By Earl Bousquet

US Secretary of State Blinken announced in Jamaica on March 11 that Washington was offering just-over US $30 million for humanitarian aid, while increasing the amount it’ll make available for facilitating the intervening military-led external mission, from US $200 million to $300 million.

However, a question continuing to be asked is: What is America, France, the UK and Canada’s main interests in Haiti, which they continue to remind us is “the poorest nation in the hemisphere”?

If Haiti is so-poor, why are the richest countries in the world so interested in it?

Why is the US so interested in Haitian people’s interests, but not allowing Haitian migrants fleeing to the USA to cross its borders, instead sending them back to the same Haiti hell-hole?

Why Washington is instead ready to spend at least US $350 million to supposedly save and protect Haitians fleeing for a better life in the world’s most famous ‘Land of Opportunity’?

These questions are becoming increasingly more-relevant today, as it’s being suggested that Haiti might-very-well-be sitting on more oil than Venezuela and precious minerals unheard-of and available nowhere else in the Western Hemisphere.

Where Haiti once rivaled America in money and might after the 1804 Revolution that created the world’s first Back Republic and started the process of ending cross-Atlantic Slave Trade, it lost all that power after France and other world powers back then invaded and overthrew the Revolution in 1817.

France demanded 190 million gold francs in compensation, which Haiti was forced to pay for forever 100 years – up to 1957 – leaving Haiti in the poverty it’s known to be in for more than the past century.

The US has also invaded Haiti several times since then, using gunboats for diplomacy to enforce occupation of that small Caribbean nation with such a big world history.

So then, the question remains: If Haiti is so poor and destitute, why are all those big rich nations so-very-interested in maintaining a presence there?

For example, why is the US Embassy in Haiti its largest in the Western Hemisphere and the fourth-largest in the world?

Why do they want African and Caribbean boots to mash certain Haitians’ heads, but won’t commit their own troops, or even UN Peacekeeping forces?

Haiti’s supposed ‘Friends’ say they are interested in the welfare of poor Haitians, but from what we’ve been able to gather, those ‘Friends of Haiti’ pouring millions into external intervention might very-well have their own other special reasons – and interests.

Apart from its strategic military location between Cuba and Venezuela, it’s also now emerging that Haiti is sitting on riches galore –and like in Guyana, never thought-of, far-less well-known before.

What’s long known is that Haiti and the Dominican Republic share an island that sits on four tectonic plates that have always been blamed for natural disasters like that of January 12, 2010 — a devastating 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, killing over 220,000 people and leaving over 300,000 injured and more than 1.5 million homeless.

But according to local geologists, there’s more about those tectonic plates than we seem to ever have imagined: they say Haiti is sitting on oil and gold, as well as extraterrestrial resources.

Some claim Haiti is sitting on more oil than Venezuela – that while Venezuela has the most oil reserves in the world – more than Saudi Arabia – and while Guyana is sitting on more oil than ever imagined, Venezuela’s reserves are “a cup of water” next to “Haiti’s swimming pool”

The geologists also say Haiti has mountains of a unique type of iridium, which produces a heat-resistant material used to make spacecraft.

It’s estimated that one ton of this particular material – iridium, from an asteroid that landed in Haiti  65 million years ago – is worth US $45 Billion – and Haiti has mountains of it.

According to the unconfirmed estimates, Haiti can be sitting on US $20 Billion worth of gold, US $8 billion worth of copper and US $120 million worth of oil.

So then, if all that’s true, could there be any better reason for the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany and others to be as interested as they are in Haiti today?

But while we are wondering and pondering, time is running and passing – and running out – for finding genuine solutions to Haiti’s present problems.

The paramilitary groups and the politicians opposing foreign intervention have rejected and refused participation in the proposed seven-member transitional council, a condition of membership of which is support for foreign military intervention, also exclusion of the most-powerful or loudest of those opposing intervention, having been jailed for corruption, or being on US or other sanctions lists.

In this situation, it is to be expected that appointment of the seven-member council, of which only five will have voting rights, will take longer than expected – in which case there will also be one more spoke in the big wheel: Prime Minister Henry says he will only resign AFTER the proposed and already-troubled transitional council is appointed.

Therefore, Monsieur Henry will REMAIN prime minister until then – and possible even try to return home in that post, whereas the airports have been closed and the neighboring Dominican Republic has closed all land borders and air entry into and from Haiti.

So then, will the US eventually decide to opt to try to return Henry to Port au Prince as a fig leaf to accompany him with more American marines?

It’s all up in the air…

In the meantime, the curfew in Haiti was extended until today – and fire was set to the national prison and the police headquarters earlier this week, as plans by CARICOM and ‘Friends of Haiti’ hit an early roadblock – and citizens of its most populous nation continue living in limbo.