A Brief History of Imperialist Interests in Haiti

Last year's earthquake in Haiti brought that little nation to the world's attention. After the initial reactions of horror and sympathy brought on by the pictures of that disaster, I'm sure a lot of people began wondering about the country's poverty. Just why was that country so poor? There's no real police force in their capital Port-au-Prince, and it is considered one of the most dangerous places on earth. How did this happen? Why are they in this situation to begin with?

It's a little-known and complex history, but everyone needs to understand it. Haiti's history is a shining example of the horrifying and unjust evils of imperialism. But Haiti's courageous mothers and fathers have also set an example for the rest of us, begging to be admired by freedom fighters all around the world.



Haiti occupies the western one-third of the island of Hispaniola, to the east of Cuba. Within fifty years of the Spanish arrival at Hispaniola, not a single Taino or Ciboney Indian was alive. Their civilizations were wiped off the earth. You may want to check out the writings of Bartolomé de las Casas for a first hand account of how this took place. Las Casas was ahead of his time. He was horrified by the atrocities he witnessed, and fought hard for aboriginal rights. But most people in his age considered him a fanatic. There are drawbacks to browsing through his writings. Your hands may ball into fists and shake with rage against your will, and you'll probably lose sleep. But you won't regret it.



Sugar would make the fortunes of the Caribbean. But farming and refining of sugarcane in the Caribbean's heat was torturous, backbreaking work, and no free man would do it. Slaves started arriving from Africa in 1502, only ten years after Columbus's arrival. The lucky ones who survived the boats were forced to work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. On the seventh day, they were forced to grow their own food, or else starve to death. These slaves would die out just as quickly as the Taino and Coboney, but the supply from Africa seemed inexhaustible, so it mattered little to the Europeans. In Saint-Domingue alone (modern Haiti), slavery is estimated to have killed 1 million people.

In 1776, a revolution broke out in America. France eventually allied with the rebels, and Saint-Domingue, being French territory, sent over a regiment of black slaves and freedmen to fight with the Americans. They saw action at Saratoga and Savannah. When they returned, they brought back with them the idea that people don't have to put up with being dominated.

On the night of August 22, 1791, drumming was heard all over the north of Saint-Domingue. It heralded the Haitian Revolution. A Vodou priest declared that all whites must die. "We must not leave any refuge, or any hope of salvation." Over a thousand plantations were burned, and tens of thousands of people were massacred.



The United States sent arms to the black army. This move was not idealistic. Like the French, the Americans did not think of black Haitians as human beings like themselves. America simply wanted the French out of the Caribbean. President John Adams noted of the Haitians in 1799, "Independence is the worst and most dangerous condition they can be in for the United States."

A hero emerged for the Haitians, and he brought order, stability, and respect to the new army - Toussaint L'Ouverture. Born into slavery, Toussaint learned to read, and was inspired by Julius Caesar's commentaries for his political and military education. He gained control of the entire country by 1800, and declared independence. He banned slavery, annexed the Spanish side of the island to the east, Santo Domingo, and at least for a brief time, Hispaniola was united again. The Haitian Revolution remains the only successful slave revolution in the history of the world.



From the very beginning, Europe and America refused to consider Haiti a legitimate government. In February 1802, Napoleon Bonaparte sent his brother-in-law, General Charles Leclerc, to retake Haiti. Leclerc promised the Haitians that French rule in the future would be free and equal. Many of Toussaint's best generals betrayed him, and defected to the French. Toussaint was captured a few months later, his family kidnapped along with him. They were shipped to France. Toussaint defiantly told his captors,

"In overthrowing me you have cut down in Saint Domingue only the trunk of the tree of liberty; it will spring up again from the roots, for they are many and they are deep."

He was imprisoned high in the Alps. Toussaint was found dead the following spring, cold body huddled sadly next to the fireplace in his cell. His colossal monuments remain unbuilt.



France's inevitable betrayal came in July. Slavery was reimposed throughout the French empire, and Haitian blacks were thrown back into shackles. At once, black soldiers who had fought for the French rose up again. Leclerc told Napoleon that he "shall have to wage a war of extermination" if slavery was made into law again. Luckily, a yellow fever epidemic wiped out most of the French army, including Leclerc himself, and the Haitians soundly defeated what remained. They renamed the country Haiti, after it's Taino name, Ayiti, land of the mountains. General Jean-Jacques Dessalines (who remained loyal to Toussaint, and continued with the revolution) said "I have given the French cannibals blood for blood. I have avenged America."

