Clinton Foundation Aid… Another Disaster!
Bill Clinton became the U.N. Special Envoy to Haiti in 2009. Was this a coincidence? Also, his VP Al-Gore, played a large roll in the drugs trade via Haiti. What happen right after the Haiti earthquake that left 1.5 million people destitute? Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were put in charge of donations to the relief effort and they stood up on television and asked for people to donate Cash Only to the relief of the people of Haiti. Bill Clinton was the designated UN representative for aid to Haiti while his wife Hillary was the United States secretary of state ultimately in charge of U.S. aid allocated to Haiti. Together the Clintons were the two most powerful people who controlled the flow of funds to Haiti from around the world. Talk about another perfect storm!
Former president’s Clinton & Bush did a remarkable job collecting some 2 billion in the relief effort. An effort where George W. Bush and Bill Clinton came forth wanting people to donate currency to disaster relief operations with George W. Bush even stipulated that they wanted currency only and not to send clothing and other needed items. But Haitians ask “Where is the money?”. Most went to the US to reimburse itself for sending in its military ($1.5 billion), then to US companies and NGO’s, Clinton Foundation donors profited, as did the Clinton’s and Bush’s through their slush fund charities. As was the case with the India earthquake in 2001, the Clinton’s exploited Haiti for profit. The Haitian government received less than 1% of the more than $13 billion of aid earmarked by the UN, and Haitian government and organizations were not even consulted nor a single Haitian on the fund’s board.
Where did the money go? It turns out that almost none of the money that the general public thought was going to Haiti actually went directly to Haiti. Only 1 percent of the money went to the Haitian government. Likewise extremely little went to Haitian companies or Haitian non-governmental organizations. Haitians, by and large, were not even consulted about the relief efforts. Most of the money which was spent went to outside governments, international aid agencies, and big well connected non-governmental organizations. Some went to for profit companies whose business is disasters. A lot of the pledged money has never been actually put up. And a lot of the money which was put up has not yet been spent.
Haitians, whether through their Haitian government, Haitian NGOs, or Haitian companies, had no control over how the money in Haiti has been spent. Despite a near total lack of control, it is likely that the failures in Haiti will be blamed on the Haitians themselves in the normal “blame the victim” reaction. Haiti will be blamed despite poor planning, poor execution, and the siphoning off of funds by international NGOs and private companies by the international community.
The Miami Herald reports that critics of the non-governmental organizations abound. “The NGOs still have something to respond to about their accountability, because there is a lot of cash out there,’‘ said Nigel Fisher, the United Nation’s chief humanitarian officer in Haiti. “But what about the $1.5 to $2 billion that the Red Cross and NGOs got from ordinary people, and matched by governments, etc.? What’s happened to that? And that’s where it’s very difficult to trace those funds.”
When the massive earthquake rocked the poor nation, corruption was there lying in wait to take advantage of the situation. Bernard Sansaricq, former Senate president of Haiti, said:
Today, the people of Haiti are still suffering despite the billions of dollars that have flowed into the Clinton Foundation. The Clinton’s exploited this terrible disaster to steal billions of dollars from the sick and starving people of Haiti. The world trusted the Clinton’s to help the Haitian people during their most desperate time of need and they were deceived. The Clinton’s and their friends are richer today while millions still live in tents. The world deserves to know where the money went and why help was never sent.
After the event you had U.S Military, British Intelligence, New Zealand and Mercenary operatives causing chaos in an attempt to overthrow the Government of Haiti with a coup d’etat. The people of Haiti were attacked, killed, robbed and ignored by those who were claiming to help them. You could witness the hatred towards the Haitians when a reluctant George W. Bush shook hands with one and he immediately and disgustingly wipes his hand on Bill Clinton’s shirt much to the surprise of Bill Clinton. Did Clinton utter a word in anger towards Bush? Clinton did not respond to Bush since the Clinton’s serve the Bush family and its Odessa ‘Operation Paperclip’ underpinnings.
