12909: This Week in Haiti 20:23 8/21/02 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

"This Week in Haiti" is the English section of HAITI PROGRES
newsweekly. For the complete edition with other news in French
and Creole, please contact the paper at (tel) 718-434-8100,
(fax) 718-434-5551 or e-mail at <editor@haitiprogres.com>.
Also visit our website at <www.haitiprogres.com>.

                           HAITI PROGRES
              "Le journal qui offre une alternative"

                      * THIS WEEK IN HAITI *

                       August 21 - 27, 2002
                          Vol. 20, No. 23

SEVEN GUACIMAL PRISONERS RELEASED

We learned as we are going to press that seven of the nine
prisoners being illegally held in connection with the May 27
crackdown in Guacimal (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. Vol. 20, No. 11
5/29/2002) have been released Aug. 20 on the orders of Maximé
Jean Noel, an investigating judge in Grande Rivière du Nord. The
two remaining prisoners, Urbain Garçon and Jérémie Dorvil, were
not released from the National Penitentiary because their names
were not on the release order, prison authorities said, according
to the Alterpresse news service. Garçon has a leg wound, has been
denied medical attention during his near three months in jail,
and presently cannot walk.


THE FIRST U.S. OCCUPATION OF HAITI

Aug. 15 marks the 68th anniversary of the end of the first U.S.
military occupation of Haiti, which lasted 19 years. This week,
we present passages from "The United States Occupation of Haiti:
1915-1934" by Hans Schmidt ( Rutgers University Press, 1971), the
definitive English language account of that intervention.

Many people are aware of the Caco resistance led by Charlemagne
Péralte during the Occupation's early years. Less well known is
the resistance during the Occupation's later years, in particular
the uprisings of 1929, which prompted the Marines' 1934 pullout.

Our selections are drawn from the chapter entitled "Strikes and
Riots," which treats these events of late 1929 and early 1930. In
Schmidt's account, it is interesting to note how the resentment
and anger engendered by the U.S. Occupation of Haiti is being
reproduced today in countries like Afghanistan, South Korea, and
the Philippines.

Schmidt explains the incidents that led to President Herbert
Hoover and his Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson deciding to
withdraw from Haiti.

-------

The stolid domination of the Occupation, which had for so long
effectively controlled Haiti with so little overt resistance, was
broken by explosive political and economic forces which converged
in the fall of 1929. Economic distress caused by falling coffee
prices and increases in government taxes were coupled with
discontent over the postponement of the 1930 legislative
elections and the apparent continuance of [Louis] Borno as
client-president. These factors exacerbated the latent hatred of
the Occupation inspired by American racial condescension and
boorish military dictation. A poor coffee crop in 1928, the
collapse of the coffee market in 1929, and the restriction of
migrant labor emigration to Cuba were compounded by the
Occupation's policy of pressing new tax collections. By the fall
of 1929, unbeknown to complacent officials and the State
Department, popular discontent in Haiti needed only a rallying
point to develop into a major uprising against the Occupation.
This rallying point was provided by a series of student strikes
against the Service Technique [a U.S.-sponsored technical
training program].

The student strikes began in late Oct. 1929, when the students at
the Service Technique's central agricultural college at Damien
walked out in a body protesting a reduction in incentive
scholarships for city students and corresponding increases in
scholarships for field work. Students in the medical college and
law college followed in a sympathy strike, and the strike quickly
spread throughout the nation to both public and private schools.
Idle students milled about in the streets for a period of five
weeks while General [John H.] Russell [the U.S. high
commissioner] tried unsuccessfully to meliorate the situation by
conceding a substantial raise in student scholarship rates. (...)

High Commissioner Russell later expressed the opinion that "the
striking students were acting according to Latin and European
radical political action." He described the strikes as "a petty
students' affair" which was being used by disgruntled
politicians, the "outs," to undermine the Occupation. In fact,
Haitian nationalists of all ages were already much exercised over
the cancellation of elections and the prospect of Borno's being
foisted upon them for a third term. Opposition agitators and
newspapers, of course, made the most of the situation.

By the end of November the student strikes, supported by French
Catholic brothers and sisters in Catholic schools, was widening
to include the threat of a general strike. In mid-November Borno
issued a declaration that he would not seek a third term and on
Dec. 2 Russell requested that the State Department publicly
confirm Borno's noncandidacy in order to quiet popular unrest,
but these moves were inadequate. On Dec. 3 Russell reported to
the State Department that politicians and businessmen were
aligning themselves with the strikers, that the loyalty of the
Garde [d'Haïti, a Haitian auxiliary force to the Marines] was
"very questionable," and that an additional force of 500 Marines
would be immediately required to protect American lives.

The following morning the expected general uprising began with a
strike by customs employees in Port-au-Prince. A large, angry mob
gathered at the site of the customs strike and by the end of the
day the streets of Port-au-Prince were crowded with excited
people who stoned Marine patrols which had been called out to
reinforce the Garde. (...)

The general uprising spread quickly throughout the country. In
Cap Haïtien, the Garde was unable to handle 1,000 demonstrators
without the support of Marine patrols and several towns in the
Cayes district reported thousands of peasants gathering around
American outposts shouting "A bas Borno! A bas Freeman!" [Dr.
George F. Freeman was head of the Service Technique.] On Dec. 4,
Brigade Commander R. M. Cutts reported to the commandant of the
Marine Corps that the loyalty of the Garde was "becoming more
doubtful" and envisioned the possibility of "re-occupation of
outlying important towns by Marine forces, heavily supplied with
automatic shoulder weapons."

