Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-01-18-Speech-2-604-000"
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"en.20110118.22.2-604-000"2
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"(
Madam President, scarcely a year ago, Haiti and its people were victims of a terrible catastrophe. Everywhere, there was devastation and death.
Let us pay tribute to the courage of the Haitian people and the worldwide surge of popular solidarity towards the victims. I say popular solidarity because, in Europe, as elsewhere, it is very often those who have little who give the most.
I would like here also to formally thank the Cuban State and people for their help in providing effective support, without any ulterior motive and with results that speak for themselves. To date, the Cuban medical brigade has treated more than 50 000 cholera cases, enabled 76 health centres and hospitals to be rebuilt and operated on many Haitians. Cuba’s aid is considered by many experts to be particularly effective. So true is this, that a country like Norway wanted to ask Cuba to intervene on its behalf.
The European Union and the United States would do well to draw inspiration from the Cuban example rather than to feel complacent behind media performances that ill disguise their perception of aid as charity when, in fact, above all, it serves their own economic and political interests at the expense of sustainable reconstruction of the Haitian State and its economy.
Given their historic responsibility for Haiti’s misfortunes, it is obscene for France and the United States to pretend to know what is best. Let us remember that it took the very worst of catastrophes for the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to decide at last to cancel Haiti’s debt.
At the moment, what is happening in Haiti demonstrates limitations in the current operation of the United Nations (UN). In Haiti, humanitarian interference demonstrates its inability to implement sustainable solutions for people. What is worse is that, in the medium and long term, it constitutes a hindrance to the reconstruction of a democratic State and of an economy that ultimately responds to the Haitian people’s human need for development.
The international community has promised USD 11.5 billion for the country’s reconstruction. It remains to be seen what is meant by reconstruction. How much of this aid has actually arrived in the field? Who will decide on the projects? Are we going to see, as happened in Kosovo, people who have been made redundant watching big multinational companies reconstructing their country because they are the only ones able to win the international tenders?
The European Union must not be part of a paternalistic or neocolonialist vision but instead must contribute to the rise of a democratic renaissance in the Haitian Republic that is the work of the people themselves. The Haitian people were the first in the world to free themselves from French colonialism. In addition to the ravages of the war, that cost them more than EUR 20 billion in today’s money in ‘compensation’ to the slaveholding European colonists.
Because of the crimes against humanity, which slavery and colonialism represent, the European Union and France, in particular, now owe a moral, political and economic debt to Haiti. We must honour this debt of honour."@en1
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