From LATimes.com:
Former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide returns home from exile in South Africa to boisterous throngs despite international pressure to keep him away before Sunday's elections.
Former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, whose tortuous life saga is sprinkled with comebacks, returned home Friday to boisterous throngs, defying international pressure to keep him away before Sunday's election.
Aristide arrived on a flight from South Africa, where he had lived in exile since soon after being flown out of Haiti on a U.S.-supplied plane amid turmoil in 2004.
Wearing a navy suit and red and blue striped tie, Aristide clasped his hands as he stepped off the chartered airplane in a VIP area of the airport in Haiti's capital. The former leader struck a philosophical tone — in five languages — as he addressed reporters before exiting to a tumultuous welcome by thousands of his supporters.
"Today may the Haitian people mark the end of exile and coup d'etat, while peacefully we must move from social exclusion to social inclusion," Aristide said, drawing parallels with the 1804 revolution ending slavery.
The populist former priest remains a deeply polarizing figure in Haiti, where he is revered by many as the only reliable defender of the downtrodden but detested by wealthy elites and others who say he employed violence against enemies and ran a government ridden with graft.
His return adds a combustible ingredient as voters head to the polls for a presidential runoff between Michel Martelly, a popular singer, and Mirlande Manigat, a university vice rector who was once Haiti's first lady. Speculation over Aristide's return had gripped the country since the Haitian government issued him a passport in February, just weeks after former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier made a surprise return.
On his arrival, Aristide spoke of an enduring love for Haiti and criticized the fact that his once-dominant party, Fanmi Lavalas, had been barred from the ongoing election campaign, saying it represented the "exclusion of the majority."
Ebullient supporters in "Welcome Back" T-shirts flooded the airport road, blowing horns and holding photographs of Aristide as they trekked two miles to his home, whose surrounding walls had been newly painted a soft rose pink...
Jean-Bertrand Aristide returns to Haiti, days before presidential election
March 18, 2011
Ken Ellingwood
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/18/world/la-fg-haiti-aristide-20110319
Showing posts with label Haiti. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Haiti. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Friday, October 1, 2010
How to Make a Zombie, Haiti-Style
http://www.aolnews.com/weird-news/article/how-to-make-a-zombie-haiti-style/19638134
How to Make a Zombie, Haiti-Style
Lee Speigel
AOL News (Sept. 21) -- The undead are all around us, and have been for decades.
Zombies are in our mass consciousness, invading art, literature, entertainment and even education. But at the heart of this fear-mongering revolution is a single question: Is it all pure fiction, or are there in fact real zombies?
That depends on your definition of the word "zombie."
For filmmakers in Hollywood, zombies are half-dead figures that lumber toward you with arms outstretched, stinking of rotting flesh. But in Haiti, could zombies be unfortunate victims who have been forced into slavery while under the influence of highly potent drugs?
While movies depict zombies as flesh eaters who spread their affliction like an illness, the voodoo culture and religion of Haiti has its own recipes for making a zombie -- a term derived from the word "Nzambi," meaning "spirit of a dead person" to the Bacongo people of Angola.
A leading theory holds that a voodoo priest, or bokor, is able to concoct a poison that can render a victim weak and appear dead.
"It's not what we see in Hollywood, of course. Strictly speaking, a zombie is a reanimated corpse that's been brought back to life to serve as a slave for a voodoo priest or priestess," said Brad Steiger, one of the most prolific authors of books dealing with unexplained phenomena.
In his recent book, "Real Zombies, the Living Dead and Creatures of the Apocalypse" (Visible Ink Press), Steiger explores the history of reported zombies in the real world.
"I have an account of a man from Miami who went to Haiti and was dancing with a very lovely Haitian lady, and he felt a little prick on his arm and didn't think anything of it. Next thing he knew, he woke up, was still in his suit and tie, but he was soiled and dirty and was holding a hoe in somebody's field.
"But he regained consciousness and managed to make it back to Miami. But this sort of thing still goes on with unscrupulous priests and priestesses. Generally, we're talking about a religion that is followed by 80 million people worldwide."
One man who took a "hands on" approach to the zombie culture is anthropologist Wade Davis. In 1982, Davis infiltrated the secret societies of Haitian voodoo, resulting in his 1985 eye-opening, international best-selling book (and subsequent movie) "The Serpent and the Rainbow" (Random House).
Davis investigated the most famous documented case of a reported real-world zombie, Clairvius Narcisse, who, in 1962, was pronounced dead in a Haitian hospital and later buried.
After 18 years, Narcisse showed up alive and told his story of having been drugged, buried, removed from a grave and put into slavery on a plantation with other men who allegedly shared the same fate.
"We have this case of Narcisse. From all scientific evidence, he was dead, and he came back into the realm of the living," Davis told AOL News. "Precisely because the scientists involved didn't believe in magic, there had to be a material explanation."
Davis explains that the Narcisse incident drew the attention of researchers back to "a series of reports found throughout the popular and academic literature of the reputed existence of a folk poison said to bring on a state of apparent death so profound that it could fool a physician."
Haitian bokors eventually gave Davis samples of the "zombie poison," which led him to zero in on a drug called tetrodotoxin -- the often deadly poison of a puffer fish.
"Tetrodotoxin turns out to be a very big molecule that blocks sodium channels in the nerves, bringing on peripheral paralysis, dramatically low metabolic rates and yet consciousness is retained until the moment of death," said Davis.
After a bokor has placed the tetrodotoxin into someone's body, and that person is pronounced dead and subsequently buried, the bokor reportedly unearths the body and applies a chemical paste to keep the unfortunate victim in a zombified, trancelike state.
Presumably, this "undead" person is then used as the bokor's slave labor.
Davis suggests it makes sense that some unscrupulous priests in Haiti would take advantage of such a poison.
"They identified in their environment a natural product -- in this case, a fish -- that had the capability of bringing on a state of apparent death.
"When I collected samples of the poison at several locations and found that these fish were the one consistent ingredient, it struck me that there was really something going on here."
That said, Davis doesn't believe there's an assembly line creating zombies in Haiti.
"What I always suggested in my work was that zombies, as an idea, by definition, exist in Haiti.
"All religion is defined by how people deal with the finality of death and the mystery of what lies beyond," said Davis. "Any phenomenon that walks that line and dances along that edge between life and death is fascinating to us."
Kim Paffenroth, a professor of religious studies at Iona College in Rochester, N.Y., has a slightly different perspective on the religious significance of zombies.
"I was 12 years old when the first 'Dawn of the Dead' film came out, so I had that adolescent male fascination with these things," said Paffenroth, the author of several books on the Bible and theology, including "Gospel of the Living Dead: George Romero's Visions of Hell on Earth" (Baylor University Press).
"And when, as an adult, I became interested in religious studies, I started looking at how the darker Christian themes of sin and evil are expressed in literature, art, film and television, and then the zombie stuff sort of made sense to me in a new way."
Paffenroth has an interesting take on why many people believe that zombies (among other ghouls, like vampires) signal a coming Armageddon to our world.
"It's a pretty perennial fear of the fragile nature of civilization. Every time there's an oil spill or a stock market crash, people get anxious, and, if anything, I think these more supernatural ways of dealing with it are a little safer outlet."
Paffenroth sees zombie films as a kind of heavy-handed critique of American society.
"I now realize, as I look at some of the fans out there, they look at zombie movies and they see the message as: 'Well, I need to own more guns, because then I'll be safe.' I can see where, on the surface, that's what the movies are saying, but it's kind of a really literal way to read it."
In his investigations, Steiger has come up with a theory about why zombies are generally depicted in end-of-the-world scenarios.
"A lot of people think the Apocalypse is just around the corner and many of us have been brought up to believe that the dead will raise from their graves on Judgment Day, which is why I think the zombie has reached this incredible surge."
Agree or disagree, it's undeniable that zombies are in the midst of a resurgence, the likes of which hasn't been seen since they emerged from the ground in George Romero's classic 1968 black-and-white thriller "Night of the Living Dead."
Whether they're starring in the popular 3-D "Resident Evil: Afterlife" film, playing the lead roles in AMC's upcoming series "The Walking Dead" or even fighting for the right of free speech, zombies are definitely in vogue.
And while there are some who speculate that a real zombie outbreak on Earth would be doomed to failure, there's at least marginal evidence that some form of zombie-ism exists and is taken seriously in Haiti (not to mention the creative minds of filmmakers).
So, the next time you find yourself alone in a field or a dark alley, it would probably be prudent to look over your shoulder -- you never know when you'll be menaced by something that's fairly easy to outrun.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Sean Penn: Concerned About Wyclef Jean's Haiti Candidacy
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/sean-penn-concerned-about-wyclef-jean
Sean Penn: Concerned About Wyclef Jean's Haiti Candidacy, Support From Corporate Interests
Susie Madrak
Saturday Aug 07, 2010
Wyclef Jean has filed papers to run for president of Haiti, and Sean Penn is skeptical.
Interviewed on CNN last night as Wyclef officially announced his bid, Penn said, "This is somebody who's going to receive an enormous amount of support from the United States, and I have to say I'm very suspicious of it, simply because he, as an ambassador at large, has been virtually silent. For those of us in Haiti, he has been a non-presence," Penn said.
Penn, who has been active in Haiti since the earthquake, highlighted allegations that Wyclef mishandled $400,000 donated for the country through his Yele Haiti foundation. "He claims he didn't do it. That has to be looked into it," said Penn, who has been running a 55,000-person tent camp through the J/P Haitian Relief Organization he co-founded. "I've been there. I know what $400,000 could do for these people's lives."
He added, "I'm not accusing Wyclef Jean of being an opportunist; I don't know the man," Penn told Wolf Blitzer, who was filling in for Larry King. "One of the reasons I don't know very much about Wyclef Jean is that I haven't seen or heard anything of him in these last six months that I've been in Haiti."
Sean Penn: Concerned About Wyclef Jean's Haiti Candidacy, Support From Corporate Interests
Susie Madrak
Saturday Aug 07, 2010
Wyclef Jean has filed papers to run for president of Haiti, and Sean Penn is skeptical.
Interviewed on CNN last night as Wyclef officially announced his bid, Penn said, "This is somebody who's going to receive an enormous amount of support from the United States, and I have to say I'm very suspicious of it, simply because he, as an ambassador at large, has been virtually silent. For those of us in Haiti, he has been a non-presence," Penn said.
Penn, who has been active in Haiti since the earthquake, highlighted allegations that Wyclef mishandled $400,000 donated for the country through his Yele Haiti foundation. "He claims he didn't do it. That has to be looked into it," said Penn, who has been running a 55,000-person tent camp through the J/P Haitian Relief Organization he co-founded. "I've been there. I know what $400,000 could do for these people's lives."
He added, "I'm not accusing Wyclef Jean of being an opportunist; I don't know the man," Penn told Wolf Blitzer, who was filling in for Larry King. "One of the reasons I don't know very much about Wyclef Jean is that I haven't seen or heard anything of him in these last six months that I've been in Haiti."
Friday, January 29, 2010
A REVIEW OF THE HISTORY OF HAITI
Bill Moyers Journal
A REVIEW OF THE HISTORY OF HAITI
January 22, 2010
BILL MOYERS: Even some of the most hardened reporters I know, old hands at covering famine, disaster, and war, are shaken by the carnage in Haiti. Over my own long life in journalism I've had my share of the sounds and smells that linger in your head long after you have left the scene. But I've found it especially hard this past week to absorb the pictures coming from Haiti.
Perhaps it's that as we get older, we become more melancholy watching history repeat itself, seeing people suffer all over again, when you've already seen them suffer so much. As if you know now some things will never change.
You have to ask, why does this country suffer so? The reverend Pat Robertson gave us his answer, recycling his theology of a vindictive god.
REV. PAT ROBERTSON: Something happened a long time ago in Haiti and people may not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon the Third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the Devil. They said, "We will serve you if you get us free with the French." True story. And so the Devil said, "Okay, it's a deal."
BILL MOYERS: This is the same Pat Robertson, of course, who agreed with his soul mate, the late Jerry Falwell, that God had allowed the terrorist attacks on 9/11 because America needed a come-uppance for tolerating gays, women's rights and the separation of church and state.
But this time Robertson's callous idiocy toward the suffering in Haiti created such a backlash that his press agent came out to explain that the good Reverend does indeed have compassion for Haitians and is actually sending relief and recovery teams to help them.
