Haiti

[Durgan]

Haiti; Now that Canada has a Governor General of Haitian origin, it may be time to focus on the poverty and misery in that country.

During the last 20 years Democratically elected presidents have been overthrown by the power elite.One man one vote upsets the status quo.The US is involved due to boat people wanting to escape to the US. There is no OIL so containment is the unspoken agenda. This small country is too close to the US for comfort.

All the wealth such as what exists is owned by a small group living in guarded fortified havens. The main stream Haitian lives in conditions that make Canada's Indian Reserves appear like plush palaces.

Port au Prince, the Capital, during the 70 and 80's used to be a sex haven for queers from Montreal. Due to poverty there were many economically available boys for sex. Hence the terrible spread of HIV/AIDS occurred. 24000 die yearly from AIDS.Quote In Haiti, where the situation is most dramatic, infecton rates estimates reach as high as 12 percent for the urban population and 5 percent for rural populations.Unquote

URL to Fact Sheet

http://manruffy.notlong.com

Population 8 million.
Life expectancy age 53
Literacy 52%
80% Roman Catholic modified a bit by voodoo.

French is official language. Quebec encougages French speaking immigrants, hence many taxi drivers in Montreal are Haitian. The coloured influx will eventually change the complexion of La Belle Quebec, but the French language will survive.

In this poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, 80% of the population lives in abject poverty.More than 66% do not have jobs.

This should be enough for some comments.
Durgan.

 

[peapod]

Canada's Iraq, when the truth comes out about what the canadain government has done in haiti, this is what happens when you go along with the US of A.

 

[Reverend Blair]

It is what happens. We helped to remove Aristide from power and now we'll be there indefinitely. Oddly enough, it never makes the news anymore.

 

[Nascar_James]

We should be helping out the folks there who want to move and settle in North America. I recall many years ago we had a large influx of Haitian immigrants in Montreal. Then the past decade or so, for some reason this migration just stopped. The situation there economically is still just as bad as it ever was.

 

[peapod]

Ya, like your government had nothing to do with eh? oh bad me!

 

[Nascar_James]

We accept many Haitian immigrants every year, Peapod. Many of them settle around North East US (or Florida). They are good folks, have good values and do keep to their faith.

I'm all for further opening our doors and helping these folks even more.

 

[peapod]

uh huh...which has nothing to do with your government undermining and meddling, and the usual munipulations...of other countries governments...of which the canadian government was part of.
I have only had one cupa coffee..better get another...looks like your bullshit is gonna fly this morno :roll:

 

[Durgan]

They are good people and keep the faith. That makes them doubly good.

I agree they are fine people. It is unfortunatel more isn't being done for the country. They have a rich history with most of it brutal. They managed to be the first country to get independence in the Americas, which included Hispanolia at one time. The slaves rose all at once and slaughtered their white masters literally in one night.

Out of site out of mind. For employment they cut sugar cane in the Domician Republic, and are encouraged to go back home after the harvest. In fact in about 1937 Trjillo, the Dictator of Domicain Republic , removed about 30,000 by cutting their throats along a border river. They lined up and took their turn. He got away with this without any reprecussions, because the world was focused on Europe at the time; plus the fact that they were black.

The only time they make the news is when a boatload of poor are drowned trying to escape the country. Sort of like rats leaving a sinking ship.

Our new G.G. comes from one of the elite of the Country.

The country needs help.

Durgan.

 

[PoisonPete2]

The main stream Haitian lives in conditions that make Canada's Indian Reserves appear like plush palaces.

Answer - you obviously haven't been into many of Canada's reserves. I have worked in dozens. There are the rich few supported by mineral finds, fishing, logging or smuggling. Others had economic initiatives that ended with things like a half million tires in a pile and some white guy walking away with the profit. There are many isolated communities living in conditions of which no Haitian would want any part. To suggest 'Canada's Indian Reserves appear like plush palaces' proves nothing but your ignorance about real poverty or the third-world conditions in which many of our People live.

 

[Durgan]

Quote
Even today, Haitian workers in the Dominican Republic are inhumanely treated. As brutal dictators, corrupt governments and horrific social conditions have rocked their home nation, thousands of Haitians have sought alternatives to living in Haiti. Often, they have ended up in the Dominican Republic, with which Haiti shares the island Hispaniola, and where Haitian migrants form the backbone of the workforce that cuts the sugar cane during the zafra - the annual harvest. However, the dreams of a better life that lured these Haitians to the Dominican Republic rarely became reality, as instead they found that empty promises have led them to a nightmare - some of the poorest working and living conditions imaginable. In this situation they are accorded few human rights, and forced to live in a situation that has been concluded by many observers to be essentially a form of slavery. Unquote
ByThe Plight of Haitian Workers in the Dominican Sugar Industry
Ryan McKenzie
Spring 1999


Durgan.

 

[Reverend Blair]

I've never been to Haiti, but I've seen the pictures and heard the reports. I have been to a few of the worst reserves in Canada. Haiti looks to me to be worse, but not by a lot.

