losing haiti:
But Brazilian soldier Tailon Ruppenthal is less starry eyed about MINUSTAH. In a recent memoir of his tour of duty, Rupenthal writes, "After a few months even getting out of bed is hard. You remember that you will cross paths with all those people who are starving but there's nothing you can do." The Brazilian, who now suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome, concludes, "we are losing the real war: against poverty Only the fight against poverty will bring peace. When will they see that?"
(...) Schuller told me, "It behooves us not to think of it as a 'failed state.' Rather, it is best understood as a successfully failed state. As of last estimate, 65% of Haiti's government revenue comes from international agencies, 84% of its rice grown abroad. This is because of U.S. and other Northern countries' economic policies wherein Haiti's ability to feed itself with domestic rice production was wiped out by Washington-subsidized imports that U.S. agribusiness has profited from. At Ronald Reagan's behest, Haiti initiated a series of neoliberal measures in the 1980s, including trade liberalization, privatization and decreasing investment in agriculture, that led to the disappearance of Haiti's cotton and sugar export industries. During the 1990s, the U.S. conditioned its food aid ­ sent to alleviate a hunger crisis ­ with demands that Haiti lower its tariffs and open its markets to U.S. imports. This subsidized U.S. rice was much cheaper than Haitian rice, forcing local farmers out of business. Over the same period, Haiti became increasingly more reliant on the International Financial Institutions, which imposed more neoliberal conditions on its help. Since 1980, when Haiti started receiving the Banks' help in earnest, its per capita Gross Domestic Product has shrunk by 38.3%. Haiti is left with a 1.4 billion dollar multinational debt, with a debt service next year of almost 80 million. In addition to draining resources from needed sectors ­ such as health, education, or developing national production, this debt has served as leverage for the IMF and World Bank to impose even more neoliberal measures."