The United States Congress banned trade with Haiti in 1806. President Thomas Jefferson felt that non-Europeans were not yet "capable" of enjoying liberty. In 1821, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams said that the United States "goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence to all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own." Two years later, he formally notified Spain of America's interest in acquiring Cuba.

In 1825, the French sent warships to encircle Haiti's coastlines. That land - and slaves - was stolen French property. Now she demanded reparations: 150 million francs, in gold.

This violated the Monroe Doctrine. Issued in 1823, the Monroe Doctrine stated that any attempts at colonization or interference in the Americas by European powers, would be considered an act of aggression against the United States. Americans would've cared that this violated the Monroe Doctrine, had Haiti been ruled by white people. The U.S. did nothing.

150 million francs was ten times Haiti's annual revenue. But with French guns aimed at Port-au-Prince, they didn't have much of a choice. Haiti needed to take on loans to cover the first payment--30 million francs. Interest for 20% of this loan was demanded in advance. The entire Haitian treasury had to be emptied simply for that. Haiti finally completed paying off these "reparations" in 1947. 1947. In 1947, France, post-World War II, still considered human enslavement legitimate.

For most of Haiti's history, it would see outside influences mucking up its sovereignty, and inserting their illegitimate leaders, under the threat of military occupation. In 1915, the U.S.-backed dictator Vilbrun Guillaume Sam saw a revolution on his hands. He ordered his soldiers to massacre 167 political prisoners the moment the first rebel bullet was fired. And thus, 167 people were murdered when that bullet was fired. One soldier gouged out a child's eyes, and pried out his teeth one by one, before finally murdering him.



Sam meanwhile fled to the French embassy, where he had been so nobly granted asylum. A mob, enraged at the massacre that had just taken place, stormed the embassy, pulled him off the toilet on which he was trembling in fear, and beat him to death in the streets. Sic semper tyrannis, you son of a fuck.

News of these events soon reached the American ships anchored in the harbor of the capital. Haiti descended into anarchy, and when Woodrow Wilson ordered the invasion, the protection the American troops offered was actually fairly welcomed. But there was a problem. The U.S. didn't like the man the Haitians wanted to be president, Rosalvo Bobo. So the U.S. picked Haiti's president for them, and forced them sign a constitution they didn't want. American troops would remain in Haiti for the next nineteen years, crushing democratic movements, installing puppet governments, and running their economy. During their occupation, the United States decided to just take land from the Dominican Republic on the eastern side of the island. As soon as the U.S. left in 1934, the Dominican dictator sent over troops and massacred 20,000 Haitians who lived on the disputed land.



Don't think for a second that Haiti is an isolated case. The U.S. has a long and distinguished history of overthrowing Latin American governments for its own interests. Just yesterday, President Alvaro Colom of Guatemala apologized to his nation for a "great crime." That crime was the CIA's overthrow of Guatemala's democratic government in 1957. It was on behalf of the American monopoly, United Fruit Company. It was for bananas.

And don't think these tactics have stopped. In 2004, the U.S. once again ousted Haiti's democratically elected president. That's right. Only seven years ago. Since it's so recent, the details of course remain sketchy, but considering the fact that President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was forcibly removed from power on an American plane, guarded by American troops, it's not all that crazy to make presumptions.

Starting his life as a priest, Aristide founded an orphanage in Haiti in the 80s, and encouraged the children he served to participate in politics and democracy. This earned Aristide a lot of enemies. He's survived at least four assassination attempts, one of which was the St. Jean Bosco Massacre. On September 11, 1988, as the army and police stood by and watched, over a hundred armed men wearing red armbands entered Aristide's church during mass, and fired machine guns into the congregation. Those who tried to escape were butchered with machetes. The exact death toll is unknown, but estimates put it at 50 at the most, with even more injured.



Catholics in Rome ordered Aristide to leave Haiti, expelled him from the Salesian Order, and called his political activities an "incitement to hatred and violence." Tens of thousands of protesters blocked Aristide's access to the airport. On his expulsion, Aristide said, "The crime of which I stand accused is the crime of preaching food for all men and women."

In 1990, he won the presidency with 67% of the vote. Aristide got to work initiating substantial reforms, infuriating Haiti's business and military elite. He attempted to bring the military under civilian control, initiated investigations into humans rights violations, and banned the emigration of elite Haitians until their bank accounts could be examined.

