Recently a cholera outbreak and epidemic has hit Haiti. As of November 22, it has claimed the lives of 1,200 Haitian people. Another 20,000 have been hospitalized because of it.
This is in the wake of a devastating earthquake that hit the impoverished country earlier this year. The earthquake claimed a staggering 250,000 lives. Some 1.3 million people out of a population of 10 million live in either tents, refugee camps, and oftentimes no shelter. Cholera has been spreading quickly under these conditions. Also floods and standing water left from hurricane Tomas has aided the spread.
In Port-au-Prince, 10 inmates died of cholera in the overcrowded national prison, raising fears for the health of the 2,000 other inmates.
Travelers from Haiti are reported to have transported the disease to neighboring Dominican Republic and Florida. Authorities there have said the disease is contained from spreading.
The people of Haiti have organized protests in response to the cholera epidemic.
The target has been UN ‘peacekeepers,’ who have been blamed for bringing this disease to the country, where it has been unknown for decades until now. The blame has been put on ‘peacekeepers’ from Nepal. Nepal is a nation that had recent outbreaks of cholera. The Nepalese ‘peacekeeping’ force was found to have flushed contaminated feces from base latrines into the Artibonite River, triggering the outbreak. The DNA fingerprinting has confirmed that the cholera is a strain from South Asia.
It is unclear from the information given of exactly how the cholera epidemic spread. But it is clear this disease spreads in underdeveloped regions. The resources and technology already exist to help Haiti recover. Yet, Haiti since its inception has been targeted by imperialist intervention, especially by the United Snakes, and their national economic development has ever since been hampered. Unnecessary deaths from cholera are the result of the capitalist-imperialism system that puts profits over human need, gives a small minority of First Worlders luxuries at the expense of basic needs of the entire world, sets up puppet governments around the Third World, and needs to be replaced. The masses of the world have an interest to live their lives not as slaves and ‘surplus people’ under global capital, but to determine their destiny free from imperialist exploitation and meddling.
Anti-Imperialism.org 