New Haiti Earthquake Destruction Shows Folly of Ignoring LaRouche’s 2010 Rebuilding Program

Aug. 16, 2021 (EIRNS)—Had American statesman Lyndon LaRouche’s program to rebuild Haiti been implemented, in response to the devastating Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake that killed between 250,000 and 300,000 people, this impoverished nation wouldn’t again be suffering the consequences of the deadly Aug. 14 earthquake which measured 7.2 on the Richter scale. So far, 1,300 people are dead, 2,800 injured, and 30,000 people homeless, according to the Miami Herald. Homes, schools, supermarkets and roads were leveled in the southern and western parts of the country. People are terrified and despairing—today, as in 2010, they have been abandoned by the United States and its international partners, left to perish in African levels of poverty, disease and misery.

Almost immediately following the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake, Lyndon LaRouche called for an emergency reconstruction program for Haiti, to which, he said, the U.S. had a special responsibility. He called on the Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to first deploy to rescue and relocate up to 1 million homeless Haitians from Port-au-Prince to higher ground before the rainy season arrived and unleashed a dangerous health and sanitation crisis for these destitute citizens; he then proposed a comprehensive program to focus on building infrastructure—for sanitation, water management, irrigation, earthquake-proof housing, transportation, agriculture, etc.

LaRouche also recommended that the U.S. sign a 25-year treaty with Haiti, “a treaty agreement to reestablish the efficient sovereignty of the nation of Haiti, after the destructive effect of this and preceding difficulties.. We make a contract with the government, as a treaty agreement, between the United States and Haiti, to assure the rebuilding of their country, in a form in which it will actually be a functioning country which can survive.”

President Barack Obama rejected LaRouche’s proposals, removing crucial economic and military aid and encouraging instead what became known as the “Republic of NGOs”—a large unwieldy network of foreign NGOs that had a lot of money to throw around but nothing to show for it. Years later, in 2017, when China’s Southwest Engineering Municipal Design Research Institute joined with the Haitian firm Bayti Ayiti to propose a $30 billion program to completely rebuild Port-au-Prince, with sanitation infrastructure, housing, and transportation, the IMF reportedly stepped in—EIR was told at the time—to make sure the proposal went nowhere.

In its March 10, 2010 edition, EIR published a 20-page Feature under the appropriate headline “How Many Haitians Must Die Before We Impeach Obama?” It detailed the programmatic solutions Haiti required, and identified those monetarist political forces committed to keeping in place the Malthusian economic policies that had made Haiti so vulnerable to disaster, and which remain in effect today.