Redemption and Reorganization for a New Beginning

April 9, 2010

By Padmini Arhant

On March 10, 2010, the former President Bill Clinton delivered an apology statement to the people of Haiti.

President Bill Clinton is appointed the UN Special Envoy to Haiti.

I commend the former President Bill Clinton in coming forward willfully and taking responsibility for the unpopular economic policy that caused immense grievance to the suffering population of Haiti.

The courageous action by the former head of state in acknowledgment of a negative political decision that led to an immeasurable despair for the trusting population in Haiti is praiseworthy.

President Clinton – Your action is honorable and demonstrated the remorse you had experienced from the judgment error in the ‘Free Trade’ agreement imposed upon the people of Haiti against their will.

Your recognition of the mistake is an affirmation that it’s never too late for anyone regardless of stature to admit his or her wrongdoings and contribute to a positive beginning identifiable as repentance, when defining the human character.

Finally, Please review the articles from different sources in this subject matter.

I concur with the article’s author ‘Dave Johnson’ –

http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010031329/ – Thank you.

BILL CLINTON APOLOGIZES TO HAITI FOR EFFECTS OF FREE TRADE – March 29, 2010 – 11:15am ET

“This is just one more example of conservative failure.

Decisions based on ideology eventually hit a wall of reality.

Free trade wiped out American manufacturing.

Free market deregulation wiped out our economy.

Low taxes wiped out our infrastructure and competitiveness.

It’s time for progressives to find their voice and vision, stop reacting to conservative nay-saying, and get the country moving in a positive, progressive direction.”

Thank you.

Padmini Arhant

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1. Source: http://wilderside.wordpress.com/2010/04/02/“– Thank you.

“We Made a Devil’s Bargain”: Fmr. President Clinton Apologizes for Trade Policies that Destroyed Haitian Rice Farming

“President Bill Clinton, now the UN Special Envoy to Haiti, publicly apologized last month for forcing Haiti to drop tariffs on imported, subsidized US rice during his time in office.

The policy wiped out Haitian rice farming and seriously damaged Haiti’s ability to be self-sufficient.

On Wednesday, journalist Kim Ives of Haiti Liberté questioned Clinton about his change of heart and his stance on the return of ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.”

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2. HTTP://WWW.THECOAST.CA/REALITYBITES/ARCHIVES/2010/03/30/ – THANK YOU.

Local activists surprised by Clinton apology to Haiti

Former US president admits trade policy “a mistake”

Posted by Bruce Wark on Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 5:09 PM

Nova Scotia activists are expressing surprise that former US president Bill Clinton has apologized for flooding Haiti with cheap American rice beginning in the mid 1990s.

During testimony before a US Senate committee three weeks ago, Clinton admitted that requiring Haiti to lower its tariffs on rice imports made it impossible for Haitian farmers to compete.

The trade policy forced farmers off the land and undercut Haiti’s ability to feed itself.

“It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked.

It was a mistake,” Clinton — now a UN special envoy to Haiti — told the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 10. “I had to live everyday with the consequences of the loss of capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people because of what I did; nobody else.”

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3. http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010031329/ – Thank you.

BILL CLINTON APOLOGIZES TO HAITI FOR EFFECTS OF FREE TRADE

By Dave Johnson – March 29, 2010 – 11:15am ET

The “free trade” craze wiping out Haiti’s farmers by flooding the country with cheap American rice.

The same this happened in northern Mexico with cheap (heavily subsidized) American corn.

On March 10 Bill Clinton apologized to Haiti. See With cheap food imports, Haiti can’t feed itself
[W]orld leaders focused on fixing Haiti are admitting for the first time that loosening trade barriers has only exacerbated hunger in Haiti and elsewhere.

They’re led by former U.S. President Bill Clinton – now U.N. special envoy to Haiti – who publicly apologized this month for championing policies that destroyed Haiti’s rice production.

Clinton in the mid-1990s encouraged the impoverished country to dramatically cut tariffs on imported U.S. rice.

“It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked.

It was a mistake,” Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 10.

“I had to live everyday with the consequences of the loss of capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people because of what I did; nobody else.”

Here is how it happened:

Three decades ago things were different. Haiti imported only 19 percent of its food and produced enough rice to export, thanks in part to protective tariffs of 50 percent set by the father-son dictators, Francois and Jean-Claude Duvalier.

When their reign ended in 1986, free-market advocates in Washington and Europe pushed Haiti to tear those market barriers down. President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, freshly reinstalled to power by Clinton in 1994, cut the rice tariff to 3 percent.

Impoverished farmers unable to compete with the billions of dollars in subsidies paid by the U.S. to its growers abandoned their farms. Others turned to more environmentally destructive crops, such as beans, that are harvested quickly but hasten soil erosion and deadly floods.

This is just one more example of conservative failure. Decisions based on ideology eventually hit a wall of reality.

Free trade wiped out American manufacturing. Free market deregulation wiped out our economy. Low taxes wiped out our infrastructure and competitiveness.

It’s time for progressives to find their voice and vision, stop reacting to conservative nay-saying, and get the country moving in a positive, progressive direction.”

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