The January 2010 earthquake provided a perfect opportunity for many to come and do business in Haiti. Even prior to the earthquake [4], Bill Clinton led the discussion on developing Haiti through corporate investment. President Martelly turned that approach into a credo: “Haiti is open for business [5].”
We understand the pretext for this so-called development. The concept of extraction isn’t very well known in Haiti, but the country has had a long history of pillaging by colonial and imperial powers.
There is a massive transfer of public resources being planned, from collective to private property. Public funding that should be spent on the population is being used to facilitate business investment. This happened in the construction of the free trade zone in Caracol [6], in which funds from US Agency for International Development and the Inter-American Development Bank that should have been spent on the Haitian people were instead used to develop private business.