[haw-info] Haiti

[Marc Becker]

I returned from Haiti just a couple of days before a powerful earthquake 
rocked the country on January 12. I was in Haiti on a solidarity 
delegation to document human rights abuses by the United Nations 
Stabilization Mission (MINUSTAH) and to observe preparations for 
February's legislative elections. Other members of the HAW Steering 
Committee encouraged me to share my thoughts with the broader HAW 
membership and friends on the historical background to this catastrophe.

Many people have observed that the Haitian earthquake was more a 
political disaster than a natural one. The similarly powerful 1989 Loma 
Prieta earthquake in California killed 63 people, while the death toll 
in Haiti appears as if it may soar over 100,000. Our experiences in the 
country confirmed that the solution to Haiti's problem is political in 
nature.

Two hundred some years ago Haiti was the richest colony in the world, 
but today it is the poorest and most unequal country in the Americas. A 
successful slave revolt in 1804 defeated the French planter class, but 
the only other independent country in the Americas, the United States, 
refused to welcome a Black Republic because of the powerful example it 
set for marginalized and oppressed people everywhere. The French 
demanded a 150 million franc payment from the Haitians for losing their 
prized pearl of the Antilles. Haiti made the payment, strangling any 
possibility for development, and sacrificing its future so as not to be 
seen as an international pariah.

In Haiti, we heard from grassroots activists who complained that large 
international aid agencies collect funds for administrative salaries, 
vehicles, and office support, but little of this money filters down to 
the people who need it the most. Dumping cheap rice on the country has 
destroyed the local agricultural economy. Haiti has a desperate 
short-term need for assistance, but this aid must be funneled through 
groups like Doctors Without Borders (http://doctorswithoutborders.org/) 
and Partners in Health (http://www.pih.org/) that have a track record 
and distribution networks necessary in place to make proper use of the aid.

The longer term solution, however, is political. Already conservative 
pundits are proclaiming that the earthquake is an opportunity to remake 
the country along neoliberal lines. But the extraction of natural 
resources, creation of low-wage jobs, and privatization of government 
functions are factors that have left Haiti incapable of responding to a 
natural disaster.

Haiti has never recovered from the ostracization it faced from the 
French and United States governments at independence, and ongoing 
international policies appear to be designed to sink the country deeper 
into debt. The U.S. marines occupied the country from 1915 to 1934, and 
the earthquake seems to provide a convenient excuse for the United 
States once again to land military troops and reassert its imperial 
control over the country.

In 2004, the French, United States, and Canadian governments removed 
popular leftist president Jean Bertrand Aristide who promised to shift 
resources to the most marginalized sectors of society. They have 
insisted that the current government ban his Fanmi Lavalas, the largest 
political party in Haiti, from participating in electoral contests.

The solution to Haiti's problems is to allow the country to develop its 
own economy and political system without constant outside intervention. 
Otherwise, Haiti's next natural calamity will be worse than this one, 
and the country will continue to sink deeper into poverty, inequality, 
and social exclusion.

Marc Becker
Associate Professor of Latin American History
Truman State University

More information is available on his website 
http://www.yachana.org/reports/haiti/. For more in depth information on 
the historical background and current events in Haiti, see:

C. L. R. James, The Black Jacobins; Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San 
Domingo Revolution, 2d rev ed. (New York: Vintage Books, 1963).

Jean-Bertrand Aristide and Amy Wilentz, In the parish of the poor: 
Writings from Haiti (Maryknoll, N.Y: Orbis Books, 1990).

Jean-Bertrand Aristide and Laura Flynn, Eyes of the heart: Seeking a 
path for the poor in the age of globalization (Monroe, ME: Common 
Courage Press, 2000).

David Patrick Geggus,  Haitian revolutionary studies, Blacks in the 
diaspora (Bloomington, Ind: Indiana University Press, 2002).

Garry Wills, "Negro president" Jefferson and the slave power (Boston: 
Houghton Mifflin, 2003).

Patrick Bellegarde-Smith, Haiti: the breached citadel, Rev. and updated 
ed. (Toronto: Canadian Scholars' Press, 2004).

Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World: The story of the Haitian 
Revolution (Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 
2004).

Laurent Dubois and John D. Garrigus, ed., Slave Revolution in the 
Caribbean, 1789-1804: A brief history with documents, Bedford Series in 
History and Culture (Boston, MA ; New York, NY: Bedford/St. Martins, 2006).

Paul Farmer, The Uses of Haiti, 3rd ed. (Monroe, Me: Common Courage 
Press, 2006).

Randall Robinson, An Unbroken Agony: Haiti, from revolution to the 
kidnapping of a president (New York: Basic Civitas, 2008).

David Patrick Geggus and Norman Fiering, ed., The World of the Haitian 
Revolution, Blacks in the diaspora (Bloomington: Indiana University 
Press, 2009).