Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 04:20:28 -0400
From: aaron-AT-burn.ucsd.edu (Aaron)
Subject: M-NEWS: U.S. Occupation of Haiti and the Ferry Disaster


The following article is taken, without cuts or modification of content, from
THIS WEEK IN HAITI, Vol. 15, No. 26, September 17 - 23, 1997
See end of article for more information.

LA GONAVE FERRY DISASTER: WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?

The image is horrifying. A shiny new ferry, renovated in Miami, plunging
through the murky ocean depths, clutching in its steel hull the ragged
bodies of almost two hundred drowning souls.

On radio talk shows, Haitians are calling it an omen. That vessel is Haiti,
they say, a country supposedly refurbished by millions of dollars in
foreign aid which is now sinking like the ferry "Pride of La Gonave" with a
desperate population trapped on board.

The parallel is true in many respects, although many Haitians certainly
don't consider themselves helpless passengers. Haiti is becoming poorer and
more miserable than ever before. Her "restored democracy" is in fact a
foreign military occupation set in place to prevent the Haitian people from
rising up against the unemployment, privatization, and belt-tightening
being dictated by rich lending elites, concerned only with recouping the
interest on their loans.

Nowhere is Haiti's deepening economic crisis better reflected than in the
country's growing transportation death toll. The Sept. 8 ferry sinking is
just more spectacular than the grisly bus accidents which occur every week
on Haiti's crumbling roads. Just like the ferries, vehicles are overloaded
and in a poor state of repair as they bob and weave over rocky pot-holed
roads in an effort to squeeze out the maximum payloads in the minimum time.
The result is always, eventually, the loss of life and limb.

During the coup, the military junta had a good excuse for such disasters,
like the February 1993 sinking of "The Neptune," in which perhaps 1000
people perished. The country is embargoed, they said, so we are
hard-pressed and tragedy results. But now, the coup is over, and millions
have been poured into Haiti. For example, on Aug. 20, the Haitian
government and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) signed
an accord for a loan of about $12 million. But was this money for
"international development"?

"This accord will allow us to finance the external debt of the government
to the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the International
Monetary Fund (IMF), and other financial institutions," said Planning
Minister Eric Deryce on the occasion. "Thus we are going to pay the
interest on the debts which have come due for fiscal year 1996-1997, and
also those which were not paid in 1995-1996. That is the main goal of those
funds."

Twelve million dollars could have built twelve wharfs for vessels coming
into ports like Montrouis, where last week's tragedy occurred. The vessel
capsized mainly because there was no wharf and the passengers all gathered
on one side of the ferry to board row-boats which carry people to shore.

Twelve million dollars could also have financed new roads, buses, schools,
hospitals, irrigation, or drainage.

Instead, it was handed to a poverty-racked country with one hand and
immediately taken back with another to balance the books of opulent banks,
increasing the Haitian people's debt by $12 million in the process.
Millions more in debt has been loaded on the country to pay for fancy jeeps
for ministers, for pointless junkets to far-off international symposiums,
and for the handsome salaries and rum-punches of international experts,
advisors, and observers who help keep the country on its knees. This debt
is the weight which is carrying the country down.

Poverty and the suffering which escorts it are not naturally occurring
phenomena. They are the direct result of theft, sometimes centuries of
theft, which becomes more refined and deceptive with age and power.

Those who have grown rich and continue to grow rich off the plunder of
Haiti -- both local and foreign bourgeoisies -- are to blame for the death
of some two hundred La Gonave islanders. And they are to blame for the
death toll every week which results from lack of roads, medicine, and food.

But, like a drop of water on a brimming cup, last week's ferry disaster has
brought an outpouring of anger and disgust onto airwaves and street-corners
throughout Haiti. That outpouring may well capsize the bright shiny
U.S.-made lie which is Haiti's "occupation democracy."

----------
"This Week in Haiti" is the English section of HAITI PROGRES newsweekly.
For information on other news in French and Creole, please contact the
paper at (tel) 718-434-8100, (fax) 718-434-5551 or e-mail at
<haiticom-AT-nyxfer.blythe.org>

----------
mailto:aaron-AT-burn.ucsd.edu
http://burn.ucsd.edu/~aaron