The American Socialist Worker magazine has an interesting interview with Kevin Pinta, founding editor of the Haiti Information Project, in which he talks about the neoliberal roots of Haiti’s food crisis:
During that same period, a major transition occurred in Haiti. The Mevs, one of the wealthiest families in Haiti, bought the Haitian American Sugar Company, or HASCO, which had been one of the major sugar producers in the world.
The Mevs realized they would never be allowed to penetrate the U.S. market while it was controlled by the American company C&H Sugar, based in Hawaii. It made more economic sense for them to buy HASCO and sell off its equipment in exchange for positioning themselves as the major importer of sugar to Haiti.
This became the contemporary economic model for Haiti’s wealthy elite that constitutes 1 percent of the population but controls more than 50 percent of Haiti’s collective wealth today. Haiti’s elite eventually did the same for rice, beans and corn because they realized they could maximize profits by controlling the importation of basic food products, rather than investing in national production. Controlling a monopoly on the importation of basic foodstuffs was far more profitable than investing in locally grown products.
The real hypocrisy of this system comes into play when you realize the contribution to the recent “food riots” that led to the fall of Haitian Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis by the so-called Group of Friends of Haiti, the United Nations and Haiti’s elite.
Haiti has never been a free market; it’s a captive market of 8.5 million who have no choice who they purchase basic staples from. There is no competition, as the few families who control the import of rice and beans have never tolerated it.
They have historically resorted to violence, coups and corruption to protect their interests. Yet these are the same families who have benefited most from the intervention of the international community since the ouster of Jean-Bertrand Aristide on February 29, 2004. Their profits have nearly doubled during this time period, and left the country vulnerable to the recent spike in international prices for staples such as rice and beans.
Whereas traditionally American semi-colonies like Haiti would’ve been ruled by some sort of strongman eager to break heads on behalf of his US masters, these days we’re more sophisticated and everything is done through proper UN sanctioned channels. No death squads, no awkward paramilitary forces embarassing Uncle Sam, but a proper UN peacekeeping force to stablise the country; keeping peace on behalf of a tiny elite, against the Haitians themselves. A bew model of oppression for a new, more politically correct world.