Haiti “Reconstruction”: Luxury Hotels, Sweat Shops, Slave Labor and Deregulation for theForeign...

7/27/2019 Haiti Reconstruction: Luxury Hotels, Sweat Shops, Slave Labor and Deregulation for theForeign Corporate Elite

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Haiti Reconstruction: Luxury Hotels, Sweat

Shops, Slave Labor and Deregulation for the

Foreign Corporate Elite

ByJulie Lvesque

Global Research, August 16, 2013

In-depth Report:HAITI

Pictur e: Gi r l in a displacement camp, January 2013. REUTERS, Swoan Parker

The international community is so screwed up theyre letting Haitians

runHaiti. Luigi R. Einaudi, US career diplomat, member of the Council onForeign Relations and former Assistant Secretary General at the Organization

of American States

Haitian author and human rights attorney Ezili Dant heard Luigi R. Einaudimake this shocking comment in 2004, as Haiti was about to celebrate its 200years of independence with its first democratically elected President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Apart from his efforts to raise the minimum wage and othersocial measures for the majority of Haitians living in extreme poverty,
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Aristide planned to nationalize his countrys resources, a move which meantmore money for Haitians and less for multinationals. One month later, in thename of the international community, Aristide was overthrown in a coupdtat orchestrated by the U.S., France and Canada.

Today, the international community is running Haiti again, colonial style.

One can easily tell by comparing the very slow construction of shelters andbasic infrastructure for the Haitian majority with the rapid rise of luxury hotelsfor foreigners, sometimes with the help of aid funds which, we were told, weregoing to provide Haitians with basic necessities.

Most of the aid money went to donor countries businesses, governmentagencies and NGOs, as usual. International aid is a well-known capitalist

scheme aimed at developing markets in the global south for businesses fromthe North. Of course this aid will benefit Haitians. But only the very fewelite ones: those in power and the rich corporate elite. Haitis open for

business and deluxe hotels will be welcoming businessmen so they can set uptheir sweat shops in a cool and luxurious environment.

Original caption Back in 2011, the U.N. and Oxfam promised that a new system of

cisterns and kiosks would soon provide residents with water f rom the state water agency.

Two years later , the faucets remain dry [see photo] . Residents buy water at 5 gour des

(about US$0.12 cents) a bucket from pr ivate vendors or from the committees that

manage the few sti ll -functioning water bladders left over f rom thecamps early dayswhen water and food were free and when agencies provided cash for work jobs and

start-up funds for would-be entrepreneurs.(Reconstructions Massive Slum Will Cost
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Hundreds Of MillionsReconstructions Massive Slum Will Cost Hundreds Of

Millions Haiti Grassroots Watch, June 17, 2013)

Several new luxury hotels in Haiti

A year ago the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund invested humanitarian aid money in afive star hotel, as some 500,000 Haitians were still in displaced camps:

Picture (ri ght): Oasis Hotel, Petionvil le Haiti

As part of the countrys Reconstruction, The Clinton-Bush Haiti Fundrecently invested $2 million in the Royal Oasis Hotel, a deluxe structure to be

built in a poverty-stricken metropolitan area filled with displaced-personscamps housing hundreds of thousands. (Julie Lvesque,HAITI:Humanitarian Aid for Earthquake Victims Used to Build Five Star Hotels ,Global Research, June 28, 2012)

Now, as 300,000 Haitians are still living in camps, a new Marriott hotelrising from the rubble in Haiti is getting a $26.5 million financial boost fromthe International Financial Corporation (IFC), member of the World BankGroup:

Marriott International and telecom giant Digicel broke ground on thehotel last year, and it is expected to open in 2015. It will be among severalnew luxury hotels in Haiti after the devastating Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake.Spains Occidental Hotels & Resort and U.S.-based Best Western have both
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sweat shops and mines. What competitive workforce and proximity tomajormarkets actually mean is cheap labor for the U.S.

On its web site the IFC says its investments are focused on helping rebuildHaiti and reactivate growth through investment and advisory services, in

priority sectors such as garment, infrastructure, telecom, tourism, andfinance. In addition to the $26.5 million for the Marriott, the IFC has invested$7.7 million to the aforementioned Oasis hotel, also located in Petionville.(IFC Investment Generation in Haiti)

In total, almost half of IFC investments have helped the construction of deluxehotels in a rich suburb, home to the Haitian elite.