Another controversy was triggered when the conservative David Brooks offered a less superstitious explanation for Haiti's suffering than Pat Robertson's. Brooks opined that it's because Haiti is "progress-resistant" — a society held back by voodoo religion, high levels of social mistrust, poor child-rearing traditions, and a lack of any internalized sense of responsibility. Critics fired back that Brooks should read a little history.
The journalist Mark Danner has done just that. He's also lived some of Haiti's history, almost losing his life a few years ago while covering unrest there. Writing in the New York Times this week, Danner said "There is nothing mystical in Haiti's suffering, no inescapable curse that haunts the land." It was brought on, he said, by human beings, not demons.
Start with the French. They ran Haiti as a slave colony, driving hundreds of thousands of slaves to early deaths in order to supply white Europeans with coffee, sugar and tobacco. In 1804, the slaves rebelled and after savage fighting defeated three foreign armies to win their independence. They looked to America for support, but America's slave-holding states feared a slave revolt of their own, and America's slave-holding president, Thomas Jefferson, the author of our Declaration of Independence, refused to recognize the new government.
Their former white masters made matters worse by demanding reparations, and by exploiting and exhausting the country's natural resources. Fighting over what little was left, Haitians turned on each other.
Coup followed coup, faction fought faction, and in 1915, our American president Woodrow Wilson sent in the Marines. By the time they left almost 20 years later, American companies had secured favored status in Haiti. In 1957, the country was taken over by the brutal and despotic rule of Papa Doc Duvalier, whose son, Baby Doc, proved just as cruel as his old man. Don't let the familial nicknames fool you. The Duvaliers were murderous thugs and thieves who enjoyed the complicity of American interests until the dynasty played out in 1986.
Five years later in 1991, when the popular former priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide won the presidency as a champion of the poor, he spooked Washington. Said one U.S. senator, Aristide "wasn't going to be beholden to the United States, and so he was going to be trouble. We had interests and ties with some of the very strong financial interests in the country and he was threatening them."
The Bush/Cheney administration, in cahoots with Haiti's privileged, helped destabilize his government.
Every president from Ronald Reagan forward has embraced the corporate search for cheap labor. That has meant rewards for Haiti's upper class while ordinary people were pushed further and further into squalor. Haitian contractors producing Mickey Mouse and Pocahontas pajamas for American companies under license with the Walt Disney Company paid their sweat shop workers as little as one dollar a day, while women sewing dresses for K-Mart earned eleven cents an hour. A report by the National Labor Committee found Haitian women who had worked 50 days straight, up to 70 hours a week, without a day off. If that doesn't impact the tradition of child rearing and lead to social distrust, I don't know what will.
So, once again, beware the terrible simplifiers and remember that through all its suffering Haiti is a country born of revolution, like our own, whose people sing of their forefathers breaking their shackles, proclaiming their right to equality, and shouting "Progress or Death." Yes, there's still more death than progress. It's the bitter fruit of exploitation centuries old. But even if the Devil were at work, there are Haitians determined that he will not have the last word. The last word is the poet's calling. Listen to what was written by Danielle Legros Georges, born in Haiti and now teaching at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She sent us a poem and we asked our colleague Kamaly Pierre, who also has family and roots in Haiti, to read it. Its title: "Poem for the Poorest Country In the Western Hemisphere."
KAMALY PIERRE: Oh poorest country, this is not your name.
You should be called beacon, and flame,
almond and bougainvillea, garden
and green mountain, villa and hut,
little girl with red ribbons in her hair,
books-under-arm, charmed by the light
of morning,
charcoal seller in black skirt, encircled by dead trees.
You, country, are the businessman
and the eager young man, the grandfather
at the gate, at the crossroads
with the flashlight, with the light,
with the light.
BILL MOYERS: That's all for now. I'm Bill Moyers.
A REVIEW OF THE HISTORY OF HAITI
January 22, 2010
BILL MOYERS: Even some of the most hardened reporters I know, old hands at covering famine, disaster, and war, are shaken by the carnage in Haiti. Over my own long life in journalism I've had my share of the sounds and smells that linger in your head long after you have left the scene. But I've found it especially hard this past week to absorb the pictures coming from Haiti.
Perhaps it's that as we get older, we become more melancholy watching history repeat itself, seeing people suffer all over again, when you've already seen them suffer so much. As if you know now some things will never change.
You have to ask, why does this country suffer so? The reverend Pat Robertson gave us his answer, recycling his theology of a vindictive god.
REV. PAT ROBERTSON: Something happened a long time ago in Haiti and people may not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon the Third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the Devil. They said, "We will serve you if you get us free with the French." True story. And so the Devil said, "Okay, it's a deal."
BILL MOYERS: This is the same Pat Robertson, of course, who agreed with his soul mate, the late Jerry Falwell, that God had allowed the terrorist attacks on 9/11 because America needed a come-uppance for tolerating gays, women's rights and the separation of church and state.
But this time Robertson's callous idiocy toward the suffering in Haiti created such a backlash that his press agent came out to explain that the good Reverend does indeed have compassion for Haitians and is actually sending relief and recovery teams to help them.
Another controversy was triggered when the conservative David Brooks offered a less superstitious explanation for Haiti's suffering than Pat Robertson's. Brooks opined that it's because Haiti is "progress-resistant" — a society held back by voodoo religion, high levels of social mistrust, poor child-rearing traditions, and a lack of any internalized sense of responsibility. Critics fired back that Brooks should read a little history.
The journalist Mark Danner has done just that. He's also lived some of Haiti's history, almost losing his life a few years ago while covering unrest there. Writing in the New York Times this week, Danner said "There is nothing mystical in Haiti's suffering, no inescapable curse that haunts the land." It was brought on, he said, by human beings, not demons.
Start with the French. They ran Haiti as a slave colony, driving hundreds of thousands of slaves to early deaths in order to supply white Europeans with coffee, sugar and tobacco. In 1804, the slaves rebelled and after savage fighting defeated three foreign armies to win their independence. They looked to America for support, but America's slave-holding states feared a slave revolt of their own, and America's slave-holding president, Thomas Jefferson, the author of our Declaration of Independence, refused to recognize the new government.
Their former white masters made matters worse by demanding reparations, and by exploiting and exhausting the country's natural resources. Fighting over what little was left, Haitians turned on each other.
Coup followed coup, faction fought faction, and in 1915, our American president Woodrow Wilson sent in the Marines. By the time they left almost 20 years later, American companies had secured favored status in Haiti. In 1957, the country was taken over by the brutal and despotic rule of Papa Doc Duvalier, whose son, Baby Doc, proved just as cruel as his old man. Don't let the familial nicknames fool you. The Duvaliers were murderous thugs and thieves who enjoyed the complicity of American interests until the dynasty played out in 1986.
Five years later in 1991, when the popular former priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide won the presidency as a champion of the poor, he spooked Washington. Said one U.S. senator, Aristide "wasn't going to be beholden to the United States, and so he was going to be trouble. We had interests and ties with some of the very strong financial interests in the country and he was threatening them."
The Bush/Cheney administration, in cahoots with Haiti's privileged, helped destabilize his government.
Every president from Ronald Reagan forward has embraced the corporate search for cheap labor. That has meant rewards for Haiti's upper class while ordinary people were pushed further and further into squalor. Haitian contractors producing Mickey Mouse and Pocahontas pajamas for American companies under license with the Walt Disney Company paid their sweat shop workers as little as one dollar a day, while women sewing dresses for K-Mart earned eleven cents an hour. A report by the National Labor Committee found Haitian women who had worked 50 days straight, up to 70 hours a week, without a day off. If that doesn't impact the tradition of child rearing and lead to social distrust, I don't know what will.
So, once again, beware the terrible simplifiers and remember that through all its suffering Haiti is a country born of revolution, like our own, whose people sing of their forefathers breaking their shackles, proclaiming their right to equality, and shouting "Progress or Death." Yes, there's still more death than progress. It's the bitter fruit of exploitation centuries old. But even if the Devil were at work, there are Haitians determined that he will not have the last word. The last word is the poet's calling. Listen to what was written by Danielle Legros Georges, born in Haiti and now teaching at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She sent us a poem and we asked our colleague Kamaly Pierre, who also has family and roots in Haiti, to read it. Its title: "Poem for the Poorest Country In the Western Hemisphere."
KAMALY PIERRE: Oh poorest country, this is not your name.
You should be called beacon, and flame,
almond and bougainvillea, garden
and green mountain, villa and hut,
little girl with red ribbons in her hair,
books-under-arm, charmed by the light
of morning,
charcoal seller in black skirt, encircled by dead trees.
You, country, are the businessman
and the eager young man, the grandfather
at the gate, at the crossroads
with the flashlight, with the light,
with the light.
BILL MOYERS: That's all for now. I'm Bill Moyers.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
TOXIC WASTES AND HAITI
by Mitchel Cohen
Two decades ago, the garbage barge, the Khian Sea, with no place in the U.S. willing to accept its garbage, left the territorial waters of the United States and began circling the oceans in search of a country willing to accept its cargo: 14,000 tons of toxic incinerator ash. First it went to the Bahamas, then to the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Bermuda, Guinea Bissau and the Netherlands Antilles. Wherever it went, people gathered to protest its arrival. No one wanted the millions of pounds of Philadelphia municipal incinerator ash dumped in their country.
Desperate to unload, the ship's crew lied about their cargo, hoping to catch a government unawares. Sometimes they identified the ash as "construction material"; other times they said it was "road fill," and still others "muddy waste." But environmental experts were generally one step ahead in notifying the recipients; no one would take it. That is, until it got to Haiti. There, U.S.-backed dictator Baby Doc Duvalier issued a permit for the garbage, which was by now being called "fertilizer," and four thousand tons of the ash was dumped onto the beach in the town of Gonaives.
It didn't take long for public outcry to force Haiti's officials to suddenly "realize" they weren't getting fertilizer. They canceled the import permit and ordered the waste returned to the ship. But the Khian Sea slipped away in the night, leaving thousands of tons toxic ash on the beach.
For two years more the Khian Sea chugged from country to country trying to dispose of the remaining 10,000 tons of Philadelphia ash. The crew even painted over the barge's name -- not once, but twice. Still, no one was fooled into taking its toxic cargo. A crew member later testified that the waste was finally dumped into the Indian Ocean.
The activist environmental group, Greenpeace, pressured the U.S. government to test the "fertilizer." The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Greenpeace found it contained 1,800 pounds of arsenic, 4,300 pounds of cadmium, and 435,000 pounds of lead, dioxin and other toxins. But no one would clean it up.
The cost of the cleanup at Gonaives had been estimated to be around $300,000. Philadelphia's $130 million budget surplus would more than cover it, but Philadelphia lawyer Ed Rendell -- then mayor of that city and later Chairman of the Democratic National Committee -- refused to put up the funds. Joseph Paolino, whose company (Joseph Paolino and Sons) had contracted to transport the waste ash aboard the infamous Khian Sea garbage barge owned by Amalgamated Shipping, refused as well.
In July of 1992, the U.S. Justice Department -- under pressure from environmental groups throughout the world -- finally filed indictments against two waste traders who had shipped and dumped the 14,000 tons of Philadelphia incinerator ash. Similar indictments were brought against three individuals and four corporations who illegally exported 3,000 tons of hazardous waste to Bangladesh and Australia, also labeled as "fertilizer." But none of the waste traders were charged with dumping their toxic cargo at sea, nor even with falsely labeling it as fertilizer and abandoning it on the beaches of Haiti, Bangladesh, and Australia. They were charged only with lying to a grand jury. ("Indictments Announced in Philadelphia's Haiti Ash Scandal; Greenpeace Calls for Immediate Cleanup," Greenpeace News, July 14, 1992, and "Philadelphia and U.S. EPA Get Unexpected Ash Packets," Greenpeace Waste Trade Update, March 22, 1991.)
A month earlier, similar watered-down indictments were announced against three individuals and four corporations who illegally exported 3,000 tons of hazardous waste to Bangladesh and Australia, also labelled as "fertilizer." Meanwhile, the government stonewalled, for years; it took more than a decade for the U.S. government to clean up the waste.
