US Corporate Media Propagandizes Haiti Tragedy

The following analysis traces the long history of imperial domination and exploitation of Haiti by the United States. The US Corporate media covers the “humanitarian’ message of US military control and fails to include the historical context of over 100 years of imperialism.

Haiti’s tragedy: A crime of US imperialism

By Bill Van Auken,

The immense death and suffering inflicted upon the people of Haiti by the January 12 earthquake has laid bare a massive international crime by US imperialism, which prepared this catastrophe with a century of oppression and is now attempting to exploit the disaster for its own ends.

The estimated 200,000 who have died, the quarter million or more injured and the three million whose homes have been destroyed are victims not merely of a natural catastrophe. The lack of infrastructure, the poor quality of construction in Port-au-Prince and the impotence of the Haitian government to organize any response are determining factors in this tragedy.

These social conditions are the product of a protracted relationship between Haiti and the United States, which, ever since US Marines occupied the island nation for nearly 20 years beginning in 1915, has treated the country as a de-facto colonial protectorate.

It subsequently backed the three-decade-long dictatorship of the Duvaliers, extending a series of loans that went into the family bank accounts, with the impoverished Haitian people left to foot the bill.

You can find this story at http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jan2010/pers-j21.shtml