Reality in Writing : Caribbean Political Economy

June 28, 2012 NACLA.org It’s one thing to be proud of an accomplishment, such as reducing the amount of homelessness by constructing homes—but it is irresponsible and criminal to attack, forcefully evict, and destroy thousands of shelters consisting of battered tents and tarps, then brag internationally about seeing a reduction in the levels of visible homelessness. Yet this is exactly what is happening right now in Haiti. Unfortunately the forced eviction of the internally displaced not a new phenomenon. If this is the way success is measured by the Haitian government and the International Organization of Migration (IOM), it should come as no surprise why some of Haiti’s most vulnerable are increasingly protesting their living conditions and the constant threat of eviction. This week, 1,000 frustrated Haitians marched through the streets of Port au Prince demanding that the government take action to alleviate the on-going housing crisis. The spark for the protest was th

June 21, 2012 NACLA.org Talking about the structural ineffectiveness of charities and NGO’s is difficult because criticism of charity creates the problematic misconception that an individual is against easing the suffering of others, or the good intention to make the world a better place. This is not true. The problem is the wider framework within which charity occurs . In 2003 for example, Haiti’s debt service was $57 million , whereas the combined government spending for education, healthcare, environment, and transportation was $39 million—for a country of 9 million people. This continued the trend whereby Haiti’s poverty has historically produced a tremendous amount of wealth through debt and interest repayments, and now as a lucrative laboratory of NGOs. In order to bring about a development model which can really help reconstruct Haiti, while idealistic, NGOs should all work towards making themselves irrelevant. At the very least they should be monitored the same way

June 18, 2012 NACLA.org It has been two and a half years since a catastrophic earthquake struck Haiti in January 2010, and the failed reconstruction of the country has led many good-intentioned observers to ask how this could occur. With billions of dollars promised to “build Haiti back better,” why hasn’t it happened? The sad reality is that while the earthquake may have destroyed a significant part of Haiti, it did not destroy the predatory and exploitative imperialist system that has historically impoverished Haiti - it unfortunately intensified it. More than two years later, the reconstruction process has been a very lucrative undertaking for many private organizations. Haiti remains in ruins, with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) benefiting from the extreme privatization of the Haitian state, resulting in a patchwork system of services that are unaccountable to the Haitian people. While many articles appearing around the anniversary discussed and compiled the sta

June 7, 2012 NACLA.org This August will mark the 50 th anniversary of independence of Jamaica and Trinidad, but will also signal the 50 th anniversary of the demise of the West Indian Federation. To mark the occasion, on June 2 nd , 2012, The Economist published an unforgiving appraisal of the failure of the West Indian Federation and the region in general in an article titled Centrifugal Force: Half a Century of Small Islands with Big Egos . While the article contained some particles of truth, as to be expected from the staunchly neoliberal publication, it also lacked any serious context as to why the Caribbean finds itself in its current situation. From January 1958 to May 1962, the Federation of the West Indies was a political union which included the islands of Jamaica, Trinidad, Antigua, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and Montserrat. However in September 1961, Jamaica voted on a referendum which effectively killed the Federation. As the