U.S. law was interpreted to protect the dumpers, not the dumped on. Unwilling recipients of toxic wastes are offered no recourse. In recent years, much of the waste from industrialized countries is exported openly, under the name of "recycled material." These are touted as "fuel" for incinerators generating energy in poor countries. "Once a waste is designated as 'recyclable' it is exempt from U.S. toxic waste law and can be bought and sold as if it were ice cream. Slags, sludges, and even dusts captured on pollution control filters are being bagged up and shipped abroad," writes Peter Montague in Rachel's Weekly. "These wastes may contain significant quantities of valuable metals, such as zinc, but they also can and do contain significant quantities of toxic by-products such as cadmium, lead and dioxins. The 'recycling' loophole in U.S. toxic waste law is big enough to float a barge through, and many barges are floating through it uncounted."
Every year, thousands of tons of "recycled" waste from the U.S., deceptively labeled as "fertilizer," are plowed into farms, beaches and deserts in Bangladesh, Haiti, Somalia, Brazil and dozens of other countries. The Clinton administration followed former President George Bush's lead in allowing U.S. corporations to mix incinerator ash and other wastes containing high concentrations of lead, cadmium and mercury with agricultural chemicals and are sold to (or dumped in) unsuspecting or uncaring agencies and governments throughout the world. (Greenpeace Toxic Trade Campaign, "United States Blocks Efforts to Prohibit Global Waste Dumping by Industrial States," December 2, 1992.)
These dangerous chemicals are considered "inert," since they play no active role as "fertilizer" -- although they are very active in causing cancers and other diseases. Under U.S. law, ingredients designated as "inert" are not required to be labeled nor reported to the buyer.
President Clinton -- expanding the policies of his ignominious predecessors -- continued to obstruct the rest of the world from regulating the disastrous international trade in hazardous wastes. At a critical March 21-25 1994 international conference in Geneva, the United States stood with only a handful of waste-producing countries against the entire world in opposing a resolution banning the shipment of hazardous wastes to non-industrialized countries.
Shadowy covert operations figures spent the next two decades promoting schemes involving the shipment to Haiti of U.S. toxic wastes.
In November 1993, Time Magazine reported that a former U.S. government operative had detailed "an elaborate plan to tap U.S. aid funds for low-interest loans that would be used to transport New York City garbage to Haiti, where it would be processed into mulch to fertilize plants bioengineered to provide high-quality paper pulp. 'We could collect $38 a ton for the garbage,' claims [Henry] Womack ... who helped oversee construction of the base that the Reagan Administration-backed contras used to stage attacks against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua." Womack has similar dreams for Haiti: "We'd make a bundle, and the government could get enough to pay the whole army's salaries." (Jill Smolowe, "With Friends Like These: A Host of Shadowy Figures is Helping Haiti's Military Rulers Hatch a Plot to Sideline Aristide Permanently," Time Magazine, November 8, 1993.) Womack lived in a South Miami house with a couple: the sister of Michel François, who headed the death squads in Haiti and served as chief of its national police, and her husband.
Although most agents are not usually as candid as Womack, such plans are common. In August 1991, for example, Almany Enterprises, a company also headquartered in Miami, proposed shipping 30 million tons of incinerator ash from various U.S. cities to Panama over the subsequent four years. Almany would pay the government only $6.50 per ton of toxic waste received in Panama. The ash is believed to be highly contaminated with cadmium, copper, lead and zinc. Almany proposed to landfill the ash in marshlands near the free zone of Colon. Dozens of similar schemes are rampant. Throughout the Caribbean and Central America the devastating health crisis is exacerbated -- if not directly caused -- by international capital's "recycling" of toxic wastes. (Indeed, Haitian women who have emigrated to the U.S. have been found to have double or triple the cervical cancer rates as women born in the U.S.)
Said Ehrl LaFontant of the Haiti Communications Project: "Instead of repatriating Haitian refugees to Haiti, the U.S. government should repatriate this toxic waste back to its own country."
Toxic waste dumping in Haiti was, after all, a lucrative source of income for the Duvalier dictatorship. Former Haitian despot Duvalier profited handsomely in his relationship with the U.S., to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. That relationship included allowing U.S. toxic fertilizer to be dumped in Haiti, at the expense of the Haitian people.
Duvalier's U.S.-based lawyer, Ron Brown, also did well, economically, by their relationship. In the early 1980s, Brown was a partner at the powerful Washington law firm of Patton, Boggs & Blow. Duvalier secured his services by paying him $150,000 as a retainer, and Brown went to work for the brutal dictator on Capitol Hill. Before his death while flying over Yugoslavia and scouting U.S. investment opportunities, Brown had been personally linked to Lillian Madsen, who had married into an extremely wealthy Haitian family with vast holdings in coffee and beer. (She later divorced.) Madsen lived in an expensive Washington townhouse that had been purchased for her in 1992 by the commerce secretary himself and by his son, D.C. lobbyist Michael Brown. The Madsens were major backers of Duvalier and among the main domestic financial backers of the September 1991 coup against elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Brown uttered nary a word to support the return of Aristide and democracy to Haiti, nor did he protest the U.S.'s toxic practices there.
Brown also represented Fritz Bennett, the brother of Michelle Bennett Duvalier, wife of the deposed dictator, when the brother was arrested in Puerto Rico for trafficking in narcotics. (Michelle Duvalier's touch with reality herself can be somewhat shaky, as when, in exile, she said: "Flee Haiti? Why do you say we were fleeing Haiti? The president and I decided it was time to leave. Nobody can ever say we had to leave Haiti. We wanted to go.")
Brown was also the subject of a scandal involving Vietnamese businessman Nguyen Van Hao, who was the Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Development under the corrupt U.S.-backed Saigon dictatorship in the early 1970s. Hao alleged that Brown agreed to be paid $700,000 in exchange for his help in lifting a trade embargo against Vietnam. Hao, who previously lived in Haiti, and Brown had a mutual Haitian friend, Marc Butch Ashton -- Lillian Madsen's brother-in-law. Ashton was a financial advisor to Baby Doc. A large landholder and owner of Haiti Citrus, a lime exporter, Ashton allegedly used a squad of 40 Tonton Macoutes death squads to guard his properties. Poor farmers who leased their land to Haiti Citrus say they were intimidated and tortured by Ashton's thugs when they tried to get better terms. (Counterpunch, December, 1993)
Brown himself detailed his services to Duvalier in a nine-page memo. Brown's letter, written in French on Patton, Boggs & Blow letterhead, blamed Monsieur Le President's problems on an unfair image created by the U.S. media. As to his efforts on Haiti's behalf, Brown wrote that "We continue to dedicate a considerable amount of time to the improvement of relations between the Republic of Haiti and members of congress and the American government, with the goal of substantially increasing American aid to Haiti. Early success in this regard," crowed Brown, "is essentially the result of our Washington team." (Counterpunch, December 1993)
Brown also informed Duvalier that he was looking after Haiti's long-term interests by maintaining good relations with leading American political figures:
"While we have always enjoyed excellent relations with the government of President Reagan, we have also established personal contacts with almost all the Democratic candidates in order to ensure that we continue to have access to the White House regardless of who wins the presidential election in 1984." Brown boasted that his "leading role in the Democratic National Committee has served us in these efforts, while a certain number of my colleagues in the Republican Party assure the permanence of our access and the excellence of our relations with the government of President Reagan."
Juan Gonzalez, writing in the New York Daily News, continued the story:
"When Brown wrote his memo, Amnesty International had accused the Duvalier regime of torture, detentions without trial and `disappearances'.
"Here is some of what Brown reported to Baby Doc:
" 'Despite the unfair image of Haiti by the American media, and despite the opposition expressed by some members of Congress, it is certain that today ... a growing number of people -- both members of Congress and government officials -- stand ready to defend the interests of Haiti. This ... is essentially due to the work of our Washington team. ...
" 'We continue to pay a great deal of attention to the Black Caucus and to other liberal members of Congress ... [who] are now, thanks to our efforts, ready to help. Although some of them continue to make negative comments about Haiti, all, without exception, have proved to be cooperative on the issue of aid.' "
Brown was reporting on his success in getting Congress to say one thing but do another. On foreign aid, he proved more than worth his annual retainer. While he represented Haiti, annual U.S. assistance increased from $35 million to $55 million.
Brown offered not a word in the memo about human rights.
Brown went on to serve as President Clinton's Secretary of Commerce, which is one of the agencies that oversees toxic waste shipments and promotes corporate investment in Haiti, particularly in the notorious assembly zones established by the International Monetary Fund's structural adjustment program there. (The assembly zones were populated by the IMF's removal of 1/3rd of the rural population from their lands, now to be used for export crops to the U.S. and elsewhere).
In his confirmation hearings before the Senate, Brown was not asked a single question concerning toxic wastes, nor of his relationship with the Duvalier dictatorship.
---------------------------
Mitchel Cohen hosts "Steal This Radio," a weekly show on http://www.NYTalkRadio.net, and is the Chair of WBAI radio's (99.5-FM) "Local Station Board". He works with the Brooklyn Greens / Green Party.
Mitchel Cohen
2652 Cropsey Avenue, #7H
Brooklyn, NY 11214
(718) 449-0037
mitchelcohen@mindspring.com
Two decades ago, the garbage barge, the Khian Sea, with no place in the U.S. willing to accept its garbage, left the territorial waters of the United States and began circling the oceans in search of a country willing to accept its cargo: 14,000 tons of toxic incinerator ash. First it went to the Bahamas, then to the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Bermuda, Guinea Bissau and the Netherlands Antilles. Wherever it went, people gathered to protest its arrival. No one wanted the millions of pounds of Philadelphia municipal incinerator ash dumped in their country.
Desperate to unload, the ship's crew lied about their cargo, hoping to catch a government unawares. Sometimes they identified the ash as "construction material"; other times they said it was "road fill," and still others "muddy waste." But environmental experts were generally one step ahead in notifying the recipients; no one would take it. That is, until it got to Haiti. There, U.S.-backed dictator Baby Doc Duvalier issued a permit for the garbage, which was by now being called "fertilizer," and four thousand tons of the ash was dumped onto the beach in the town of Gonaives.
It didn't take long for public outcry to force Haiti's officials to suddenly "realize" they weren't getting fertilizer. They canceled the import permit and ordered the waste returned to the ship. But the Khian Sea slipped away in the night, leaving thousands of tons toxic ash on the beach.
For two years more the Khian Sea chugged from country to country trying to dispose of the remaining 10,000 tons of Philadelphia ash. The crew even painted over the barge's name -- not once, but twice. Still, no one was fooled into taking its toxic cargo. A crew member later testified that the waste was finally dumped into the Indian Ocean.
The activist environmental group, Greenpeace, pressured the U.S. government to test the "fertilizer." The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Greenpeace found it contained 1,800 pounds of arsenic, 4,300 pounds of cadmium, and 435,000 pounds of lead, dioxin and other toxins. But no one would clean it up.
The cost of the cleanup at Gonaives had been estimated to be around $300,000. Philadelphia's $130 million budget surplus would more than cover it, but Philadelphia lawyer Ed Rendell -- then mayor of that city and later Chairman of the Democratic National Committee -- refused to put up the funds. Joseph Paolino, whose company (Joseph Paolino and Sons) had contracted to transport the waste ash aboard the infamous Khian Sea garbage barge owned by Amalgamated Shipping, refused as well.
In July of 1992, the U.S. Justice Department -- under pressure from environmental groups throughout the world -- finally filed indictments against two waste traders who had shipped and dumped the 14,000 tons of Philadelphia incinerator ash. Similar indictments were brought against three individuals and four corporations who illegally exported 3,000 tons of hazardous waste to Bangladesh and Australia, also labeled as "fertilizer." But none of the waste traders were charged with dumping their toxic cargo at sea, nor even with falsely labeling it as fertilizer and abandoning it on the beaches of Haiti, Bangladesh, and Australia. They were charged only with lying to a grand jury. ("Indictments Announced in Philadelphia's Haiti Ash Scandal; Greenpeace Calls for Immediate Cleanup," Greenpeace News, July 14, 1992, and "Philadelphia and U.S. EPA Get Unexpected Ash Packets," Greenpeace Waste Trade Update, March 22, 1991.)
A month earlier, similar watered-down indictments were announced against three individuals and four corporations who illegally exported 3,000 tons of hazardous waste to Bangladesh and Australia, also labelled as "fertilizer." Meanwhile, the government stonewalled, for years; it took more than a decade for the U.S. government to clean up the waste.
