Haiti Really Is Cursed
Posted by: Not The Only One in Spirituality, History, Latin America, Race & EthnicityFor those who wonder why Americans are seen as ignorant and Christians are viewed as narrow-minded bigots, one only has to consider the recent remarks made by televangelist Pat Robertson about the earthquake in Haiti.
Robertson’s remarks prove that he is duly ignorant of geography, (Haiti only occupies one-third, not half of the island of Hispaniola)
Unfortunately, this aging mental midget is half right. Haiti is cursed, but not by God or the Devil, and certainly not because the Founding Fathers of Haiti drew a pact with Satan. Looking at history, it appears that Haiti has been cursed by first Western Europe then later by the United States. and for the unthinkable sin of being black.
Let’s look at Haiti starting from its birth. While the success of the revolution there may have involved voodoo, it may have more to do with Haitian slaves being inspired by the French Revolution which took place two years prior. It’s not far fetched to imagine that the Founding Fathers of Haiti, the second post-colonial republic in the New World, were even more inspired by the birth of the first post-colonial republic in the New World, the United States. Surely these slaves must have been inspired by such a profound concept as all men being created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
The star of the American Revolution, George Washington, went on to to become the first President of the United States. The Haitian equivalent of George Washington, slave revolt leader Toussaint l’Ouverture, was invited to a conference with the French only to be tricked, captured and shipped to France to spend his final years in a French prison. How well would have the United States fared in its first few years had George Washington been captured by the British and thrown into prison, with the new Republic to fare by itself without the father of its revolution?
Speaking of the United States, Americans at the time did not exactly congratulate this new black republic, even though the U.S. had fought for its own independence not even 40 years earlier. Perhaps it was the alliance the U.S. had with France in expelling the British from the Thirteen Colonies, or perhaps it was the fear that Haiti’s independence would spark a slave revolt in the U.S. Perhaps it was the belief that revolution was only deemed legitimate when whites were the rebels, or that Haiti had a policy of making a citizen of any black person who arrived on their shores. Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the newly crowned Emperor of Haiti appealed to President Thomas Jefferson to strengthen ties between the two new republics. Jefferson ignored Dessalines’ letters and instead joined Britain and France in a trade embargo against Haiti in 1806.
All three countries refused to lift this embargo until Haiti agreed to pay 150 million French francs ($21 billion in 20th Century US dollars) to compensate French slaveowners for their lost “property” as a result of the Haitian Revolution. With no funds to speak of, the newborn nation turned to American banks for loans with such high interest rates it took 120 years for Haiti to repay the loans in full. Money that could have…and should have…gone to the new nation’s infrastructure instead was funneled into the pockets of the already wealthy French aristocracy who had already made money off the backs of kidnapped African slaves and the interest to New York bankers, a fact that explains why Haiti is today the least developed nation in the Western Hemisphere. Natural resources were few and far between, as the island’s gold and silver reserves had already been plundered by the Spanish centuries before. Even after the initial compensation was paid to France, the United States refused to recognize Haiti’s independence until 1862. Haiti’s lack of infrastructure persisted even as electricity became widespread in the rest of the world during the 20th Century, leaving most Haitians to have an over dependence on coal, leading to massive deforestation which led to soil erosion leading to infertility of agricultural land.
Perhaps it was l’Ouverture’s absence that created a power vacuum, causing Haiti to split into two empires, reuniting decades later with a series of mostly violent coup, led by a series of mixed-race rulers who viewed themselves as European and not black and therefore had no issue with exploiting the people of Haiti. Between 1804 and 2004, Haiti had experienced 32 different national governments, establishing a tradition of national instability. One military coup was supported by the U.S. in 1888, and Germany supported another Haitian coup in 1892. In 1914, Germany, Britain and the United States invaded Haiti, supposedly to protect their citizens from all the civil unrest caused by the coups, some of which these three countries had supported financially either partially or in full. While Germany and Britain left that same year, the United States decided to stay in Haiti until 1934, an occupation that resulted in 3,200 civilian deaths.
When the U.S. finally left, Hispaniola was two societies in one nation, with the Spanish-speaking inhabitants on the eastern two-thirds of the island and no clear political border between the two. The U.S. only recognized the authority of one military to”protect” the Haitians, a force comprised mostly of Spanish-speaking soldiers led by Rafael Trujillo. Trujillo’s military was supported by the U.S. with money, military training and weapons, and after the Americans left, Trujillo became the de facto ruler of Haiti’s Spanish-speaking residents, and his old street gang, the 44, became his secret police who made disappear anyone, Haitian or Dominican, who opposed his rule.
