March 01, 2004
Haiti 2
More on Haiti:
Haiti: Five facts and One Appeal - leftist bias, written pre coup d'etat
The Jamaica Observer has the most detailed english language coverage I've found yet. Check their editorial for a sense of their spin. Basically pro-democracy, pro Carribean independence. John Maxwell is a columnist of theirs who seems to be following things closely.
EconoTrix is a blog of a Danish amateur economist living in Panama. He appears to be indulging heavily in combination of libertarian Kool-Aid and Panama Red. Also has an odd anti-philanthropy bias (!?!). Still there are insights and links to be gleaned from his two posts on Haiti.
Finally some random background on the politics of Haiti.
The biggest question remains, just how involved where the US, France and Canada in this coup d'etat?
Posted by Abe at March 1, 2004 01:21 PM
Comments
I happen to like my kool-aid and I prefer Panamanian Ron Abuelo to Panama Red, otherwise I have no problems with Philanthropists. You must read my essay about them. I have a problem with philanthropists telling other people what to do.
With regards to the actual issues at hand in Haiti. Is it really that interesting who if any had a hand in the popular uprising (not coup d'etat). If it is interesting, we must try to analyze what if anything US, France and Canada have to gain from this?
The only immediate advantage I can see to any of those 3 countries (as well as the always imperialistic Dominican Republic) is to halt the swarm of refugies, that would certainly be heading in their direction if the fighting went on.
Almost all leftist commentators abroad forget to mention the fact that nearly all of Aristide's early supporters have left him, due to the violence and corruption and his lack of willingness to be the new voice of Haiti, that everyone always hoped he would be.
Aristide was never as bad a Papa and Baby Doc were, but he was heading that general direction. Which made everyone very sad and disillutioned. Remember history will repeat itself unless you do things differently.
Posted by: Pelle | March 1, 2004 01:59 PM
Hi and welcome to this blog!
I would have been a bit kinder in my description of your site if you had included a link with your trackback ;) its something of a custom, I hope you can understand.
Please note that I never said anything about these events, not being a popular uprising. Its quite possible for an event to be both a popular uprising and coup d'etat at the same time. And while details are still murky, it seems pretty clear there was an organization set out to topple Aristide and that in my books makes it a coup d'etat. Now they might have sparked the popular uprising, might have generated riots and called them popular, or they may have just surfed the waves of a genuine uprising. Or all 3. Doesn't remove the coup element though.
As for philanthropy, no I didn't read the whole article, but I did read a healthy chunk. And the standout sentence is "I believe that philanthropy is one of the largest causes of human suffering in the past 100 years". Wonder where I got the idea you had an anti philanthropy bias from? No offense though, but how else should I take that statment?
Posted by: Abe | March 1, 2004 03:23 PM
Good point made!
Posted by: Boston apartments | March 3, 2005 09:47 AM
Good point made!
Posted by: Boston apartments | March 3, 2005 09:50 AM
Jennifer?
Posted by: camel toe | August 12, 2005 07:58 PM