Letter to Zanmi Lasante__Haiti

Dear Partners in Health,

I admire and respect your efforts in Haiti during the recent earthquake tragedy as well as your health care projects prior to the cataclysm. However, the message you sent to me under your letterhead featuring Dr. Paul Farmer's address to the U.S. senate was disappointing. Though I'm not a citizen of Haiti nor an expert on Haitian politics, the country's present government seems corrupt and in need of an overhaul, as any reading of Haitian history over the last 10 years will elucidate. Dr. Farmer doesn't mention this in his U.N. address. The deprivations of Haiti don't all stem from freak acts of nature, but are largely caused by systemic inequalities in the power structure of what should be a paradise in the Caribbean. Dr. Farmers suggestions seem vaguely to kowtow to the United Nations and the United States (as well as other industrialized nations) in hopes of opening new financial and policy networks similar to the policies which were in place prior to the earthquake. An unfortunate direction, I would think, considering that the paradigm used won't protect the people of Haiti from the international business and governmental interests bent on exploiting Haiti for its own profit and ends. Dr. Farmer acknowledges Bill Clinton as a prospective partner in his plans for Haiti. I would remind you that Clinton did more damage to the people of the undeveloped nations in our hemisphere than any single individual alive. His international policies enacted while President of the U.S. (NAFTA among them) has stifled the lives of millions upon millions of people in Mexico, Central America and elsewhere. Dr. Farmer and Partners in Health (Zanmi Lasante) are swimming with sharks, which spells grave troubles ahead for the average Haitian citizen.

Economics is not my specialty, but the class inequalities of consumer capitalism which the United Nation and the United States uphold are far more dangerous than even your recent earthquake. Someone should ask the people of Haiti which avenues of future economic and cultural design they're most desirous of following rather than bureaucrats and celebrities speaking in their interest. The modern world has many examples of foreign business and governmental interests (even many NGOs) failing the people while providing great profit to those who acquire contracts and drive policy. I would have Dr. Farmer first ask the United States aid contingent of military personnel in Haiti to remove their arms, dismantle the "Green Zone" surrounding the airport of Port au Prince, and investigate the corruption of Haiti's current government. I would wisely fear the business interests of the world sharpening their metaphorical knife and fork as they enter Haiti with soldiers and antibiotics.

I again applaud the service which Partners in Health has provided to the people of Haiti, but I voice grave fears of foreign interests preying on a weak and greedy government, plunging the average Haitian into a future of even worse economic servility and loss of human rights.

Please pardon my "soapbox" sermonizing, but the stakes are high and the sharks are most certainly circling. Dr. Farmer seems to be unaware of, or in league with, those same interests which most alarm me.

In Solidarity,
Dennis Dorney