Perhaps the United States favored Trujillo because he, a light-skinned mulatto, was obsessed with whiteness and all things Caucasian and rejected his own black heritage. He generously welcomed European Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust as well as refugees from Spain’s civil war in an effort to increase the island’s white population, and instituted a policy he called antihaitianismo, or anti-Haitianism, a thinly veiled policy of discrimination and brutality against blacks. He ordered the schools and the media to spread the concept that his Spanish-speaking countrymen were solely descended from Spaniards and should reject and ignore their own African heritage as something ugly. Adversely, the Haitians were depicted as savages descended from African slaves. Antihaitianismo reached its peak in 1937 when Trujillo began a campaign of ethnic cleansing in which 20,000 to 30,000 Haitians were slaughtered; his goal, which he referred to as “el remedio final” (the final remedy), was to kill every Haitian on the island. Ironically, Trujillo’s own mother was half Haitian, and since many or all of the Haitians killed in the massacre were migrant workers who found jobs on Dominican plantations, this was a huge blow to Haiti’s workforce. This act of genocide was excused as a means of firmly establishing a border between Santo Domingo and the Republic of Haiti by murdering Haitians living on what was generally considered Dominican land. Though Trujillo stepped down from the presidency in 1952 and was assassinated in 1961, antihaitianismo persists today in the Dominican Republic.
Haitians didn’t get much of a rest, as the Duvalier regime came to power in 1957. Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier ruled until his death in 1971, leaving his 19-year old son, Jean Claude “Baby Doc” to rule until 1986. To eliminate opposition to his title of President for Life, Papa Doc formed a death squad that eventually rivaled the Haitian Army. The group was called the Tonton Macoutes (”the bogeymen” in Haitian-Creole) and were responsible for many politically-motivated murders, acts of arson and brutality, all of which Papa Doc granted automatic amnesty for any crimes they committed. Like Trujillo, Papa Doc enjoyed the support of the United States. Exploiting tensions between Cuba and the U.S., Papa Doc often explained his army (both personal and national) were cracking down on communist sympathizers intent on staging a socialist revolution in Haiti whenever he spent U.S. foreign aid to expand the military. The U.S. also supplied Papa Doc’s regime with military training and weapons, all of which were used on Haitian civilians by the “bogeymen”. The worst part of the Duvalier regime was that Haiti’s brightest and most ambitious citizens left Haiti in drove from the deadly grip of this U.S.-supported dictator. It is said that the Tonton Macoutes killed more Haitians than Trujillo.
While the Tonton Macoutes still answered to him, Baby Doc spent more of the revenue from foreign aid on lavish parties, his $3 million wedding and a series of lavish costume balls while most Haitians starved and lived on pennies a day. The Duvalier reign ended in 1986 as Haitians began rioting and protesting the massive spending spree by their playboy president who is suspected of having robbed the Haitian Treasury of about half a billion dollars throughout his reign. Of course, the Duvaliers’ old friends in Washington, fearing their safety, arranged for a jet to escort the Duvalier family out of Haiti to be exiled to France. Despite a new President being elected a year later with a newly rewritten Constitution, the disbanded Tonton Macoutes shot dozens of officials in the new Haitian government, sending Haiti back into political instability.
General elections resumed in 1990 with Jean-Bertrand Aristide as the new president who only served for a few months before the Haitian military, most of whom consisted of Duvalier’s former Tonton Macoutes staged a government coup, resulted in Aristide fleeing Haiti for his life. An international trade embargo against Haiti forced the military to allow Aristide to return but increased unemployment by 300%. U.S. troops entered Haiti and escorted Aristide back as part of Operation Uphold Democracy. U.S. troops remained there for a year, when Aristede’s original 1991 presidential term ended, but 2,400 U.S. troops remained as part of Operation New Horizons and this time, the Haitian Army had been disbanded by Aristide.
Aristide was elected once again in 2000, and once again, civil unrest erupted in 2004 as rebel opposition and the United States accused Aristide of electoral fraud. In 2003 Canada hosted a summit called the Ottawa Initiative in which delegates from Canada, the United States and France met to decide the future of Haiti’s government, with no Haitians invited to the meeting, the details of which remain largely classified to this day. What happened next was unclear, as U.S. officials claim in 2004 that Aristide boarded a U.S. plane of his own free will amid the political violence and was escorted out of Haiti and to the Central African Republic for his own safety, but Aristide insists he was kidnapped by U.S. forces, forced to resign and held hostage in Africa by an armed guard. Aristide and his political party accused the United States, Canada and France of staging a coup and forcing him to resign. Washington appointed Gérard Latortue as Interim President of Haiti until Boniface Alexandre was sworn in as President. Notice how the U.S. selects the head of state, with no input from any Haitian. Upon assuming power, Alexandre quickly petitioned the United Nations Security Council (of which the United States, Britain and France are members) to launch a peacekeeping mission in Haiti. This mission, headed by Brazil but composed also of soldiers from the U.S., Britain and France has remained in Haiti to this day. Amnesty International has documented the Alexandre administration as one riddled with reports of police brutality and various other human rights violations.
Of course, the United States has been over the years the largest donor of foreign aid to Haiti, which relies on foreign aid for about 40% of its budget. But I believe free trade is more of a help to the Haitian people than than government-to-government aid, especially when the foreign aid is used to prop up U.S.-friendly kleptocracies and almost never reaches the people who need it most. Given the negative outcomes in Haiti as a result of U.S. intervention and periodical trade embargoes, maybe Washington should simply leave Haiti alone. All this intervention undoubtedly costs the U.S. millions of dollars and obviously doesn’t help Haiti, and the only end results are a poorer Haiti bordering on anarchy and a huger U.S. deficit, backed by Chinese communist bankers.
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