Red Cross Misuse Quake Monies To Buy Land, Build a Hotel Like Clinton-Bush Fund by Ezili Dantò

There are over 800,000 earthquake victims still homeless or reshuffled, evicted out of the tents and tarps, 526,000 sick from UN-cholera, 7,000 dead from cholera, there's no shelter for the majority poor in Site Soley, no clean water for the suffering public.

But, the Red Cross uses $10.5 million in quake money to buy land in Haiti, now proposes to build a hotel like Clinton/Bush fund. Not in providing clean water infrastructure and sanitation. No. The Red Cross is considering building a hotel and conference center.

"The hope is that profits could sustain the work of Haiti's local Red Cross in the coming years, the head of the international group's Haitian delegation said Monday." (Red Cross Weighs Decision to Build Hotel in Haiti, AP, http://nyti.ms/HghcYO)

Now this the organization that is first in line to beg for "crisis" monies with each new crisis in Haiti and NEVER spends monies from one crisis for another. Keeping the storm monies. Collecting new monies for the earthquake and holding it in the bank, they said for "reconstruction" for Haiti. Providing hotels to foreigners apparently is reconstruction for Haitians.

Instead of building housing for the earthquake victims or the people in Site Soley who are living in filth primarily because the US promised jobs in the 80s that never were sustainable;

Instead of USAID making amends for slaughtering the peasant's livestock, killing 1.3 million indigenous Haiti pigs on a with-hunt to force the peasants into the Port au Prince capital to work at their non-jobs;

Instead of Bill Clinton's apology for destroying centuries of rural livelihood in Haiti with dumped Arkansas rice, as well as dumping US infertile seeds that depleted the land being made meaningful with new shelter and housing and reparations in the form of real investment in sustainable agriculture, the Clintons - one leading USAID, one leading the UN mission in Haiti - are building hotels in Port au Prince and in the North of Haiti.

A Korean factory is empty up in the North, but the Clintons are spending earthquake monies to build 5000 new homes for the anticipated factory workers.

I say "anticipated" because responsible Haitians know the shelters up North won't be for Haitians to live in.

The housing up North as well as the University the US just helped build in Limonade in the North (as opposed to using earthquake relief monies where the earthquake happened and repair the University of Haiti in Port au Prince) are, in fact, for the foreigners who need housing for their enterprises up North including the mining and oil drilling and deep water ports their stealing.

Recall there is five times more violence in the Dominican Republic than in Haiti. But the University up North is being uhmm "safeguarded" by the Dominican military. The Dominicans wish a piece of the pie if the Bankers and corporate oligarchy want their military arm to put down any Haiti resistance.

But you know, the propaganda is that they are on Haiti territory - them, Clinton, Farmer, the 37,000 to 42,000 NGOs to "heal" and "protect" Haitians.

Healing Haitians and providing jobs and education are the reasons these evil abominations, blan colon, always give to idiot and cowardly Haitians who are into denial.

So under the rubric of healing, protecting, providing relief, jobs and education, the colonial enterprise against Haiti marches forward.

There's no shelter, no clean water, no sanitation but blan colon has lots of idiot Haiti "technocrats" put up front to manage the peasant and patriot's resistance against the expansion of their retarded selves onto Haitian territory.

Meanwhile, pick up the mainstream news reporting on Haiti and it's filled with the propaganda that the Haiti government is "ordering" the ex-soldiers to clear out of the old bases they've taken over. Or, they are running some tripe about Gerald Latortue/Jeb Bush's Miami about to indict President Aristide on corruption charges. Talk about projection!

None in the mainstream media is doing any real reporting work, investigating the corruption of Gerarld Latortue, the Bush administration for ousting a democratically elected President, the NGOs failures in Haiti, the UN's continued denial of liability even though Bill Clinton admits they brought cholera. Not one talks about the UN hiding behind immunity to commit crimes with impunity. (Bill Clinton admits UN brought cholera, Haiti raped again)

Oh no, they're back to the witch-hunt against Aristide to further silence and terrorize Haiti's majority, keeping the NGOS, the UN and the pharmaceutical companies flush on Haiti's poverty and agony. No democracy, no justice. Just vampires gorging themselves on Haiti blood, bodies and lands.

When the Washington Post, Miami Herald, ABC news, CNN or AP are not telling us about their puppet president's efforts (who, by the way, has no government since the Prime Minister resigned) to clear the ex-soldiers out of their old bases is the biggest "news" on Haiti today, they're running op-eds on how the US and UN don't want Martelly to revive the old Haitian army. (Haiti government orders former soldiers to clear old bases -http://wapo.st/GCVL0s or http://abcn.ws/GDFk6b )

Tell me please no one believes this crock! This CIA-made pretense.

