XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, talk.politics.guns, sac.politics   
   XPost: or.politics   
   From: none@msnbc.com   
      
   The imprint of Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton is indelible. The couple’s   
   presence and impact on the Caribbean island have brought nothing but   
   prolonged despair for the Haitians. Their elusive and opaque deals in the   
   country have not done anything to alleviate the country out of poverty   
   depths. The purported interests of helping Haiti from its myriad of   
   problems have only caused stagnation in Haiti.   
      
   The presence of Bill Clinton, who also served as the president of the   
   United States together with his wife who served as the Secretary of State   
   during Obama’s tenure can be traced back to the 90s. Their interests in   
   Haiti are not a new phenomenon. If not, their interests in Haiti have   
   almost become irrevocably entrenched and have had far-reaching   
   consequences in the lives of ordinary Haitian citizens.   
      
   Their history with the country dates back to 1975 when they had their   
   honeymoon there. If there is an unpopular couple in Haiti, it definitely   
   has to be the Clintons; for they are held in contempt and in despicable   
   terms. What the Clintons did is unforgivable to the Haitians.   
      
   The devastating 2010 earthquake left Haiti in tatters. The country’s   
   economy reeled under the biting and excruciating effects of the   
   earthquake. Because of their history with Haiti, the Clintons seized this   
   chance in the interests of “assisting” Haiti in its times of unparalleled   
   difficulty. But their involvement with the earthquake relief programs was   
   the final proof Haitians needed to show that the Clintons’ true intentions   
   with the country were to rob it for their own parochial interests.   
      
   Bill Clinton’s influence in Haiti ranges from the 1990s agricultural   
   policies in Haiti that destroyed the country’s rice industry to the   
   meddling in internal affairs and finally to the earthquake. There is a   
   sense of permanency attached to the Clintons’ name as regards their   
   activities in Haiti, particularly the Clinton Foundation.   
      
      
      
   When the earthquake struck, the global response was to send in donations   
   to Haiti. But of course, that needed a commission that would be designed   
   to have an oversight role as regards the disbursement of the various   
   relief packages pouring through. The Clintons stepped up to lead the   
   global response. The Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC) was brought   
   into life and Bill Clinton was selected to be its co-chair. At that time,   
   Hillary Clinton was still the Secretary of State and thus responsible for   
   channeling USAID relief spending to Haiti.   
      
   One could not have found an escape from their influence. Bill Clinton co-   
   chaired the commission alongside Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max   
   Bellerive. Some $13.3 billion was pledged by international donors so that   
   Haiti could be rebuilt and the lives of Haitians uplifted.   
      
   The IHRC was comprised of two parts: one that had the foreigners and one   
   led by the Haitian Prime Minister. Bill Clinton chaired the foreign part   
   and it had all the donors; they had to the IHRC $0.10 billion over two   
   years or forgive $0.20 billion of Haitian debt. Each and every decision   
   made by the Haiti section of the commission had to be endorsed by the   
   foreign section. And Clinton was at the helm of the foreign part of that   
   commission.   
      
   As the money found its way into the possession of the IHRC, it   
   increasingly became arrogant and opaque. The only thing that came out of   
   the post-earthquake relief plans was the construction of an industrial   
   park called Caracol, which cost $300 million. The US was also amenable to   
   financing a power plant. The belief held by the Clintons and their allies   
   in terms of rebuilding Haiti was premised on employing short-term plans   
   espoused in the foreign aid industry that the US had imposed on Haiti all   
   these years.   
      
   They hoped that Caracol would sizeably attract foreign businesses for the   
   reconstruction of the country’s badly fractured economy. It was the same   
   old policy that did not care about the pertinent issue of creating long-   
   lasting projects that would eventually help the poverty-stricken Haitians.   
   The foreign-aid industry plans are concerned with benefiting the   
   international players, the private contractors.   
      
   The industrial park is considered a very big flop by the US. Worse still,   
   several hundred farmers were evicted from there in order to make way for   
   the 600-acre park. Too much emphasis was placed on “outside players”   
   instead of the Haitian government to effect change.   
      
   As such, the jobs that Caracol was expected to make fall far below the   
   reality on the ground. The post-earthquake efforts by the Clintons,   
   particularly Caracol, was a damning failure that did nothing to lift the   
   Haitians out of their misery but only lined the pockets of big firms.   
   South Korean textile giant Sae-A Trading Co, which is the main employer at   
   Caracol, gifted the Clinton Foundation with donations between $50,000 and   
   $100,000.   
      
   The IHRC had little to show for all the money that came through except the   
   Caracol industrial park. Not much reconstruction in Haiti was done. Where   
   did all the money go? The Clinton Foundation has refuted claims that it   
   had influence in the running of the IHRC, saying, “Since 2010, the   
   Foundation has worked on the ground in Haiti with a range of partners -   
   helping more than 7,500 farmers lift themselves out of poverty; improving   
   the Haitian environment by planting more than 5 million trees and   
   installing more than 400 KW of clean energy; and supporting women through   
   literacy training and job skills for over 2,000 women,” when responding to   
   the BBC.   
      
   It has been speculated some of the money that came through the commission   
   found its way towards sponsoring Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign   
   which she lost to the incumbent Donald Trump in 2016 but this is an area   
   she has always been evasive about when probed. They become allegations   
   without proof but to Haitians the more she dodges the question, the more   
   she becomes suspicious and pernicious to the interests of Haitians.   
      
   It is estimated that the IHRC collected over $5.3 billion over two years   
   and $9.9 billion in three years but Haitians still find themselves mired   
   in abject poverty. A US Government Accountability Office report   
   circumvented the issue by deciding not to find any iota of wrongdoing, but   
   the gravity of the failure made them mention that the plans by the IHRC,   
   co-chaired by Bill Clinton, “did not align with the Haitian priorities.”   
      
   The failure by the IHRC to rebuild Haiti is still haunting Haiti. The   
   failed agricultural policies by the US made sure Haiti, a country that   
   produced its own rice, would be reliant on US food to the extent that   
   Haiti imports food from the US. Foreign aid is continuously pumped into   
   Haiti, and no plan is made to bolster the country’s own capacity to   
   rebuild and produce.   
      
    Haiti is still run on which business finds favor with the US, and while   
      
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   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)