Legacy of 1804 | Amb. Kenneth Merten Bamboozles Haitians in Brooklyn #LOF1804

Join host Alice Backer  this Friday at 9PM as she summarizes and plays various reactions to U.S. Amabassador Kenneth Merten's recent visit to Brooklyn where he purported to offer a Retrospective of US Foreign policy in Haiti after two panelists who implicitly blamed the Haitian government for USAID policies that have destroyed Haiti's rural economy. Merten's own remarks looking back at US Foreign policy in the last 20 or so years were very short and he scraped the surface of  the many serious blows dealt to Haitian rice farming, the Black pig and to the country's infrastructure through the 90s embargo.

But most of all, Merten bamboozled the community when questions were raised about his involvement in announcing election results in 2010 that were contrary to what two electoral council members and a former OAS official found to be the actual result.

The event was protested by KOMOKODA, a grassroots organization who felt Brooklyn College should not have invited someone with Merten's destructive policies towards Haiti to speak at the new Haitian Studies Institute.

Listen to reactions by Dahoud Andre of Komokoda, Daniella Bien-Aimé of the Bien-Aimé Post and Hugues Girard, among others.

See pre-and post-show notes at the post for this show at kiskeacity.com. Among other highlights, Professor Claude Joseph who was on the panel with Merten and Dady Chery, a well known Haitian blogger, both called into the show!