It’s a tricky question, the answer to which may only become apparent decades down the line, but is the response of the US government, its recruited army of investors and private sector interests to the Haiti earthquake appropriately supportive or worryingly exploitative or indeed both? It seems immediately clear that money, vast sums of it, is badly needed to pay for aid supplies and establish a basic infrastructure in the country and that the US business interests would have to be entirely stonefacedly, coldheartedly amoral not to respond in the affirmative when Bill Clinton and George W Bush came calling. And yet I do generally find it difficult to believe in corporate altruism for altruism’s sake. Is Haiti any different?
I’m not talking about charity donations here, as by definition they should not involve any motivation other than a desire to help, and perhaps a need to ease a sudden dose of Western guilt. There is also probably a case for distinguishing between companies such as Digicel, who were already in Haiti before the earthquake, and the US-based private capital houses now rapidly signing up to “invest” in Haiti because the ex-Presidents have assured them that it’s a good opportunity for a “greenfield” investment.
Many of the investors and financial institutions piling in behind Clinton and Bush are rather more disconnected from the fate of its citizens than Digicel (which has lost some of its staff and made a donation of $5 million for immediate relief work). Who are these investors and what are their ultimate aims? They’re the kind of questions that the commentator Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine and a prominent opponent of what she terms “disaster capitalism”, believes people should be asking now and in the aftermath of any major crisis. Otherwise the kind of community impoverishing “land grabs” that took place in Thailand after the 2004 tsunami or something similar to the pro-corporate redrawing of New Orleans post-Katrina could take place amid the chaos in Haiti.
Klein’s website highlights this quote from the right-wing Heritage Federation, issued just the day after the earthquake, then withdrawn: “In addition to providing immediate humanitarian assistance, the US response to the tragic earthquake in Haiti earthquake offers opportunities to re-shape Haiti’s long-dysfunctional government and economy as well as to improve the public image of the United States in the region.”
Critics of such “disaster capitalism” tactics want any intervention by the Obama administration, the IMF, the World Bank and anyone else trying to reconstruct Haiti to be mindful of the country’s economic sovereignty and, most importantly, not to trap it with debt. On this front, public pressure has yielded some positive results, with the IMF assuring that its financial assistance to Haiti will be interest-free and free of conditionality. Indeed, the IMF is now calling for a Marshall Plan for the shattered country, urging debt relief and promising to delete the loan it’s just issued. This, according to Klein, is unprecedented.
Last night, O’Brien was namechecked by Clinton at a UN press conference as being the man leading the private sector effort to provide assistance to Haiti. “Anybody thinking about setting up manufacturing facilities or any business in Haiti, I will give a very strong recommendation they go ahead and do it,” said O’Brien.
Unpalatable as it may seem, many of the companies that answer O’Brien’s call will view Haiti’s trauma as a commercial advantage rather than a tragic state of affairs, as its 10 million population is too busy fighting for basic survival to consider the pros and cons of an economic remodelling. The arrival of such companies will be framed as a force for good in terms of job creation, spurring “economic revival”. But history has taught us that it’s often a little more complex than that.
Ireland did €1 billion in trade with India in 2009, up 7 per cent on the previous year. When signing a bilateral free trade agreement last month Minister for Enterprise, Jobs and Innovation predicted 10 per cent growth between now and 2015.
