The Nation magazine published the first in a series of reports on more than [1,900] U.S. diplomatic cables on Haiti that were released by WikiLeaks. The series is a partnership with the Haitian weekly newspaper, Haïti Liberté. The cables cover an almost seven-year period, from April 2003, 10 months before the February 2004 US backed coup which ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to February 2010, just after the earthquake that devastated the capital Port-au-Prince and surrounding cities.
Haiti WikiLeaks report released this week exposes how the U.S. tried to interfere with and block an oil agreement between Haiti and Venezuela.
it’s so important what Haïti Liberté and WikiLeaks have done, shedding light on what the U.S. does in Haiti. People don’t understand about the dominant role that the U.S. plays there. It’s the fourth-largest U.S. embassy anywhere in the world. The U.N. mission in Haiti today is the third-largest U.N. mission anywhere in the world. Haiti plays a pivotal role, despite its small size, in world history.
And what these oil documents show, and especially from a U.S. perspective, when we in the United States, in our workplaces, in our homes, in our community groups, were raising money for Haiti—we send money for earthquake victims, we send money for hurricane relief, we—some of us, with our churches, go on missions to Haiti to build, to help build the country. But what we realize, in these cables that Haïti Liberté has released, along with WikiLeaks, is that in fact the main obstacle to development in Haiti today is Washington, is the U.S. embassy, is what they do to undermine development. And in this particular case with the oil deal with Venezuela, it was Chevron and Exxon Mobil working with the U.S. embassy to prevent an oil deal that had dramatic benefits for the Haitian people, $100 million a year for the Haitian government could save.
It’s not just the $100 million a year, which is huge for Haiti. It’s 10 percent of the Haitian government budget that they used for things like hurricane relief, for schools, for hospitals. The cables themselves admit that. It’s not, “corruption.” It’s for direct support of the people. This was because Chávez was offering the oil at 40 percent off the world market price.
And you’re using that for direct support to the people. But also, it’s part of a package where you’re getting electricity to Haiti. And this is something that even the U.S. embassy recognized. In one cable, they wrote how—that this PetroCaribe deal “is very good for the country,” wrote the chargé d’affaires for the U.S. embassy in one of the cables. Port-au-Prince, Gonaives and Cap-Haïtien now have electricity thanks to Venezuela and Cuban technicians. “Haiti receives shipments of PetroCaribe fuel every two weeks.” And, “In addition to three power plants already in operation and promises to modernize the airport in Cap Haïtien, Venezuela’s oil refinery project,” etc. There’s tangible benefits to the Haitian people, but Chevron, Mobil, Exxon Mobil, and the U.S. embassy tried to block this.
One of the cables talked about that the Cubans wanted to replace two million light bulbs throughout Port-au-Prince at a cost of $4 million, but that that would save Haiti, $70 million annually in electricity costs. And yet the U.S. embassy was opposed to it.
we have Venezuela and Cuba helping Haiti out. The Haitians say, “This is nothing ideological. We just want electricity and development for our country.” And sure enough, what happens, in a matter of years, Port-au-Prince, the main cities, most of the country, electricity production skyrockets. People now can read their books at night. Hospitals have power. Schools, factories, homes have electrical power that they didn’t used to have under 50 years of U.S. development aid. All of a sudden, in two or three years, Venezuela and Cuban technicians come in, patch a few power stations together, three of them, bring in the oil supply, a steady oil supply that benefits Haiti, and sure enough, there’s electrical power. So, it’s an extraordinary transformation that happened.
Discussion with Kim Ives and Dan Coughlin.
Kim Ives, editor of the Haitian weekly newspaper, Haiti Liberté.
Dan Coughlin, covered Haiti for Inter Press Service from the United Nations and Port-au-Prince between 1992 and 1996. He is currently executive director of Manhattan Neighborhood Network.
– from democracynow.org