Colin Powell, former US Secretary of State, stated his foreign policy view as the "Pottery Barn rule": if you break it, you own it.
The US has worked to break Haiti for over 200 years. We owe Haiti. Not charity. We owe Haiti as a matter of justice. Reparations. And not the $100 million promised by President Obama either -- that is Powerball money. The US owes Haiti Billions -- with a big B.
The US has worked for centuries to break Haiti. The US has used Haiti like a plantation. The US helped bleed the country economically since it freed itself, repeatedly invaded the country militarily, supported dictators who abused the people, used the country as a dumping ground for our own economic advantage, ruined their roads and agriculture, and toppled popularly elected officials. The US has even used Haiti like the old plantation owner and slipped over there repeatedly for sexual recreation.
Here is the briefest history of some of the major US efforts to break Haiti.
In 1804, when Haiti achieved its freedom from France in the world's first successful slave revolution, the United States refused to recognize the country. The US continued to refuse recognition to Haiti for 60 more years. Why? Because the US continued to enslave millions of its own citizens and feared recognizing Haiti would encourage slave revolution in the US.
After the 1804 revolution, Haiti was the subject of a crippling economic embargo by France and the US. US sanctions lasted until 1863. France ultimately used its military power to force Haiti to pay reparations for the slaves who were freed. The reparations were 150 million francs. (France sold the entire Louisiana territory to the US for 80 million francs!)
Haiti was forced to borrow money from banks in France and the US to pay reparations to France. A major loan from the US to pay off the French was finally paid off in 1947. The current value of the money Haiti was forced to pay to French and US banks? Over $20 Billion.
The US occupied and ruled Haiti by force from 1915 to 1934. President Woodrow Wilson sent troops to invade in 1915. Revolts by Haitians were put down by US military, killing over 2,000 in one skirmish alone. For the next nineteen years, the US controlled customs in Haiti, collected taxes, and ran many governmental institutions. How many billions were siphoned off by the US during these 19 years?
From 1957 to 1986 Haiti was forced to live under US backed dictators "Papa Doc" and "Baby Doc" Duvlaier. The US supported these dictators economically and militarily because they did what the US wanted and were politically "anti-communist" -- now translatable as against human rights for their people. Duvalier stole millions from Haiti and ran up hundreds of millions in debt that Haiti still owes. Ten thousand Haitians lost their lives. Estimates say that Haiti owes $1.3 billion in external debt and that 40% of that debt was run up by the US-backed Duvaliers.
Thirty years ago Haiti imported no rice; today, Haiti imports nearly all its rice. Though Haiti was the sugar growing capital of the Caribbean, it now imports sugar as well. Why? The US and the US dominated world financial institutions -- the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank -- forced Haiti to open its markets to the world. Then the US dumped millions of tons of US subsidized rice and sugar into Haiti, undercutting their farmers and ruining Haitian agriculture. By ruining Haitian agriculture, the US has forced Haiti into becoming the third largest world market for US rice. Good for US farmers, bad for Haiti.
In 2002, the US stopped hundreds of millions of dollars in loans to Haiti which were to be used for, among other public projects like education, roads. These are the same roads which relief teams are having so much trouble navigating now!
In 2004, the US again destroyed democracy in Haiti when they supported the coup against Haiti's elected President Aristide.
Haiti is even used for sexual recreation just like the old time plantations. Check the news carefully and you will find numerous stories of abuse of minors by missionaries, soldiers and charity workers. Plus there are the frequent sexual vacations taken to Haiti by people from the US and elsewhere. What is owed for that? What value would you put on it if it was your sisters and brothers?
US based corporations have for years been teaming up with Haitian elite to run sweatshops teeming with tens of thousands of Haitians who earn less than $2 a day.
The Haitian people have resisted the economic and military power of the US and others ever since their independence. Like all of us, Haitians made their own mistakes as well. But US power has forced Haitians to pay great prices -- deaths, debt and abuse.
It is time for the people of the US to join with Haitians and reverse the course of US-Haitian relations.
This is not charity. This is justice. This is reparations. The current crisis is an opportunity for people in the US to own up to our country's history of dominating Haiti and to make a truly just response.
(For more on the history of exploitation of Haiti by the US see: Paul Farmer, The Uses of Haiti; Peter Hallward, Damning the Flood; and Randall Robinson, An Unbroken Agony).
