Global Health Nexus

Calling on Her Majesty

I'm no Monarchist, far from it, but the imminent meeting between Harper and Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaelle Jean Governor General of Canada in a few hours at least gives me the excuse to post on Her Majesty's (or whatever) ultra-post-modern, totally twenty-first century Personal Coat of Arms which I have always found completely fascinating. From her own website:

In the centre of the coat of arms is a sand dollar, which is a special talisman for Michaëlle Jean. Sand dollars are marine creatures found on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of Canada and Northern United States. The Royal Crown symbolizes the vice-regal function and service to all Canadians. Above the shield, the sea shell and broken chain allude to the famous sculpture Marron inconnu by Albert Mangonès, displayed in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, depicting an escaped slave blowing a sea shell to gather and call to arms his fellow sufferers around the whole island. For Michaëlle Jean this image evokes the victory of her ancestors over barbarism and, more broadly, the call to liberty. Beside the shield are two Simbis, water spirits from Haitian culture who comfort souls, purify troubled waters and intervene with wisdom and foresight. Moreover, the Simbis' words are enlightening and soothing. These two feminine figures symbolize the vital role played by women in advancing social justice. They are shown in front of a rock set with a palm tree, a symbol of peace in Haitian history, and a pine tree representing the natural riches of Canada. The motto Briser les solitudes, which means "Breaking down solitudes", is at the heart of the objectives Michaëlle Jean intends to follow.

From the classic Divine Horsemen:The Living Gods of Haiti by Maya Deren:

"(Simbi) is definitely a cross-roads loa, and his symbol, or vever, is a snake in a field of crosses ... In Simbi's case, the cross-roads principle is extended to the concept of straddling the Rada/Petro division in one direction (it is said that, while Simbi is primarily Rada, a "hungry" Simbi would be invoked through Petro) while in the other direction, he is known as Simbi/en/deux/eux and straddles the waters above and the waters below, which are understood either as the heavenly and the abysmal waters, or as the sweet and salt waters. .... Certainly it is a role for which his pivotal position in the cosmos and in the pantheon equips him admirably, for he radiates in every direction from his central location ... Yet, for all his activity, his personality is more obscure that that of many other loa. Songs refer repeatedly to his reluctance to enter the hounfor gate, his loitering outside, like a sociable neighbour newly come to the district, who is still a little shy for all his knowledge and power."

Hurricanes and Deforestation/ History and Poverty

Paul Farmer: Haiti's Unnatural Disaster from The Nation:

Haiti has been lashed by four devastating storms in thirty days. Cellphones are dead in much of the country, and reports are coming in only slowly, but sober estimates suggest that more than a thousand have died--so far--and up to a million have been left homeless. Although Hurricane Ike's full fury was unleashed on Cuba, the death toll in Haiti was more than ten times that of all of the neighboring islands combined.

Why is Haiti so vulnerable to such storms? Coastal cities like Gonaïves--where in 2004 Tropical Storm Jeanne killed twice as many as Hurricane Katrina did in New Orleans--are situated on a flood plain, making them vulnerable to flash floods and mudslides triggered by heavy rains in the deforested mountains. Haiti is almost completely deforested, and still its poor majority fell trees for fuel to cook whatever meager rations are on hand. Forest cover, already sparse, has been reduced by half in the past twenty years. In more than twenty-five years here, I've never seen significant flooding in the central highlands, but recently our co-workers in Hinche, the district capital of the Central Department, were wading through chest-deep water to rescue families whose frail homes were under water or swept away. Deforestation is to blame.

What can be done to lessen the impact of severe weather in Haiti? Several steps must be taken immediately to assuage the massive suffering. The first is direct relief: Hanna hit Gonaïves September 2. A full week later, after the New York Times and the Washington Post had measured the tragedy, portions of the city remained under several feet of filthy water and tens of thousands were still stranded on rooftops, hungry, thirsty and increasingly angry. Who can blame them? Much talk yields little action, and that action is poorly coordinated, tentative and underfunded.