U.S. law was interpreted to protect the dumpers, not the dumped on. Unwilling recipients of toxic wastes are offered no recourse. In recent years, much of the waste from industrialized countries is exported openly, under the name of "recycled material." These are touted as "fuel" for incinerators generating energy in poor countries. "Once a waste is designated as 'recyclable' it is exempt from U.S. toxic waste law and can be bought and sold as if it were ice cream. Slags, sludges, and even dusts captured on pollution control filters are being bagged up and shipped abroad," writes Peter Montague in Rachel's Weekly. "These wastes may contain significant quantities of valuable metals, such as zinc, but they also can and do contain significant quantities of toxic by-products such as cadmium, lead and dioxins. The 'recycling' loophole in U.S. toxic waste law is big enough to float a barge through, and many barges are floating through it uncounted."
Every year, thousands of tons of "recycled" waste from the U.S., deceptively labeled as "fertilizer," are plowed into farms, beaches and deserts in Bangladesh, Haiti, Somalia, Brazil and dozens of other countries. The Clinton administration followed former President George Bush's lead in allowing U.S. corporations to mix incinerator ash and other wastes containing high concentrations of lead, cadmium and mercury with agricultural chemicals and are sold to (or dumped in) unsuspecting or uncaring agencies and governments throughout the world. (Greenpeace Toxic Trade Campaign, "United States Blocks Efforts to Prohibit Global Waste Dumping by Industrial States," December 2, 1992.)
These dangerous chemicals are considered "inert," since they play no active role as "fertilizer" -- although they are very active in causing cancers and other diseases. Under U.S. law, ingredients designated as "inert" are not required to be labeled nor reported to the buyer.
President Clinton -- expanding the policies of his ignominious predecessors -- continued to obstruct the rest of the world from regulating the disastrous international trade in hazardous wastes. At a critical March 21-25 1994 international conference in Geneva, the United States stood with only a handful of waste-producing countries against the entire world in opposing a resolution banning the shipment of hazardous wastes to non-industrialized countries.
Shadowy covert operations figures spent the next two decades promoting schemes involving the shipment to Haiti of U.S. toxic wastes.
In November 1993, Time Magazine reported that a former U.S. government operative had detailed "an elaborate plan to tap U.S. aid funds for low-interest loans that would be used to transport New York City garbage to Haiti, where it would be processed into mulch to fertilize plants bioengineered to provide high-quality paper pulp. 'We could collect $38 a ton for the garbage,' claims [Henry] Womack ... who helped oversee construction of the base that the Reagan Administration-backed contras used to stage attacks against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua." Womack has similar dreams for Haiti: "We'd make a bundle, and the government could get enough to pay the whole army's salaries." (Jill Smolowe, "With Friends Like These: A Host of Shadowy Figures is Helping Haiti's Military Rulers Hatch a Plot to Sideline Aristide Permanently," Time Magazine, November 8, 1993.) Womack lived in a South Miami house with a couple: the sister of Michel François, who headed the death squads in Haiti and served as chief of its national police, and her husband.
Although most agents are not usually as candid as Womack, such plans are common. In August 1991, for example, Almany Enterprises, a company also headquartered in Miami, proposed shipping 30 million tons of incinerator ash from various U.S. cities to Panama over the subsequent four years. Almany would pay the government only $6.50 per ton of toxic waste received in Panama. The ash is believed to be highly contaminated with cadmium, copper, lead and zinc. Almany proposed to landfill the ash in marshlands near the free zone of Colon. Dozens of similar schemes are rampant. Throughout the Caribbean and Central America the devastating health crisis is exacerbated -- if not directly caused -- by international capital's "recycling" of toxic wastes. (Indeed, Haitian women who have emigrated to the U.S. have been found to have double or triple the cervical cancer rates as women born in the U.S.)
Said Ehrl LaFontant of the Haiti Communications Project: "Instead of repatriating Haitian refugees to Haiti, the U.S. government should repatriate this toxic waste back to its own country."
Toxic waste dumping in Haiti was, after all, a lucrative source of income for the Duvalier dictatorship. Former Haitian despot Duvalier profited handsomely in his relationship with the U.S., to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. That relationship included allowing U.S. toxic fertilizer to be dumped in Haiti, at the expense of the Haitian people.
Duvalier's U.S.-based lawyer, Ron Brown, also did well, economically, by their relationship. In the early 1980s, Brown was a partner at the powerful Washington law firm of Patton, Boggs & Blow. Duvalier secured his services by paying him $150,000 as a retainer, and Brown went to work for the brutal dictator on Capitol Hill. Before his death while flying over Yugoslavia and scouting U.S. investment opportunities, Brown had been personally linked to Lillian Madsen, who had married into an extremely wealthy Haitian family with vast holdings in coffee and beer. (She later divorced.) Madsen lived in an expensive Washington townhouse that had been purchased for her in 1992 by the commerce secretary himself and by his son, D.C. lobbyist Michael Brown. The Madsens were major backers of Duvalier and among the main domestic financial backers of the September 1991 coup against elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Brown uttered nary a word to support the return of Aristide and democracy to Haiti, nor did he protest the U.S.'s toxic practices there.
Brown also represented Fritz Bennett, the brother of Michelle Bennett Duvalier, wife of the deposed dictator, when the brother was arrested in Puerto Rico for trafficking in narcotics. (Michelle Duvalier's touch with reality herself can be somewhat shaky, as when, in exile, she said: "Flee Haiti? Why do you say we were fleeing Haiti? The president and I decided it was time to leave. Nobody can ever say we had to leave Haiti. We wanted to go.")
Brown was also the subject of a scandal involving Vietnamese businessman Nguyen Van Hao, who was the Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Development under the corrupt U.S.-backed Saigon dictatorship in the early 1970s. Hao alleged that Brown agreed to be paid $700,000 in exchange for his help in lifting a trade embargo against Vietnam. Hao, who previously lived in Haiti, and Brown had a mutual Haitian friend, Marc Butch Ashton -- Lillian Madsen's brother-in-law. Ashton was a financial advisor to Baby Doc. A large landholder and owner of Haiti Citrus, a lime exporter, Ashton allegedly used a squad of 40 Tonton Macoutes death squads to guard his properties. Poor farmers who leased their land to Haiti Citrus say they were intimidated and tortured by Ashton's thugs when they tried to get better terms. (Counterpunch, December, 1993)
Brown himself detailed his services to Duvalier in a nine-page memo. Brown's letter, written in French on Patton, Boggs & Blow letterhead, blamed Monsieur Le President's problems on an unfair image created by the U.S. media. As to his efforts on Haiti's behalf, Brown wrote that "We continue to dedicate a considerable amount of time to the improvement of relations between the Republic of Haiti and members of congress and the American government, with the goal of substantially increasing American aid to Haiti. Early success in this regard," crowed Brown, "is essentially the result of our Washington team." (Counterpunch, December 1993)
Brown also informed Duvalier that he was looking after Haiti's long-term interests by maintaining good relations with leading American political figures:
"While we have always enjoyed excellent relations with the government of President Reagan, we have also established personal contacts with almost all the Democratic candidates in order to ensure that we continue to have access to the White House regardless of who wins the presidential election in 1984." Brown boasted that his "leading role in the Democratic National Committee has served us in these efforts, while a certain number of my colleagues in the Republican Party assure the permanence of our access and the excellence of our relations with the government of President Reagan."
Juan Gonzalez, writing in the New York Daily News, continued the story:
"When Brown wrote his memo, Amnesty International had accused the Duvalier regime of torture, detentions without trial and `disappearances'.
"Here is some of what Brown reported to Baby Doc:
" 'Despite the unfair image of Haiti by the American media, and despite the opposition expressed by some members of Congress, it is certain that today ... a growing number of people -- both members of Congress and government officials -- stand ready to defend the interests of Haiti. This ... is essentially due to the work of our Washington team. ...
" 'We continue to pay a great deal of attention to the Black Caucus and to other liberal members of Congress ... [who] are now, thanks to our efforts, ready to help. Although some of them continue to make negative comments about Haiti, all, without exception, have proved to be cooperative on the issue of aid.' "
Brown was reporting on his success in getting Congress to say one thing but do another. On foreign aid, he proved more than worth his annual retainer. While he represented Haiti, annual U.S. assistance increased from $35 million to $55 million.
Brown offered not a word in the memo about human rights.
Brown went on to serve as President Clinton's Secretary of Commerce, which is one of the agencies that oversees toxic waste shipments and promotes corporate investment in Haiti, particularly in the notorious assembly zones established by the International Monetary Fund's structural adjustment program there. (The assembly zones were populated by the IMF's removal of 1/3rd of the rural population from their lands, now to be used for export crops to the U.S. and elsewhere).
In his confirmation hearings before the Senate, Brown was not asked a single question concerning toxic wastes, nor of his relationship with the Duvalier dictatorship.
---------------------------
Mitchel Cohen hosts "Steal This Radio," a weekly show on http://www.NYTalkRadio.net, and is the Chair of WBAI radio's (99.5-FM) "Local Station Board". He works with the Brooklyn Greens / Green Party.
Mitchel Cohen
2652 Cropsey Avenue, #7H
Brooklyn, NY 11214
(718) 449-0037
mitchelcohen@mindspring.com
'Hope for Haiti' raises $58 million and counting
http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/TV/01/23/haiti.telethon
'Hope for Haiti' raises $58 million and counting
January 23, 2010
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Amount is record for donations to disaster relief telethon
Album of performances topped charts in 18 countries
Public may continue to donate for six months
Celebrities answered phones, performed music
Los Angeles, California (CNN) -- Friday night's star-studded "Hope for Haiti" telethon has raised a record-breaking $58 million, with more donations continuing to pour in from around the world, the benefit's organizers announced Saturday.
The preliminary figure is a record for donations made by the public through a disaster relief telethon, according to a news release from telethon organizers.
Additionally, the "Hope for Haiti Now" album, a compilation of the night's musical performances made available on Apple's iTunes, was the No. 1 album in 18 countries Saturday. Sales figures for iTunes are still being calculated, and the preliminary figure of $58 million does not include donations from corporations or large private donors.
People will be able to make donations to "Hope for Haiti" via phone, Web, text messaging and regular mail for the next six months, according to the news release.
A moving performance by Alicia Keys opened Friday night's telethon, and actor George Clooney, serving as the Los Angeles host for the event, made the first appeal for donations to raise money for relief efforts after last week's devastating earthquake.
"The Haitian people need our help," Clooney said. "They need to know they are not alone. They need to know that we still care."
The show was one of the most widely distributed prime-time televised benefits in history, appearing simultaneously on more than 25 networks -- including CNN, where Anderson Cooper reported live from Haiti during the event.
More than 100 actors, musicians and other celebrities answered phones in New York and Los Angeles after professional operators first talked to donors.
"Thank you so much for your donation," actress Reese Witherspoon told one caller. "You can't imagine how much love and great, wonderful energy is here today. People are doing everything they can to make a difference in these people's lives."
Several other calls were aired live, including with Julia Roberts, Steven Spielberg, Taylor Swift and Stevie Wonder.
Swift and Wonder were among the evening's musical performers. Others included Bruce Springsteen, Bono, Jay-Z, Rihanna, Shakira, Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Coldplay, Christina Aguilera, John Legend, Justin Timberlake, Kid Rock, Sheryl Crow, Keith Urban, Jennifer Hudson, Madonna, Dave Matthews and Neil Young.
Other celebrities appearing on the telethon included Jon Stewart, Brad Pitt, Tom Hanks, Morgan Freeman, Ben Stiller, Clint Eastwood and Denzel Washington.
Proceeds from the telethon will benefit Oxfam America, Partners in Health, the Red Cross, UNICEF, the U.N. World Food Programme, Yele Haiti Foundation and the Clinton Bush Haiti Foundation.
CNN's Alan Duke contributed to this report.
'Hope for Haiti' raises $58 million and counting
January 23, 2010
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Amount is record for donations to disaster relief telethon
Album of performances topped charts in 18 countries
Public may continue to donate for six months
Celebrities answered phones, performed music
Los Angeles, California (CNN) -- Friday night's star-studded "Hope for Haiti" telethon has raised a record-breaking $58 million, with more donations continuing to pour in from around the world, the benefit's organizers announced Saturday.
