'Poor Little Haiti to be Fleeced of its Riches' (Dady Chery at BAR)

Haiti’s mineral wealth is marked for super-exploitation by a Canadian corporation that has already wreaked havoc in the neighboring Dominican Republic. Mining companies claim the gold and silver reserves were only recently discovered, but “the story could just as well be that the mining executives were biding their time and waiting for a non-nationalistic government to take effect before initiating their projects.” The operation requires construction of a deep-water port in Haiti’s northeast, threatening the country’s marine ecosystems.

Poor Little Haiti to be Fleeced of its Riches

 by Dady Chery

“This mining plan will permanently strip the country of much of its mineral, cultural, and ecological wealth.”

Show me a corporate boss who calls Haiti the “poorest country in the western hemisphere,” and I’ll show you a con artist preparing to fleece Haiti. Likewise, show me a western technocrat who bemoans Haiti’s “dramatic deforestation due to charcoal production” and I’ll show a bio-pirate or vandal preparing to wreck Haiti’s remaining cloud-forest and mangrove-forest ecosystems. 

It turns out that the real plan for Haiti’s northeastern region — especially the Caracol Bay area — is one that was hatched by Canadian mining corporations, with the U.S and South Korean sweatshop zone being a side project and distraction. If this mining plan is given a green light while Haiti is under foreign occupation, it will permanently strip the country of much of its mineral, cultural, and ecological wealth. 

In a recent interview with Canada’s Financial Post, Majescor Resources CEO Dan Hachey was effusive about Michel Martelly’s installment as president because he expects Martelly’s policy of mimicking the Dominican Republic (DR) to be a boon to the mining sector. 

... full story at Black Agenda Report.