The NationalReview.com reported on the cronyism that the Haitians discovered:
The Haitian protesters noticed an interesting pattern involving the Clintons and the designation of how aid funds were used. They observed that a number of companies that received contracts in Haiti happened to be entities that made large donations to the Clinton Foundation. The Haitian contracts appeared less tailored to the needs of Haiti than to the needs of the companies that were performing the services. In sum, Haitian deals appeared to be a quid pro quo for filling the coffers of the Clintons.
For example, the Clinton Foundation selected Clayton Homes, a construction company owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, to build temporary shelters in Haiti. Buffett is an active member of the Clinton Global Initiative who has donated generously to the Clintons as well as the Clinton Foundation. The contract was supposed to be given through the normal United Nations bidding process, with the deal going to the lowest bidder who met the project’s standards. UN officials said, however, that the contract was never competitively bid for.
Clayton offered to build “hurricane-proof trailers” but what they actually delivered turned out to be a disaster. The trailers were structurally unsafe, with high levels of formaldehyde and insulation coming out of the walls. There were problems with mold and fumes. The stifling heat inside made Haitians sick and many of them abandoned the trailers because they were ill-constructed and unusable.
The Clintons also funneled $10 million in federal loans to a firm called InnoVida, headed by Clinton donor Claudio Osorio. Osorio had loaded its board with Clinton cronies, including longtime Clinton ally General Wesley Clark; Hillary’s 2008 finance director Jonathan Mantz; and Democratic fundraiser Chris Korge who has helped raise millions for the Clintons.
Normally the loan approval process takes months or even years. But in this case, a government official wrote, “Former President Bill Clinton is personally in contact with the company to organize its logistical and support needs. And as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton has made available State Department resources to assist with logistical arrangements.”
InnoVida had not even provided an independently audited financial report that is normally a requirement for such applications. This requirement, however, was waived. On the basis of the Clinton connection, InnoVida’s application was fast-tracked and approved in two weeks.
The company, however, defaulted on the loan and never built any houses. An investigation revealed that Osorio had diverted company funds to pay for his Miami Beach mansion, his Maserati, and his Colorado ski chalet. He pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering in 2013, and is currently serving a twelve-year prison term on fraud charges related to the loan.
Several Clinton cronies showed up with Bill to a 2011 Housing Expo that cost more than $2 million to stage. Bill Clinton said it would be a model for the construction of thousands of homes in Haiti. In reality, no homes have been built. A few dozen model units were constructed but even they have not been sold. Rather, they are now abandoned and have been taken over by squatters.
USAID contracts to remove debris in Port-au-Prince went to a Washington-based company named CHF International. The company’s CEO David Weiss, a campaign contributor to Hillary in 2008, was deputy U.S. trade representative for North American Affairs during the Clinton administration. The corporate secretary of the board, Lauri Fitz-Pegado, served in a number of posts in the Clinton administration, including assistant secretary of commerce.
The report continues regarding schools that were supposed to have been built:
The Clintons claim to have built schools in Haiti. But the New York Times discovered that when it comes to the Clintons, “built” is a term with a very loose interpretation. For example, the newspaper located a school featured in the Clinton Foundation annual report as “built through a Clinton Global Initiative Commitment to Action.” In reality, “The Clinton Foundation’s sole direct contribution to the school was a grant for an Earth Day celebration and tree-building activity.”
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USAID contracts also went to consulting firms such as New York–based Dalberg Global Development Advisors, which received a $1.5 million contract to identify relocation sites for Haitians. This company is an active participant and financial supporter of the Clinton Global Initiative. A later review by USAID’s inspector general found that Dalberg did a terrible job, naming uninhabitable mountains with steep ravines as possible sites for Haitian rebuilding.