The World Bank: An Imperial Tool

The IFC is part of the World Bank Group. The World Bank has been criticizedfor previous initiatives like theProject for Participatory CommunityDevelopment (PRODEP). An eight month investigation by Haiti GrassrootsWatch found that PRODEP helped undermine an already weak state,

damaged Haitis social tissue, carried out what could be called social andpolitical reengineering, raised questions of waste and corruptioncontributed to Haitis growing status as an NGO Republic damagedtraditional solidarity systems and in some cases even strengthened the powerof local elites. (World Bank success undermines Haitian democracy, HaitiGrassroots Watch, December 20, 2012)
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Recently, in May 2013, Alexandre Abrantes, the World Bank special envoy toHaiti announced that the World Bank is supporting the Haitian governmentin improving the frameworks for mining, including legal provisions which arelargely considered inadequate for current requirements, Daniel Trenton,(World Bank says its helping Haiti draft mining legislation, The Gazette, May17, 2013)

For Ezili Dant, the U.S. and the World Bank are simply rewriting Haitisconstitution to benefit mining companies:

Oxfam, [the] World Bank and the other fake philanthropic folks [are] involvedin protecting the interests of the one percenters, re-writing Haiti mininglaws

ARTICLE 36-5 of the Haitian Constitution, states:

The right to own property does not extend to the coasts, springs, rivers, watercourses, mines and quarries. They are part of the States public domain.

Haitis current law doesnt allow drilling without a signed mining convention.But US Newmont mining got a waiver to the current Haiti law without theapproval of even the puppet Haiti legislature. Martelly signed it in violation ofthe Haiti Constitution. (Ezili Dant,Haiti: US to Re-Write Haiti Constitutionto Better Service the One Percent, Black Agenda Report July 2, 2013)

Haitian mineral resources alone have been estimated at $20 billion. U.S. andCanadian investors have spent more than $30 million in recent years onexploratory drilling and other mining-related activities in Haiti. (Trenton,op.cit.)
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Slow Reconstruction, Slave Labor and the International Aid Deception

Picture left: Jean-Marie Vincent camp, January 2013. AP/Dieu Nalio Chery

Unlike the fast-growing luxury hotel industry, the reconstruction efforts facemany delays and various financial hurdles. Last June, a U.S. GovernmentAccountability Office (GAO) reportcriticised USAID for its lack oftransparency, multiple delays, cost overruns and reduced goals. The report

points to a striking paradox: although the sums allocated to sheltering havealmost doubled, the number of houses to be built has been reduced by anastonishing 80 percent:

In 2010, just months after Haiti was struck by a devastating earthquake, theUnited States passed legislation allocating $651 million to USAID to support

relief and reconstruction efforts. Three years later,just 31 percent of thesefunds have been spentas delays mount and goals are scaled back Thereport also criticizes USAID for a lack of transparency

The GAO found that inaccurate cost estimates and delays led to an increase inthe amount dedicated to providing shelter from $59 million to $97

millionwhile at the same time decreased the projected number of housesto be built by over 80 percent, from 15,000 to 2,649. Originally estimatedto cost less than $10,000 for a completed house, actual costs have been greaterthan $33,000. USAID has awarded over $46 million to contractors forhousing. Meanwhile, some 300,000 people remain in camps over three yearsafter the earthquake. Overall, the humanitarian community has constructed

just 7,000 new homes, about 40 percent of what is currently planned

Further, the GAO report is critical of U.S. investments supporting the CaracolIndustrial Park. Randal C. Archibold of theNew York Times reports:
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A big portion of Agency for International Development money, $170.3million, went toward a power plant and port for an industrial parkinnorthern Haiti that was the centerpiece of United States reconstruction effortsand had been heavily promoted by the State Department and former PresidentBill Clinton

Although the aid agency completed the power plant under budget, the port,crucial to the industrial parks long-term success, is two years behindschedule due in part to a lack of U.S.A.I.D. expertise in port planning inHaiti, the report said, and is now vulnerable to cost overruns. (GAO ReportCritical of USAID in Haiti, Bolsters Calls for Increased Oversight, Center forEconomic and Policy Research, June 26, 2013)

The delays and potential cost overruns related to the construction of Caracols

essential port are easily explained by the fact that USAID received $72 millionfor its planning and construction, despite its cruel lack of expertise. IndeedUSAID has not built such a structure in the past 40 years:

