Empty Promises and Empty Bellies: Bill Clinton’s Doubletalk on Haitian Agriculture
Orignally posted on: NACLA.org Posted on: Mayb 17th, 2010 Original link: https://nacla.org/node/6576 Empty Promises and Empty Bellies: Bill Clinton’s Doubletalk on Haitian Agriculture By: Kevin Edmonds NACLA.org May 17 2010 The trade policies enacted under the Clinton administration in the 1990s ruled out the possibility of a future for Haiti’s roughly 3 million small farmers. This is according to the former U.S. president himself. In March, Clinton, who is now the UN Special Envoy to Haiti, admitted that U.S. free market agricultural policy towards Haiti “has not worked.” He told journalist Kim Ives, “ . . . We made this devil’s bargain on rice. And it wasn’t the right thing to do. We should have continued to work to help them be self-sufficient in agriculture.” However, when discussing the possible future of Haiti’s agriculture at the International Donor’s Conference in New York on March 31, Clinton did not mention restoring the rice crop he helped destroy. “We’re t