How the U.S. acts to create and exploit Haiti’s misery
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Bulletin: Ariel Henry resigned March 11 as Haiti’s prime minister. Political tensions in Haiti quickly sharpened at the end of February when all the multidimensional crises afflicting that country coalesced. The two coalitions of armed groups that had been competing with each other came together

There is a major media campaign brewing to try to justify foreign intervention in Haiti. The Washington Post describes the bodies on the streets. The TV networks are concentrating on the violence (5,000 people killed in 2023), hunger and lack of education and health care.

Given the Haitian people’s nearly total rejection of foreign troops, however, sending foreign troops to Haiti is a hard sell. The Pentagon and its counterparts in other countries appear to be reluctant to pursue this course, but the media is making a case in favor of intervention, should the [neo]imperialists decide there is no alternative.

  • MakanEnglish
    71·
    8 months ago

    Long history of U.S. meddling

    Even before Haiti became independent, while its masses were still struggling with the colonialists who had enslaved most of them, the United States intervened. The first U. S. president, the enslaver George Washington, directed his secretary of state, the enslaver Thomas Jefferson, to grant the enslavers of Haiti $700,000 — a vast sum at that time — to put down the rebellion of enslaved Haitians.

    Giving foreign aid to the French enslavers failed to defeat the revolution. Haiti won independence in 1804, becoming the second country in the Western Hemisphere to win independence from European colonialists. France put off recognizing Haitian independence until 1825; the U.S. government recognized Haiti only in 1862 during the U.S. Civil War.

    In the 220 years since the 1804 victory, during which the U.S. intervened multiple times, occupying Haiti with troops, Haitians continued to resist.

    Looking at what has happened since 2004, the Haitian revolution’s 200th anniversary, provides a handle on what is happening now.

    Jean-Bertrand Aristide had been reelected with 92% of the vote in 2000, but the U.S.-dominated Organization of American States challenged the count. Using this as a pretext, and with the connivance of the CIA, Aristide’s opponents started an insurrection in February 2004. That Feb. 29 the U.S. kidnapped President Aristide and put him on an Air Force jet to the Central African Republic.

    The United States wanted Aristide gone. He had gained national prominence by denouncing the Duvalier regime’s corruption and malfeasance. But he went further; as president, he pushed for increasing the minimum wage, for providing public transportation and for no-fees education.

    Aristide had also pushed for France to provide Haiti with $21 billion in reparations for forcing Haiti to pay money to the French regime starting from 1825 and ending only in 1947, for the loss of its enslaved workers, freed by the Haitian Revolution.

    In the past 20 years, there has only been one transfer of power from a Haitian elected president to another, in 2011. For over a decade, Haiti’s parliament has lacked a quorum, because not enough elections were held to fill its seats. For a quarter of that time, there has been no elected president in office.

    But the Haitian masses remain in the streets, calling for Henry’s ouster and fighting for justice and self-determination.