The preliminary figure is a record for donations made by the public through a disaster relief telethon, according to a news release from telethon organizers.
Additionally, the "Hope for Haiti Now" album, a compilation of the night's musical performances made available on Apple's iTunes, was the No. 1 album in 18 countries Saturday. Sales figures for iTunes are still being calculated, and the preliminary figure of $58 million does not include donations from corporations or large private donors.
People will be able to make donations to "Hope for Haiti" via phone, Web, text messaging and regular mail for the next six months, according to the news release.
A moving performance by Alicia Keys opened Friday night's telethon, and actor George Clooney, serving as the Los Angeles host for the event, made the first appeal for donations to raise money for relief efforts after last week's devastating earthquake.
"The Haitian people need our help," Clooney said. "They need to know they are not alone. They need to know that we still care."
The show was one of the most widely distributed prime-time televised benefits in history, appearing simultaneously on more than 25 networks -- including CNN, where Anderson Cooper reported live from Haiti during the event.
More than 100 actors, musicians and other celebrities answered phones in New York and Los Angeles after professional operators first talked to donors.
"Thank you so much for your donation," actress Reese Witherspoon told one caller. "You can't imagine how much love and great, wonderful energy is here today. People are doing everything they can to make a difference in these people's lives."
Several other calls were aired live, including with Julia Roberts, Steven Spielberg, Taylor Swift and Stevie Wonder.
Swift and Wonder were among the evening's musical performers. Others included Bruce Springsteen, Bono, Jay-Z, Rihanna, Shakira, Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Coldplay, Christina Aguilera, John Legend, Justin Timberlake, Kid Rock, Sheryl Crow, Keith Urban, Jennifer Hudson, Madonna, Dave Matthews and Neil Young.
Other celebrities appearing on the telethon included Jon Stewart, Brad Pitt, Tom Hanks, Morgan Freeman, Ben Stiller, Clint Eastwood and Denzel Washington.
Proceeds from the telethon will benefit Oxfam America, Partners in Health, the Red Cross, UNICEF, the U.N. World Food Programme, Yele Haiti Foundation and the Clinton Bush Haiti Foundation.
CNN's Alan Duke contributed to this report.
Friday, January 22, 2010
"I Spent the Day Picking Up Dead Bodies"
http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b162495_wyclef_jean_i_spent_day_picking_up_dead.html
Wyclef Jean: "I Spent the Day Picking Up Dead Bodies"
Sat., Jan. 16, 2010
Brandi Fowler
Wyclef Jean is working hard to help Haiti—and to defend himself.
The Haitian-born singer spent time in his homeland with his wife, pulling dead bodies from the rubble of the earthquake-ravaged country.
"We've been picking up dead bodies because the morgues ain't taking no more bodies," Jean said Saturday after arriving back from Haiti, where casualties estimates could climb as high as 100,000. "We're literally picking them up...some are identified with tags, putting them in the trucks and bringing them to the cemeteries. The whole Port-au-Prince is starting to smell like dead bodies, because every two blocks that's what you have."
The 37-year-old Grammy winner said what disturbed him the most was that under the rubble he could hear voices of people saying "save me."
The devastating conditions in the Caribbean nation have impeded efforts to get equipment inside that could lift the large concrete slabs trapping untold numbers of victims underneath. To make matters worse, the former Fugee said, many Haitians are still waiting for life-saving supplies.
"Aid is finally coming in, but it still isn't getting to the people," said Jean, who has also found himself standing up for his under-fire charitable efforts.
Critics have accused his Yéle Haiti Foundation of squandering funds, with some even suggesting Jean might be skimming off the top. The organization launched a campaign in the wake of the disaster, encouraging people to donate $5 to relief efforts by texting "YELE" to 501501.
Jean issued a video statement Saturday on the organization's website regarding those accusations.
"My commitment to Haiti is a unique and everlasting bond," he said. "It is impossible for me to even comprehend the recent attacks on my character and the integrity of my foundation, Yéle Haiti. The fact that these attacks come as we are mobilized to meet the greatest human tragedy in the history of Haiti only serves to perplex me even further."
He says Yéle will be shipping food, water and medical supplies to Haiti next week. He has also kicked in $1 million of his own money to aid his countrymen.
Jean managed to get back to Haiti only 12 hours after the earthquake struck, and has been in and out of the country. He met with George Clooney on Friday to discuss next week's telethon.
Wyclef Jean: "I Spent the Day Picking Up Dead Bodies"
Sat., Jan. 16, 2010
Brandi Fowler
Wyclef Jean is working hard to help Haiti—and to defend himself.
The Haitian-born singer spent time in his homeland with his wife, pulling dead bodies from the rubble of the earthquake-ravaged country.
"We've been picking up dead bodies because the morgues ain't taking no more bodies," Jean said Saturday after arriving back from Haiti, where casualties estimates could climb as high as 100,000. "We're literally picking them up...some are identified with tags, putting them in the trucks and bringing them to the cemeteries. The whole Port-au-Prince is starting to smell like dead bodies, because every two blocks that's what you have."
The 37-year-old Grammy winner said what disturbed him the most was that under the rubble he could hear voices of people saying "save me."
The devastating conditions in the Caribbean nation have impeded efforts to get equipment inside that could lift the large concrete slabs trapping untold numbers of victims underneath. To make matters worse, the former Fugee said, many Haitians are still waiting for life-saving supplies.
"Aid is finally coming in, but it still isn't getting to the people," said Jean, who has also found himself standing up for his under-fire charitable efforts.
Critics have accused his Yéle Haiti Foundation of squandering funds, with some even suggesting Jean might be skimming off the top. The organization launched a campaign in the wake of the disaster, encouraging people to donate $5 to relief efforts by texting "YELE" to 501501.
Jean issued a video statement Saturday on the organization's website regarding those accusations.
"My commitment to Haiti is a unique and everlasting bond," he said. "It is impossible for me to even comprehend the recent attacks on my character and the integrity of my foundation, Yéle Haiti. The fact that these attacks come as we are mobilized to meet the greatest human tragedy in the history of Haiti only serves to perplex me even further."
He says Yéle will be shipping food, water and medical supplies to Haiti next week. He has also kicked in $1 million of his own money to aid his countrymen.
Jean managed to get back to Haiti only 12 hours after the earthquake struck, and has been in and out of the country. He met with George Clooney on Friday to discuss next week's telethon.
U.S. Pours Aid Into Haiti as Survivors Flee City
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/01/16/world/international-us-quake-haiti.html
U.S. Pours Aid Into Haiti as Survivors Flee City
January 16, 2010
PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Saturday declared one of the largest relief efforts in U.S. history to help Haiti four days after an earthquake killed up to 200,000 people and devastated the Caribbean nation's capital.
Even as aid poured into wrecked Port-au-Prince, thousands of Haitians streamed out of the city on foot with suitcases on their heads or jammed into cars trying to reach the countryside to escape aftershocks and the threat of looting, and to find food, water and shelter.
Four days after the quake, logjams still slowed relief reaching victims and gangs of robbers had begun preying on survivors struggling without supplies in makeshift camps on streets strewn with debris and decomposing bodies.
Obama promised help as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton flew to Haiti carrying relief aid and the shell-shocked government gave the United States control over its main airport to bring order to aid flights from around the world.
"At this moment we're moving forward with one of the largest relief efforts in our history to save lives and deliver relief that averts an even larger catastrophe," Obama said, flanked by his predecessors George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, in the White House Rose Garden. "The two leaders with me today will ensure that this is matched by a historic effort that extends beyond our government."
Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest country, has for years struggled with devastating storms, floods and political unrest. Around 9,000 U.N. peacekeepers have provided security in the country since a 2004 uprising ousted one president.
Hillary Clinton left for Port-au-Prince on Saturday to meet with Haitian President Rene Preval at the airport. Her plane was to bring in supplies and return with evacuated Americans.
Even four days after the 7.0 magnitude quake, aftershocks were felt every few hours in the capital, terrifying survivors and sending rubble and dust tumbling from buildings.
Trucks piled with corpses have been ferrying bodies to hurriedly excavated mass graves outside the city, but thousands of bodies still are believed buried under rubble.
U.S. rescuers worked through the night to dig out survivors from one collapsed supermarket where as many as 100 people could have been trapped inside. They were about to give up, when they were told a supermarket cashier had managed to call someone in Miami to say she was still alive inside.
"We have already collected around 50,000 dead bodies," Interior Minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aime told Reuters. "We anticipate there will be between 100,000 and 200,000 dead in total, although we will never know the exact number."
If the casualty figures prove accurate, the quake that hit Haiti on Tuesday and flattened much of its capital city, would be one of the 10 deadliest ever. Some 40,000 bodies have already been buried in mass graves, the government says.
LOOTING, FIGHTING FOR FOOD
Scores of police were on the streets of downtown Port-au-Prince on Saturday, rounding up looters in the biggest security operation since the earthquake struck, witnesses said.
A Reuters photographer saw police shooting in the air, grabbing and throwing people to the ground, and occasionally kicking detainees in parts of the city. But there was still no sign of widespread looting and riots that many feared.
Underlying the desperate nature of the quake aid effort, a U.S. helicopter landed in one open space, near the port, and threw out boxes full of plastic bags and bottles of water before taking off again.
Haitians flocked around the boxes to grab the water, many drinking immediately and sharing with family members and friends. Hungry residents fought each other for bags of foods handed out from U.N. trucks in downtown Port-au-Prince.
A senior U.N. official warned hunger will fuel trouble if aid does not arrive soon, although the law and order situation remains under control "for the time being."
The U.N. mission responsible for security in Haiti lost at least 36 of its 9,000 members when its headquarters collapsed. Two top officials are missing.
Dozens of bloated bodies were still dumped in the yard outside the main hospital, decomposing in the sun. The hospital gardens on Saturday were a mass of beds with injured people, with drips hanging from trees and tubes.
The weakened Haitian government was in little position to handle the crisis. The quake destroyed the presidential palace and knocked out communications and power. Preval and Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive are living and working in the judicial police headquarters.
"I do not have a home, I do not have a telephone. This is my palace now," Preval told Reuters in an interview.
The U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort, a full service medical facility that can handle up to 1,000 patients, left the port of Baltimore on Saturday and was due in Haiti next week.
STILL NO WATER
Obama said the United States, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, France, Colombia, Russia, Japan, Britain and other countries managed to fly in rescue and logistics personnel and supplies. While some aid was getting in, the White House hoped improved logistics would accelerate the effort.
Planes and ships arrived with rescue teams, search dogs, tents, water purification units, food, doctors and telecom teams, but faced a bottleneck at the small airport.
Air traffic control, hampered by damage to the airport's tower, will be handled by the U.S. military with backup from a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.
The USS Carl Vinson with 19 helicopters arrived off Haiti on Friday, opening a second significant channel to deliver help. Navy helicopters had begun taking water ashore and ferrying injured people to a field hospital near the airport.
The U.S. military aimed to have 9,000 to 10,000 troops on the ground in Haiti in ships offshore by Monday.
The Pan American Health Organization said at least eight hospitals and health centers in Port-au-Prince had collapsed or sustained damage and were unable to function.
At one collapsed supermarket, scores of people swarmed over the rubble to try to reach the food underneath. Just outside the Cite Soleil slum, desperate people crowded around a burst water pipe jostling to drink from the pipe or fill buckets.
(Reporting by Tom Brown, Joseph Guyler Delva and Eduardo Munoz in Port-au-Prince, Patrick Worsnip at the United Nations, Phil Stewart, Andrew Quinn and John Crawley in Washington; writing by Patrick Markey and Anthony Boadle; editing by Vicki Allen and Sandra Maler)
U.S. Pours Aid Into Haiti as Survivors Flee City
January 16, 2010
PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Saturday declared one of the largest relief efforts in U.S. history to help Haiti four days after an earthquake killed up to 200,000 people and devastated the Caribbean nation's capital.
Even as aid poured into wrecked Port-au-Prince, thousands of Haitians streamed out of the city on foot with suitcases on their heads or jammed into cars trying to reach the countryside to escape aftershocks and the threat of looting, and to find food, water and shelter.
Four days after the quake, logjams still slowed relief reaching victims and gangs of robbers had begun preying on survivors struggling without supplies in makeshift camps on streets strewn with debris and decomposing bodies.
Obama promised help as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton flew to Haiti carrying relief aid and the shell-shocked government gave the United States control over its main airport to bring order to aid flights from around the world.
