Transcript: Thom Hartmann discusses Haiti before and after the earthquake with Brian Concannon. 14 Jan '10

Thom Hartmann: And greetings my friends, patriots, lovers of democracy, truth and justice, believers in peace, freedom and the American Way. Thom Hartmann here with you. And pleased to be with you. Pleased to be alive and that’s, you know, given what’s going on in Haiti right now we should all be counting our blessings.

I’m broadcasting here from Portland where there’s talk of, you know, some day we’re gonna have the big one and, you know, much up and down the west coast, talk of the big one. There are parts of the midwest that have earthquake potential. This a true disaster, a true tragedy. And I think America, over the last 24 hours, I mean, this happened 48, well not yet 48 hours ago, but day before yesterday in the evening. But I think Americans are starting to realize or are fully realizing the horrors of what happened in Haiti, of this incredible natural disaster.

And the Heritage Foundation has asked that, has criticized President Obama for not reaching out in a bipartisan spirit to President George W Bush for assistance and so Obama has now officially reached out to Bush to help him raise money.

You know, as we go into the program I want to talk about what George W Bush did during Katrina for example. George W Bush, what the International Republican Institute did in Haiti to bring, to you know, to bring down Jean-Baptiste Aristide [Jean-Bertrand Aristide - ed.] because he was preaching liberation theology and they thought he might become an ally with Castro and how the Republicans and conservatives in this country going all the way back to the early part of the 20th century when we actually occupied Haiti for almost 20 years, that, or maybe it was more than that, that, you know, how that has all played right into the death and destruction we’re seeing right now which is the consequence of there not being building codes, which is the consequence of the massive poverty down there which as I said is a consequence in large part of our policies. Brian Concano is, or Concanno? Concannon? How do you say it Brian?

Brian Concannon: Concannon. Concannon, that’s it.

Thom Hartmann: I’m sorry, thank you very much. I’ve gotta have my, Jacob you’ve got to start throwing names at me here before I go. Brian Concannon, the director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti. IJDH.org is the website, the Institute. And Brian, you lived in Haiti for 8 years, I’ve been there a couple of times, I’ve been to Port au Prince a few times, my son in law grew up there, I have some passing familiarity with the country. But I certainly haven’t been there as long as you. What are your thoughts on A—What’s going on right now and B—How it got to this?

Brian Concannon: That’s a very good question and I really liked your historical introduction. One of the things I would add to this that I think is very important when people are looking at what’s happening, you can picture this, having been in Port au Prince, but when you look up from the airport you look up the mountainside. Port au Prince, the mountains come right down to the ocean in Haiti, in most places including in Port au Prince. And right behind Port au Prince and then going right to the sea on the eastern border of Port au Prince there’s mountains and they go straight up and you also see houses climbing up those mountains. And I’m not sure when you’ve been there, but if you’d been there in …

Thom Hartmann: I was there in the 1980s, must have been around ’85 I think.

Brian Concannon: Well then you probably didn’t see a lot of houses climbing up that mountainside but if you went there now that’s the first thing you’d notice. You’d get off the plane you’d say oh my god these green mountains now have, they’re denuded, they’ve got houses going up them. Even in my time, I lived there from ’95 until 2004 and from, every time I’d leave from the airport I’d look back and I’d say, I’d see the houses creeping further up the hillside. And they’re there for a reason. People, they’re not up there because they like the view. It’s because, the people know those are substandard houses and they know they’re precarious and dangerous, the people who own them, but they don’t have any other choice.

Thom Hartmann: Yeah this is identical to the favelas, the slums around Bogota and around Lima, Peru. Both of which I’ve worked in. And they’re on these hillsides that, who actually the one positive function of the hillside is that they can create little gullies along the streets where the raw sewage can run and, so it can be somewhat contained I suppose.

Brian Concannon: There’s no services up in those areas. But the reason why that they’re even there in the urban areas in the first place, that’s the product, that’s the very intentional product of 30 years of policies that started when you first got to Haiti.

Thom Hartmann: During the Reagan administration.

Brian Concannon: Yes. And it was decided that Haiti’s economic future lay in assembly manufacture. And in order to promote that they needed a captive labor force in Port au Prince. In order to get the captive labor force they enacted policies that intentionally depopulated the countryside. One example was in 1987, the, Haiti was forced to reduce its rice tariff enough so that American rice flooded the market, Haitian farmers went out of business because they couldn’t sell their rice at a high enough price to buy fertilizer and seed for the next year,. Then they were forced to leave their land, end up in the cities and live in those hillsides.

Thom Hartmann: Well, and the same thing happened, I mean in the late part of the 19th century, Haiti constituted half of the world’s sugar exports. I mean it was a major sugar exporter. Didn’t the same thing, and either cocoa or coffee, one or the other.

Brian Concannon: Oh they were very productive in both of those.

Thom Hartmann: Yeah and so, my understanding is that during the last 30, 40 years as, you know, globalization has crept around the planet and transnational corporations have become basically the owners and deciders of the fate and future of all nations, that Haiti’s tariffs on these things have collapsed, sugar farming has collapsed, again bringing people into the cities.

Brian Concannon: Yeah, Haiti actually imports sugar now.

Thom Hartmann: Jeez. And in part this is also because the big corn producers in the United States were lobbying to, well anyway.

Brian Concannon: Yeah, it’s subsidized US sugar from corn that’s competing against Haitian sugar from cane.

Thom Hartmann: Corn syrup. Right, so as you were saying.

Brian Concannon: Um and so, and other policies that forced people out of the countryside were we pressured the Haiti government to stop investing in agriculture, stop investing in rural schools. Haiti now has the second most privatized education system in the world. Even food aid has emptied the countryside because it’s put on the market at times where Haitian farmers need to sell their food and when uncle Sam is giving it away for free, people aren’t buying from the farmers, so those farmers go out of business because they have no place to sell their food. And that just creates a dependence on US food and disaster relief and it forces people again to head to the cities where they live up on those hillsides.

Thom Hartmann: Right. So what do we do? By the way was Aristide fighting against these policies?

Brian Concannon: Yeah, he was. And that’s why he’s in South Africa. Because he challenged the economic orthodoxy which was, get the government out of providing basic services, having completely unregulated business climate, which…

Thom Hartmann: So Haiti is the Libertarian paradise that all the libertarians are looking for.

Brian Concannon: You know, it really is. There was a study done in the late 1990s of, upon a, on how economies were protected and based on tariffs Haiti was I think the 3rd or 4th most unprotected in the world; much more unprotected than the US government.

Thom Hartmann: Wow. We have about a half a minute. We’re talking with Brian Concannon, he’s with, he’s the director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, IJDH.org is the website. Brian, what do we do, in just a few seconds, other than, you know, sending all the money we can through appropriate aid agencies?

Brian Concannon: Yeah, we need to respond to the urgency now but as we respond to that we need to build in a program of supporting Haiti’s democracy. We need to build in a program of supporting the government to provide basic services to its people because otherwise we’re gonna be back in another 2 years, 2 ½ years responding to the next disaster in Haiti and asking why.

Thom Hartmann: Right. We need to allow that government to say no to the WTO and World Bank policies of Milton Friedmanism and Tom Friedmanism, the neoliberalism. Yes sir?

Brian Concannon: Yes, exactly what we need to do. And we need to stop imposing them ourselves.

Thom Hartmann: Yeah. There you go. Brian Concannon, check out the website, IJDH.org. Brian, thank you so much for being with us.

Brian Concannon: Thank you for covering this, Thom, so much.

Thom Hartmann: Good talking with ya.

Transcribed by Suzanne Roberts, Portland Psychology Clinic.