One would think that, whatever your views on various U.S. military interventions abroad, saving people from a major disaster would be fairly uncontroversial. You would be wrong:
'It seems very clear that the US government is controlling Haiti to ensure that its own interests are paramount in the rebuilding process.
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That's from Mike Gonzalez, writing in the Guardian. And what interests would those be? Apparently it's getting Haitians back to work:
'The coup in Honduras, the recent agreement on extending military bases in Colombia and now Haiti recall Obama's concern, expressed during the election campaign, that "we are losing Latin America". It also interlocks very conveniently with US economic interests in the region and in Haiti in particular. Food and water may be scarce, but some of the factories in the so-called export processing zones, where Haitians labour in sweatshop conditions, have managed to get their machines working again. Yet there is still no electricity in the areas where people are surviving in makeshift camps or under plastic sheeting in the streets.
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Much better for Haitians not to work, I suppose. Alex Massie finishes Gonzalez off.
(AP Photo)