Merten, mercenaries, marionettes and the media blackout on Haiti

by Georgianne Nienaber

Viv-Revolisyon-Haitians-protest-Petrocaribe-corruption-111818-by-Press-TV-300x168, Merten, mercenaries, marionettes and the media blackout on Haiti, World News & Views
Asking “Where is the PetroCaribe money?” (“Kot Kob PetroCaribe a?” in Creole), anti-corruption protests against the theft of $3.8 billion Haiti received from Venezuela for the Petrocaribe program that made heating oil affordable filled the streets of Port-au-Prince again and again in recent months. – Photo: Press TV

“What is wrong with Haiti?” is provocatively offered as a question, along with apologies to the great essayist, G.K. Chesterton. The answer to what is wrong with Haiti is that the hand wringers, meaning those of goodwill who profess undying love for the tiny island nation never seem to ask what is right. Nor do they attempt to discern the source of wrongdoing.

For over two centuries, Haiti has balanced on a fulcrum. Heaven and hell hang in the balance and only God knows the outcome. The Great Deity is not speaking on the matter, has not been elected, and cannot be fired or voted out of office. Free will requires the belief that there exists no great Puppet Master in the sky, but there are certainly puppets lurching through the halls of Haiti’s present government – marionettes manipulated by international interests.

Greed for the great resources of Haiti motivates those interests and pulls the strings. Haitian string theory does not require a particle accelerator, electron microscopes, or convocation of scientists and analysts in Switzerland to reveal the super symmetry between greed and resources.

Using the analytical microscopes of think tanks on macro and microeconomics will not make a particle of difference. Critical thinking and a minimal knowledge of history is enough to expose human greed as obvious as the noses on bankers, industrialists, foundations, NGOs and heads of state.

A corollary to this argument is that greed is not universally ordained, and the strings of international meddling can be broken. The fragile fibers are fraying. Recent protests by millions of Haitians against fraud, murder, embezzlement, gunrunning and the puppet government of Jovenel Moïse are the beginning of the end of the Punch and Judy puppet show.

The USA’s man in Haiti, Moïse, is slowly but surely being exposed as the trickster. After a hike in fuel prices, millions of protesters took to the streets and demanded answers from the government regarding $3.8 billion in pilfered funds. The money was owed to Haiti under oil alliances signed between Venezuela and Caribbean nations in 2005. The promised infrastructures and other projects never materialized.

Consider that USA Special Envoy to Haiti Kenneth Merten said in a recent interview with Voice of America that he is “walking” with President Moïse. This was within hours of the U.S. Embassy in Haiti issuing a travel advisory:

“On Nov. 29, 2018, the U.S. government authorized the departure of non-emergency U.S. government personnel and their families. Protests, tire burning and road blockages are frequent and unpredictable. Violent crime, such as armed robbery, is common.”

“Fear the Haitians” is the predictable mantra dragged out whenever Haitians shout, “Enough is enough.”

The only impediments to truth are lies, and the truth is more difficult to accept than lies expertly told. The biggest lie of all is that Haiti offers a hopeless scenario: a poverty-stricken, violent populace suffocating through the garrote of corruption and the accident of existing on the wrong tectonic plate.

Yes, there are henchmen, drug and weapons smugglers. Haiti is the Congo of the Americas in terms of rape and human smuggling. Accused money launderers languish in Massachusetts, gunrunners are under indictment in Florida along with their Haitian co-conspirators, and the Clintons remain under investigation for their earthquake relief foundation. The great manipulator of the 2010 Haiti election, Hillary Clinton’s protégée Cheryl Mills, is now a board member at Netflix, a perfect platform from which to direct the puppet show.

These truths are very hard to swallow. In some instances, the truth dare not be told because it is so evil. Videos of pigs eating human cadavers in ditches and the murder of a young man by gunpoint at close range, while gang members brag that their guns were obtained from members of the Haitian Senate are too heinous to promote.