The military overthrew him in September 1991. The Haitian National Intelligence Service (SIN) played a prominent role in this coup. The CIA set up and financed SIN in the 1980s. Emmanuel Constant, who had been on the CIA's payroll, established death squads to murder and terrorize Aristide supporters. It's important to remember that this evidence of CIA involvement is circumstantial, there's nothing concrete, and Haiti's elite wanted Aristide out from the beginning. It very well could've been internal. Aristide himself travelled around the world in his exile, building international support. The UN established a trade embargo against Haiti. George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton considered the U.S. exempt from this embargo.

In 1994, with building pressure from the UN and the U.S., the regime in Haiti backed down. With U.S. troops accompanying him, Aristide stepped back onto Haitian soil, and he was once again welcomed into office. He disbanded the army of Haiti, and established a civilian police force. This wasn't unconditional. He was forced to reverse many of his reforms thanks to U.S. pressure. Noam Chomsky says:

"When Clinton restored Aristide - Clinton of course supported the military junta, another little hidden story... he strongly supported it in fact. He even allowed the Texaco Oil Company to send oil to the junta in violation of presidential directives; Bush Sr. did so as well - well, he finally allowed the president to return, but on condition that he accept the programs of Marc Bazin, the US candidate that he had defeated in the 1990 election. And that meant a harsh neoliberal program, no import barriers. That means that Haiti has to import rice and other agricultural commodities from the US from US agribusiness, which is getting a huge part of its profits from state subsidies. So you get highly subsidized US agribusiness pouring commodities into Haiti; I mean, Haitian rice farmers are efficient but nobody can compete with that, so that accelerated the flight into the cities."

In December 2003, Aristide boldly demanded $21 billion dollars from France in reparations - the modern day sum of those 150 million francs, which launched Haiti into its current state of poverty and violence. Aristide's courageous actions to give power back to the Haitian people violated the first rule of leading nations within America's sphere of influence - shut the fuck up and do what you're told.

Two months later, in February 2004, the brutal murder of a gang leader sparked a rebellion. The brother of the assassinated gang leader blamed Aristide, took over the gang, and renamed it from the "Cannibal Army," to the "National Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of Haiti." Immediately, Aristide's lawyers claimed that the U.S. began to supply them with weapons. On February 28, Aristide was kidnapped and flown out of the country.

Three days later, US Congresswoman Maxine Waters, and Aristide family friend Randall Robinson, both reported that Aristide had called them from the plane, and told them that he had been abducted, and was being held hostage by an armed military guard. He said that someone from the U.S. Embassy came to his house and told him that he would be killed "and a lot of Haitians would be killed" if he did not leave with them immediately. He was taken to Jamaica, and then to South Africa. Wikileaks cables have since revealed that the U.S. pressured South Africa to take and hold Aristide, or else face the loss of a UN Security Council seat. When asked for an explanation, Colin Powell practically admitted it: "it might have been better for members of Congress who have heard these stories to ask us about the stories before going public with them so we don't make a difficult situation that much more difficult."

Aristide remained in exile until earlier this year. He stepped foot on Haitian soil again on March 17. Barack Obama asked the South African president to delay his departure until after the Haitian elections, fearing it would be "destabilizing." You know what else is destabilizing? Military coups.

Aristide's party was not allowed to run in the election. Stepping off the airplane, he told the thousands of supporters waiting for him, "The exclusion of Fanmi Lavalas is the exclusion of the Haitian people. In 1804, the Haitian revolution marked the end of slavery. Today, may the Haitian people end exiles and coup d’états, while peacefully moving from social exclusion to inclusion."

Amy Goodman of Democracy Now was with Aristide on the plane when it landed. Here's that tearjerking episode in its entirety. Aristide himself is interviewed near the end.



It's a little surprising that the U.S. government suddenly started pretending to care about the Haitian people when the earthquake struck in 2010. Professional fatass and racist Rush Limbaugh said that Obama was going to use the crisis to "boost his credibility with the black community." He blamed Haiti's poverty on "communism," and said "We've already donated to haiti, it's called US income tax." HERP DERP.

Televangelist joke Pat Robertson said the earthquake struck Haiti because they are "cursed" and they signed a "pact to the devil." Here are Keith Olbermann's brief, but brilliant comments concerning these sorry excuses for human beings.



But more importantly, here are comments from the Haitians themselves. It starts out with Robertson's comments, and a Haitian gives his reaction at 1:05.



So. This is why Haiti is Haiti. It's because of us. We did this to them. So, as the rest of America continues to wave their flags in blissful ignorance of the atrocities their government continues to commit in their names, there's a quiet phrase uttered in Godspeed's song, The Dead Flag Blues, which observant men and women have the mental capacity to reflect on:

"I open up my wallet. And it's full of blood."