Haiti After the U.S. Occupation
by Husayn Al-Kurdi
What has happened to Haiti in the wake of the September 1994
U.S.-led mili-tary occupation? The Caribbean nation of 6 1/2 million people
has long been suffering, its people continually resisting forms of colonialism
and social oppression since before the conclusion of "the only successful
slave revolution in modern history," out of which issued the first
Black republic on January 1, 1804. The occupying French colonialists had
to grant Haitian independence, but immediately started pressing the fledgling
republic to pay what the French perceived as "debts" to the departing
conquerors. Haiti has remained in debt to external powers, which have literally
kept it in political, social, and economic bondage ever since. Although
the U.S.-led incursion into Haiti was billed as a humanitarian exercise
to restore Haiti's popularly elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to
power and oust the military junta which had deposed him three years earlier,
the Haitian people recognize clearly that the purpose of "Operation
Restore Democracy" was restoring and "stabilizing" the interests
of a tiny minority of Haitians and ultimately serving the cheap-labor needs
of American-based corporations.
Haiti remains the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere with an unemployment
rate of over 75%, over 80% of the population considered to be "in extreme
poverty," a life-expectancy averaging around 50 years of age, 4 out
of 10 people dying in infancy ( a rate 10 times that of the U.S.). The social-class
disparities are obscene: less than 1% of Haitians get over 43% of the national
revenue. Lighter-skinned, French-speaking ruling elites amass the wealth
while habitually terrorizing the Creole-speaking Black masses under their
sway, forcing them to submit to slavery-like conditions of life and work.
Behind the local plunderers are U.S. corporations which promote the IMF-approved
"export-led development" strategies. Wages are kept down by force,
worker and peasant organizations ruthlessly crushed, and even the most minimal
demands brutally ignored. Health care, education, housing-all the basic
means of life-are denied to the overwhelming majority of Black masses. Wal-Mart,
Sears, J.C. Penny and dozens of their cohorts are exploiting a labor force
literally murdered and brutalized into accepting a wage which recently averaged
14 U.S. cents an hour, while Haitian women work for around a dollar a day
making Mickey Mouse and Pocahontas pajamas for Walt Disney Enterprises and
sewing dresses for K-Mart.
When the U.S. led its "peaceful" occupation of Haiti in 1994,
it was a reprise of an American invasion of the island in 1915, following
which the occupying force spent nearly 20 years defeating the Cacos, a determined
and heroic popular resistance force. Up to 100,000 Haitians were killed
in the struggle to oust the invader. The United States has played the decisive
role in Haiti ever since. The military and related death-squad formations
have held a tight grip on popular movements since the coming to power (via
election) of Jean-Claude "Papa Doc" Duvalier in 1958. Duvalier's
rule lasted until 1986, when "Baby Doc" was sent into exile, taking
up to $600 million with him. It is estimated that the Duvaliers looted up
to half the national treasury. One of their principal representatives in
the U.S. was the recently deceased Ron Brown, a major Washington lobbyist
for both multinational corporations and murderous neo-colonial regimes,
serving their interests around the world. A tremendous popular movement
rose up which managed to get rid of the Duvaliers, but the system of mass
immiseration, starvation-wage slave labor and extreme political repression
remains in place.
As the CIA manipulated its "assets" in Haiti, a succession of
interim governments served the old ruling interests (now minus Duvalier
but including the light-skinned ruling families with names such as Mevs,
Madsen, Brandt, and Bigio) until an election was held on December 16, 1990.
A great "upset" occurred as Fr. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a Catholic
priest and outspoken popular reformer, swept to victory over his U.S.-backed
opponent Marc Bazin and a field of other presidential aspirants. Aristide
proved a force which could not be shunted aside, winning over two-thirds
of the votes cast. He championed land reform, health care and education
for the masses, wage increases, and better working conditions. He embraced
the rhetoric and stances of Liberation Theology with its "option for
the poor," its stance for social justice and liberation from oppression.
This turned out to have an overwhelming appeal to the long immiserated Haitian
lower classes, who took the rare opportunity to have their voices peacefully
and unmistakably heard. Aristide took office, but lasted only a few months
before a military junta, backed by many of the ruling families and carried
out under the supervision of the CIA, ousted him from office and sent him
into exile in the United States.
