Wikileaks Reveals that Obama Administration Pressured Haiti Not to Raise Minimum Wage

What can you buy for 61 cents? In the case of the Obama Administration, that was simply too much for the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

Wikileaks cables expose that the Obama Administration put pressure on the disaster-stricken country, Haiti, to not raise its hourly minimum wage to 61 cents an hour, or $5 a day.

Perplexing being that everything in Haiti has skyrocketed since the January 2009 earthquake. A large can of peaches is reported to be roughly $40 American dollars by Haitian activist Mawiyah Duperval of Haitian American Ministries and Ujaama International based in Haiti.

According to the report by the Columbia Journalism Review, American corporations who hire Haiti's 25,000 garment workers, like Hanes and Levi Strauss, were pissed off because that meant they had to pay their workers an increase. So let's put this together, a pair of Hanes' underwear costs more than a worker making about 200 of them in a day.

Since the earthquake there has been much criticism of the lack of aid that actually went directly to the Haitian government, less than 7 cents, the question remains "Where is the money?" According to a Huffington Post article back in 2010, here was the breakdown.

Each American dollar roughly breaks down like this: 42 cents for disaster assistance, 33 cents for U.S. military aid, nine cents for food, nine cents to transport the food, five cents for paying Haitian survivors for recovery efforts, just less than one cent to the Haitian government, and about half a cent to the Dominican Republic.

According to the Huffington Post, it was the culture of corruption in Haiti that had "donors" and other governments worried that the money would not go to the right people.

"There's a perception of corruption, but I would like to tell the Haitian people that the Haitian government has not seen one penny of all the money that has been raised – millions are being made on the right, millions on the left, it's all going to the NGOs (nongovernmental organizations)" Preval said, speaking in Creole at a news conference.

Relief experts say it would be a mistake to send too much direct cash to the Haitian government, which was already unstable before the quake and routinely included on lists of the world's most corrupt countries.

"I really believe Americans are the most generous people who ever lived, but they want accountability," said Timothy R. Knight, a former US AID assistant director who spent 25 years distributing disaster aid. "In this situation they're being very deliberate not to just throw money at the situation but to analyze based on a clear assessment and make sure that money goes to the best place possible."

What this basically means is that, though billions of dollars were pumped into Haitian relief aid, and the relief aid efforts for Haiti changed the way in which people give through technology, the people in the country are not equipped for its proper development.

As well, it maintains the gross inequitable trade agreements that developing countries have with other countries who are struggling.

We got the bible, now they got our land: The African land grab continues

On my way to rural Yoruba land in 2001, I stood as the only black person in the line designated for foreigners. Everyone else was a white male, and the line had about 300 people. My jaw dropped because when I told people in the US, even Nigerians, where I was going, they looked at me as if I just smoked crack. Some declared that no one visited Nigeria and asked me why the hell did I want to go.

Though they were not satisfied with my answer, and frankly I didn't care, I challenged them on the first part of their declaration about people not travelling to the most populous African nation. People did come to Nigeria, and I found out while there, the people that came were mostly foreigners with plots (and in cahoots with some Nigerians) to pilfer the natural resources of an already neglected country. Sounds familiar my Caribbean and South American people.

The blood that runs thick in Nigeria is oil. It oozes through the Delta Region that has been in turmoil since multinational companies like Shell, Chevron, British Petroleum, and Mobile swooped in and took control of the oil reserves after the Nigerian oil boom that ended in the late 60s, early 70s.

Now, reports show that the next land grab is farmland in Africa. How ironic is that. A place that has been depicted by Western media as a continent of skinny, big-bellied, bulging eyed, dirty and naked babies running around with flies contentedly dancing at their mouths, is selling farmland!

Now of course there are people still scratching their heads in bewilderment when they find out that there are contemporary cities and 21st century things like the Internet in Africa, let alone there is any interest for people to buy land they thought was sterile.

What many don't know is the thriving plantation system in Africa that continues as a result of colonialism in the 17th century. The neo-colonialism is covered up by bullshit missionaries and fake fair trade claims.

As people lather themselves with the new emolient of shea butter or eat Godiva chocolates they don't know that these products are harvested in an inequitable trade agreement with Western powers.

When I was in Africa, I had a great contact working in a pan-African organization called NEPAD or the New Partnership for Africa's Development. This institution was designed to promote better trade between Africa and major trading partners in US, Europe, and some Asian countries. She told me that most of the goals were not accomplished because of the political BS, the sexism, the intra-black conflict, and the tribalism.

From what I was told, greedy people in key places would let their grandmothers pick up the shit in villages and towns with no sewage systems, for a couple of bucks to prevent development so foreign investors in collaboration with local leeches could profit on the misery and disempowerment of Africans. As result, countries are giving up prime property that leads to natives building cities they will never occupy. Hmm, kind of like, gentrification.

It is also very interesting that the world was blasting Mugabe of Zimbabwe, but many did not know that Zimbabwe supplies most of Africa with produce. How coincidental is that? It is not. Now am I agreeing with Mugabe. I never care for anyone who engages in abuses of power, but I cannot demonize him any further than leaders of the West who justify invasions and bombs, or look the other way at Sudanese atrocities to maintain certain advantages.

You know there is a saying in Africa that Dead Prez often says, "First, we had the land and they had the bible, now we have the bible and they have the land." That is so very true.

thanks Ayankha for the lead

PS. Just a fact, over half of ALL products made in the WORLD have something from AFRICA in it.