"At this moment we're moving forward with one of the largest relief efforts in our history to save lives and deliver relief that averts an even larger catastrophe," Obama said, flanked by his predecessors George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, in the White House Rose Garden. "The two leaders with me today will ensure that this is matched by a historic effort that extends beyond our government."
Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest country, has for years struggled with devastating storms, floods and political unrest. Around 9,000 U.N. peacekeepers have provided security in the country since a 2004 uprising ousted one president.
Hillary Clinton left for Port-au-Prince on Saturday to meet with Haitian President Rene Preval at the airport. Her plane was to bring in supplies and return with evacuated Americans.
Even four days after the 7.0 magnitude quake, aftershocks were felt every few hours in the capital, terrifying survivors and sending rubble and dust tumbling from buildings.
Trucks piled with corpses have been ferrying bodies to hurriedly excavated mass graves outside the city, but thousands of bodies still are believed buried under rubble.
U.S. rescuers worked through the night to dig out survivors from one collapsed supermarket where as many as 100 people could have been trapped inside. They were about to give up, when they were told a supermarket cashier had managed to call someone in Miami to say she was still alive inside.
"We have already collected around 50,000 dead bodies," Interior Minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aime told Reuters. "We anticipate there will be between 100,000 and 200,000 dead in total, although we will never know the exact number."
If the casualty figures prove accurate, the quake that hit Haiti on Tuesday and flattened much of its capital city, would be one of the 10 deadliest ever. Some 40,000 bodies have already been buried in mass graves, the government says.
LOOTING, FIGHTING FOR FOOD
Scores of police were on the streets of downtown Port-au-Prince on Saturday, rounding up looters in the biggest security operation since the earthquake struck, witnesses said.
A Reuters photographer saw police shooting in the air, grabbing and throwing people to the ground, and occasionally kicking detainees in parts of the city. But there was still no sign of widespread looting and riots that many feared.
Underlying the desperate nature of the quake aid effort, a U.S. helicopter landed in one open space, near the port, and threw out boxes full of plastic bags and bottles of water before taking off again.
Haitians flocked around the boxes to grab the water, many drinking immediately and sharing with family members and friends. Hungry residents fought each other for bags of foods handed out from U.N. trucks in downtown Port-au-Prince.
A senior U.N. official warned hunger will fuel trouble if aid does not arrive soon, although the law and order situation remains under control "for the time being."
The U.N. mission responsible for security in Haiti lost at least 36 of its 9,000 members when its headquarters collapsed. Two top officials are missing.
Dozens of bloated bodies were still dumped in the yard outside the main hospital, decomposing in the sun. The hospital gardens on Saturday were a mass of beds with injured people, with drips hanging from trees and tubes.
The weakened Haitian government was in little position to handle the crisis. The quake destroyed the presidential palace and knocked out communications and power. Preval and Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive are living and working in the judicial police headquarters.
"I do not have a home, I do not have a telephone. This is my palace now," Preval told Reuters in an interview.
The U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort, a full service medical facility that can handle up to 1,000 patients, left the port of Baltimore on Saturday and was due in Haiti next week.
STILL NO WATER
Obama said the United States, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, France, Colombia, Russia, Japan, Britain and other countries managed to fly in rescue and logistics personnel and supplies. While some aid was getting in, the White House hoped improved logistics would accelerate the effort.
Planes and ships arrived with rescue teams, search dogs, tents, water purification units, food, doctors and telecom teams, but faced a bottleneck at the small airport.
Air traffic control, hampered by damage to the airport's tower, will be handled by the U.S. military with backup from a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.
The USS Carl Vinson with 19 helicopters arrived off Haiti on Friday, opening a second significant channel to deliver help. Navy helicopters had begun taking water ashore and ferrying injured people to a field hospital near the airport.
The U.S. military aimed to have 9,000 to 10,000 troops on the ground in Haiti in ships offshore by Monday.
The Pan American Health Organization said at least eight hospitals and health centers in Port-au-Prince had collapsed or sustained damage and were unable to function.
At one collapsed supermarket, scores of people swarmed over the rubble to try to reach the food underneath. Just outside the Cite Soleil slum, desperate people crowded around a burst water pipe jostling to drink from the pipe or fill buckets.
(Reporting by Tom Brown, Joseph Guyler Delva and Eduardo Munoz in Port-au-Prince, Patrick Worsnip at the United Nations, Phil Stewart, Andrew Quinn and John Crawley in Washington; writing by Patrick Markey and Anthony Boadle; editing by Vicki Allen and Sandra Maler)
An Interview with Haitian NBA Vet Olden Polynice
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/517482/we_are_a_forgotten_people
An Interview with Haitian NBA Vet Olden Polynice
Dave Zirin
01/15/2010
Olden Polynice played center in the NBA for 15 seasons. During that time, he distinguished himself as more than a hardnosed rebounder. He was the most visible Haitian athlete in the history of the United States. In 1993, Polynice was the first U.S. athlete to ever join a hunger strike during the season to protest the treatment of H.I.V. positive Haitian refugees imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay. Today Polynice lives in Los Angeles and runs the Olden Polynice Hoop Foundation. He calls himself "an activist for Haiti until the day I die.... whether it's chic or not." I spoke with him about the current post-earthquake calamity.
Dave Zirin: First question. How are your loved ones?
Olden Polynice: I just spoke to my father for the first time. He's in Port au Prince: He's good. He's alive. No injuries or nothing major. But we know that we've lost at least one cousin. The roof of her house fell on her. We are waiting to hear from an uncle and other cousins. We don't know if all four of them are dead. We've just heard nothing.
DZ: Where were you when you first heard what happened?
OP: Ahhhh! The irony of it all. I was at a funeral for my girlfriend's cousin sitting there at the church. This is about an hour before I heard the news. And for whatever reason, I'm thinking about my dad, Lester. Then after the funeral ended, my girlfriend and I walked to the cemetery and she showed me her father's gravestone and I swear on everything holy that this is true - her Dad's name was Lester as well.
And then at that moment my phone rings and I hear about the earthquake. I thought first that it was a joke. Earthquake? In Haiti? Haiti doesn't have earthquakes! We have everything else, but not earthquakes! Then I spent days trying to get through to my father and here we are.
DZ: Many people are giving to help rebuild Haiti...
OP: Yes people have been really good. Giving to Wyclef's group, the Red Cross, my group, the Olden Polynice Hoop Foundation. Everything helps. But Haiti needs the help when it's not chic as well. I remember when I went on the hunger strike to protest the treatment of the Haitian refugees in '93 and everyone got so mad at me doing it. If I did it now there would probably be a parade for me. But I didn't care about any of the criticism. That's my home. I've always done stuff for Haiti. I've always been an activist and I continue to be one. I want everyone to know: this earthquake is not a Haiti problem. It's a world problem. Anything that affects Haiti, affects the world and if you think that's not true, then you are sadly mistaken.
DZ: Do you think the Haitian people should be granted temporary asylum status in the US?
OP: Why not? We open our doors to everyone else. Cubans are granted asylum. I'm not saying bring the whole country up here but Haitians are the forgotten people. That cannot happen now. It is absurd to me that on an island like Hispaniola, which Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic, that the Dominican Republic can possess wealth while Haiti suffers. How is that possible? It's all political. ... I'm very thankful President Obama has acted as swiftly as he has but I'll say it again: we are a forgotten people.
DZ: I have to ask you your thoughts about Pat Robertson saying the earthquake happened because Haiti made a pact with the devil for independence.
OP: Pat Robertson can suck a big one--you can quote me on that. He is not a man of God and shouldn't claim to be. And you can quote me on that. Please.
DZ: New subject: Have you tried to contact Haitian players like Samuel Dalembert of the Philadelphia 76ers?
OP: I spoke to Samuel last night. I am trying to reach out to as many as possible. I want to organize all the Haitian players with one goal in mind. The goal is to make sure that they continue to represent Haiti and their families: they are Haitian and proud. There are many players, unlike Samuel, who are Haitian and don't want to claim it. I am Haitian and proud of it! You always have to be proud. We actually have ethnicity. We have culture. I want to organize all the Haitian athletes and have them claim a sense of responsibility. Not just right now when it is chic but every day of our lives. As we play and we make money, as we make the highlight films, we should let the world know that we come from a different place, a special place. Let the world know: Haiti is already hurting, before any earthquake. Haiti has BEEN hurt. Don't wait for a major catastrophe to be involved. Claim your home. Don't let us be a forgotten people.
Dave Zirin is the author of the forthcoming “Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games we Love” (Scribner) Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com .
An Interview with Haitian NBA Vet Olden Polynice
Dave Zirin
01/15/2010
Olden Polynice played center in the NBA for 15 seasons. During that time, he distinguished himself as more than a hardnosed rebounder. He was the most visible Haitian athlete in the history of the United States. In 1993, Polynice was the first U.S. athlete to ever join a hunger strike during the season to protest the treatment of H.I.V. positive Haitian refugees imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay. Today Polynice lives in Los Angeles and runs the Olden Polynice Hoop Foundation. He calls himself "an activist for Haiti until the day I die.... whether it's chic or not." I spoke with him about the current post-earthquake calamity.
Dave Zirin: First question. How are your loved ones?
Olden Polynice: I just spoke to my father for the first time. He's in Port au Prince: He's good. He's alive. No injuries or nothing major. But we know that we've lost at least one cousin. The roof of her house fell on her. We are waiting to hear from an uncle and other cousins. We don't know if all four of them are dead. We've just heard nothing.
DZ: Where were you when you first heard what happened?
OP: Ahhhh! The irony of it all. I was at a funeral for my girlfriend's cousin sitting there at the church. This is about an hour before I heard the news. And for whatever reason, I'm thinking about my dad, Lester. Then after the funeral ended, my girlfriend and I walked to the cemetery and she showed me her father's gravestone and I swear on everything holy that this is true - her Dad's name was Lester as well.
And then at that moment my phone rings and I hear about the earthquake. I thought first that it was a joke. Earthquake? In Haiti? Haiti doesn't have earthquakes! We have everything else, but not earthquakes! Then I spent days trying to get through to my father and here we are.
DZ: Many people are giving to help rebuild Haiti...
OP: Yes people have been really good. Giving to Wyclef's group, the Red Cross, my group, the Olden Polynice Hoop Foundation. Everything helps. But Haiti needs the help when it's not chic as well. I remember when I went on the hunger strike to protest the treatment of the Haitian refugees in '93 and everyone got so mad at me doing it. If I did it now there would probably be a parade for me. But I didn't care about any of the criticism. That's my home. I've always done stuff for Haiti. I've always been an activist and I continue to be one. I want everyone to know: this earthquake is not a Haiti problem. It's a world problem. Anything that affects Haiti, affects the world and if you think that's not true, then you are sadly mistaken.
DZ: Do you think the Haitian people should be granted temporary asylum status in the US?
OP: Why not? We open our doors to everyone else. Cubans are granted asylum. I'm not saying bring the whole country up here but Haitians are the forgotten people. That cannot happen now. It is absurd to me that on an island like Hispaniola, which Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic, that the Dominican Republic can possess wealth while Haiti suffers. How is that possible? It's all political. ... I'm very thankful President Obama has acted as swiftly as he has but I'll say it again: we are a forgotten people.
DZ: I have to ask you your thoughts about Pat Robertson saying the earthquake happened because Haiti made a pact with the devil for independence.
OP: Pat Robertson can suck a big one--you can quote me on that. He is not a man of God and shouldn't claim to be. And you can quote me on that. Please.
DZ: New subject: Have you tried to contact Haitian players like Samuel Dalembert of the Philadelphia 76ers?
OP: I spoke to Samuel last night. I am trying to reach out to as many as possible. I want to organize all the Haitian players with one goal in mind. The goal is to make sure that they continue to represent Haiti and their families: they are Haitian and proud. There are many players, unlike Samuel, who are Haitian and don't want to claim it. I am Haitian and proud of it! You always have to be proud. We actually have ethnicity. We have culture. I want to organize all the Haitian athletes and have them claim a sense of responsibility. Not just right now when it is chic but every day of our lives. As we play and we make money, as we make the highlight films, we should let the world know that we come from a different place, a special place. Let the world know: Haiti is already hurting, before any earthquake. Haiti has BEEN hurt. Don't wait for a major catastrophe to be involved. Claim your home. Don't let us be a forgotten people.