As the U.S. funded, trained, and directed the FRAPH organization, which
came into prominence after the coup as a principal terrorizer of Haitians
through killings, disappearances, and other forms of repression, it also
pressured Aristide to modify his support of the long-needed social reforms
he advocated in his run for the Presidency. In August 1994, Aristide signed
on to the Paris Accord, agreeing to an IMF-World Bank-approved "structural
adjustment program," which guts social programs while favoring the
large capitalist manufacturers and foreign investors. At the same time,
the U.S. was working out favorable terms for some of its paid agents, such
as coup leader Gen. Raoul Cedras and Police Chief Michel Francois, to leave
the country. It is reputed that they were heavily involved in the use of
Haiti as a transshipment point for cocaine going to the United States.
Over 48 tons of cocaine were (and possibly still are) passing through Haiti,
with over $1.2 billion a year to be made from its distribution. When the
Americans landed, they began training a national police force to guard the
usual interests and continue with the repression of a recalcitrant and highly
resistant people. The unit in charge of training Haiti's "new"
police force, ICITAP, had distinguished itself by "training" the
El Salvador and Guatemala police, both notorious for harboring death squads
which specialized in liquidating popular opposition to ferocious U.S.-approved
regimes. Upon disembarking, troops were quickly deployed up and down Avenue
John Brown, which leads to the wealthy district of Petionville. As New York
Times reporter John Kifner wrote, it was "as if they were trying to
protect the homes of Haiti's affluent, light-skinned elite should the poor
of the slums and the shantytowns try to charge uphill."
As Aristide softened his tone to become more amenable to his American sponsors,
death squad activities picked up once more and the "National Police"
trained by the U.S. was busy shooting into crowds of demonstrating peasants,
students and workers around the country. Once again, the Haitian people
find themselves trapped in the same conditions, exploited, brutalized, and
ignored. As Haitian exile leader Delva told me, "What we have is Duvalierism
without Duvalier. What we want is the complete overthrow of Duvalierism."
The IMF and World Bank-imposed "structural adjustment program"
for Haiti will be a typically onerous one, continuing in the tradition of
plunder on the one hand and immiseration on the other. As Haitian intellectual
Camille Chalmers stated, "Structural adjustment policy is catastrophic,
above all for the popular classes. It polarizes society, creates even greater
social apartheid, further impoverishes the poor, and destroys the productive
sectors of the economy." Secretary of State Warren Christopher spelled
out the objectives of the U.S. re-occupation of Haiti as "the obligation
to secure the environment in Haiti," saying that "President Aristide
will be returned to power in an appropriate way." Much of the white
left and the "progressive community" was befuddled and even fooled
into supporting the U.S. intervention in Haiti. The Congressional Black
Caucus, Jesse Jackson, and TransAfrica leader Randall Robinson plugged for
the invasion. The "little priest," as he is popularly called,
has been forced to lower his sights and accept what he has decried and despised
in the past-the continuing oppression of his people. Aristide's slogan became
"We will move from misery to poverty with dignity." "Poverty
with dignity" is not working out for the Haitian people.
A variety of popular organizations remain strong and deeply based in various
sectors of Haitian society. Their ability to resist oppression has been
proved. The ranks are swelling with Haitians determined to resist the externally-imposed
plans for the future. Aristide is being seen by more and more people as
a sell-out to the very principles he once espoused and which carried him
to power in the first place. As Haitian independence fighter Toussaint L'Ouverture
told his captors in 1802: "In capturing me, you are only cutting the
trunk of the tree of liberty, but it will flourish again for its roots are
strong and deep." Aristide may have been "cut" via intimidation
and co-optation, but the Haitian popular classes continue to wage their
struggle for freedom. People must also be aware of the "Plan B"
option so often and increasingly exercised by the New World Order: the use
of "Left" instruments to accomplish the bidding of the Empire,
with Mandela, Arafat, and the little priest from Haiti being three recent
prototypes on the "postmodern" political landscape.
Husayn Al-Kurdi is an internationally published writer and journalist
who resides in San Diego, California.