 

[PoisonPete2]

Quote
Even today, Haitian workers in the Dominican Republic are inhumanely treated. In this situation they are accorded few human rights, and forced to live in a situation that has been concluded by many observers to be essentially a form of slavery. Unquote
ByThe Plight of Haitian Workers in the Dominican Sugar Industry
Ryan McKenzie
Spring 1999

Durgan.

Answer - right on!! now look below the surface of things and you come up with Big Sugar, the American Trust. Big Sugar interests caused the isolation of Cuba, failed revolutions in Haiti, Jamaica, Hondurus etc. The American based multi-nationals created economic enslavement to maximize profits while offering little back to the oppressed. They and the others of the globalization movement have established a modern merchantilism that disallows developing economies from free competition with them.

 

[PoisonPete2]

Re: RE: Haiti

I've never been to Haiti, but I've seen the pictures and heard the reports. I have been to a few of the worst reserves in Canada. Haiti looks to me to be worse, but not by a lot.

Answer - personally Rev, I would rather be warm and destitute rather than cold and destitute.

 

[Reverend Blair]

I dunno. Haiti is about the only place I've seen on the TV that made me think that Montreal Lake was better. I'm glad I don't have to make the choice, but if I had to I'd pick Montreal Lake.

 

[Durgan]

PoisonPete2
To suggest 'Canada's Indian Reserves appear like plush palaces' proves nothing but your ignorance about real poverty or the third-world conditions in which many of our People live.

That statement is silly. Review it. It sounds stupid or you intended something else. If you read carefully I am not suggesting that Indians aren't living in rough conditions. I am saying and still say they are much, much, much better off then the majority Haitian people. Our G. G. excluded.

Until I was 15 years of age I lived worse off than the nearby Indian Reserve, not in pristine Ontario, but Northern Saskatchewan.

I have spent time in the Domician Republic, Old Belgium Congo, All over Egypt, and Mexico. I have seen abject, hopeless poverty in it roughest sense. And not as a tourists, who only sees the relative beauty in the condoned off Five Star hotels.

I know there are worse conditions than what I witnessed. Just listen to Stephen Lewis talk about conditions in Africa with the AIDS epidemic. Not a sign of that on this well fed forum.

I am trying to focus on Haiti and my comparison to some Indian Reserves in no way lessens the conditions on some of the reserves.

One doesn't have to have personal experience to know about conditions-reading helps along with the internet. In my case, I have some experience so have a real life reference.

I accept your apology for you silly illogical remark.
Durgan..

 

[PoisonPete2]

PoisonPete2
To suggest 'Canada's Indian Reserves appear like plush palaces' proves nothing but your ignorance about real poverty or the third-world conditions in which many of our People live.

That statement is silly. Review it. It sounds stupid or you intended something else. If you read carefully I am not suggesting that Indians aren't living in rough conditions. I am saying and still say they are much, much, much better off then the majority Haitian people. Our G. G. excluded.
I accept your apology for you silly illogical remark.
Durgan..

Answer. Perhaps you should retract your statement 'Canada's Indian Reserves appear like plush palaces' because that is THE 'silly statement'. I read it carefully and 'that Indians aren't living in rough conditions' is exactly what you were suggesting. If you meant something else than you should have written something else. That is why editing is done.

If you have been in these countries with your eyes open, and lived close to a Canadian reservation without percieving through the veil of the dominant culture then I doubt you would speak in these terms.

 

[Andygal]

Answer. Perhaps you should retract your statement 'Canada's Indian Reserves appear like plush palaces' because that is THE 'silly statement'. I read it carefully and 'that Indians aren't living in rough conditions' is exactly what you were suggesting. If you meant something else than you should have written something else. That is why editing is done.

I disagree. Rev never said that the Native people aren't living in bad conditions. He just said that the conditions that the poor in Haiti have to deal with are comparatively worse.

I don't know wheteher Rev's statement is accurate. I've never been to Haiti or to a reservation, I'm just pointing out that you are misinterpating what he said.

 

[Durgan]

Apology?
Durgan

 

[PoisonPete2]

I disagree. Rev never said that the Native people aren't living in bad conditions. He just said that the conditions that the poor in Haiti have to deal with are comparatively worse.

I don't know wheteher Rev's statement is accurate. I've never been to Haiti or to a reservation, I'm just pointing out that you are misinterpating what he said.

I was not responding to Rev but to the crap that Durgan wrote. I spent over two years in contact with communities in the James Bay coast. The conditions would not bring 'plush palaces' to anyone's mind. This is complete neglect by the Federal Government and followed their attempts at cultural genocide spearheaded by churches.

 

[Hank C Cheyenne]

I haven't been to any reserves in Canada....but I have seen the native people in Edmonton and it's pretty bad....the ghetto's are similar to those found in my home state of Ohio...although I have to say Ohio has a population of almost 12 million so the bad area's are much larger and populated than here in Canada.

...but yes it is basically the same thing...with drug people and drunks walking around all night....and there seems to be abundance of prostitutes on the streets. I'll tell you right now that walking around in the north-east part of Edmonton at night is pretty similar to walking around the bad parts of Cincinnati or Toledo....