dChan - Q Origins Project Archive

https://fusion.tv/story/357169/hillary-clinton-foundation-victims-colombia/

The Clinton Foundation left a toxic legacy in Colombia, critics

Editor’s note: The original version of this story did not meet our standards, and it has been revised accordingly. The update includes comments from the Clinton Foundation on its activities in Colombia. We regret that this information was not included at the time of original publication.

Hillary Clinton has long said she is “very proud” of the Clinton Foundation’s work, but many of its beneficiaries in Colombia wonder why. Since Bill Clinton established the foundation in the late 1990s, with help over the years from Hillary and daughter Chelsea, the nonprofit “global philanthropic empire” has raised roughly $2 billion from foreign governments and various wealthy donors to tackle global development and health problems. While intense media scrutiny has focused on the foundation’s donations and its use of that money – partly because of the wealth of available information on its vast financial intake – less sustained attention has been dedicated to its accomplishments on the ground.

“They are doing nothing for workers,” one Colombian union official told us, with disgust. “I don’t even know what they are doing in this country other than exploiting poverty and extracting money.”

Colombia should be the Clinton Foundation’s best case study. Ground zero for the drug wars of the 1980s and 90s, racked by uneven development and low-intensity conflict for half a century, Colombia has received significant foundation money and attention. Bill and Hillary Clinton have visited the country often and enjoy close relationships with members of Colombia’s ruling party. Colombia has also been home to the vast oil and natural gas holdings of one of the Clinton Foundation’s largest individual donors, Canadian financier Frank Giustra. In short, conditions were right for Colombia to be the shining example of what the Clinton Foundation’s philanthropy can accomplish in the world, and what makes Hillary so proud of its efforts.

The American Media Institute, a nonprofit news service based in Alexandria, Virginia, partnered with Fusion to send us to Colombia to investigate the Clinton Foundation’s impact. We interviewed more than 50 people in Colombia and found ground realities that contrasted, often starkly, with the nonprofit’s claims about its good work.

Many of the Colombian “success stories” touted on the foundation’s website were critical about the foundation’s effect on their lives. Many labor leaders and progressive activists say foundation programs caused environmental harm, displaced indigenous people, and helped concentrate a larger share of Colombia’s energy and mining resources in the hands of Giustra, who was involved in a now-bankrupt oil company that worked closely with the Clinton Foundation and which used the Colombian military and a surveillance program to smash a strike by its workers.

They paint a picture that belies the progressive principles on which the Clintons have based their political dynasty and philanthropy, embodied in the Clinton Foundation’s promotional copy: “Everyone deserves a chance to succeed.”

What’s missing from the press coverage of the Clinton Foundation is a basic question: What do its activities and outcomes reveal about Hillary Clinton’s political values?

Giustra did not respond to Fusion’s requests for comment, but his attorney said in a statement that his client had no control over the oil company in question and divested himself from it by 2009, when the Colombia charitable partnership began; Fusion’s and other outlets’ reporting suggest he retained stakes in the company’s success. The Clinton Foundation said the Clinton-Giustra partnership in Colombia had succeeded for seven years at “empowering individuals through job creation, skills training and education, and entrepreneurship opportunities.”

We interviewed a dozen young women in the foundation’s job-training programs; female business owners who sought help from its programs; workers who toiled for a major foundation donor’s firms; indigenous fishermen who were promised jobs and aid; and union leaders, social-justice activists, shanty-town residents, and progressive lawmakers. Some current and past enrollees said they enjoyed the job training, but had little to show for it. Some alumni told Fusionthey lost money. Others said they were used as props. Still others simply thought that the foundation had wasted a lot of their time.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/mary-anastasia-ogrady-the-clinton-foundation-and-haiti-contracts-1425855083

The problem with the Clintons in Haiti is that everywhere you go, they are there with the appearance of a conflict of interest. Haiti is unlikely to triumph over its long struggle against corruption when the U.S. government grants a former U.S. president wide power, with little oversight, to dispense hundreds of millions in the midst of such destitution.

https://articles.latimes.com/1994-12-18/news/mn-10197_1_haitians-battle-army-juntaThe figure, part of displays depicting the 1779 Battle of Savannah, commemorates the "Chasseurs Volontaires"–infantry volunteers from Haiti who carried out what a placard calls "the most brilliant feat of the day, and one of the bravest ever performed by foreign troops in the American cause."

It is a rare American tribute to the heroism of Haitians who fought on U.S. soil for the independence of this nation, 215 years before U.S. troops landed in Haiti to help restore the elected president.

Little-known in this country, the battle is cited proudly by some Haitians in the aftermath of the U.S. intervention that ended three years of rule by an

"We, who stood side by side with you in the Battle of Savannah, Georgia, to fight for the independence of the United States, are happy that today you stand side by side with us to uphold democracy in Haiti," President Jean-Bertrand Aristide said in Washington shortly before his U.S.-enabled return to Haiti following three years in exile.