Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Nauesating Canadian Hypocrisy on Haiti

The latest abomination:
Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon says the international community "cannot do everything in Haiti" and urged the country's leadership rivals to respect the democratic process "with respect and calm." ... it's important for the people of Haiti to assume their responsibility because, I repeat this, there will not be any economic progress if there is no government stability, and what is essential is to get the stability of the government."

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/2010/12/12/canada-foreign-ministers-meeting-wakefield.html#ixzz1879mx6R1

We can't do EVERYTHING for these people!!! I mean, shit, we overthrew their last genuinely elected government in 2004 and have pretty much run the country on the discredited "Washington Consensus" auto-pilot since then, how much more do they expect of us???

Then Hillary ("hard-workin' white woman") Clinton pipes up:
"It's essential that Haitian political actors fulfil their responsibilities and demonstrate a firm commitment to democratic principles, including the respect for the integrity for the electoral process," she said.
What drivel. We toppled the democratically-elected President Aristide (for the second time) because he supposedly operated a "failed state" and we had a "responsibility to protect" the Haitian people from his corruption and failure and violence. We have allowed the kleptocratic wealthy minority plunder and loot the country in alliance with North American corporate interests (mining and sweat-shops) and we have imposed ruinous "free trade" policies that devastated the country's peasant farmers.

After five years of our having rescued the people of Haiti from the "failure" of Aristide, they were reduced to eating dirt, being unable to afford food imports.

We have presided over elections between unpopular, discredited, corrupt candidates, while we have barred the largest political party from participating in them, and we have forced the popular President Aristide into exile.

And now, Lawrence Cannon, who comes from a party that is united with its leader in a wholesale contempt for Canadian democracy, and Hillary Clinton, who comes from a country whose electoral process is an international disgrace, ... two of the countries that destroyed Haitian democracy, presume to lecture these brave and noble people? What contemptible filth they are!

Haiti and Afghanistan, Canada's second and first largest foreign policy projects are both failed states. They are miserably failed states. That should at least produce doubt and introspection amongst the architects of our policies. Instead, there's self-satisfied arrogant preaching.

2 comments:

Beijing York said...

Venezuelans should thank their lucky starts they have Chavez. Had that US-sponsored coup attempt taken off, they would be similarly screwed.

What a disgrace.

thwap said...

South and Central America's whole history is evidence of the bankruptcy of the US model.

"A beggar sitting on a mountain of gold." ... is how they describe their predicament.

Let's look at hideousness of post-coup Honduras.