Most recently in 2004, and previously in 1991, the US supported coups that ousted left leaning President Aristide, who had been overwhelmingly elected by 75% of the Haitian electorate. From 1957 to 1986 Haitians suffered under the US backed dictators ‘Papa Doc' and ‘Baby Doc' Duvalier. These criminals oversaw the murder of anyone brave enough to oppose them, with approximately 10,000 Haitians paying that price, in addition to the several thousand dead in the 2004 coup. All the while these dictators enriched themselves at the expense of ordinary Haitians, running up hundreds of millions of dollars of foreign debt, debt that is still owed by Haiti. Aristide's party Laveral is now banned from Haitian elections.
Haiti was directly occupied by the US military from 1915 to 1934, Haitians resisted the occupation and were routinely murdered for their efforts. The US does not take all the blame though; in 1804 Haiti was a French slave colony producing sugar and coffee, where 400,000 black African slaves bravely rose up and defeated the mighty French army. For 60 years the French and the US then subjected Haiti to an economic embargo that crippled the Haitian economy, forcing the Haitians to pay reparations for ending their slavery.
Haiti was made to take loans from US and French banks to pay this debt, which was finally paid off in 1947. The value of this debt in current terms is around $20 Billion US dollars.
Haiti's agriculture sector has been destroyed by the neo-liberal so called ‘free trade agenda' that in thirty years has turned a food exporting country into a food importer. The US has been using this free trade to dump millions of tonnes of sugar and rice onto the Haitian economy, so destroying local sustainable agriculture.
The long term effects of these policies are to push self supporting agricultural communities into urban slums and precarious jobs. These are described by Brian Concannon, the director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti: "Those people got there because they or their parents were intentionally pushed out of the countryside by aid and trade policies specifically designed to create a large captive and therefore exploitable labour force in the cities; by definition they are people who would not be able to afford to build earthquake resistant houses."
The condition of Haiti now conveniently portrayed as a natural disaster, is in reality the end product of over two centuries of colonialism followed by neo-liberalism. In a bitter irony the same governments who have prevented the development of Haiti, profiting from its subjugation, are now doing their best to be seen as Haiti's saviours.
Quietly though, 400 Cuban doctors have joined another 400 Haitians trained as doctors in Cuba tending to the injured. This kind of solidarity, with no strings attached, is what Haiti needs now, with history as our guide it is hard to see the Western powers allowing this to occur easily.
25 January 2010