Updates and relief efforts at:

Partners in Health

Gonaives - 7.09.08 from Al Jazeera English:

Miami Rice, The Death Plan and the Haitian food crisis

"(T)he "death plan," a reference to the neoliberal economic policies that have prevailed in Haiti for more than two decades."

'"Miami rice," as Haitians call the U.S. import, drove rice farmers out of business and incited a rural exodus that swelled the slums of the capital, Port-au-Prince.'.

The Nation :

Imports from the United States flooded the country after Aristide returned from exile in 1994 with an IMF structural-adjustment program that would slash tariffs to as low as 3 percent. Since then rice imports from the United States have more than doubled, and they continue to rise.

Haiti is now the third-largest importer of US-produced rice, behind only Mexico and Japan, and less than 30 percent of the rice consumed in the country is homegrown.

"There's been a decision to destroy the local peasant economy, and we're paying for it dearly now," said Camille Chalmers, an economist with the Haitian Platform to Advocate for Alternative Development. "Since the 1980s, the IMF and World Bank have decreed that we apply structural-adjustment programs to liberalize our finances and foreign commerce, privatize our public enterprises and deregulate foreign investment. They told us that we're right next to the biggest agricultural producer in the world, so there's no reason to produce our own food because we can buy it at a cheap price, and that the peasants should go to the city to sell their labor to American assembly plants to make textiles and electronics for export. Since then, we've gotten poorer, more dependent and more vulnerable to the fluctuations of the international market."

"In March, Haitians began talking of a "Clorox" hunger so painful that it feels as if they had swallowed bleach or battery acid."

LA Times:

Subsidized U.S. rice began flooding in 30 years ago, so cheap that Haitians began eating it instead of the corn, sweet potatoes, cassava and domestic rice that had sprouted from plains and mountainsides from the colonial era to the late 1980s.

"Miami rice," as Haitians call the U.S. import, drove rice farmers out of business and incited a rural exodus that swelled the slums of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

Today, more than 70% of Haitians live on less than $2 a day, and the U.S. rice that is the staple of their diet has doubled in price in little more than a year. Hungry hordes rioted in the capital last month, leaving at least six dead by the time President Rene Preval restored calm by announcing that foreign aid and subsidies would lower the price of a 110-pound bag of rice to $43 from $51.

But importers and economists warn that those supports are unsustainable and predict further unrest in this poorest country in the Americas when the subsidies run out in late summer and, based on current price trends, the same sack will cost $70

Haitian agricultural students call for an "overhaul of the nation's agricultural policies.".

Haiti Food Crisis youtube video from Journeyman.tv (embedding disabled)

TIME

Bill Quigley on Z-Net

And how to make one of those infamous mud cakes:

FURTHERMORE:

From The NYR:

Haiti: The Fall of the House of Aristide

Aristide's Haiti: An exchange

From The Dominion:

Stuart Neatby reviews Damming the Flood by Peter Hallward

What were you doing last February 29th?

I may not have been personally involved in the February 29th, 2004 coup de tat that ousted the then hugely popular, democratically elected (overwhelmingly, 70%) President of Haiti - Jean-Bertrand Aristide - but I know that my government certainly was, alongside the governments of The United States and France.

Its that little bit of early new millennial regime change that nobody likes to talk about.

But we here at GHN couldn't let this anniversary pass without at least some cursory collection of a little relevant documentation.

So here then is the definitive NYT account of the events of that day , as well as Aristide's personal, official contention that he was indeed forced out.

Naomi Klein on Aristide in exile.

Z-Net on The Coup, as well as Z-Net Haiti Watch

Haiti: The Fall of The House of Aristide by Peter Daily from the March 13, 2003 NYR.

An archive of the 2004 events from the Cooperative Research History Commons

And what the hell, a Happy Leap Year to Roger Noriega, Otto Reich, Louis Jodel Chamblain and Guy Phillipe.

We hope they're all sleeping well.