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The Forgotten Occupation— Haiti One Year After the Coup
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April Knutson, W A M M
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One year ago, in the midst of celebrations of the 200th anniversary of Haitian independence, Jean Bertrand Aristide, the democratically elected president of Haiti, was kidnapped by U.S. and French forces and flown to the Central African Republic. The U.S. and French installed an interim government led by Gérard Latortue, with promises of new elections soon. There are still no elections scheduled.
The coup, involving many of the same criminals of the 1991 coup against Aristide, was coordinated by the United States and France, acting together in the midst of their much publicized differences over the Iraq war. The removal of Aristide and his democratically elected government took place on February 29, 2004, so there can be no annual commemoration of this day of tyranny and terror. Nevertheless, Haiti solidarity groups around the world held events at the end of February to demand a restoration of democracy to Haiti and an end to the repression. In the Twin Cities, the Haiti Justice Committee of Minnesota sponsored a demonstration in front of the Minneapolis Federal Building. An evening program at Macalester featured Brian Concannon, human rights lawyer and activist, who worked in Haiti from 1996-2004, prosecuting human rights cases from the period of the 1991-1994 military dictatorship.
Many of the military and paramilitary leaders, whom Concannon helped prosecute for massacre of pro-democracy supporters, have now been freed and are terrorizing and murdering community activists, trade union leaders, priests, and anyone having any history of involvement in the Lavalas movement that brought down the Duvalier dictatorship in 1986 and elected Aristide as president in 1990. Clearly, the United States and France want an end to popular democracy in Haiti. Sadly, the United Nations is collaborating in this violent imperial endeavor, having sent “peacekeeping” forces to Haiti to relieve the U.S. and French occupation forces for duty elsewhere—in Iraq and the Ivory Coast, for example.
Haiti boasts a proud history as the first Black republic in the world and the only enslaved population to emancipate itself. Rising up against their French colonial masters in 1791, Haitians, led by the legendary Toussaint Louverture, gained control of the island and abolished slavery. Toussaint was named governor. The French National Assembly, under a revolutionary government, recognized Toussaint’s government and abolished slavery throughout the French colonial possessions in the Caribbean. When Napoleon seized power in France, he reversed the policies of the revolutionary government, reinstating slavery in French possessions and once again engaging in the slave trade. Napoleon was determined to bring Haiti back under French control. Haiti (known as Saint-Domingue under French rule) produced more wealth for France in 1789 than all the British possessions in the New World combined. In fact, slave labor in Saint-Domingue produced three-fourths of the world’s sugar.
Napoleon sent a huge naval force to Haiti, under the command of his brother-in-law, General Leclerc. They kidnapped Toussaint and sent him to a prison in the French Alps where he died. But the former slaves rallied under Toussaint’s lieutenant, Dessalines, and defeated the French troops. Dessalines declared Haiti an independent republic on January 1, 1804.
In the 200 years since this glorious defeat of colonialism and slavery, Haitians have suffered under embargoes, dictatorships, occupations, and military coups. The imperial powers that define Haiti’s past seem ever determined to thwart their freedom. In their eyes, a people that defy racism and colonialism cannot be permitted to thrive. When France asked the United States to join the embargo against Haiti in 1804, the U.S. eagerly agreed, fearing that emancipated Haitians would come to the U.S. and encourage slave revolts. Later, U.S. corporations started investing in Haiti, buying up the huge plantations of the slave trade era. When Haitians began to organize against their new landlords, U.S. Marines were called in and stayed for 19 years (1915-1934). The Marines did nothing to improve the lives of ordinary Haitians—no roads, schools, or hospitals were built. Instead, they trained the Haitian army as a force to put down popular dissent and keep order through terror. This was the army that supported the Duvalier dictatorship and the army that led the first coup against Aristide. When he was again elected president, Aristide disbanded the army. Today, that army is being reassembled.
Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Most people earn less than a dollar a day. There are almost no public schools, very few clinics, no sanitation system. In the cities, there is no water that is safe to drink. The land, so richly fertile in the 18th century, has been bled dry by the exploitative policies of U.S. corporate farmers. The trees have been cut down, and when there are storms, the mountainsides pour down into the cities, as happened in Gonaives last fall (heavy rains). Misery and disease are rampant.
As peace and justice activists, we believe it is time to start seeing Haiti. We must demand a return to democratic government and prosecution of the thugs responsible for the murder and terror that are daily occurrences in Port-au-Prince and Cap-Haïtien. Haiti has been held hostage far too long to a morally bankrupt Western economic agenda. Our job now is to stand in solidarity with the Haitian people and pressure our government to end the other military occupation of 2004.
April Knutson is a member of the Board of WAMM and a member of the Haiti Justice Committee. She teaches French, Women’s Studies, and Global Studies at the University of Minnesota and has led student groups to Haiti. |
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Haiti Resources
Book list:
C.L.R. James: The Black Jacobins
Paul Farmer: The Uses of Haiti
Noam Chomsky, Paul Farmer, Amy Goodman: Getting Haiti Right This Time
Word UP!
I ask you, is it we, the defendants, who are operating outside the system? Or does what you have heard about CIA activities in Nicaragua and elsewhere mean it is they that have strayed outside the limits of democracy and law?
—Abbie Hoffman (1936–1989)
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© 2005 Women Against Military Madness. All rights reserved.
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Complete March 2005 Index - click here
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