Prince, are rife with hunger, misery, unsani­ tary conditions, sexual assaults, and forced evictions backed by armed goons.

At least 54 Haitians died during Sandy, a majority of the 71 killed in the Caribbean. Some 25,000 Hai­ tians are homeless. Rivers of water and mud cascaded down deforested mountains, stripped bare for use as firewood. Coffee and bean production was devastated, raising prices on already costly food staples, the theme of mass protests in October.

Cholera, an easily treated water-borne disease, re­ appeared in Sandy’s wake. Starting in late 2010, over 7500 Haitians died of cholera and hundreds of thou­ sands were infected. Since 2010, there has been little preparation for new outbreaks or improved sanita­ tion. About 550 died of cholera over the last year.

Haiti has been called “the NGO republic,” referring to the thousands of NGOs (Non-Governmental Organiza­ tions) in the country, almost all of which are non-Hai­ tian and get the lion’s share of relief funds. The World Bank estimated 10,000 NGOs before the earthquake. A mere 1% went to the Haitian government. The NGOs, funded mainly by wealthy donors, shape relief efforts. There is no national housing plan nearly three years after the earthquake. International “relief” has deliv­ ered only 52.3 percent of the $5.3 billion pledged to Haiti, and, some aid specialists say, there isn’t any plan to make up the difference.

The minimum wage struggle Big worker mobilizations in 2009 kept the pressure on parliament to adopt a new minimum wage law.

envision making Haiti a virtual 21stcentury slave state of low-wage work­ ers dominated by the international assembly industry. Since the 1980s, the World Bank’s goal was to make Haiti “the Taiwan of the Caribbean,” a sinkhole of low wage labor, depress­ ing wages for the entire Caribbean and even North America.

Parallel to more assembly develop­ ment is expanding tourism, whose de­ velopment will mean little income for the Haitian masses and degrade Haiti’s rich culture. Haiti is “free market” capi­ talism at its most savage. Most Haitians live on $2 a day or less. Unemployment is more than 60%. The country is ripe for revolution.

At a meeting that this Socialist Action reporter at­ tended of sweatshop workers and North American activists, organized by BO, workers described recent work stoppages and the need for collective action. Workers described how bosses reacted with fury to stoppages over quotas by firing workers or sending them home for days or weeks.

The workers said it is common to cut their lunches short or skip it entirely to meet quotas in order to support their families on their paltry salaries. Some bosses force workers to pay for the company’s mis­ erable food, to be eaten while working. Workers also described their wretched health care, with company doctors suspicious of all their complaints, and even ratting out workers to the bosses. One worker told us that factory owner Charles Baker, a prominent reac­ tionary, made threats against him for questioning pol­ icy. The workers appealed for international solidarity.

BO has organized the trade-union SOTA (Sendikat Ouvriye Tekstile ak Abiman, the Union of Textile and Clothing Workers) at six Port au Prince plants out of some 25, mostly in the SONAPI Industrial Park located in the capital, which employs about 12,000 workers. BO has also organized the 3000 CODEVI textile work­ ers in Ouanaminte in the north.

BO seeks to mount an international campaign to force assembly bosses to honor the minimum-wage law. They intend to begin a fight to raise the minimum beyond bare subsistence next year. For more, contact www.Batayouvriye.org)

The UN occupation Keeping a lid on the explosive mix of vastly unequal wealth is a U.S.-led United Nations military occupation force of some 12,000 troops, illegal by its own hypo­ critical standards and, according to polls, hated by the Haitian masses. Doing Washington’s dirty work, Bra­ zilian troops form the largest contingent of 18 other participating nations within the United Nation’s Mis­ sion to Stabilize Haiti (MINUSTAH). Their participa­ tion freed U.S. troops for the Iraq and Afghan wars.

As a creation of imperialism, the United Nations is conducting an illegal occupation even by its own char­ ter. There is no invasion of Haiti or internal strife justi­ fying military force. The Haiti occupation costs $1 bil­ lion a year, about $2 million a day, funds that could be (continued on page 7)

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(Above) Batay Ouvriye union organizer speaks to a crowd of assembly workers in Haiti.

... Hell that is Haiti (continued from page 6) used for housing, sanitation, and food.

MINUSTAH troops have engaged in a number of mas­ sacres. MINUSTAH fired into supporters of deposed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide (2004) and created a free-fire zone in the impoverished Cite Soleil sec­ tion of Port au Prince in 2005, where up to 80 people were killed. Numerous sexual assaults by MINUSTAH troops have gone unpunished. UN officials continue to stonewall when confronted by the victim’s families and their attorneys. It has refused to create a Standing Claims Commission to hear cases against it, as called for by its own mandate.

After the onset of the cholera epidemic in 2010, two scientific studies and photos proved that UN troops from Nepal dumped raw sewage into a waterway com­ parable to the U.S. Mississippi River in significance. Strains of cholera active in Nepal have been discov­ ered in Haitian cholera victims. UN official have ar­ rogantly denied responsibility, refusing to respond to a lawsuit filed by the Office of International Lawyers (BAI). Some 8000 people have died in the epidemic, and another 700,000 have fallen ill.

The MINUSH’s “mandate” expired on Oct. 15 but was unanimously renewed on Oct. 12 without a with­ drawal date. On Oct. 11, in New York City, a delegation of Haitian activists—Haitian Sen. Moise Jean-Charles; several labor officials, including Fignole St. Cyr, gen­ eral secretary of the Haitian trade-union confedera­ tion CATH; Haiti Liberté journalist Kim Ives; and sev­ eral U.S. solidarity activists—met with UN officials to demand the immediate withdrawal of MINUSTAH. In­ credibly, William Gardner, the occupation’s UN Senior Political Affairs Officer, said he was unaware of the 2011 Haitian Senate vote in favor of the withdrawal of MINUSTAH within one year. Gardner went on to say that MINUSTAH might remain until at least 2015.

In Haiti, anti-MINUSTAH protests have increased, combined with the demand for lower prices and the resignation of President Martelly. Two marches in Cap Haitien in the north numbered in the thousands.

Marty Goodman / Socialist Action On Oct 15, the day the MINUSTAH so-called mandate expired, a modest, but militant protest blocked the driveway of the MINUSTAH base in Port au Prince. The presence of North American activists may have pre­ vented acts of MINUSTAH brutality. One MINUSTAH soldier was heard to have said to another, “There’s 40 cameras and Ipads.” Socialists demand, “U.S./UN out of Haiti now, and stay out! n