High Commissioner Russell reacted to the uprisings by reinvoking
curfew and martial law, by interdicting the opposition press,
which suspended publication from Dec. 5 to 16, by canceling the
independent status of the Garde d'Haïti and incorporating it as a
regiment of the Marine Brigade, and by dispatching Garde
reinforcements to Jacmel, Petit Goâve, and Léogane, where their
timely arrival thwarted attempted uprisings. (...)

Stimson advised Russell to rescind the proclamation and to
withdraw Americans from exposed places rather than send out
reinforcements. As a precautionary measure, 500 Marines were
embarked at Norfolk for possible Haitian duty, but these men
would be used only in dire emergency, since Stimson was
"extremely reluctant to increase the strength of the Marine
Brigade" and felt that "the sending of additional forces would
give rise to sensational reports regarding the Haitian
situation."

All this was before the disastrous Cayes massacre of Dec. 6.
Fifteen hundred angry peasants, armed with stones, machetes, and
clubs, surrounded a detachment of twenty Marines armed with
rifles and automatic weapons. The Marines had gone out to meet
the peasants, who were advancing on the town intent on securing
the release of prisoners arrested the day before and on airing
various grievances against the Occupation, including complaints
about alcohol, tobacco, and other taxes. Marine airplanes had
dropped bombs in the Cayes harbor in an attempt to awe the local
population into submissiveness, but this demonstration apparently
had the undesired effect of creating terror and frenetic
excitement. A district Marine officer unsuccessfully attempted to
persuade the mob to retire, but then, according to an account
given by two Marine participants, a Haitian leader instigated a
scuffle:

"The leader made a suspicious move and Gillaspey countered with a
blow with the stock of his Browning gun, breaking the stock. The
belligerent fell, tackling Gillaspey around the right leg and
biting him. William T. Meyers, private, first class, bayoneted
the man without seriously hurting him, but forcing him to release
Gillaspey. The clash with the natives followed."

The State Department announced that the Haitians first threw
stones and then rushed the Marines. In any case, the Marines
opened fire at point-blank range and dispersed the mob.

Initial Marine reports and State Department press releases
indicated that 5 Haitians were killed and 20 wounded, but Russell
later informed the department that the final hospital list
totaled 12 dead and 23 wounded, and that "It is possible that
other wounded were not brought in and other deaths occurred in
the hills from contaminated wounds. Reports are current that this
is the case, but verification cannot be secured." Casualty lists
published in the Haitian press in Jan. 1930 totaled 24 dead and
51 wounded. In response to pointed questions from Under Secretary
of State Joseph P. Cotton, who referred to the Marine detachment
as a "firing squad," Russell explained the curious fact that both
the officer in charge of the detachment and his second-in-command
had arrived in Haiti only two days before the massacre by saying
that they "were selected for this duty as they would operate on a
military basis, having no bias or preconceived ideas of the
Haitian situation." Russell reported that 600 rounds had been
fired by rifles, automatic rifles, and one machine gun, but that
most of the firing had been deliberately over the natives' heads
and that "Had punitive effect been desired, it is reported that
from 300 to 400, perhaps more, could easily have been killed." A
State Department press release indicated that one Marine was hurt
in hand-to-hand encounter with a mob leader. The Marines were
later officially vindicated of any taint of brutality or
indiscretion when the Navy Department awarded the Navy Cross to
the Cayes detachment commander for "commendable courage and
forbearance." (...)

In subsequent reports Russell made vague allusions to an
international Red conspiracy and blamed the Cayes massacre on
"dishonest, paid agitators." (...)

The only indications of any international Communist conspiracy to
foil American plans for Haiti were several mass demonstrations
against the Occupation staged in Washington and New York. The New
York Times reported that 500 Communist party members battled New
York City police at City Hall Plaza following a call for
demonstrations against the Occupation issued in the party's
newspaper, the Daily Worker. These demonstrations, however, took
place after the uprisings in Haiti were over, and coincided with
widespread American and worldwide public attacks on United States
policy following the Cayes massacre. (...)

The 1929 uprisings and the Cayes incident spurred a dramatic
increase in unfavorable foreign newspaper reports. The Paris
press followed the uprisings closely and was characteristically
critical, with some papers calling for a League of Nations
investigation. The Manchester Guardian published the following
dispatch from a British reporter in Haiti three days after the
Cayes massacre: "The situation in Haiti, where almost the entire
population is in revolt against American control... comes as no
surprise to those in close touch with the affairs of the negro
republic. Resentment against the American occupation has long
been smouldering and needed only some minor dispute to cause it
to burst into flame."

The Guardian later referred to the occupation as "America's least
successful experiment in imperialism." (...)

The uprisings, especially the sensational Cayes massacre, were as
disastrous as Hoover and Stimson cared to face. President Hoover,
in dispatching a special commission to Haiti in Feb. 1930 stated
"The primary question which is to be investigated is when and how
we are to withdraw from Haiti. The second question is what we
shall do in the meantime... As I have stated before, I have no
desire for representation of the American Government abroad
through our military forces."

Subsequent American policy was to avoid further popular
demonstrations at all costs and to get out of Haiti as quickly as
could be done in an orderly fashion.

All articles copyrighted Haïti Progrès, Inc. REPRINTS ENCOURAGED.
Please credit Haïti Progrès.

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