18980: Burnham: Toronto Sun: Haiti's only hope is foreign intervention (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: thor burnham <thorald_mb@hotmail.com>

Eric Marglis: Contributing Foreign Editor

February 22, 2004

MIAMI -- Civil war, chaos, and economic collapse are once again engulfing
Haiti. This small Caribbean nation of 8.5 million looks increasingly like
one of its legendary undead zombies as it staggers from crisis to crisis.

Haiti may not seem important, but the mysterious island in the Spanish Main
is a tragic symbol of so much that has gone wrong in the Third World.

During the 18th century, when France ruled Haiti, the island's slave
plantations and immensely rich soil produced four annual crops of precious
indigo, coffee, spices, and sugar. Haiti generated more revenue than all of
Spain's gold- and silver-producing Latin American colonies combined.

In 1791, Haiti's black slaves revolted, led by a remarkably heroic figure,
Toussaint l'Overture. He defeated France's finest armies and made Haiti free
in 1804. But after his death, Haiti fell into political turmoil.

The liberated slaves began cutting down Haiti's lush forests to make
charcoal. After a century of deforestation, the island's rich topsoil washed
away, leaving dead earth and destitute peasants. Two thirds of the island
broke away, becoming the Dominican Republic.

The U.S. Marine Corps took over Haiti in 1915 and administered it wisely and
well until 1934 - and, unofficially, until 1957. Many Haitians looked back
to the era of U.S. rule as a golden era.

Then, an obscure country doctor, Francois Duvalier, came to power. He turned
out to be one of the worst tyrants in the Western Hemisphere's history - a
sadistic killer, necromancer and certainly the most frightening man I have
ever met.

Better known as "Papa Doc," Duvalier inflicted a reign of terror on Haiti
through his feared thugs, the "Ton-ton Macoutes" (meaning bogeymen in
Haitian Creole). Duvalier was high priest, or hongan, of the island's cult
of African black magic (improperly called voodoo). Haitians believed Papa
Doc was the evil deity, Baron Samedi, who could raise the dead, create
zombies and kill his many enemies by casting spells.

Haiti in the early 1960s was a bizarre, dangerous place. I lived at
Port-au-Prince's fabled Victorian gingerbread hotel, the Oloffson, dodged
Ton-ton thugs, and met many characters from Graham Greene's delightful book
on Haiti, The Comedians.

My old Haitian pal Tijo Noustas (later murdered by the police in Haiti) and
I wound up in the middle of two attempted coups against Duvalier. We even
brazenly crashed a party for Papa Doc.

The Oloffson's manager, Mr. Seitz, gave us an invitation he and his wife
received to a gala for Duvalier at the national palace. Since Tijo's hair
was short, and mine long for the early '60s, I had to play Madame Seitz.

At the reception, President Duvalier came over to me, surrounded by
shotgun-toting Ton-tons in mirrored sunglasses. He stared at me for a long
time through his Coke-bottle thick eyeglasses, then whispered in French, "I
hope you enjoy your stay in our country ... Madame Seitz!" I was trembling
in my shoes. Papa Doc laughed sinisterly and walked off.

Duvalier was succeeded by his chubby son "Baby Doc," who was exiled from
Haiti in 1986. Haiti has since stewed in political and social chaos. During
the post-Duvalier years, Haiti's mulatto (light-skinned) minority, which had
run the economy and government, was gradually driven from power by black
militant groups.

A leftist Catholic priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, took power as champion of
the underclass. He was totally incompetent as a ruler, and became a petty
tyrant. The tiny mulatto-led army kicked him out.

In 1994, then-president Bill Clinton, in a comic show of liberal machismo,
sent 21,000 U.S. troops to invade Haiti and reinstate the inept Aristide -
and to avert a mass invasion of Florida by Haitian boat people.

The U.S. occupation accomplished nothing. Democracy never developed,
bribery, corruption and political violence raged on. The cocaine trade
flourished. Haiti's coffee, sugar and tourism industries collapsed.

Drugs and theft of foreign aid were virtually Haiti's only revenue. Per
capita annual income dropped below $380 and rural Haiti went back to the
bush, resembling Central Africa.

While Washington and Ottawa preached about "restoring democracy" in Haiti,
urban gangs battled over turf and drugs. Police degenerated into criminals.

Haiti's mulattos took their money and ran.

Starvation

The peasantry subsisted on the verge of starvation, ravaged by AIDS,
syphilis and other diseases not seen for over 100 years.

In three centuries, Haiti went from the richest nation in the Western
Hemisphere to the poorest. Haitians, once renowned as the most artistic,
gracious and cultured of all West Indians, have been reduced to being
beggars.

Haiti is too ruined to govern itself. The only solution is foreign
intervention. Not a charade, like Clinton's "democracy" invasion, but
sustained occupation by forces from the Organization of American States and,
hopefully, France, which may lead the rescue mission. The U.S. is too busy
trying to colonize Iraq to help Haiti.

A multinational force should stay until Haiti is reforested, and its basic
institutions - courts, police, civil service, schools - made to function.
This tutelage will take a decade and cost millions. But there is no other
choice for desperate Haiti, except more agony, or a Castro-style Marxist
revolution.

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