#3912: US Military, a racist, and Haiti : Boyce replies

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From: jenny boyce <omatasi2@yahoo.com>

I have not looked at my email for a few days, and have
found this post only today, but felt compelled to
respond.  The thing about "racists" is: their human. 
And racism is a learned behavior.  And what instills
it so deeply so that people can't see the truth about
other human beings (they're human) is hurt.  Everyone
(some more than others) as a child is innodated with
misinformation about other people and in order to
survive in our world which is run on racism
(capitalism needs it to create competition and
fighting among people so people won't get to gether
and overthrow the powers that be) accepts it.  So,
this guy is a human who somewhere in him knows how
connected every thing on the planet is and has a lot
of pain and misinformation that obscures his thinking.
 One way of ending racism - what would the world be
like!? - is to hear people's stories of what their
life was like as a child, why they think the way they
do.  What are their memories of people different than
them and what the adults around them did. It is going
to be white people that will have to take on
eliminating the racism of other whites- especilally
white supremists.  We can't expect people of color to
do this.   
I know of an incident where a staunchly racist man was
listened to, not argued with for over an hour about
his participation in a lynch mob targeting a white
CORE (Congress on Racial Equality) that was organizing
blacks in his town.  A black child had drowned during
a demonstration at a lake they were trying to
integrate (it was during the Civil Rights movement). 
This became the excuse for the white citezens to
unleash their anger about integration.   After venting
his anger about the CORE worker he began to see that
the drowning was just an accident.  And sobbing about
how he had the "rope in his hands".  
Haiti has governed itsself through the racism that has
surrounded it and the racism that was internalized by
the earliest slaves and passed from generation to
generation.  I, as a white, US,  middle class woman
can't do as much to eliminate Haiti's struggles from
the inside as I can from the outside - my home
country.  So I do all I can to see racism ending in my
own life and this, because we are all connected, will
spread.  And at least then Haiti will have more space
to figure out how to be what it wants to be.
Jenny Boyce
omatasi2@yahoo.com
--- Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com> wrote:
> 
> [Corbett comments:  This is not fit reading for all
> readers.  There
> are elements of extremely strong racism in parts.  I
> am posting it for
> two reasons:  I think it is worth reminding
> ourselves that these veiws do 
> exist out there and are alive and well.  Secondly,
> some of the claims
> about the experiences of this person in Haiti are
> extremely revealing.
> 
> But, if you can stomach virulent racism, please
> delete NOW.]
> ===========
> 
>  From: radman <resist@best.com>
> 
> From: < http://www.civilwartwo.com/sfua.html>
> 
> HAITI AUG 30, 1999
> 
> ?IMMACULATE INVASION:? THE GREAT LIE by SFC Steven
> M. Barry, USA (Ret)
> 
> Quite frankly, Bob Shacochis? hand wringing over the
> fate of Haiti (?Only 
> Haiti Can Save Haiti:? 30 August) leaves me cold. I
> was a member of the 
> invasion force, and served in Haiti as the
> Intelligence and Operations NCO 
> for Special Forces Operational Detachment 381,
> stationed in Petit Goâve.
> I have read Shacochis? book, ?Immaculate Invasion.?
> It is Marxist drivel, 
> as was his 30 August opinion piece. His lament that
> ?Wealth was not 
> redistributed? by the U.S. Army reveals his
> politics, as does his 
> anticipation of Aristide returning to power.
> Aristide was a founder of PUCH, Haitian Communist
> Unification Party. His 
> ?Lavalas? movement consisted of anarchists,
> squatters, ?students,? Maoists, 
> vagrants, and just about every other example of
> human detritus. I called 
> them collectively the Khmer Noir.
> Lavalas organizers consisted almost entirely of
> heretic ?priests? of the 
> ?liberation theology? (read ?Christian?-Marxism)
> persuasion, leavened with 
> voodoo for the savages. My ODA commander once asked
> my advise on putting an 
> end to the almost daily Lavalas riots. ?Simple,? I
> told him, ?let me kill 
> these so-called 
?priests?.? He didn?t think that
> was a good idea. The 
> riots continued.
> In Petit Goâve FRAPH had 108 members. I know; I had
> their records, files 
> and correspondence. To a man, every member of FRAPH
> was productively 
> employed, or was a small land or business owner. The
> polar opposite of the 
> Lavalas. In Petit Goâve, FRAPH were the Haitian
> middle class. (Or as 
> Shacochis would say, the petit bourgeoisie.) And
> they were, to a man, 
> anti-Communists.
> Think of FRAPH as the VFW turned political party.
> Did they occasionally 