The body of a Haitian border guard, riddled with bullets and slumped in the front seat of his vehicle, is not for viewing in polite society. The images, once seen, cannot be unseen.

In Kenneth Merten’s recent Voice of America (VOA) interview broadcast in Creole, the special envoy indicated solidarity with the Haitian president. But in 2015, after the scandal-plagued election of Moise, Merten blamed the outcome on Haiti.

“We’re in a ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ position,” he said. “This is a Haitian election.” Yes, blame the Haitians again for an election manipulated by graft, fraud and a very low voting turnout. The Nation Magazine’s editorial “Can Haiti’s Corrupt President Hold on to Power?” says, “Before the election, (former) President Martelly’s strategy was clear: Frighten Haitians into letting his candidate (Moise) win. His thugs violently disrupted voting in legislative elections back in August. The U.S. Embassy said nothing, aside from feeble admonitions.”

Yes, it is a “Haitian election,” orchestrated, signed, sealed and delivered by the U.S. State Department.

But these sad truths, while overwhelming, are easily exposed when compared with the strengths of Haiti. Her people and her resources are mighty. The expertly told lie is that Haiti is a hopeless quagmire. It might currently be a quagmire, with the people and their potential buried under poverty, earthquake and hurricane debris.

The truth requires knowledge and the discipline of history. Once known as the Pearl of the Antilles, Haiti supplied the French empire with 60 percent of the coffee and 40 percent of the sugar consumed in Europe. It required over 800,000 slaves to accomplish this, and Haiti remains the oldest Black republic in the world.

Continuing French occupation after Columbus required the addition of 40,000 more slaves a year to sustain exports. In January 1804, Haiti fought for and won independence, but it was not without consequence. In order to gain diplomatic recognition from France, reparations depleted Haiti’s wealth.

Haiti is worth a fortune in untapped mineral resources. In 2010, shortly after the earthquake that instantly killed up to 300,000 and demolished the infrastructure of Port au Prince, mining interests, according to a Pulitzer Center study, reported that Haiti has $20 billion in untouched mineral wealth. According to the website Mining.com, “exploratory drilling by Canadian and U.S. companies has unearthed valuable metals. These include gold, silver and copper, which may be worth close $20 billion, and is viewed by many as a potential economic boon for this nation.”

The Canadian company Majescor and the U.S. company VCS Mining and their subsidiaries have licenses for tracts totaling over 750 square kilometers (290 square miles). This is almost the same area as New York City at 302 square miles. “Altogether, about 15 percent of Haiti’s territory is under license to North American mining firms and partners,” according to Mining.com.

Hillary Clinton’s brother, Anthony (Tony) Rodham, was a prominent player in the mining scheme, according to corporate VCS documents. Rodham has no background in mining and his only qualification to be intimately involved in a mining venture in Haiti was as the brother of Hillary Clinton and the brother-in-law of Special Envoy to Haiti Bill Clinton.

Rodham joined the advisory board of VCS Mining in October 2013 and a 2014 VCS memorandum touts his influential connections to the Clintons’ “inner circles” and “power bases” within the beltway. His name was subsequently scrubbed from the website, but remains in corporate print brochures and a company memorandum from that time. The Washington Post reported that Rodham’s work history includes stints as “a former repo man, prison guard, and private detective.”

It would be scandal enough if Tony Rodham and VCS benefitted from a gold mine permit in Haiti, but the potential electrical power lines for that gold mine lead straight to one of the biggest lies to come out of Haitian “reconstruction.” The Carocal industrial plant houses sweatshops for garment exports to Target, Wal-Mart and other U.S. and international retailers. It was built on seized agricultural properties totally unaffected by the 2010 earthquake.

Think of the Clinton Foundation as covert commodities trader, whether it involves strategic minerals, access for the garment industry, special trade deals or the guarantee that Haiti will always be held within the “sphere of influence” of the United States.