Remember the US and US slaughters in Site Soley, Bel Air, Solino, Martissant, Gran Ravine? Recall the execution of ex-soldier Ravix by the US forces hidden behind UN guns? Come on folks? There are over 13,000 foreign soldiers on Haitian lands and their puppet government can't get some rag-tag ex-soldiers and their new guns out of old bases? (Haiti: The Handwriting on the Wall for Martelly and the US http://bit.ly/GHlsRH )

Truly, the embedded media is a travesty shoveling manure into the brains of the unsuspecting reader. All the while the quake monies are used to make Haiti a tourist haven, Haiti women, boys and girls are the bodies they invade, not just our lands are being raped.

And so it is with this latest Red Cross straight up STEALING from the earthquake victims. (Red Cross Weighs Decision to Build Hotel in Haiti - http://nyti.ms/HghcYO )

Ezili's HLLN urges the Haitian government, if you politicos have any, any shred of dignity left, void the SOFA agreement and deport all NGOs from Haiti NOW!!!!

Ezili Danto of HLLN March, 2012

Fair Trade And The Tobacco Industry

I watched a documentary the other night from the Unreported World series on channel 4 and it really started me thinking.

People nowadays are more conscious of where their food and other goods are coming from and are demanding an end to unfair practices from all links in the chain of supply. Such terms as 'fairtrade', 'ethical sources' and 'sustainable farming' have now become a regular part of consumer society, and rightly so. Along with the rise in our consciousness about the safety and quality of our food (organic and GM free food sales are at an all time high), the average consumer is now also cares about the lives and treatment of those involved in the process of supplying their goods. You can buy fair trade chocolate, tea, coffee, and sugar, wear fair trade cotton and even gift fair trade flowers and beauty products. And this is just a small sample from a long list of 'good' consumer options. Health and ethical trading are very much sellers and many people even take part in boycotts of products and companies that are not up to scratch.

But what about the cigarettes you smoke? Tobacco and cigarettes don't feature in The Good Shopping Guide at all, and online searches for information on ethical or fair trade tobacco and cigarettes is scarce. And there is a good reason for that. Apart from the toxins you are putting in your body every time you light up, buying cigarettes is funding an industry that exploits the poorest and most deprived of all societies. Tobacco harvesters work from dawn picking, sorting and hanging the tobacco. They have a quota to meet in order to be paid and in most cases in order to meet that quota they have to take their children out of school and set them to work as well. Children as young as 3 are known to have to work with tobacco and most suffer the effects of tobacco poisoning from handling so much of it. the example in the documentary - a family of 7 work all day from dawn, have one meal in the day - and earn about 80p. The farm owner/manager wants to be able to pay the workers more, not employ children and provide protective clothing, but he cannot afford to. At auction it is thought that tobacco companies have conspired to keep prices low and that the governments of some of some of the biggest tobacco producing companies in the world have been bribed to allow this to happen. These are the same tobacco companies that make billions of pounds of profit every year. The companies and governments get rich while the workers and their children get sick.

Because the price is so low, the farmers plant more tobacco. So much has been planted for so long that the ground is unsuitable for growing anything else. Anything that is actually useful to the people who live on the land such as grain. Some families are so poor that they send their children to work on estates for tobacco farmers - and they get paid at the end of the season if their child has met their quota. Other families borrow money from the farm owners and are therefore unable to leave until their debt is paid off. This is known as bonded labour. Because the children need to work on the tobacco farms in order to be able to afford their one meal a day, they cannot go to school. Missing out on their education means they will have less chance of ever having employment away from the tobacco farms and estates. Whole nations are growing up to be poorly educated due to tobacco farming - and therefore the cycle will continue for generations to come until serious action is taken to stop it.

So, as well as heart disease, passive smoking, premature aging, strokes, lung diseases, birth defects, addiction, cancer and death, the tobacco industry is also responsible for child labour, human trafficking, unfair working practices, modern day slavery (bonded labour), political corruption, unsafe working conditions, price fixing and keeping nations of people in poverty.

As well as the lump in my throat and the sickness in my stomach I am left with the question - it costs you more money than most people can afford, it smells bad, It must taste even worse, it's extremely unethical and will ultimately kill you, so why do so many people smoke?

Please watch the documentary and do some research for yourself. This is truly shocking and all the fair trade and sustainable farming on the planet will not make up for it.

Today's recommendation is a real treat for all of you in the North Carolina area. AIM member Street Poet Monte Smith is performing a show TONIGHT at LOUNGE 101, 2801 N MAIN ST (Across from Walmart) starting at 9pm. BE THERE if you can!

*Santa Maria*
Vice President of The AIM

"Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally."
(Abraham Lincoln)