NDP and Haiti

Michelle wrote:

.  I don't know about you, remind, but I can walk and chew gum at the same time.

Great....red herrings and thought terminating cliches at the same time....tinged with a hint of personal attack on top.

Quote:

Anyhow, it's easy to demand that a rush be put on flying their orphans here to be given to Canadian families.  Maybe not quite so easy to look at the root causes of why there are so many orphans to begin with.

Meanwhile, other countries have already went ahead and rescued the children who were orphaned in the hurricane and for other reasons, who were in the process of being adopted.

But yet,  not Canada....

Glad to see you edited your post BTW in respect to the derision you first had about the Haitian orphans and those who are trying to adopt them.

Stockholm wrote:

I agree with calling for debt forgiveness.

Then you must disagree with the basic tenets of an economic ideology that has kept Haiti mired in debt over long periods of time as a tool for providing foreign corporations, banks and capitalists access to Haiti's sovereign natural resource wealth. Neoliberalism equates to neocolonialism for too many poor countries subsisting under the thumb of thirdworld capitalism.

Unionist wrote:

Holy crap, adopting Haitian orphans... what next? Farming aboriginal kids out for adoption? Pardon me while I reach for my Gravol.

Yanquis only want kids like Elian Gonzalez. Somebody has to accept the orphans of a failed political and economic ideology in the Carribe.

A_J wrote:

Fidel wrote:

Stockholm wrote:

I agree with calling for debt forgiveness.

Then you must disagree with the basic tenets of an economic ideology that has kept Haiti mired in debt over long periods of time as a tool for providing foreign corporations, banks and capitalists access to Haiti's sovereign natural resource wealth. Neoliberalism equates to neocolonialism for too many poor countries subsisting under the thumb of thirdworld capitalism.

I suppose better late than never, but the IMF and World Bank forgave Haiti's debt last year.

Apparently the only hold-outs who have yet to forgive debts owed to them by Haiti are Taiwan (who claims to be working on it) and Venezuela.

cite please

The IDB expects to approve $128 million in new grants to Haiti this year. The proposal to the Board of Governors, where all 48 IDB member countries are represented, would request more resources for the Grant Fund that finances these operations.

Additionally, the Board of Governors could consider the possibility of providing further debt relief to Haiti, on top of the $511 million in debt cancellation announced last year. Currently the pending debt stands at $441 million in USD and $6 million in local currency in loans that are financing investments in key sectors including roads, water and sanitation, electricity and agriculture.

Most of that debt consists of 40-year soft loans approved between 2004 and 2007, and therefore are still under a 10-year grace period on principal repayments. Interest payments are being covered with resources from a trust fund backed by donor countries. Since 2007 the IDB provides only grants to Haiti.

Last week, immediately after the earthquake, the IDB offered the Haitian government to redirect resources from existing operations to emergency tasks and reconstruction efforts. The IDB portfolio currently holds US$330 million, of which some US$90 million could be quickly assigned to priority projects.

http://www.iadb.org/news-releases/2010-01/english/idb-president-visits-h...

Oh those evil people who are not forgiving debt.  Funny how the media vilifies some and ignores the largest debt and doesn't scream for its forgiveness.  How about the IMF why is it not being vivified for not giving money instead of lending more.  What a Brave World we live in.

Unionist wrote:

Holy crap, adopting Haitian orphans... what next? Farming aboriginal kids out for adoption? Pardon me while I reach for my Gravol.

 

Not a good analogy. FN children were taken without proof of abuse (just a Western colonialist conception of what a childhood should look like). They were not orphans and had living, breathing parents who wanted to care for them and in the majority of situations were able to provide that care. Racism/classism/etc. got in the way. 

In Haiti, there is a situation with a large number of orphans with no one to care for them. The survivors can barely take care of themselves and their own families due to the situation with basic needs, supplies, aid, etc. 

Who would you have care for these children? How many people in Haiti are in a position to adopt right now? 

Maybe its "patronizing" for us to offer any assistance at all to Haiti at a time like this. maybe the world shoudl just turn its back. We have done enough harm to Haiti by interfering - so the best thing is to do NOTHING, offer no assistance, no money, no rescue workers, no medicine NOTHING. Any aid we offer Haiti is really just a form of colonization. It will only hurt the pride and independence of the haitian people if we try to help. We need to stand aside and let them empower themselves with no outside assistance of any kind!

Unionist wrote:

Ghislaine wrote:

Who would you have care for these children?

Gee, Ghi, I didn't realize it was my decision. Thanks for the nomination, though.

Quote:

How many people in Haiti are in a position to adopt right now? 

How many people are in a position to look after their own kids in the fashion which "we" could afford? Not many, I bet. Let's do the right thing. Give up on that failed experiment and bring 'em up right! Hell, they could even grow up to be Governor-General and wear fatigues!!

In case it's not evident, the subtle innuendo you detected above is utter contempt.

 

I was just asking what your alternative was? We are not talking about taking kids away from parents of another race or culture who can't look after them in the way "we" deem acceptable. We are talking about orphans who have no parents or relatives, ie NO ONE to look after them in a country with destroyed orphanages and 200,000+ dead. Your analogy to the genocide perpetrated through child "welfare" systems on FN children in Canada is totally false. They had parents, kinship networks, etc., etc. Now if this type of thing turns into taking children away when there ARE parents and relatives, I agree completely.