Rolling Stone, in an excellent article, reported on one $1.5 million dollar contract to the NY based consulting firm Dalberg Global Development Advisors. Dalberg’s team, according to Glenn Smucker, an anthropologist specializing in Haiti charged with briefing the team, “had never lived overseas, didn’t have any disaster experience or background in urban planning… never carried out any program activities on the ground…” and only one of them spoke French. Despite this, the group was assigned the task of doing an assessment of a specific land area where the US hoped to create new communities in an attempt to depopulate Port-au-Prince. USAID reviewed Dalberg’s work and found that “it became clear that these people may not have even gotten out of their SUVs. Indeed one area Dalberg’s team found habitable was a small mountain with an open-mined pit, a severe 100 foot vertical cliff and ravines.”
The NationalReview report continues:
Foreign governments and foreign companies got Haitian deals in exchange for bankrolling the Clinton Foundation. The Clinton Foundation lists the Brazilian construction firm OAS and the InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB) as donors that have given it between $1 billion and $5 billion.
The IDB receives funding from the State Department, and some of this funding was diverted to OAS for Haitian road-building contracts. Yet an IDB auditor, Mariela Antiga, complained that the contracts were padded with “excessive costs” to build roads “no one needed.” Antiga also alleged that IDB funds were going to a construction project on private land owned by former Haitian president Rene Preval — a Clinton buddy — and several of his cronies. For her efforts to expose corruption, Antiga was promptly instructed by the IDB to pack her bags and leave Haiti.
In 2011, the Clinton Foundation brokered a deal with Digicel, a cell-phone-service provider seeking to gain access to the Haitian market. The Clintons arranged to have Digicel receive millions in U.S. taxpayer money to provide mobile phones. The USAID Food for Peace program, which the State Department administered through Hillary aide Cheryl Mills, distributed Digicel phones free to Haitians.
Digicel didn’t just make money off the U.S. taxpayer; it also made money off the Haitians. When Haitians used the phones, either to make calls or transfer money, they paid Digicel for the service. Haitians using Digicel’s phones also became automatically enrolled in Digicel’s mobile program. By 2012, Digicel had taken over three-quarters of the cell-phone market in Haiti.
Digicel is owned by Denis O’Brien, a close friend of the Clintons. O’Brien secured three speaking engagements in his native Ireland that paid $200,000 apiece. These engagements occurred right at the time that Digicel was making its deal with the U.S. State Department. O’Brien has also donated lavishly to the Clinton Foundation, giving between $1 million and $5 million sometime in 2010–2011.
Coincidentally the United States government paid Digicel $45 million to open a hotel in Port-au-Prince. Now perhaps it could be argued that Haitians could use a high-priced hotel to attract foreign investors and provide jobs for locals. Thus far, however, this particular hotel seems to employ only a few dozen locals, which hardly justifies the sizable investment that went into building it. Moreover, there are virtually no foreign investors; the rooms are mostly unoccupied; the ones that are taken seem mainly for the benefit of Digicel’s visiting teams.
In addition, the Clintons got their cronies to build Caracol Industrial Park, a 600-acre garment factory that was supposed to make clothes for export to the United States and create — according to Bill Clinton — 100,000 new jobs in Haiti. The project was funded by the U.S. government and cost hundreds of millions in taxpayer money, the largest single allocation of U.S. relief aid. Yet Caracol has proven a massive failure.
First, the industrial park was built on farmland and the farmers had to be moved off their property. Many of them feel they were pushed out and inadequately compensated. Some of them lost their livelihoods. Second, Caracol was supposed to include 25,000 homes for Haitian employees; in the end, the Government Accountability Office reports that only around 6,000 homes were built. Third, Caracol has created 5,000 jobs, less than 10 percent of the jobs promised. Fourth, Caracol is exporting very few products and most of the facility is abandoned. People stand outside every day looking for work, but there is no work to be had, as Haiti’s unemployment rate hovers around 40 percent.
The Clintons say Caracol can still be salvaged. But former Haitian prime minister Jean Bellerive says, “I believe the momentum to attract people there in a massive way is past. Today, it has failed.” Still, Bellerive’s standard of success may not be the same one used by the Clintons. After all, the companies that built Caracol with U.S. taxpayer money have done fine — even if poor Haitians have seen few of the benefits.
