More about US Occupation of Haiti
February 12th, 2010
US Armed Forces Occupy Haiti
Here is a link to an article in AlterNet about the occupation. Below is a quotation that substantiates what people I can rely on such as Bill Quigley of The center for Constitutional Rights and Loyola Univesity of New Orleans Law School have reported as well.
“While much of the corporate media fixated on ‘looters,’ virtually every independent observer in Haiti after the earthquake noted the lack of violence. Even Lt. Gen. Keen described the security situation as ‘relatively calm.’ One aid worker in Haiti, Leisa Faulkner, said, ‘There is no security threat from the Haitian people. Aid workers do not need to fear them. I would really like for the guys with the rifles to put them down and pick up shovels to help find people still buried in the rubble of collapsed buildings and homes. It just makes me furious to see multiple truckloads of fellows with automatic rifles.’
“Veteran Haiti reporter Kim Ives concurred, explaining to ‘Democracy Now!’: ‘Security is not the issue. We see throughout Haiti the population themselves organizing themselves into popular committees to clean up, to pull out the bodies from the rubble, to build refugee camps, to set up their security for the refugee camps. This is a population which is self-sufficient, and it has been self-sufficient for all these years.’”
Click here to see Arun Gupta’s complete article.
The article talks about the aspirations of the US to further colonialize Haiti, turning it into a sweatshop for US corporations. This is the third US occupation of Haiti in sixteen years and is part of the US “rollback” policy in Latin America along with the new bases in Colombia, support for the coup in Honduras and hostility toward Venezuela and Bolivia. Might we add Ecuador, Brazil, Urugquay and Argentina to the list of those in US sights?
It is also another part of the grim picture of US aggression. I for one will continue to resist US aggression, militarization, and torture.