Èzili Dantò of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network knows why lead puppet master Kenneth Merten wants to keep the economic potential of Haiti under wraps. The Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame recently honored Dantò. Inductees have included Katherine Hepburn, Sophie Tucker and Jane Pauley among others.

Dantò minces no words and says, “(Kenneth) Merten is a vector for fake news on Haiti, fake elections, human rights terror and belongs in federal prison for his trans-national crimes, pushing corruption in Haiti and aiding his puppet Haitian President (Moise) to kill peaceful protestors with imported sniper assassins.” Attorney Dantò’s charges echo what is already in the under-reported public record found in indictments, complaints and convictions in U.S. courts.

“The Clintons with Obama, the IDB and World Bank-USAID put a sweatshop on a $3.2 trillion Haiti resource and disguised it as their flagship earthquake relief. What they were really doing was building infrastructure for the extraction industry, high-end foreign tourists and colonial exporters of Haiti’s wealth and global businesses who launder their bribes for advantages in Haiti as Clinton Foundation donors.”

Another common but false and expertly told disaster story utilized to describe Haiti is that it is a moonscape, totally devoid of trees. The common percentage cited is less than 2 percent tree cover. One of the most outlandish claims occurred in October 2016 when Weather Channel presenter Jennifer Delgado suggested deforestation in the country was partly due to Haitian children who “are so hungry they actually eat the trees.” Disbelievers can search the online video.

The truth can be found in GIS and satellite Landsat analysis that proves Haiti has at least 30 percent forest cover. In August 2014, The International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geo-information reported that media and governmental agencies use deflated numbers and do not rely on peer reviewed science, which puts forest coverage in Haiti at 32 percent, on a par with the United States and France and far ahead of England. This disaster scenario has gone unchallenged in media reports.

The puppet masters know that people love a good disaster story and Haiti is a leading lady in the disaster porn industry. In this narrative, the princess does not live in the forest; she lives on the moon. It is beyond time to expose the puppet masters.

Kenneth Merten is the disaster henchman who will not go away.

Our Forrest Gump of Haitian disasters was first observed working within the somewhat vaguely named “Special Advisors on Haiti” group from 1993-1994. He also served in Haiti as vice consul and economic counselor between 1988 and 1990 and between 1998 and 2000.

In December 1990, Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected president of Haiti with more than 67 percent of the vote. In October 1991, Aristide fled Haiti to Venezuela after a coup led by Brigadier Gen. Raoul Cedras overthrew the government. In October 1994 Aristide was reinstated as president of Haiti, after a U.S.-brokered agreement.

Bill Clinton was president and Merten was in place, offering advice for Clinton’s Operation Uphold Democracy, which was little more than a campaign promise fulfilled. Clinton did not “rescue” Aristide, Dantò says.

“The white liberals don’t lie less than the right wing imperialists; they lie better, are better warmongers with more tact and sugar on it,” she adds.

The Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH) was a far-right paramilitary group organized in mid-1993. Its only goal was to destroy support for the priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who would be eventually and overwhelmingly elected to the presidency.

Under Clinton, and before CIA asset and FRAPH death squad leader Toto Constant was given U.S. asylum, the 1994 U.S. Ambassador William Lacy Swing tried, using Kosovo as a model, to put the terrorist Constant in as a “civil society” leader and legitimate presidential candidate for Haiti.

Sorting truth from lies, The Center for Justice and Accountability named Emmanuel “Toto” Constant the “leader of one of Haiti’s most feared death squads; using rape, mutilation and murder against the opposition.” Constant fled to the United States in 1994 after a Haitian court issued a warrant for his arrest and was granted asylum.

He ironically began life again in New York as a real estate agent. He was later convicted in a U.S. court for mortgage fraud. His one-to-three-year sentence was increased after civil rights lawyers convinced the judge he should not escape, relatively unscathed, from his crimes in Haiti.

