Hidden History

You have to wonder how much longer the US with their buddies in France and Canada want to punish the people of Haiti. I know they liberated themselves from slavery to France then defeated Napoleon's conquering army when it tried to enslave them again. They reached out to the United States, the supposed beacon of liberty only to suffer through 200 years of abuse at the hands of Americans, French and yes even Canadians.

But you know, all this has been said before.

And the important thing is that Jean-Bertrand Aristide is back in Haiti. No thanks to Barack Obama, he arrived this weekend to a riotous welcome. Anyway I was following the coverage on Democracy Now! and learned something that I never knew about his kidnapping in 2004. I wanted to share it with you today.

As President of Haiti, Aristide recognized that one of the major problems in his country was a lack of medical services. There are very few doctors serving the population and doctors have to go abroad to study, and many I would imagine, didn't return. In fact I have read that there were only 2,000 doctors in the whole country of 9 million. So working with Cuba (famous for the exporting of doctors) in 2001 he broke ground on a new facility to house a new medical school for his country. The University of the Aristide Foundation was opened in late 2003 and its primary goal was to train poor, rural doctors to return home and serve their communities. The school was training 247 doctors by the time of the second anti-Aristide coup, orchestrated by the United States on February 28 2004.

Outrageously the occupying US and UN forces kicked out the medical students and used the building as a barracks until 2007! Some students went to Cuba to continue their training but Haiti lost an important institution (happily the building survived the earthquake). Aristide is looking forward to continuing the work he started in 2001 now that he is back in Haiti.

But you have to wonder what kind of friend moves in and takes over an important medical school in a country that desperately needs medical professionals? We are reminded by the media and our dear leaders how poor and vulnerable Haiti is; how much better prepared for the earthquake would they have been with these doctors in the field?

I was shocked to read this hidden history. But it's nice to know that the US and UN don't give a shit about Haiti. Once you realize these things you can move on to the next logical step.