Editorial by Carolyn Bennett

Instead of vacuous mourning, fix fundamental wrongs against Haiti

Yesterday's 7.2 earthquake in Haiti sadly compounds people's problems, deepens their poverty and disarray - thousands are said to have died in the impact and aftershocks; however, this occurrence in nature is not the fundamental cause, indeed the criminal cause of decades of poverty and crisis on this Caribbean island of 10 million Americans.

U.S. citizens are not the only "Americans"; Haitians, too, are Americans - citizens of the Americas. Other countries in the Western Hemisphere should be ashamed of what they have done to these Americans. An independent international community - if there is such a thing outside our dreams - should put a stop to the oppression, exploitation and forced impoverishment that leaves Haitians at the mercy of things, dependent on sectarian and nonsectarian hand-out vultures and corruptors.

For more than a hundred years, thousands of Haitians have died at the hands of killers partnered with brute force of U.S. – allied dynasties and dictators, U.S.-led and agented occupation and destabilization. Political and economic conditions including foreign meddling, militarization and infiltration anchor, permeate and intensify the force of natural disasters. These same foreigners then publish press releases and take to the airwaves feigning "sympathy" and foolish "prayers."

Haiti is a country forced into poverty where deforested land (land without trees) is hit by cyclones and hurricanes, now this earthquake, then raging mudslides, rising floods - not unlike the neglected U.S. Gulf (weakened levees in Katrina's wake) - taking out everything in the path. Inadequately built structures further weakened and destroyed, people, thousands of people, dying. Builders of cathedrals lick their fingers and thumb their prayer pages, preach and pray their vacuous words, instead of helping to build solidly and support honestly, nonviolently a functioning and self-sufficient nation of capable, strong, independent people.

Haiti is indeed a self-fulfilling prophesy, a state in permanent manufactured disaster. Here again illustrates the path and character of violence in the ages-old storm of Western domination and oppression. This is the depth of harm and hurt that sickens and saddens.

Sources of note
"Haiti Devastated by Largest Earthquake in 200 Years, Thousands Feared Dead," Democracy Now! January 13, 2010, http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/13/haiti_devastated_by_largest_earthquake_in
"Thousands believed dead in Haiti earthquake," Radio Netherlands Worldwide, http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/disaster-only-certainty-haiti
http://www.rnw.nl/english
"‘Catastrophic quake' rocks Haiti: The Caribbean nation of Haiti has been hit by its strongest earthquake in more than 200 years, causing what is being described as ‘a catastrophe of major proportions'," Al Jazeera, January 13, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/01/20101134411913614.html
"Aid officials say up to three million people in Haiti have been affected by the worst earthquake in centuries," January 13, 2010, Deutsche Welle, http://www.dw-world.de/
Linked issue also on today's Democracy Now!
"ICE Officials Accused of Covering up Immigrant Deaths in Detention," http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/13/ice_officials_accused_of_covering_up

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Dr. Carolyn LaDelle Bennett -author, independent journalist Blog: Today's Insight News Blog: http://todaysinsightnews.blogspot.com/
Carolyn Bennett's Latest book: BREAKDOWN: Violence in Search of U (you)-Turn
Nature and Consequences of U.S. International and Domestic Affairs
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