> resort to violence against the Lavalas to protect
> their property and 
> businesses against the mob howling for ?democracy??
> Sure they did. Why 
> shouldn?t they have?
> To the Lavalas, ?democracy? meant the ?right? to
> loot, thieve and squat. On 
> our first day in Petit Goâve, a smiling Lavalas
> ?delegate? thanked us for 
> being there so we could protect them while they
> looted the dock warehouses. 
> I told him if they tried it we would kill them. ?But
> we now demokrakasy,? 
> he protested, ?de warehouse? day belong to ?de
> people!?? My rifle waved 
> carelessly in his direction. He got the hint.
> In the course of my duties I came to know many of
> the Attaches. Again, they 
> were productive members of the local community, who
> had volunteered their 
> time to beef up police patrols. The beauty of the
> Attaches was that they 
> knew who the local scum-bags were. Think of the
> Attaches as a proactive 
> community watch.
> Despite panicked and breathless media reports about
> ?3000 disappeared,? and 
> tireless efforts to ?unearth atrocities,? not one
> shred of evidence has 
> ever been produced to support the claim. Well,
> except for the screams of 
> ?holocaust? hitchhikers like Shacochis. The joke
> within my ODA was, ?3000? 
> That?s the best they could do?? I hear it?s up to
> 5000 now.
> Shacochis further whined that weapons were
> redistributed instead of the 
> wealth of people who created said wealth. That is
> true. Another of my 
> duties was ensuring that extant weapons were
> accounted for (and later, on 
> my own initiative, not accounted for) and
> redistributed.
> Small-arms fell into two categories. Privately
> owned, and military issued. 
> The Haitians kept immaculate records of small-arms
> ownership or issue. On 
> the military issue ledger I simply designated one
> day when everybody who 
> had an issued weapon reported for accountability.
> There were two types of 
> issued weapons; M-14 select-fire rifles, and M-1
> rifles.
> I collected the M-14 select-fire rifles and reissued
> their owners a 
> replacement M-1 rifle and 40 rounds of ball
> ammunition. All M-14 rifles 
> were reissued to the FAd?H garrison with whom we
> were living. Our FAd?H 
> ?Joes? all had M-14s, and civilians who had signed
> for them all had M-1s. 
> Mission accomplished!
> (Aside: The FAd?H ?Joes? weren?t bad guys. Under
> White leadership and 
> discipline they made an acceptable colonial police
> force. So we (Whites) 
> took charge and they (Haitians) did rather well. On
> their own they were 
> utterly useless.)
> On the privately owned ledger I discovered, after
> reading the Haitian 
> firearms laws passed under General Cedras, that a
> civilian could own 
> anything he damn well pleased as long as he could
> afford it and had a 
> permit for it. Uzi submachine guns and select-fire
> Israeli Galil rifles 
> were not uncommon. House-to-house with the permit
> applications and a knock 
> on the door with a polite, ?Good afternoon, do you
> still possess Galil 
> serial #xxxxxx? (Oui.) May I check it against this
> permit list please? 
> (Oui.) Thank you, have a nice day.?
> Soon after, disaster struck. Firearms confiscation.
> Ordered from ?on high.? 
> Permit owners were told to turn in their weapons. (I
> was shocked!) It seems 
> the restored Communists didn?t like the idea of an
> armed populace. (At 
> least they had the decency to not use ?the Children?
> as a pretext. They 
> used Public meaning ?Party? safety instead.) They
> needn?t have worried. 
> Word ?leaked? and the evening before ?turn-in? there
> were a rash of 
> ?firearms thefts? throughout the entire Petit Goâve
> region. Too many to 
> investigate. None were ever recovered. Damn.
> The weapons ?buy back? program layered itself in
> during the middle of all 
> this. Gd.X for a grenade (Haitians could have
> grenades, why can?t 
> Americans?), Gd.Y for a pistol, Gd.Z for a rifle,
> etc.. I nicknamed it the 
> ?Snitch-Off A Relative Program.? Haitians are
> corrupt to the bone.
> Grinning Haitian ?youths? would bring their uncle?s
> pistol in for the Gd.Y 
> bounty. I?d offer them Gd.A. They?d start
> sputtering, pointing to the 
> ?price sheet.? I?d simply tell them, ?Take Gd.A, or
> I?ll just take the gun 
> and throw you in jail for possession of an illegal
> weapon.? They took Gd.A. 
> But (Laughter!), they had to sign for the cash. That
> evening, we?d pay them 
> a visit and take them for ?a ride.? (They loved to
> ride in HUMMVs once.) 
> The ?Snitch-Off A Relative Program? ended rather
> quickly. My Detachment?s 
> weapons buy-back program was a failure, although we
> ate well. Less astute
> Detachments in other parts of Haiti had far greater
> success, although they 
> ate much less well.
> Shacochis cries that Haiti has no heroes to lead it
> out if its typically 
> African squalor. If he is searching for Haitian
> heroes he?s a blithering 
> 
=== message truncated ===


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