Then there’s Hugh Rodham, Hillary’s brother and a former prison guard with zero experience in mining who found himself on the advisory board of a US mining company (VCS), just before securing a valuable gold mining permit in Haiti. For the first time in fifty years, Haiti awarded two new gold mining permits and one of those just happened to go to VCS, who had Hillary’s brother on the advisory board.
It seems clear that Haitian welfare is not their priority. Their priority is, well, themselves. The Clintons seem to believe in Haitian reconstruction and Haitian investment as long as these projects match their own private economic interests. They have steered the rebuilding of Haiti in a way that provides maximum benefit to themselves.
No wonder the Clintons refused to meet with the Haitian protesters. Each time the protesters showed up, the Clintons were nowhere to be seen. They have never directly addressed the Haitians’ claims. Strangely enough, they have never been required to do so. The progressive media scarcely covered the Haitian protest. Somehow the idea of Haitian black people calling out the Clintons as aid money thieves did not appeal to the mainstream media, but American Haitians showed up in protest wherever they could find the Clinton’s. It’s one thing to rob from the rich but quite another to rob from the poorest of the poor.
Hidden Agenda
According to Professor Chossudovsky:
The unspoken mission of US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) with headquarters in Miami and US military installations throughout Latin America is to ensure the maintenance of subservient national regimes, namely US proxy governments, committed to the Washington Consensus and the neoliberal policy agenda. While US military personnel will at the outset be actively involved in emergency and disaster relief, this renewed US military presence in Haiti will be used to establish a foothold in the country as well pursue America’s strategic and geopolitical objectives in the Caribbean basin, which are largely directed against Cuba and Venezuela.
The objective is not to work towards the rehabilitation of the national government, the presidency, the parliament, all of which has been decimated by the earthquake. Since the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship, America’s design has been to gradually dismantle the Haitian State, restore colonial patterns and obstruct the functioning of a democratic government. In the present context, the objective is not only to do away with the government but also to revamp the mandate of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), of which the headquarters have been destroyed.
In all likelihood the humanitarian operation will be used as a pretext and justification to establish a more permanent US military presence in Haiti.
We are dealing with a massive deployment, a “surge” of military personnel assigned to emergency relief.
The first mission of SOUTHCOM was to take control of what remains of the country’s communications, transport and energy infrastructure. Already, the airport is under de facto US control. In all likelihood, the activities of MINUSTAH which from the outset in 2004 have served US foreign policy interests, will be coordinated with those of SOUTHCOM, namely the UN mission will be put under de facto control of the US military.
Also, according to Infowars.com:
Intelligence reports are also circulating about the possible disruption of liens and seizures of trillions of dollars by the international community relative to past crimes committed by former Presidents George Bush I and II, and Bill Clinton, which were being channeled through Haiti’s Central Bank.
If any of this is even remotely true, it is certainly more than convenient that the Haitian capital was destroyed.
This particular part of the story is a real sore spot with me. And I know if I broach this topic, many readers (especially my Christian brethren who live under the delusion that the Bush family can do no wrong) will refuse to believe anything I report and will even take their anger and umbrage out on me. So be it.
I am personally convinced that certain members of the Bush and Clinton families have been involved in the international smuggling of illicit drugs for decades. I have spoken in confidence with those who were in positions to know, and they have emphatically told me that both then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton and then-President George H.W. Bush were complicit in CIA-assisted drug running out of Mena, Arkansas. (You don’t think I would say this if I did not have absolute confidence in the integrity and credibility of these sources, do you? Plus, why would they tell me this at potential great harm to themselves, if it were not true? And, no, I cannot divulge their names, for obvious reasons.) And there is absolutely no reason to believe that similar operations are not ongoing. In my opinion, it would be utterly naïve to think otherwise.
After all, it has been often reported that the CIA used Army Special Forces troops to facilitate the smuggling of drugs out of Indochina during the Vietnam War, has it not? Yes, it has. That rogue elements within the US government would use war–or even earthquakes–as cover and facilitation for illegal drug smuggling or money laundering would not surprise me one bit.