Dave Zirin is the author of the forthcoming “Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games we Love” (Scribner) Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com .
The Right Testicle of Hell
The Right Testicle of Hell:
History of a Haitian Holocaust
Blackwater before drinking water
by Greg Palast for The Huffington Post
Sunday 17 January 2010
1. Bless the President for having rescue teams in the air almost immediately. That was President Olafur Grimsson of Iceland. On Wednesday, the AP reported that the President of the United States promised, "The initial contingent of 2,000 Marines could be deployed to the quake-ravaged country within the next few days." "In a few days," Mr. Obama?
2. There's no such thing as a 'natural' disaster. 200,000 Haitians have been slaughtered by slum housing and IMF "austerity" plans.
3. A friend of mine called. Do I know a journalist who could get medicine to her father? And she added, trying to hold her voice together, "My sister, she's under the rubble. Is anyone going who can help, anyone?" Should I tell her, "Obama will have Marines there in 'a few days'"?
4. China deployed rescuers with sniffer dogs within 48 hours. China, Mr. President. China: 8,000 miles distant. Miami: 700 miles close. US bases in Puerto Rico: right there.
5. Obama's Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, "I don't know how this government could have responded faster or more comprehensively than it has." We know Gates doesn't know.
6. From my own work in the field, I know that FEMA has access to ready-to-go potable water, generators, mobile medical equipment and more for hurricane relief on the Gulf Coast. It's all still there. Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, who served as the task force commander for emergency response after Hurricane Katrina, told the Christian Science Monitor, “I thought we had learned that from Katrina, take food and water and start evacuating people." Maybe we learned but, apparently, Gates and the Defense Department missed school that day.
7. Send in the Marines. That's America's response. That's what we're good at. The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson finally showed up after three days. With what? It was dramatically deployed — without any emergency relief supplies. It has sidewinder missiles and 19 helicopters.
8. But don't worry, the International Search and Rescue Team, fully equipped and self-sufficient for up to seven days in the field, deployed immediately with ten metric tons of tools and equipment, three tons of water, tents, advanced communication equipment and water purifying capability. They're from Iceland.
9. Gates wouldn't send in food and water because, he said, there was no "structure ... to provide security." For Gates, appointed by Bush and allowed to hang around by Obama, it's security first. That was his lesson from Hurricane Katrina. Blackwater before drinking water.
10. Previous US presidents have acted far more swiftly in getting troops on the ground on that island. Haiti is the right half of the island of Hispaniola. It's treated like the right testicle of Hell. The Dominican Republic the left. In 1965, when Dominicans demanded the return of Juan Bosch, their elected President, deposed by a junta, Lyndon Johnson reacted to this crisis rapidly, landing 45,000 US Marines on the beaches to prevent the return of the elected president.
11. How did Haiti end up so economically weakened, with infrastructure, from hospitals to water systems, busted or non-existent - there are two fire stations in the entire nation - and infrastructure so frail that the nation was simply waiting for "nature" to finish it off?
Don’t blame Mother Nature for all this death and destruction. That dishonor goes to Papa Doc and Baby Doc, the Duvalier dictatorship, which looted the nation for 28 years. Papa and his Baby put an estimated 80% of world aid into their own pockets - with the complicity of the US government happy to have the Duvaliers and their voodoo militia, Tonton Macoutes, as allies in the Cold War. (The war was easily won: the Duvaliers’ death squads murdered as many as 60,000 opponents of the regime.)
12. What Papa and Baby didn't run off with, the IMF finished off through its "austerity" plans. An austerity plan is a form of voodoo orchestrated by economists zomby-fied by an irrational belief that cutting government services will somehow help a nation prosper.
13. In 1991, five years after the murderous Baby fled, Haitians elected a priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who resisted the IMF's austerity diktats. Within months, the military, to the applause of Papa George HW Bush, deposed him.
History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. The farce was George W. Bush. In 2004, after the priest Aristide was re-elected President, he was kidnapped and removed again, to the applause of Baby Bush.
14. Haiti was once a wealthy nation, the wealthiest in the hemisphere, worth more, wrote Voltaire in the 18th century, than that rocky, cold colony known as New England. Haiti's wealth was in black gold: slaves. But then the slaves rebelled - and have been paying for it ever since.
From 1825 to 1947, France forced Haiti to pay an annual fee to reimburse the profits lost by French slaveholders caused by their slaves’ successful uprising. Rather than enslave individual Haitians, France thought it more efficient to simply enslave the entire nation.
15. Secretary Gates tells us, "There are just some certain facts of life that affect how quickly you can do some of these things." The Navy's hospital boat will be there in, oh, a week or so. Heckuva job, Brownie!
16. Note just received from my friend. Her sister was found, dead; and her other sister had to bury her. Her father needs his anti-seizure medicines. That's a fact of life too, Mr. President.
*
Through our journalism network, we are trying to get my friend's medicines to her father. If any reader does have someone
getting into or near Port-au-Prince, please contact Haiti@GregPalast.com immediately.
Urgently recommended reading - The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, the history of the successful slave uprising in Hispaniola by the brilliant CLR James.
Greg Palast is author of the New York Times bestseller, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy." His investigations for BBC TV and Democracy Now! can be seen by subscribing to Palast's reports at www.GregPalast.com.
History of a Haitian Holocaust
Blackwater before drinking water
by Greg Palast for The Huffington Post
Sunday 17 January 2010
1. Bless the President for having rescue teams in the air almost immediately. That was President Olafur Grimsson of Iceland. On Wednesday, the AP reported that the President of the United States promised, "The initial contingent of 2,000 Marines could be deployed to the quake-ravaged country within the next few days." "In a few days," Mr. Obama?
2. There's no such thing as a 'natural' disaster. 200,000 Haitians have been slaughtered by slum housing and IMF "austerity" plans.
3. A friend of mine called. Do I know a journalist who could get medicine to her father? And she added, trying to hold her voice together, "My sister, she's under the rubble. Is anyone going who can help, anyone?" Should I tell her, "Obama will have Marines there in 'a few days'"?
4. China deployed rescuers with sniffer dogs within 48 hours. China, Mr. President. China: 8,000 miles distant. Miami: 700 miles close. US bases in Puerto Rico: right there.
5. Obama's Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, "I don't know how this government could have responded faster or more comprehensively than it has." We know Gates doesn't know.
6. From my own work in the field, I know that FEMA has access to ready-to-go potable water, generators, mobile medical equipment and more for hurricane relief on the Gulf Coast. It's all still there. Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, who served as the task force commander for emergency response after Hurricane Katrina, told the Christian Science Monitor, “I thought we had learned that from Katrina, take food and water and start evacuating people." Maybe we learned but, apparently, Gates and the Defense Department missed school that day.
7. Send in the Marines. That's America's response. That's what we're good at. The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson finally showed up after three days. With what? It was dramatically deployed — without any emergency relief supplies. It has sidewinder missiles and 19 helicopters.
8. But don't worry, the International Search and Rescue Team, fully equipped and self-sufficient for up to seven days in the field, deployed immediately with ten metric tons of tools and equipment, three tons of water, tents, advanced communication equipment and water purifying capability. They're from Iceland.
9. Gates wouldn't send in food and water because, he said, there was no "structure ... to provide security." For Gates, appointed by Bush and allowed to hang around by Obama, it's security first. That was his lesson from Hurricane Katrina. Blackwater before drinking water.
10. Previous US presidents have acted far more swiftly in getting troops on the ground on that island. Haiti is the right half of the island of Hispaniola. It's treated like the right testicle of Hell. The Dominican Republic the left. In 1965, when Dominicans demanded the return of Juan Bosch, their elected President, deposed by a junta, Lyndon Johnson reacted to this crisis rapidly, landing 45,000 US Marines on the beaches to prevent the return of the elected president.
11. How did Haiti end up so economically weakened, with infrastructure, from hospitals to water systems, busted or non-existent - there are two fire stations in the entire nation - and infrastructure so frail that the nation was simply waiting for "nature" to finish it off?
Don’t blame Mother Nature for all this death and destruction. That dishonor goes to Papa Doc and Baby Doc, the Duvalier dictatorship, which looted the nation for 28 years. Papa and his Baby put an estimated 80% of world aid into their own pockets - with the complicity of the US government happy to have the Duvaliers and their voodoo militia, Tonton Macoutes, as allies in the Cold War. (The war was easily won: the Duvaliers’ death squads murdered as many as 60,000 opponents of the regime.)
12. What Papa and Baby didn't run off with, the IMF finished off through its "austerity" plans. An austerity plan is a form of voodoo orchestrated by economists zomby-fied by an irrational belief that cutting government services will somehow help a nation prosper.
13. In 1991, five years after the murderous Baby fled, Haitians elected a priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who resisted the IMF's austerity diktats. Within months, the military, to the applause of Papa George HW Bush, deposed him.
History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. The farce was George W. Bush. In 2004, after the priest Aristide was re-elected President, he was kidnapped and removed again, to the applause of Baby Bush.
14. Haiti was once a wealthy nation, the wealthiest in the hemisphere, worth more, wrote Voltaire in the 18th century, than that rocky, cold colony known as New England. Haiti's wealth was in black gold: slaves. But then the slaves rebelled - and have been paying for it ever since.
From 1825 to 1947, France forced Haiti to pay an annual fee to reimburse the profits lost by French slaveholders caused by their slaves’ successful uprising. Rather than enslave individual Haitians, France thought it more efficient to simply enslave the entire nation.
15. Secretary Gates tells us, "There are just some certain facts of life that affect how quickly you can do some of these things." The Navy's hospital boat will be there in, oh, a week or so. Heckuva job, Brownie!
16. Note just received from my friend. Her sister was found, dead; and her other sister had to bury her. Her father needs his anti-seizure medicines. That's a fact of life too, Mr. President.
*
Through our journalism network, we are trying to get my friend's medicines to her father. If any reader does have someone
getting into or near Port-au-Prince, please contact Haiti@GregPalast.com immediately.
Urgently recommended reading - The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, the history of the successful slave uprising in Hispaniola by the brilliant CLR James.
Greg Palast is author of the New York Times bestseller, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy." His investigations for BBC TV and Democracy Now! can be seen by subscribing to Palast's reports at www.GregPalast.com.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Robertson says Haiti paying for 'pact to the devil'
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/01/13/haiti.pat.robertson/index.html
Pat Robertson says Haiti paying for 'pact to the devil'
January 13, 2010
Pat Robertson has previously linked natural disasters and terrorist attacks to legalized abortion in the United States.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Robertson says native Haitians made deal with the devil for freedom from France
Robertson is evangelical Christian who has made similar comparisons
He once suggested God was punishing Americans with Hurricane Katrina
(CNN) -- Pat Robertson, the evangelical Christian who once suggested God was punishing Americans with Hurricane Katrina, says a "pact to the devil" brought on the devastating earthquake in Haiti.
Officials fear more than 100,000 people have died as a result of Tuesday's 7.0-magnitude earthquake in Haiti.
Robertson, the host of the "700 Club," blamed the tragedy on something that "happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it."
The Haitians "were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III and whatever," Robertson said on his broadcast Wednesday. "And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, 'We will serve you if you will get us free from the French.' True story. And so, the devil said, 'OK, it's a deal.' "
Native Haitians defeated French colonists in 1804 and declared independence.
"You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other." Robertson has previously linked natural disasters and terrorist attacks to legalized abortion in the United States. Soon after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, killing more than 1,800 and wreaking unprecedented devastation on New Orleans, Louisiana, Robertson weighed in with his own theory.
"We have killed over 40 million unborn babies in America," Robertson said on his September 12, 2005, broadcast of "700 Club."
"I was reading, yesterday, a book that was very interesting about what God has to say in the Old Testament about those who shed innocent blood. And he [the author] used the term that those who do this, 'the land will vomit you out.' ... But have we found we are unable somehow to defend ourselves against some of the attacks that are coming against us, either by terrorists or now by natural disaster? Could they be connected in some way?"
Pat Robertson says Haiti paying for 'pact to the devil'
January 13, 2010
Pat Robertson has previously linked natural disasters and terrorist attacks to legalized abortion in the United States.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Robertson says native Haitians made deal with the devil for freedom from France
Robertson is evangelical Christian who has made similar comparisons
He once suggested God was punishing Americans with Hurricane Katrina
(CNN) -- Pat Robertson, the evangelical Christian who once suggested God was punishing Americans with Hurricane Katrina, says a "pact to the devil" brought on the devastating earthquake in Haiti.
