Mustered by former U.S. President Bill Clinton, now the Special UN Envoy to Haiti, and Luis Alberto Moreno, president of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), some 500 businesspeople and 150 NGO representatives, mostly from around the Western Hemisphere, gathered in Port-au-Prince last week for a two-day conference aimed at attracting investors in primarily Haiti's garment assembly, agriculture and energy industries.

Despite the fanfare surrounding the meeting, Haiti's masses remained completely indifferent to the gathering. Furthermore, not a single new deal was reached, according the the New York Times.

On Oct. 1, the event kicked off at the Hotel Karibe Convention Center with a speech by Haitian Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis, who pointed to the efforts made by her government to create a climate conducive for "productive investment."

"We're talking here about industries, companies, development centers, and creating jobs, but more dignified employment with decent living conditions," she said. "We must be as creative and innovative as we can be in other areas."

Ms. Pierre-Louis was trying to sweet talk a nation beset by unemployment, insecurity, poverty and discouragement. She would say that she was spreading hope, but in reality she was promoting passive acceptance of an intolerable reality where the rich become richer and the poor poorer.

This was a strange conference. There was a former U.S. president proposing to create jobs in Haiti while there is growing U.S. unemployment, now officially 9.8% and in reality 17%. Clearly, most of these "generous" investors would be happier to invest in the larger (and safer) capitalist centers. But there are always some adventurous capitalists who like investing in Third World nations like Haiti in order to maximize profits, which results, inevitably, in the worsening living conditions of the proletariat.

Despite the ever-deepening world capitalist crisis, in the event's keynote address, Bill Clinton proposed, like others before him, that capitalism will somehow save Haiti.

"Even a few years ago, I could not imagine an event like this happening in Port-au-Prince," he said. "This is a moment of great opportunity not only for investors to come and make a profit and export to other markets, but for the people of Haiti to have a more secure and more broadly shared prosperous future."

This is the same old song that we have heard for 40 years since Nelson Rockefeller came to Haiti to embrace François "Papa Doc" Duvalier and signed a deal to set up cheap labor sweat-shops. Since that time, the Haitian masses have only become poorer, although the bourgeoisie has been enriched.

Clinton, unable to ignore Haiti's "dramatic inequality in distribution of income and opportunity" tried a new layer of sugar on the pill. "The rich will get richer, but there will be a much bigger middle class with poor people pouring into it at a rapid rate," he predicted.

How ironic! In Haiti, the impoverished masses are going to "pour at a rapid rate" into the middle class, while at the same time, 600 miles to the North in the U.S. the middle class is "pouring" into the impoverished working class and unemployed lumpen proletariat.

So that is their plan: the rich will get richer, but a large middle class will grow. The tragedy is that foreign capitalists are the ones leading this discussion about what kind of society Haiti will build. We the Haitian people, from bitter experience, don't believe that capitalism will improve our lives. We want another system, which is more just and human, and which has shown dramatic success in neighboring countries like Cuba, Venezuela, and Bolivia.

Furthermore, should we really believe Bill Clinton, who tried to make the death-squad FRAPH into a "loyal opposition" in 1994, who clashed with Aristide when he didn't faithfully implement neoliberal reforms in 1995, and who was the first to establish Haiti's economic aid embargo after the Lavalas Family party swept the May and November 2000 elections?

Not surprisingly, Luis Alberto Moreno of the IDB, the event's sponsor, had the same refrain: foreign investors will save Haiti. Instead of saying that it is Haitian workers' cheap labor that helps capitalists make huge profits, Moreno reversed the argument, saying investors would help Haiti. No one in mankind's history has seen colonizers helping the colonized, except the IDB President (who incidentally was a principal architect of Clinton's infamous "Plan Colombia.")

"For too long Haiti has been seen as a land of missed opportunities," said Moreno. "I believe Haiti is now ready and able to attract private investments."

Finally, President René Préval came at the end of the conference to solemnly declare: "Haiti has opened its doors for business." Like his Prime Minister, Préval sought to illustrate how their government had improved "economic governance and the business climate."

Of course, he was "optimistic" due to the steps his government has taken for " better financial management,... greater accountability through control of public finances, ... stricter legislation against corruption,... and fiscal discipline."

In his excitement at being surrounded by so many foreigners, our head of state launched into a panegyric about the foreign occupation force, the UN Mission to Stabilize Haiti (MINUSTAH).

"[Our accomplishments] have been made possible through dialogue with political organizations and civil society, strengthening the National Police with the assistance of MINUSTAH, which allowed the establishment of an environment of peace and security," Préval said. " The result is a socio-political situation which has greatly improved and stabilized."

These are the words of a politician, who is only interested in facilitating the plans of imperialists, who, in turn, are only interested in gaining access to our natural resources and our labor force.

When President Préval spoke in his speech of establishing the rule of law by strengthening the judiciary, one had to wonder if one was dreaming or if he was really living in Haiti in 2009! Strengthening justice is one of the last concerns of this government whose primary purpose is to defend the interests of the local bourgeoisie linked to imperialism. This government has never thought about the question of law because law is incompatible with neoliberalism when rigorously applied. Until now, political prisoners still languish in the prisons of Préval and Pierre-Louis. The disappearance two years ago of human rights activist Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine remains a myth for this government.

How can this country, while under imperialist tutelage, escape its fate of being colonized? No one can believe the words of President Préval, who wants to convince us that the same bourgeoisie which collaborated in everything from the slave trade and foreign occupations, which helped subjugate Haiti, wants the happiness of the very people it has exploited, repressed, and scorned for two centuries.

Only two months ago, this same Préval fought with all his might to prevent assembly industry workers from getting a minimum wage for an eight hour workday of 200 gourdes, equal to about $5. So no one can be fooled by this president who only serves a bourgeoisie intent on plundering the resources of our planet, any more than we can trust this conference of businesspeople who claim that they have an effective response to the serious socio-economic crisis facing our nation.