Despite having not constructed a port anywhere in the world since the1970s, USAID allocated $72 million dollars to build one, according to [the]GAO reportreleased last week.The port is meant to help support the CaracolIndustrial Park (CIP) which was constructed with funding from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and $170 million in funding from theU.S. for related infrastructure. The CIP has been held up as the flagship

reconstruction project undertaken by the international community inHaiti. Even after putting aside criticisms ofthe location, types of jobsandtheenvironmental impactof the CIP, the success of the entire project hingeson the new port

Without any in-house expertise in port construction at USAID, the

mission turned to private contractors.HRRW reported in January2012that MWH Americas was awarded a $2.8 million contracttoconduct a feasibility study for port infrastructure in northern Haiti.The expected completion date was May 2012. MWH Americas hadpreviously been criticized for their work in New Orleans, with the Times-Picayune reporting that MWH had been operating for more than two yearsunder a dubiously awarded contract that has allowed it to overbill the cityrepeatedly even as the bricks-and-mortar recovery work it oversees haslagged. (USAIDs Lack of Expertise, Reliance on Contractors Puts
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Sustainability of Caracol in Doubt, Center for Economic and Policy Research,July 2, 2013)

These examples illustrate perfectly what international aid is all about. EziliDant explains:

The NGOs carry out US imperial policies in Haiti in exchange for charityfunding which means, they money launder US tax payer and donor dollarsand put it in theirpockets. US imperial policies is about destroying Haitimanufacturing and local economy, expropriating Haiti natural resources andmaking a larger Haiti market for their subsidized Wall Street monopolies.

The economic elites made billions upon billions before the$9-billionthe USbig-hearted humanitarians would add to their coffers from launderingearthquake relief dollarslargely back to US groups.

But the NGOs and their Hollywood, media and academic cohorts play firemento the US governments arsonist role in Haiti and the global south. The

professional posers the white industrial charitable complex play anunderhanded game. For instance The Center for Economic and PolicyResearch(CEPR)analyzedthe $1.15 billion pledged after the January 2010quake to Haiti and found that the vast majority of the money it could

follow went straight to U.S. companies or organizations, more than half inthe Washington area alone. (Ezili Dant, op. cit.).

Haitians earn less today than they did under the Duvalier dictatorship

The giant Caracol Industrial Park was inaugurated in March 2013 in thepresence of President Martelly, as well as Haitian and foreign diplomats, theClinton power couple, millionaires and actors, all present to celebrate thegovernments clarion call: Haiti is open for business.(The CaracolIndustrial Park: Worth the risk?Haiti Grassroots Watch, March 7, 2013)

Caracol was promoted as a way to decentralize the country and potentially

create between 20,000 and 65,000 jobs. The results one year later are far fromexpectations:

One year after it started operations, only 1,388 people work in the parkAlso, HGW research amongst a sampling of workers found that at the end ofthe day, most have only 57 gourdes, or US$1.36, in hand after paying for
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transportation and food out of their minimum wage 200-gourde (US$4.75)salary.

HGW also learned that most of the farmers kicked off their plots to makeway for the park are still without land.

Before, Caracol was the breadbasket of the Northeast department, saidBres Wilcien, one of the farmers expelled from the 250-hectare zone.Rightnow there is a shortage of some products in the local markets. Weare just sitting here in misery. (Ibid.)

Destroying food sovereignty in the global south is a common practice used bythe global north through international bodies like the World Bank and theIMF. The goal is to keep the South dependent on the North and create a

market for exportation, deceptively labelled food aid for photo ops and toconceal the real intent: dumping.

Clearly, in addition to providing slave labor for U.S. and other foreigngarment companies, the Caracol Industrial Park has contributed to reduce evenmore what remains of the local farming in Haiti, eradicated over the years by a

barbaric U.S. foreign policy. A 2010 report from the Council on HemisphericAffairs found that Haitis savior President Clinton and other recent WhiteHouse tenants [condemned] Haiti to a future of endemic poverty through aself-serving U.S. rice export policy. (Leah Chavla,Bill Clintons heavy hand

