Understanding the Current Haitian Crisis - This is a Revolution

“The Problem for Haiti is that God is too far, and the United States is too close.” ?Dante Bellegarde, the Haitian representative to the League of Nations

Last Sunday, April 7th, marked the 222nd anniversary of the death of the great Haitian leader Toussaint L’Overture. He died like a pauper in a cold damp French prison in solitary confinement. This remarkable man led the most successful slave revolution in the history of man!? The Haitian revolution started in 1791, just two years after the French Revolution in 1789, and a short 15 years after the start of the American Revolution in 1776. The Haitian Revolution influenced the entire Western world for the next century. Most Americans do not know that without Toussaint L’Overture’s victory over French, English, and Spanish colonizers in Haiti, we might not have an America from sea to shining sea. The loss of Haiti made the Louisiana Territory worthless to the French and available for sale to the Americans in 1803.

Ironically, it is with both great sadness and hope that I watch the current crisis in Haiti and how it harkens back to the great Haitian revolutionary leaders like L’Overture, Dutty Boukman, Cecile Fatiman, Jean Jacques Dessalines, and Henry Christophe. Today’s problems are firmly rooted in this past.

In 1825, with the looming threat of French re-enslavement on the island, Haiti agreed to compensate France for French recognition of the country and to repay the Haitian slaveholders for the loss of their “slave property” after slavery was abolished. Haitian payments to France did not stop until 1947.

In 2003, President Jean Bertrand Aristide demanded that the French repay these funds. In today’s dollars, that debt amounted to $30 billion. However, the French, the Americans, the Canadians, the Vatican, and the Dominicans overthrew Aristide on February 29, 2004. This 2004 coup d’etat, or what some have called a kidnapping, was the second time Aristide had been forcibly removed from office after being democratically elected.

?In the 1990 Haitian election, Aristide had won 67 percent of the vote. In 2000, he won an astonishing 91 percent of the vote. There is no doubt that Aristide and his Lavalas party had the overwhelming support of the Haitian population. But he did not have the support of America, France, Canada, the Vatican and others in the international community who theoretically supported popular democracy but opposed the righting of historical wrongs.

The violence in the streets of Port au Prince today has been labeled by Western media as “gang violence” and anarchy. The release of political prisoners is a pretext for why “we” need to intervene. The Western narrative is that the violence is random, unnecessary, brutal, and uncivilized. The images repeatedly shown are designed to make the public equate the Haitian people with barbarism — unlike us. This makes intervention by the U.S. and our allies even more justifiable.

The U.S. led blockade during the second Aristide administration cut off all economic aid from the World Bank, the IMF and the Inter American Bank. This, combined with ??France’s refusal to make any reparations for the money owed to the Haitian state, led to the destruction of the Haitian infrastructure and public services, and resulted in the worst poverty in the Western Hemisphere.

On July 7, 2021, 28 Colombian mercenaries, trained, billeted, and protected by the Dominican Republic and funded by the United States, assassinated Haitian President Jovenel Moise. This was the latest example of imperial intrigue that has plagued Haiti since its founding in 1804. And now, the U.S. and France are attempting to pay the Kenyan government to outsource police forces to Haiti for $200 million to suppress what is nothing less than a revolution. I guess four occupations of Haiti by U.S. Marines is enough.

This is a revolution, not gang violence. The U.S. and all foreign powers need to stay out of Haiti unless they are prepared to support the interest of the Haitian people who are overwhelmingly poor. Trickle-down economics does not work in the United States.? What makes policy makers in Washington, Rome, and Paris think that this is the appropriate economic and political policy for Haiti? The Haitian people know Western capitals do not have their interests in mind with their schemes. Most Haitian people reject the Western influence that has killed its leaders, committed multiple coup d’etats, occupied the country many times, and systematically exploited the country.

It is important to note that Aristide, a former Catholic priest, was not a Marxist revolutionary calling for massive confiscation and redistribution of wealth and income. In the words of Aristide, he only wanted what Toussaint L’Overture wanted for Haiti: ?“freedom, democracy, and dignity.” ?I am not Haitian, but I stand with the Haitian people.