16398: Haiti needs reparations, not sanctions (San Francisco Bay View) (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: MKarshan@aol.com

San Francisco Bay View
August 13, 2003

As 200th anniversary nears
Haiti needs reparations, not sanctions

by Pat Chin

The Republic of Haiti will mark the 200th anniversary of its independence on
Jan. 1, 2004. Preparations for celebrating the bicentennial are being made
against the backdrop of a deepening economic crisis in that oppressed country,
exacerbated by economic sanctions.

“For over two years,” reports the Inter Press Service, “the United States,
the European Union, and multilateral lenders have been holding up some $500
million in aid and loans because they say Aristide’s government and Lavalas
Family party have failed to reach a compromise with opposition parties, which
boycotted the 2000 Presidential race after protesting allegedly fraudulent
parliamentary contests in 2000.”

The Washington-backed “Democratic Convergence” is made up of 15 tiny
bourgeois opposition parties, ranging from hard-core Duvalierists to Social
Democrats, with no real support in the popular masses. The group is similar to the
imperialist-backed “Democratic Coordination” in Venezuela that has unsuccessfully
tried to oust progressive Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The Convergence
has reportedly received some $120 million from the U.S.-based right-wing
National Endowment for Democracy.

In response to the imperialist maneuver to force a “regime change” by
tightening the economic squeeze, Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide has called
on France - the original colonial power - to make restitution for an
indemnity Haiti was forced to pay after militarily defeating the French, forcing
slavery’s end and declaring independence.

The French government in 1825 had demanded 90 million gold francs to
“compensate” white planters for property loss due to the revolutionary war. It was
decades later that Haitian independence was recognized and crippling sanctions
lifted. The Aristide administration calculates the sum owed Haiti by France,
including interest, to be well over $21 billion.

The indemnity insured that Haiti would remain in debt to French financiers
for most of the 1800s.

Reparations for hundreds of years of forced labor are also being demanded.
This call is supported by African-American organizations that have launched a
movement for reparations in the U.S.

Aristide first sounded the call on April 7 at a massive gathering in front of
the National Palace marking the 200th anniversary of the death, in a French
prison, of revolutionary leader Toussaint L’Ouverture. Almost two months later,
at a June 3 press conference during the G-8 summit of capitalist vultures in
Evian, France, French Foreign Ministry spokesperson François Rivasseau
arrogantly rejected the demand. The summit was protested by thousands of anti-war and
anti-globalization demonstrators. Rivasseau cited loans made to the Haitian
government, while blaming alleged corruption and mismanagement by the Aristide
administration for Haiti’s economic problems.

At a May 23 “Flag Day” celebration attended by thousands of students and
other supporters, Aristide also condemned global poverty and the Third World
debt. “Two hundred years after the victorious revolution,” he said, “the bull
that turns the mill doesn’t get to drink the sugar syrup. We refuse to be slaves
to sub-human misery” (Inter Press Service, May 23).

Why is Haiti so poor?

The main political point made by the bourgeois “National Convergence” - like
that of the racist white colonizers and imperialists - is that Haiti is
wrenchingly poor because the slaves killed all their white masters to gain
independence and liberty. Haiti has consequently remained poor and dependent and in
need of U.S. resources and technology. Government corruption is also a
fundamental part of the problem, they say.

But this grossly distorts reality. Haiti’s poverty lies mainly in the
centuries-long crime of slavery, which produced enormous wealth for France, followed
by 200 years of economic, political and military aggression waged by the
European and U.S. bourgeoisies against the first free Black republic. The only
country in the world where slaves had liberated themselves by overthrowing their
masters, Haiti was a powerful symbol of resistance and had to be punished.

The country’s liberation was a beacon of hope for an end to slavery
everywhere. It sent shock waves through the Americas and European capitals growing
fabulously rich from the brutal trade in human Black cargo. Fearing the
implications for their own slave-based economies, France joined forces with the U.S. and
other European powers.

In fact, after the first rebellion in Haiti, U.S. President George Washington
- a slave owner himself - directed his secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson -
another slave owner - to give the white planters in Haiti $400,000 for arms
and food to resist the uprising. The U.S. did not recognize Haitian
independence until after its own Civil War ended slavery some 60 years later.

On Jan. 1, 1804, Haitian revolutionary hero Gen. Jean-Jacques Dessalines had
declared the country’s independence. His proclamation was the culmination of
years of a national liberation struggle enacted by African slaves, who had
freed themselves in a revolutionary upsurge that started at a Voodoo ceremony in
1791. Voodoo, as a result, has been turned into a pejorative term.

The twisted, sadistic form of colonial logic - where the white oppressors get
compensated for their loss of the ability to cruelly exploit, while the Black
victims are condemned to punishing poverty - was also applied in Jamaica
under the British colonialists and in the U.S. after slavery ended.

The foreign imperialists and their collaborators among Haiti’s bourgeoisie
have a daunting task ahead. It is one that will surely fail, as the people -
supported by a solidarity movement abroad - continue to draw on their long
history of struggle and resistance against racist demonization, neo-liberal
capitalist exploitation and imperialist plunder.

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