16066: Dorce: Re: 16057: Re: 15905: marasa and restitution (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Haines Brown <brownh@hartford-hwp.com>

> From: LAKAT47@aol.com
>
> << How come with all talk about restitution no one mention native
> Caribean Indians. I suspect that big bill. Who owe them? French or
> Haitian or both?  How about restitution to families of people killed
> by current government. >>
> ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
> If there were any Carib or Arawak indians left alive after the
> Spanish worked them all to death, maybe they would be suing for
> restitution.

Besides the insistance among Native Americans of Caribbean origin that
they do in fact exist, there have been scientific DNA studies that
have demonstrated that there is much more Native genetic survival in
some Caribbean locations than even Native Americans themselves had
believed. Although I don't know that such tests have been carried out
in Haiti, given the long history of maroon survival there, would not
one expect the same to be true of Native Americans?

To deny the existence of people who believe they do exist is a great
insult to them, and so it is better to err on the side of recognition
than denial. A situation like this is inherently ambivalent, and so
the position one takes can have as much to do with one's own character
as it does with the facts on the ground.

It seems arguable that even if were no native survivers in Haiti,
Taino and Carib peoples today might have a just claim against Haiti on
behalf of their forebears, for national divisions are of quite modern
origin. One can't absolve oneself of responsibility by drawing lines
in the sand.

> No Haitians killed any Caribbean natives in Haiti, I don't believe.
> As for all the people killed by this government......name one.

Perhaps so, but the question should be, are the advantages one enjoys
today the result of the abuse of others? It is not just a question of
killing, but also of exploitation. It is not just a question of
whether the humble typical Haitian profited at the expense of others,
but also whether advantaged sections of Haitian society did so. No
society is entirely sui generis.

> I think before we make that a cause celebre, it might be a better
> service to talk about the thousands killed by the Duvalier regimes.

I'm inclined to agree, but that does not remove the moral onus
regarding other people who were externminated, killed, or exploited,
it only indicates where the principle corrective action should be
focused. Recognition that one has les mains sales is not the same as
deciding how one must act, subject as it is to practical limitations.

Haines Brown