on Haitis vulnerable agricultural economy: The American rice scandal,Council on Hemispheric Affairs, April 13, 2010)
http://www.coha.org/haiti-research-file-neoliberalism%25E2%2580%2599s-heavy-hand-on-haiti%25E2%2580%2599s-vulnerable-agricultural-economy-the-american-rice-scandal/http://www.coha.org/haiti-research-file-neoliberalism%25E2%2580%2599s-heavy-hand-on-haiti%25E2%2580%2599s-vulnerable-agricultural-economy-the-american-rice-scandal/http://www.coha.org/haiti-research-file-neoliberalism%25E2%2580%2599s-heavy-hand-on-haiti%25E2%2580%2599s-vulnerable-agricultural-economy-the-american-rice-scandal/http://www.coha.org/haiti-research-file-neoliberalism%25E2%2580%2599s-heavy-hand-on-haiti%25E2%2580%2599s-vulnerable-agricultural-economy-the-american-rice-scandal/http://www.coha.org/haiti-research-file-neoliberalism%25E2%2580%2599s-heavy-hand-on-haiti%25E2%2580%2599s-vulnerable-agricultural-economy-the-american-rice-scandal/http://www.coha.org/haiti-research-file-neoliberalism%25E2%2580%2599s-heavy-hand-on-haiti%25E2%2580%2599s-vulnerable-agricultural-economy-the-american-rice-scandal/


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Picture: Notice workers who earn less than $5 a day do not smile. Clinton is the only one

smiling. Original caption: Former U.S. President and U.N. Special Envoy to Haiti, BillClinton, smiles as he is greeted bygarment workersat the Caracol Industrial ParkMonday, Oct. 22, 2012, in Caracol, Haiti. The industrial park in northern Haiti is expectedto create up to 65, 000 new jobs. I t is a $300 mi ll ion in iti ative by the governments of

Haiti, the U.S. and the I nter-American Development Bank. (Clintons visit H aiti to

inaugurate new industr ial park, The Bee. Picture: Carl Juste, M iami Herald)

Haiti expert Isabeau Doucet notes:

In the 1950s, agriculture made up90 per centof Haitis exports; today,90 percentof exports are from the apparel sector, while more thanhalfthe countrys

food is imported

Preferential free-trade deals signed between Haiti and the United Statesnamed HOPE (Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through PartnershipEncouragement Act, 2006), HOPE II (2008) and HELP (Haiti Economic LiftProgram, 2008)have been part of a push to expand Haitis apparel industry

by branding Made in Haiti garments as somehow humanitarian, sociallyresponsible, and good for Haitis development, while also giving duty-freeaccess to US markets.

According to a 2011 study by the American Federation of Labor and Congressof Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the estimated cost of living in Port-au-Prince is $29 a day. Two hundred gourdes for an eight-hour work shift is one-sixth the AFL-CIOs estimated living wage. Transport to and from work and amodest lunch could easily cost a worker 120 gourdes. Indeed, Haitians earnless today than they did under the Duvalier dictatorship; wages have
http://topics.sacbee.com/garment+workers/http://topics.sacbee.com/garment+workers/http://topics.sacbee.com/garment+workers/http://www.sacbee.com/2012/10/22/4930450/clintons-visit-haiti-to-inaugurate.htmlhttp://www.sacbee.com/2012/10/22/4930450/clintons-visit-haiti-to-inaugurate.htmlhttp://www.sacbee.com/2012/10/22/4930450/clintons-visit-haiti-to-inaugurate.htmlhttp://www.sacbee.com/2012/10/22/4930450/clintons-visit-haiti-to-inaugurate.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Haitihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Haitihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Haitihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Haitihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Haitihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Haitihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Haitihttp://www.wfp.org/countries/haiti/overviewhttp://www.wfp.org/countries/haiti/overviewhttp://www.wfp.org/countries/haiti/overviewhttp://www.wfp.org/countries/haiti/overviewhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Haitihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Haitihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Haitihttp://www.sacbee.com/2012/10/22/4930450/clintons-visit-haiti-to-inaugurate.htmlhttp://www.sacbee.com/2012/10/22/4930450/clintons-visit-haiti-to-inaugurate.htmlhttp://topics.sacbee.com/garment+workers/


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hotel industry shows that in Haiti, the foreigners come first. Sadly whitesupremacy and slavery are still alive and well in the pearl of the Antilles.

About the author:

Julie Lvesque is a journalist and researcher with the Centre for Research on Globalization

(CRG), Montreal. She was among the first independent journalists to visit Haiti in the wake

of the January 2010 earthquake. In 2011, she was on board "The Spirit of Rachel Corrie",

the only humanitarian vessel which penetrated Gaza territorial waters before being shot

at by the Israeli Navy.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/haiti-reconstruction-luxury-hotels-sweat-

shops-and-deregulation-for-the-foreign-corporate-elite/5344546

Haiti “Reconstruction”: Luxury Hotels, Sweat Shops, Slave Labor and Deregulation for theForeign...

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