21106: radtimes: Haiti: The Bicentenntial Coup d'Etat (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: radtimes <resist@best.com>

Haiti: The Bicentenntial Coup d'Etat

http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Strate/Salz/2004-03-16.htm

by Immanuel Wallerstein     <iwaller@binghamton.edu>
Professor Emeritus, State University of New York at Binghamton
Commentary No. 133, Mar. 15, 2004

       In a world where many countries have sad tales to tell, Haiti is
quite possibly at the top of the list. In the eighteenth century, Haiti
(then known at St.-Domingue) was the jewel in the crown of the French
empire. It was the leading sugar exporter in the world at the time and
yielded immense profits to a small class of French plantation owners. The
overwhelming majority of the population were Black slaves. There was a
small intermediate group made up largely of mulattoes, poor Whites, and a
few free Blacks.

       Then came the French Revolution, and everyone on the island decided
to profit from the turmoil. The White settlers elected representatives to
the Estates-General, which then became the Assemblée Nationale, and sought
autonomous authority on the island. The "free colored" in turn demanded
their rights and found support among some members of the Assemblée
Nationale, the Amis des Noirs. They succeeded in getting the Assemblée to
award the vote to "propertied mulattoes," whose leader was promptly
captured, tortured, and executed by the White settlers.

       At this point, there began a slave revolt, and Haiti entered into a
three-way civil war. The slave revolt frightened not only the White
settlers and the propertied mulattoes but France, Great Britain, Spain, and
not least the newly-constituted United States. Under the leadership of
Toussaint L'Ouverture, the Black revolutionaries created a disciplined army
and took over control of an independent state, which was then ostracized by
everyone. By 1802, Napoleon had reinvaded the island and by a combination
of force and deception captured Toussaint L'Ouverture and took him off to
prison in France.

       The story gets complicated after that. But basically the republic,
officially launched in 1804 (hence this is the bicentennial year), would be
under the control primarily of the mulattoes. The White planters left the
island. The economy became a shambles. Nonetheless, the example of the
Black slave revolt so frightened everyone that the leaders of the various
independence movements in Latin America, including Simon Bolívar, would not
recognize Haiti for many years. The last country to recognize Haiti was the
United States, doing it only in 1854. The example of Haiti led both the
Latin American revolutionaries and the United States to discourage an
independence movement in Cuba, for fear of another Haiti. In the first half
of the twentieth century, after multiple coups, the U.S. marines invaded
and spent a lot of time in Haiti, running the show and collecting the debt.

       If we fast forward to the period after the Second World War, we find
ensconced in power one of the Western Hemisphere's worst rulers, François
Duvalier. A doctor, a Black, he used a demagogy of noirisime to establish a
dictatorial regime which he enforced through an armed group of thugs known
as the tontons macoutes. Duvalier ruled from 1957 to 1971, and on his death
he was succeeded by his son, Jean Claude, known as "Baby Doc." The regime
remained the same but Baby Doc was less efficacious a ruler, He finally
lost the support of the United States, and was overthrown in 1986, allowed
to go into golden exile to his estate in France.

       Power fell back into the hands of a largely mulatto elite group, who
found themselves challenged by a populist priest, champion of the Black
underclasses, named Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Aristide won the presidential
election in 1990 and was ousted by a coup in 1991 led by a right-wing group
who proceeded to kill and repress supporters of Aristide. By now, there was
some attention being paid to Haiti by world public opinion and a sense that
this situation was intolerable. In 1994, Clinton sent in U.S. troops to
restore Aristide to power, on condition that he only "complete" his term of
office, not run again in 1996, and carry out a neoliberal economic policy.

       Aristide accepted the terms. What else could he do? Meanwhile,
however, Senator Jesse Helms, then the Republican chair of the Senate
Foreign Affairs Committee, fulminated against Aristide aa a leftist
anti-American. In 2000, Aristide ran again for President and won
overwhelmingly. The opposition refused to stand, claiming that the
elections were unfair. No doubt they were not pristine (but neither were
those in the U.S. in 2000), but no outside observer thought that Aristide
did not command the majority of the population.

       When Bush came to power, the person in charge of Haitian affairs in
the Department of State was Roger Noriega, previously the assistant of
Jesse Helms and the one who had managed his anti-Aristide polemics. The
U.S. cut off international funds promised to Aristide, forced him to empty
his treasury to repay IMF loans, and (via the Republican party) poured
money into those who had been ousted by Aristide in 1991 and again in 1994.

       This brings us to 2004. A small group of right-wing rebels,
indirectly armed by the U.S., invaded from the Dominican Republic. Aristide
had been weakened by the financial squeeze, the corruption of his regime,
and the fact that his supporters had been using oppressive tactics as well.
The diplomatic charade now began. France called for Aristide to resign.
Colin Powell said he was for a compromise - that Aristide stay but name a
new Prime Minister after negotiating with the more palatable of the
opposition. Aristide agreed, but the opposition refused. So the U.S. then
said, quite illogically, well Aristide should resign. He refused. The U.S.
then arranged that the hired security guards (from a U.S. firm) that had
been protecting Aristide be withdrawn.

       At this point, the U.S. emissary said to Aristide, we can guarantee
your safe escape from the rebel troops only if you resign. Aristide wrote
an ambiguous letter in Creole, and was then whisked off in a U.S. place to
the Central African Republic (no golden exile in France for him). He
immediately told all and sundry that he had not resigned, that he had been
kidnapped by the U.S. At which point, the Central African Republic
authorities reminded him of their requirement that he be reserved, that is,
shut up.

       The U.S. Black poilitcal community are all demanding that Aristide
be allowed to return and that the alleged kidnapping be investigated. This
is supported by the association of Caribbean states (CARICOM) and by the
African Union. But don't hold your breath. The coup (32nd in Haiti's
history) has succeeded.

       Why did this happen? The first question is why France played the
role that it did. It is said in the press that this was a gesture of
reconciliation after the fallout with the U.S. over Iraq. I don't think
this is too plausible. France was not on good terms with Aristide, who had
recently demanded that France pay reparations for what they did 200 years
ago. But most of all, France was the ex-colonial power which had been eased
out of a role in Haiti by the United States. By taking the lead, France got
its foot back inside the Haitian scene, at the expense of Aristide whom
they regarded as someone who had been installed by the U.S. (albeit now
discarded).

       As for the U.S., objectively, Aristide was not particularly
bothersome. Unlike say Chavez, he was not sitting on oil, nor denouncing
the U.S. But the neo-conservatives saw him as a Clinton product, a dubious
type, and someone to be ousted in favor of people with whom they had close
relations. So they stage-managed the whole transfer of power. In addition,
it is meant as a warning to other countries in the Americas about the
readiness of the U.S. to resume "gunboat diplomacy" in their backyard. And
so it is being read.

--Immanuel Wallerstein
iwaller@binghamton.edu; fax: 1-607-777-4315.

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