Untangling the web of puppet strings and covert operations manipulated by the U.S. is part of the problem of what is wrong with Haiti. But, as our thesis suggests, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with Haiti. In fact, there is much that is right with Haiti in terms of resources and human potential.

When Aristide handily won the 2000 election with almost 92 percent of the vote, it proved that Haitians, given the opportunity, were not disinterested in government. A year later, a new death squad leader emerged in the person of Guy Philippe, who attempted another coup. Pay attention, as Philippe will surface again as a protégé of a future president of Haiti.

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Despite the relentless rape and plunder of Haiti and the maligning of its people – punishment for the overthrow of slavery by Africans enslaved in Haiti, making it the world’s first Black independent country – the people are poor but politically astute and powerful. – Photo: BlueSkyz Photography

Michel Martelly is a friend of the Clintons and president under Ambassador Merten who helped supervise the 2010 fraudulent election that put Martelly in power. In 2015, Merten was again on hand to ensure the election of Martelly’s protégée Jovenel Moise.

The 2004 Haitian coup d’état occurred after accusations of corruption were leveled against Aristide. Aristide left Haiti for Africa on a U.S. plane, surrounded by U.S. military. Aristide maintains to this day that he was kidnapped and accuses the U.S. of a coup d’état against him.

The preface to the book by former OAS Ambassador to Haiti Ricardo Seitenfus, “The United Nations and Cholera in Haiti: Guilty but not Responsible,” recounts how the coup d’état on Feb. 29, 2004, led the world’s nations to establish the United Nations’ “mission of peace,” the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). Seitenfus says the experience was “disastrous for the poorest country in the Americas,” whose birth into the community of nations was accomplished by “forceps.”

A delivery by forceps can be dangerous, as well as bloody.

“In addition to the fact that the stabilization is ultimately a sham, it has watered the soil of Haiti with the degrading disease caused by the bacterium ‘Vibrio cholera.’ The importation of this disease into Haiti has shown that the United Nations brings to light the moral and intellectual indigence of the United Nations, whose crimes dirty the soil of Haiti with impunity.”

Dirtying the soil, indeed.

Merten was in the news again as ambassador to Haiti in 2009. According to Seitenfus, he was in the room in 2010 when yet another coup d’état was discussed against then President Rene Preval by a core group of nations. Former OAS Ambassador Seitenfus’ book, “L`echec de l`aide Internationale a Haiti: Dilemmes et egarements” (French Edition), documents everyone who was in the room. There is a summary of the Seitenfus accusations in “Haiti’s Doctored Elections” (Dissent Magazine).

An email thread at that time between Hillary Clinton and her Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills (Case No. F-2014-20439 Doc No. C05777664) was copied to Merten. In it, Secretary of State Clinton participated in a heavily redacted discussion of a draft statement by the State Department on the elections. It appears that a defense was crafted that explained why the initial results released by the State Department were changed.

“This is the statement we released late last night. Election results order Manigault, Celestin, Martielly (sic). May be good to have Tom Adams give you a quick update today.”

In the email thread, on Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2010, Cheryl Mills instructs a staffer to “print the traffic” on the draft embassy statement that discusses something the “tabulation center” did not show in their first statement which quoted the CEP tabulations.

The new “results” moved Michel Martelly to second place in the first round of presidential elections.

Merten was bumped to Croatia in 2012 and sent back to Haiti in 2015, just in time to oversee another round of fraudulent elections, making certain the fix was in. On Nov. 20, 2016, representatives from the National Lawyers Guild-International Association of Democratic Lawyers, (NLG-IADL) sent a delegation to Haiti to observe the vote.

Their report says Haiti’s President-elect Jovenel Moise, who was under investigation for money laundering and drug smuggling, received votes from only 9.6 percent of registered voters. In addition, the civil registry was in complete disarray. Official voter turnout was 21 percent – and as low as 17 percent according to some calculations, a worrisome and extraordinarily low figure.