If helping children orphaned by the Earthquake in Haiti get adopted to other countries is not an acceptable idea, I am wondering what is?

Thanks, Unionist.  No kidding.

And remind, [intemperate remark removed - 11 days, 11 days Michelle...] since your smear stands for everyone to read, I'll explain.  I slightly changed the wording of my post because I thought I worded it better the this way, but I didn't change the meaning of my post one bit.  Focusing primarily on flying Haitian children out of the country to be adopted by privileged Canadian families could be considered opportunistic and problematic.  Is it wrong?  I don't know - there are lots of points of view about transnational, interracial adoptions, and there is a lot of antiracist analysis and criticism around it.

Our ships can also make quick stops in Iraq to pick up orphans and deliver them to loving childless U.S. familes. Then off to Afghanistan for a boatload of girls destined for the finest Canadian schools. The possibilities for helping the less fortunate are virtually limitless.

And Michelle, it's not just about inter-racial adoption. It's about colonial privilege, regardless of colour.

Fidel wrote:

They need the aid money to pay interest on odious debt. It's a capitalist hellhole afterall.

The Swiss should give them back the $900 million the Duvaliers absconded with and stashed in Swiss bank accounts. And Canada gave sanctuary to those rotten bastards when they fled the country.

That would be a good "down payment" on the 200 years of debt slavery that's been imposed on the Haitian people.

The business about adopting babies is a hardly where this should be focused.

There are so many people homeless that a large scale evacuation should be made and we can bring a significant number of people hereat least for now-- including adults. No doubt the Haitian community here and those brought here to evacuate unliveable conditions will likely be able to take care of any babies that need care. There should be no question of handing over haitian babies to non haitians as I see no indication that with the means provided they would not be able to care for them themselves. This is a question of adequate aid-- you don't go in and snatch babies- if the aid is properly directed there would be no question of that.

*gag*

Fidel Castro on Haiti

<quote> "The tragedy has genuinely moved a significant number of people, particularly those in which that quality is innate. But perhaps very few of them have stopped to consider why Haiti is such a poor country. Why does almost 50% of its population depend on family remittances sent from abroad? Why not analyze the realities that led Haiti to its current situation and this enormous suffering as well?

The most curious aspect of this story is that no one has said a single word to recall the fact that Haiti was the first country in which 400,000 Africans, enslaved and trafficked by Europeans, rose up against 30,000 white slave masters on the sugar and coffee plantations, thus undertaking the first great social revolution in our hemisphere. Pages of insurmountable glory were written there. Napoleon’s most eminent general was defeated there. Haiti is the net product of colonialism and imperialism, of more than one century of the employment of its human resources in the toughest forms of work, of military interventions and the extraction of its natural resources.

This historic oversight would not be so serious if it were not for the real fact that Haiti constitutes the disgrace of our era, in a world where the exploitation and pillage of the vast majority of the planet’s inhabitants prevails.

Billions of people in Latin American, Africa and Asia are suffering similar shortages although perhaps not to such a degree as in the case of Haiti.

Situations like that of that country should not exist in any part of the planet, where tens of thousands of cities and towns abound in similar or worse conditions, by virtue of an unjust international economic and political order imposed on the world. The world population is not only threatened by natural disasters such as that of Haiti, which is a just a pallid shadow of what could take place in the planet as a result of climate change, which really was the object of ridicule, derision, and deception in Copenhagen".</quote>

The rest: 

http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2010/enero/vier15/Reflections-14enero.html

At least one world leader is saying what needs to be said.

Agreed, Merowe. Only I would add: ask the Haitian people what they think should be done. Remember them? The White Man's Burden is a weighty one indeed.

Here's a new blog post on Haiti. Can't emphasize enough: people should join or support the Canada Haiti Action Network (CHAN). It's a tremendous grassroots network that has been working with miniscule resources/media attention for years.

What Haiti really needs is socialism. The NDP can not donate socialism to Haiti. Haitians will have to liberate themselves from the banking cabal and US and other neocolonizers.

In fact, we have to focus on democratizing our own Northern Puerto Rico if we're going to be able to help ourselves and neoliberalized countries like Haiti, "the freest trading nation in the Carribe" according to Washington, and which will be no small task for New Democrats considering how our own stooges in Ottawa are throwing us even deeper down a debt hole with no plan to climb out of debt owed to banksters and foreign bondholders.

Similar to the neoliberal setup in Haiti, marauding international capital will just have to continue stripping Canada of its natural wealth and assets as per the prescribed neoliberalorama for our increasingly indebted Northern Panama.

Don't know where to put this so why not here since the NDP still advertises itself as 'the best' Canadian solution to foreign policy problems? Why not ask your local candidate what they're doing to help Haiti?

Haitian Campesino Leaders Join Demand For President's Removal

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Haitian-Campesino-Leaders-Request-Pr...

"Haitian 4G Meeting (Kontre) platform which brings together various Haitian Campesino leaders and organizations issued a statement Saturday on the Bolivarian Alliance For the Peoples of Our Americas' website, to denounce the 'unacceptable disaster' faced by the country and to join the calls coming from the streets, that urge the immediate resignation of the [Canada and] United-States backed President Jovenal Moise.

'If Jovenal Moise does not make the decision to leave power quickly, then people will see how to get rid of him. There is no possibility of dialogue with a criminal and completely irresponsible president, the letter said.."

The Canada-Haiti Information Project

https://canada-haiti.ca

Updates