Articles by Beverly Bell

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Environment and Food in Haiti: Two Crises, One Solution

Beverly Bell May 26, 2010 Beverly Bell

Peasant Movement Garden
In this interview, Haitian peasant movement leader Chavannes Jean-Baptiste discusses the role that agriculture can play in Haiti in addressing both the environmental and food crises. The solutions he and many other Haitians propose reside in part in one set of policies and programs which can restore land and other riches of nature, and another set which can protect small-scale, sustainable agricultural production from agribusiness.

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Haitian Farmers Commit to Burning Monsanto Hybrid Seeds

Beverly Bell May 19, 2010 Beverly Bell

Farmer Jonas Deronzil
"A new earthquake" is what peasant farmer leader Chavannes Jean-Baptiste of the Peasant Movement of Papay (MPP) called the news that Monsanto will be donating 60,000 seed sacks (475 tons) of hybrid corn seeds and vegetable seeds, some of them treated with highly toxic pesticides. The MPP has committed to burning Monsanto's seeds, and has called for a march to protest the corporation's presence in Haiti on June 4, for World Environment Day.

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Haiti: Government Destroys Refugee Camps

Beverly Bell May 10, 2010 Beverly Bell

Getro Nelio, Top Tight
"Everything we owned got smashed. We lost everything." Getro Nelio was not referring to the devastating earthquake of January 12. The unemployed, 24-year-old Haitian was speaking about losing his home a second time in three months, on this occasion due to the government. Since late March, armed Haitian police have been closing camps and destroying the shelters that quake victims created out of whatever supplies they could scavenge, from cardboard to small strips of tin. U.N. troops sometimes aid in the evictions.

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The Shock Doctrine in Haiti: An Interview with Patrick Elie

Beverly Bell April 20, 2010 Beverly Bell

Patrick Elie
The Shock Doctrine, the book by Naomi Klein, shows that often imperialist countries shock another country, and then while it's on its knees, they impose their own political will on that country while making economic profits from it. We're facing an instance of the shock doctrine at work, even though Haiti's earthquake wasn't caused by men.  There are governments and sectors who want to exploit this shock to impose their own political and economic order, which obviously will be to their advantage. 

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Social Fault Lines: The Disaster of Poverty in Haiti

Beverly Bell April 7, 2010 Beverly Bell

Post-quake tent city
Laura Wagner, a U.S. anthropologist who survived - barely - Haiti's earthquake in January, writes, "Social scientists who study catastrophes say there are no natural disasters. In every calamity, it is inevitably the poor who suffer more, die more, and will continue to suffer and die after the cameras turn their gaze elsewhere. Do not be deceived by claims that everyone was affected equally -- fault lines are social as well as geological."