Fear is the liar’s best friend. An analysis of the 2015 election by the International Lawyers Guild revealed “Incidents of violence, fraud and voter intimidation at 40 to 67.8 percent of voting centers, with 196 of 1,508 centers (13 percent) forced to suspend voting due to such incidents. This was the election that was scheduled to replace puppet Michel Martelly, who had refused throughout his term to seat a legitimate Parliament and basically ruled by fiat.

In the end, Martelly’s pal, Jovenel Moise became the USA’s next Man in Haiti, and Merten remains in the background.

Now, Moise is ruling under a cloud of drug trafficking accusations. Haiti’s Central Financial Intelligence Unit (UCREF) began an investigation into Moise’s finances. The raw report shows that Moise had managed untraceable transactions of up to $5.5 million.

His associates include Guy Philippe, the leader of the 2004 coup against Aristide. Philippe was arrested Jan. 5, 2017, in Port-au-Prince and extradited to the United States by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). He was convicted in June 2017 and given a nine-year sentence for taking bribes from drug kingpins. Justice was not served, since Philippe was not tried for deaths he orchestrated as leader of the FLRN death squads.

The corrupt political DNA continues in an unbroken chain in Haiti. Clinton begat Merten, who begat Martelly, who begat Moise, whose death squads are now firing live ammunition and killing protestors fighting against embezzlement from the previously mentioned fuel deal with Venezuela.

The current Haitian Senate is a “sanctuary for drug dealers and criminals,” says Joel Leon, a Haitian investigative writer and commentator.

WikiLeaks cables published in 2008 finger Joseph Lambert for drug trafficking. No charges were brought because there was not enough proof to indict him.

“Lambert presents a dilemma for the U.S. government. Under normal circumstances we would seek close contact with this skilled and ambitious politician who is aiming for the presidency” – an excerpt from a cable dated Feb. 13, 2007, sent by Ambassador to Haiti Janet Sanderson.

The videos of atrocities that no sane person would want to share raises another question to challenge our thesis. Is violence more prevalent now, or is it more visible since Haitians have smart phones and access to social media and email?

Former Haitian Sen. Bernard Sansaricq has seen many of these videos, but believes social media has shined the light of truth on mayhem.

“What’s happening is that I am sure such violence existed under Duvalier and other repressive regimes, but people did not have cell phones to take pictures and make videos. Now almost everyone has a cell phone in Haiti. But, oh my God, this is violence as never seen before.”

Sansaricq believes, and there is much evidence to support this, that gangs are being armed by the government of Haiti to justify the necessity of creating a new army. The U.S. and most major powers are opposed to it. “An Army in Haiti will never be able to defend the country but will be an instrument of repression against the population,” Sansaricq says.

Let’s, for the sake of our thesis, view the execution of an 18-year-old boy who was shot at point blank range for no reason, except that the ARNEL gang wanted to spread more terror.

The young man is standing on a pile of rocks next to the water. The gang leader orders him to step closer to the water. His hands are tied behind his back. He is stripped to the waist and he is thin; wearing blue sweat pants. A man with an automatic weapon steps forward and gleefully keeps shooting at him until he falls, crumpled on the rocks next to the sea. The murderer is wearing a black shirt and patterned red board shorts. He keeps pumping rounds into the body.

The boy’s name is Fedler Dolce. He was executed in mid-November 2018. Just 18 years old, Fedler lived in Petionville with his mother and was on his way to visit his father in Carrefour.

Voice of America issued a presser that Haiti’s national police force (PNH) is offering a $27,000 reward (2 million gourdes) for any information leading to the arrest of ARNEL gang leader Arnel Joseph, who is also accused of terrorizing the population in the capital, Port-au-Prince.

Arnel was arrested and sentenced to six years in jail in 2011 for the murder of several policemen. He was released in May 2017. Now there appears to be direct video evidence of his gang’s involvement in the summary execution of Fedler Dolce.

