Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Haiti's food riots
ISR Issue 59, May–June 2008
MARK SCHULLER reports from Haiti
IN EARLY April, Haiti was gripped by a nationwide mobilization to protest high food prices, which reached a crescendo when people burned tires and blocked national highways and city streets in Port-au-Prince as thousands took to the streets. Clashes with police and UN troops resulted in an official count of five dead. A handful of individuals also looted stores.
Mainstream media coverage tells an all too familiar story of Haiti. The UN troops broke up a demonstration with rubber bullets, and the U.S. State Department responded by issuing a warning against its citizens entering the country. And almost as quickly as it appeared on the news, Haiti disappeared, leaving the residual image of being a hopeless, violent, and dangerous place.
As awful as the loss of life, property damage, and the resulting climate of fear are, it is at the very least explainable. To understand the situation we need to look at three levels of analysis, not simply turn our attention to the most visible, the individual “rioters.” In addition to the people, there are also the Haitian government and international community.
OT: My comrades in Venezuela, call for FARC to disarm, and give their weapons to urban revolutionaries.
The Colombian government has an interest due to the funding for Plan Colombia, to keep the "guerilla problem" hot. Freeing the hostages is the last thing Colombia wants.
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