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10/09/2004:

"Spurning Haiti"

AMERICA'S MILITARY and political interventions in Haiti have never been backed by sufficiently sustained or vigorous efforts to ease the country's crippling poverty. In Congress's pre-adjournment hours, Republican leaders in the House of Representatives have a chance to modestly redress that balance for the hemisphere's most destitute nation.

The question is whether Washington should help Haiti to cultivate one of its few economic bright spots -- the assembly and export of cheap apparel such as T-shirts to the United States -- after a quota system expires at the end of this year. A bill passed by the Senate would do so, providing duty-free access for Haitian apparel manufacturers to as much as 1.5 percent of the U.S. market, an amount that would double over three years and, Haitian officials say, support some 100,000 jobs. But a House version of the Haitian Economic Recovery Opportunity Act, known as H.E.R.O., is far less heroic. Bowing to pressure from U.S. textile manufacturers (for most Haitian apparel is made from cheap material imported from Asia), the House bill would all but eliminate duty-free access to U.S. markets; it would do almost nothing to provide employment to a country where 80 percent of the population lives in extreme poverty and a single job can support a half-dozen people or more. By closing off duty-free access for Haitian apparel, the stingy House bill all but guarantees that investors would write off Haiti and take their business elsewhere.

Full Article: Washington Post

Oh I see: the problem with Haiti is that there have not been ENOUGH interventions. And now it's all come down to cheap t-shirts. 'The question' is buried far beneath the assumptions that allow completely distorted views to be put forward without question. That first paragraph is a classic example. Haiti needs 'interventions.' It needs charity and trade breaks due to its essential inferiority. Those 'stingy' Republicans have hearts of stone.

Haiti has never been allowed the breathing space to develop itself since the slave rebellion which gave birth to it shocked and horrified Britain, France, and the US 200 years ago. And they have been sure that Haiti has been punished hard, and often, ever since.