Meanwhile, is Special Coordinator Merten also coordinating this mayhem? Or is Merten a hapless puppet himself?

It is hard to believe that videos of pigs eating human cadavers and the aftermaths of executions would reach my desk and not Merten’s. Has President Trump been made aware of these atrocities? That is obviously Merten’s responsibility. Either Merten is not sharing them, or President Trump does not care.

This everlasting essay promised a look at what is right with Haiti. Patience is required while the reader identifies the enemy and flees from the web of lies spun by the puppet masters.

“The mind that finds its way to wild places is the poet’s; but the mind that never finds its way back is the lunatic’s.” (Chesterton again)

In an effort to avoid the onset of lunacy, an examination of all that is right with Haiti is required. Of course, there must certainly be something that is right with Haiti if the United States is taking such a deep interest in her. If the interest were one without mercenary intent, Haiti could have been lifted from poverty and her resultant dependence on foreign aid decades ago.

One of the answers can be found in travel brochures for the Royal Caribbean Cruise Line. A deepwater port, Labadee, beckons from the azure seas caressing the northern shores of Haiti.

Royal Caribbean is the only cruise line that sails there. The Dragon’s Breath Flight Line, the world’s longest zip line over water, is featured. Beachside private cabanas, complete with a Disney inspired real “Haitian Village” are all included. The chain link fences, separating the Haitian village from real Haitian villages and poor Haitians, are hidden in the forest.

Haiti-national-police-take-cover-212th-anniversary-of-Dessalines’-assassination-Port-au-Prince-101718-by-AP-300x169, Merten, mercenaries, marionettes and the media blackout on Haiti, World News & Views
National police take cover as gunshots ring out at the end of a ceremony marking the 212th anniversary of the assassination of independence hero Gen. Jean-Jacques Dessalines in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Oct. 17, 2018. – Photo: AP

Haiti offers viable deepwater ports and beautiful offshore tropical islands. Who knew? Why did the United States construct its largest embassy in the Western world at Port-au-Prince? Why pass up Paris or Moscow? Consider that the privatization of Haiti’s deep water suggests the U.S. realizes that offshore oil transfers and some container shipments would not be possible in US ports.

A federal case against Haitian-American dentist and businessman Joseph Baptiste has been languishing in the Massachusetts court system since August of 2017. Baptiste, a retired U.S. Army colonel, is accused of conspiring to bribe senior Haitian government officials.

The goal was pay-to-play in support of an $84 million port project at Môle-Saint-Nicolas in the country’s northern region. The complaint (Case 1:17-mj-06216-MPK) accuses Baptiste of laundering $50,000 in bribes through his non-profit charity meant to help Haiti’s poor. The project never went anywhere, but the FBI complaint is a roadmap on how these schemes work.

Expectations for the 2016 completion of the $5 billion Panama Canal expansion project increased interest in Haiti’s deep-water ports. However, deep water means nothing without the cranes and other infrastructure necessary to on- and off-load cargo. Oil means refineries, and so far the only money available is from private and foreign investment that requires approval from Haiti’s government.

The Môle-Saint-Nicolas prospectus submitted by Baptiste described the Port Project as involving numerous “modular” phases, including the construction of multiple cement factories, a shipping-vessel recycling station, an international transshipment station with numerous slips for shipping vessels, a power plant, a petroleum depot and tourist facilities.”

In August 2014, the FBI became aware that Haitian-American businessmen were offering to facilitate bribes to high-level officials of the government of Haiti – pay-to-play for the ability to do high-level business. Baptiste allegedly solicited bribes from an undercover agent of the FBI. Bribes would fast track the port project and an un-named mining project.

In a recorded meeting, the FBI captured Baptiste discussing a “pay-to-play” system in Haiti and describing payments that would have to be made in connection with the Port Project. He explained that he could use a Maryland non-profit to conceal and facilitate bribe payments to Haitian officials.