By Bill Quigley. Bill is Legal Director for the Center for Constitutional Rights and a long-time Haiti human rights advocate. Quigley77@gmail.com
The vampire policies of the IMF & World Bank have to be ended. They are responsible for much of the misery, poverty, hunger in the world. How do these financiers sleep at night? Thank you, Bill Quigley, please keep writing & laying bare the crimes of these institutions.
At this moment Americans are working to strengthen the Honduran coup and to work on instigating one in Venezuela.
However, lets not loose sight of our most recent effort started in the 1990s by Bill Clinton to help Haiti, only to see BILLIONS be lost and unaccounted for... The conundrum we are left with is challenging
How do you give aid to a country that doesn't have a central government to assure it is used for its intended purpose and/or how do you help create a central government in Haiti without being perceived as "imperialists" or as France and Chavez already called us... "occupiers"?
Mr. Quigley.. any answers?
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I agree that you and I didn't commit the crimes, and that needs to be taken into account. But we do need to understand the history, and understand that some U.S. resources exist because they were taken from the Haitians. And we very much need to understand the exploitation to make sure it never happens again.
BS? Hardly.
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I agree that History needs to be used as a barometer to prevent the same mistakes from occurring, but the tone of this article is accusatory. It is one of those arguments that makes thing worst implying that we are complicit for the actions of people long d3ad. The only thing we owe the descendants of people our antecedents exploited is our respect, compassion, and our resolve to help them however needed.
1492: Columbus discovers Haiti (the island of Hispaniola)
1697: Haiti is now called "Saint Domingue".
1697-1791: Saint Domingue becomes the richest colony in the world. Its capital, Cap Français, is known as the Paris of the New World. It is also a regime of extraordinary cruelty.
*** lots of fighting and massacres, mostly between themselves and the French ***
1843 to 1915: Haiti sees 22 heads of state, most of whom leave office by violent means. Rivalry continues among the whites, the mulatto elite, and the blacks.
(1914: Actually it was the British, Germans, and US that occupied; you can see why in 1915 only US was left.)
1915: Presdient Guillaume Sam is dismembered and the Americans invade the country. Despite improvements made to the infrastructure the Haitians opposed their presence. Scholars agree that Haiti was in better shape after the occupation than before.
1934: The Americans leave Haiti, which is now prospering once again.
1957: François Duvalier, a doctor and union leader, elected president. Duvalier, known as 'Papa Doc', terrorized the country, ensuring his power through his private militia, the tontons macoutes.
1964: Duvalier changes constitution so that he can be elected president for life.
1971: Duvalier is succeeded by his son Jean Claude, age 19 (known as 'Baby Doc'). By this time Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere.
*** More of same ***
The locale (slum) Cite Soliel in Port au Prince is considered, by UN, "the most dangerous place on
The American people were never asked nor have they have sanctioned our federal Leviathan's constant meddling in foreign affairs, there is no Constitutional right to do it, and regardless of who is vetted and chosen by the Money Trustees to run for President, all's we get is more of the same. Follow the money trail. WHO benefits from this parasitism? Certainly not the American people. Let the bankster gangsters pay any reparations the Haitians may be owed.
"... the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank - forced Haiti to open its markets to the world."
Oh that glorious international "globalism" at work. Why not take that one up with the Money Masters as well, Mr. bleeding-heart Quigley, who also just so happen to own the entire apparatus of the Western media that trumpeted "globalism" and brooked no criticisms from those who didn't see it as the panacea being sold to First-worlders and Third-worlders. After all, as you point out, they (IMF and World Bank) are the ones who foisted such phony "free-trade" policies on the world so that their corporate cronies could once more engage in slavery practices long abolished in the West and fleece what little those countries held as assets.
This article also gives a brief picture of how Europe and America have profited from keeping Haiti impoverished.
http://www.truthout.org/article/noam-chomsky-the-tragedy-haiti”
I would imagine that most mainstream Americans would dismiss this chronicle of US exploitation of Haiti as false. And that would be another disaster. Already, you see conservative ideologues who claim to speak for the Right blaming Haiti for its own tragedy.
When will this conservative majority of Americans educate itself to the crimes of its own nation? Why is ignorance and denial the favored positions of Americans? Why do they rally around monsters of falsehood and ignorance like Palin, Beck and Limbaugh? Why is the truth so frightening to them?
Check out the "Behind the News" broadcast from this past Sat - Doug Henwood interviewing Robert Fatton - Haitian born Political Science prof at U of Virginia in the KPFA [Berkeley] radio online archive. Note, their archives are avail only for 2 weeks - it is downloadable if you like.