by KIM IVES and ANSEL HERZ
Disaster capitalists flocked to Haiti in a “gold rush” for contracts to rebuild the country after the January 12, 2010 earthquake, wrote the current US ambassador Kenneth Merten in a secret Febuary 1, 2010 cable obtained by WikiLeaks and reviewed by Haiti Liberte.
“THE GOLD RUSH IS ON!” Merten headlined a section of his 6pm situation report ? or Sitrep ? back to Washington.
“As Haiti digs out from the earthquake, different [US] companies are moving in to sell their concepts, products and services,” he wrote. “President [Rene] Preval met with Gen Wesley Clark Saturday [on January 30] and received a sales presentation on a hurricane/earthquake resistant foam core house designed for low income residents.”
Former US presidential candidate and retired General Wesley Clark was promoting ? along with professional basketball star Alonzo Mourning ? InnoVida Holdings, LLC, a Miami-based company, which had pledged to donate 1000 foam-core panel built houses for Haiti’s homeless.
The Florida-based disaster recovery company AshBritt “has been talking to various institutions about a national plan for rebuilding all government buildings,” Merten continued in his dispatch.
“Other companies are proposing their housing solutions or their land use planning ideas, or other construction concepts.
“Each is vying for the ear of President in a veritable free-for-all.”
One man who had the ear of Preval, perhaps more than anyone else, was Lewis Lucke, Washington’s “Unified Relief and Response Coordinator”, heading up the entire US earthquake relief effort in Haiti.
He met with Preval and Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive two weeks after the quake, and at least one more time after that, according to the cables.
Lucke, a 27-year veteran of the US Agency for International Development, had overseen multi-billion dollar contracts for Bechtel and other companies as USAID mission director in post-invasion Iraq.
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