The case is finally set for a jury trial in June 2019, and additional co-conspirators, including businessman Richard Boncy, have been named.

There are some interesting procedural questions with this case. The initial complaint was signed by the FBI, but it is a federal (USA vs.) case. Attorney Ezili Danto raised an important issue “The FBI doesn’t have the authority to prosecute, only to investigate and recommend prosecution. Even a FISA Court requires an indictment. Yet, there’s no government indictment on file for the U.S. v. Baptiste case.”

Subsequent court filings have indicated a grand jury is in place, but one must ask why the initial FBI affidavit was passed off as an indictment.

Haitian officials are also participating in gun running operations from Florida. The owner of an Orlando gun shop, Junior Joel Joseph and his brother Jimy Joseph, along with an unindicted co-conspirator, are facing charges in an illegal firearms shipment. The guns and other tactical equipment were concealed in a Mitsubishi truck and delivered to the Monarch Shipping Lines in the Port of Palm Beach.

The haul included 159 shotguns, five AR15 rifles, two Glock semi-automatic pistols and various boxes of ammunition. The ship was bound for St. Marc in Haiti. Shipping documents and other communications with un-named Haitian officials were forwarded using the social media application WhatsApp.

Monarch Shipping has been in the news before. In 2013 the Monarch Empress, a 286-foot cargo ship that normally travels from the Port of Palm Beach in Riviera Beach to the Port of St. Marc, Haiti, every two weeks, was held in port.

The U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not allow the ship to depart. Documents signed by then Attorney General Eric Holder ordered an inspection, which on the surface seemed to indicate a problem with oil in the ballast tanks. The inspection languished until July, when Monarch sued the U.S. on grounds of unlawful search and seizure and Miranda rights violations.

Everything old is new today. In a 2006 New York Times article, kidnappings and assassinations dominate the first paragraph. “The capital, Port-au-Prince, is virtually paralyzed by kidnappings, spreading panic among rich and poor alike. Corrupt police officers in uniform have assassinated people on the streets in the light of day. The chaos is so extreme and the interim government so dysfunctional that voting to elect a new one has already been delayed four times.”

Imagine living in a country where 80 percent of the people are living well below any objective view of poverty and without a government protecting them. Can we realistically blame the Haitian people when, as we have demonstrated, the United States provides illegal weapons and U.S. citizens collude with the Haitian elite to rob Haiti of its resources and, when that fails, to murder her citizens. A handful of oligarchs control most of the country’s wealth and many members of the government are involved in drug smuggling. The rabbit hole runs deep and the tunnel leads directly to the shores of the USA.

It is now up to President Trump to sweep the criminals out of the State Department and install credible and honest people to the embassy offices in Haiti. Continue the work of Ambassador Nikki Haley to get the United Nations out of the business of nation building.

What is wrong with Haiti? There is nothing wrong with Haiti.

“Things that are bad are not called good by any people who experience them; but things that are good are called bad by the universal verdict of humanity.” (Chesterton redux)

We must learn to use “good” and “bad” properly. Either that, or fire God.

Georgianne Nienaber is an investigative and political writer. She lives in rural northern Minnesota, New Orleans and South Florida. Her articles have appeared in The Society of Professional Journalists’ Online Quill Magazine, The Ugandan Independent, Rwanda’s New Times, India’s TerraGreen, COA News, ZNET, OpEdNews, Glide Magazine, The Journal of the International Primate Protection League, Africa Front, The United Nations Publication, A Civil Society Observer, Bitch Magazine, and Zimbabwe’s The Daily Mirror.

Thousands of Haitians marched in Port au Prince and other parts of Haiti on Nov. 18, 2018, to demand a trial for officials involved in the alleged misuse of funds from Petrocaribe, an oil assistance program sponsored by Venezuela. – Video: Meta Viers