Officials fear more than 100,000 people have died as a result of Tuesday's 7.0-magnitude earthquake in Haiti.
Robertson, the host of the "700 Club," blamed the tragedy on something that "happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it."
The Haitians "were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III and whatever," Robertson said on his broadcast Wednesday. "And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, 'We will serve you if you will get us free from the French.' True story. And so, the devil said, 'OK, it's a deal.' "
Native Haitians defeated French colonists in 1804 and declared independence.
"You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other." Robertson has previously linked natural disasters and terrorist attacks to legalized abortion in the United States. Soon after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, killing more than 1,800 and wreaking unprecedented devastation on New Orleans, Louisiana, Robertson weighed in with his own theory.
"We have killed over 40 million unborn babies in America," Robertson said on his September 12, 2005, broadcast of "700 Club."
"I was reading, yesterday, a book that was very interesting about what God has to say in the Old Testament about those who shed innocent blood. And he [the author] used the term that those who do this, 'the land will vomit you out.' ... But have we found we are unable somehow to defend ourselves against some of the attacks that are coming against us, either by terrorists or now by natural disaster? Could they be connected in some way?"
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Helping Haiti
https://www.oxfamamerica.org
Earthquake hits Haiti – help urgently needed
A major earthquake has struck Haiti's capital city of Port-Au-Prince. It is a catastrophe of major proportions. Multiple buildings have collapsed, including a hospital, a hotel, and the UN building.
Oxfam has over three decades of experience in Haiti, and we have rushed in teams from around the region to respond to the situation where our assistance is most needed. We are providing clean water, shelter and sanitation and helping people recover – your donation will go immediately to the most critical needs in Haiti, and we will ensure that every penny is used wisely.
Please make a generous tax-deductible gift right now to the Haiti Earthquake Response Fund and help us save lives.
*
Other options:
Jennifer L. of Santa Cruz, CA: Donate through Wyclef Jean's foundation, Yele Haiti. Text "Yele" to 501501 and $5 will be charged to your phone bill and given to relief projects through the organization.
Alexandra "Chica" Bruce: The Red Cross is good, in my experience. For those interested in helping Haiti immediately, simply text "HAITI" to "90999" and a donation of $10 will be given automatically to the Red Cross to help with relief efforts, charged to your cell phone bill. Please help, and pray for Haiti!
Earthquake hits Haiti – help urgently needed
A major earthquake has struck Haiti's capital city of Port-Au-Prince. It is a catastrophe of major proportions. Multiple buildings have collapsed, including a hospital, a hotel, and the UN building.
Oxfam has over three decades of experience in Haiti, and we have rushed in teams from around the region to respond to the situation where our assistance is most needed. We are providing clean water, shelter and sanitation and helping people recover – your donation will go immediately to the most critical needs in Haiti, and we will ensure that every penny is used wisely.
Please make a generous tax-deductible gift right now to the Haiti Earthquake Response Fund and help us save lives.
*
Other options:
Jennifer L. of Santa Cruz, CA: Donate through Wyclef Jean's foundation, Yele Haiti. Text "Yele" to 501501 and $5 will be charged to your phone bill and given to relief projects through the organization.
Alexandra "Chica" Bruce: The Red Cross is good, in my experience. For those interested in helping Haiti immediately, simply text "HAITI" to "90999" and a donation of $10 will be given automatically to the Red Cross to help with relief efforts, charged to your cell phone bill. Please help, and pray for Haiti!
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Riots, instability spread as food prices skyrocket
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/04/14/world.food.crisis/
Riots, instability spread as food prices skyrocket
Story Highlights
Rise in food prices is "the world's big story," development official warns
World Bank chief warns that rise in prices could set anti-poverty efforts back
Crisis also spurs debate on whether ethanol production is to blame
Riots have occurred in numerous countries recently
(CNN) -- Riots from Haiti to Bangladesh to Egypt over the soaring costs of basic foods have brought the issue to a boiling point and catapulted it to the forefront of the world's attention, the head of an agency focused on global development said Monday.
"This is the world's big story," said Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University's Earth Institute.
"The finance ministers were in shock, almost in panic this weekend," he said on CNN's "American Morning," in a reference to top economic officials who gathered in Washington. "There are riots all over the world in the poor countries ... and, of course, our own poor are feeling it in the United States."
World Bank President Robert Zoellick has said the surging costs could mean "seven lost years" in the fight against worldwide poverty.
"While many are worrying about filling their gas tanks, many others around the world are struggling to fill their stomachs, and it is getting more and more difficult every day," Zoellick said late last week in a speech opening meetings with finance ministers.
"The international community must fill the at least $500 million food gap identified by the U.N.'s World Food Programme to meet emergency needs," he said. "Governments should be able to come up with this assistance and come up with it now."
The White House announced Monday evening that an estimated $200 million in emergency food aid would be made available through the U.S. Agency for International Development.
"This additional food aid will address the impact of rising commodity prices on U.S. emergency food aid programs, and be used to meet unanticipated food aid needs in Africa and elsewhere," the White House said in a news release.
"In just two months," Zoellick said in his speech, "rice prices have skyrocketed to near historical levels, rising by around 75 percent globally and more in some markets, with more likely to come. In Bangladesh, a 2-kilogram bag of rice ... now consumes about half of the daily income of a poor family."
The price of wheat has jumped 120 percent in the past year, he said -- meaning that the price of a loaf of bread has more than doubled in places where the poor spend as much as 75 percent of their income on food.
"This is not just about meals forgone today or about increasing social unrest. This is about lost learning potential for children and adults in the future, stunted intellectual and physical growth," Zoellick said.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, also spoke at the joint IMF-World Bank spring meeting.
"If food prices go on as they are today, then the consequences on the population in a large set of countries ... will be terrible," he said.
He added that "disruptions may occur in the economic environment ... so that at the end of the day most governments, having done well during the last five or 10 years, will see what they have done totally destroyed, and their legitimacy facing the population destroyed also."
In Haiti, the prime minister was kicked out of office Saturday, and hospital beds are filled with wounded following riots sparked by food prices. Watch Haitians riot over food prices »
The World Bank announced a $10 million grant from the United States for Haiti to help the government assist poor families.
In Egypt, rioters have burned cars and destroyed windows of numerous buildings as police in riot gear have tried to quell protests.
Images from Bangladesh and Mozambique tell a similar story.
In the United States and other Western nations, more and more poor families are feeling the pinch. In recent days, presidential candidates have paid increasing attention to the cost of food, often citing it on the stump.
The issue is also fueling a rising debate over how much the rising prices can be blamed on ethanol production. The basic argument is that because ethanol comes from corn, the push to replace some traditional fuels with ethanol has created a new demand for corn that has thrown off world food prices.
Jean Ziegler, U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food, has called using food crops to create ethanol "a crime against humanity."
"We've been putting our food into the gas tank -- this corn-to-ethanol subsidy which our government is doing really makes little sense," said Columbia University's Sachs.
Former President Clinton, at a campaign stop for his wife in Pennsylvania over the weekend, said, "Corn is the single most inefficient way to produce ethanol because it uses a lot of energy and because it drives up the price of food."
Some environmental groups reject the focus on ethanol in examining food prices.
"The contrived food vs. fuel debate has reared its ugly head once again," the Renewable Fuels Association says on its Web site, adding that "numerous statistical analyses have demonstrated that the price of oil -- not corn prices or ethanol production -- has the greatest impact on consumer food prices because it is integral to virtually every phase of food production, from processing to packaging to transportation."
Analysts agree the cost of fuel is among the reasons for the skyrocketing prices.
Another major reason is rising demand, particularly in places in the midst of a population boom, such as China and India.
Also, said Sachs, "climate shocks" are damaging food supply in parts of the world. "You add it all together: Demand is soaring, supply has been cut back, food has been diverted into the gas tank. It's added up to a price explosion."
Riots, instability spread as food prices skyrocket
Story Highlights
Rise in food prices is "the world's big story," development official warns
World Bank chief warns that rise in prices could set anti-poverty efforts back
Crisis also spurs debate on whether ethanol production is to blame
Riots have occurred in numerous countries recently
(CNN) -- Riots from Haiti to Bangladesh to Egypt over the soaring costs of basic foods have brought the issue to a boiling point and catapulted it to the forefront of the world's attention, the head of an agency focused on global development said Monday.
"This is the world's big story," said Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University's Earth Institute.
"The finance ministers were in shock, almost in panic this weekend," he said on CNN's "American Morning," in a reference to top economic officials who gathered in Washington. "There are riots all over the world in the poor countries ... and, of course, our own poor are feeling it in the United States."
World Bank President Robert Zoellick has said the surging costs could mean "seven lost years" in the fight against worldwide poverty.
"While many are worrying about filling their gas tanks, many others around the world are struggling to fill their stomachs, and it is getting more and more difficult every day," Zoellick said late last week in a speech opening meetings with finance ministers.
"The international community must fill the at least $500 million food gap identified by the U.N.'s World Food Programme to meet emergency needs," he said. "Governments should be able to come up with this assistance and come up with it now."
The White House announced Monday evening that an estimated $200 million in emergency food aid would be made available through the U.S. Agency for International Development.
"This additional food aid will address the impact of rising commodity prices on U.S. emergency food aid programs, and be used to meet unanticipated food aid needs in Africa and elsewhere," the White House said in a news release.
"In just two months," Zoellick said in his speech, "rice prices have skyrocketed to near historical levels, rising by around 75 percent globally and more in some markets, with more likely to come. In Bangladesh, a 2-kilogram bag of rice ... now consumes about half of the daily income of a poor family."
The price of wheat has jumped 120 percent in the past year, he said -- meaning that the price of a loaf of bread has more than doubled in places where the poor spend as much as 75 percent of their income on food.
"This is not just about meals forgone today or about increasing social unrest. This is about lost learning potential for children and adults in the future, stunted intellectual and physical growth," Zoellick said.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, also spoke at the joint IMF-World Bank spring meeting.
"If food prices go on as they are today, then the consequences on the population in a large set of countries ... will be terrible," he said.
He added that "disruptions may occur in the economic environment ... so that at the end of the day most governments, having done well during the last five or 10 years, will see what they have done totally destroyed, and their legitimacy facing the population destroyed also."
In Haiti, the prime minister was kicked out of office Saturday, and hospital beds are filled with wounded following riots sparked by food prices. Watch Haitians riot over food prices »
The World Bank announced a $10 million grant from the United States for Haiti to help the government assist poor families.
In Egypt, rioters have burned cars and destroyed windows of numerous buildings as police in riot gear have tried to quell protests.
Images from Bangladesh and Mozambique tell a similar story.
In the United States and other Western nations, more and more poor families are feeling the pinch. In recent days, presidential candidates have paid increasing attention to the cost of food, often citing it on the stump.
The issue is also fueling a rising debate over how much the rising prices can be blamed on ethanol production. The basic argument is that because ethanol comes from corn, the push to replace some traditional fuels with ethanol has created a new demand for corn that has thrown off world food prices.
Jean Ziegler, U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food, has called using food crops to create ethanol "a crime against humanity."
"We've been putting our food into the gas tank -- this corn-to-ethanol subsidy which our government is doing really makes little sense," said Columbia University's Sachs.
Former President Clinton, at a campaign stop for his wife in Pennsylvania over the weekend, said, "Corn is the single most inefficient way to produce ethanol because it uses a lot of energy and because it drives up the price of food."
Some environmental groups reject the focus on ethanol in examining food prices.
"The contrived food vs. fuel debate has reared its ugly head once again," the Renewable Fuels Association says on its Web site, adding that "numerous statistical analyses have demonstrated that the price of oil -- not corn prices or ethanol production -- has the greatest impact on consumer food prices because it is integral to virtually every phase of food production, from processing to packaging to transportation."
Analysts agree the cost of fuel is among the reasons for the skyrocketing prices.
Another major reason is rising demand, particularly in places in the midst of a population boom, such as China and India.
Also, said Sachs, "climate shocks" are damaging food supply in parts of the world. "You add it all together: Demand is soaring, supply has been cut back, food has been diverted into the gas tank. It's added up to a price explosion."
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