21661: Esser: Haiti's Misery: Made in the USA (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

Revolutionary Worker #1239
http://rwor.org

May 9, 2004

Haitian Immigrants Speak Bitterness
Haiti's Misery: Made in the USA

If you believe the U.S. authorities and the mainstream press, the
U.S.-backed coup d'état in February that overthrew Haitian President
Aristide will lead to better lives for the Haitian people. And the
disastrous state of Haiti's economy is supposedly the result of some
innate inability of Haitians to manage their own affairs. Haiti's
misfortunes, we are told, persist despite repeated U.S. attempts to
"help."

A team of RW stringers decided to investigate the truth by talking to
Haitian immigrants in New York City about how U.S. imperialism has
affected the lives of people in Haiti. We found that the facts -- and
Haitian people -- tell a different story from the official U.S.
version. It's a story of incredible poverty and economic collapse
caused by imperialist domination, especially by the U.S. (For more
news, analysis, and background on events in Haiti, see RW #1231,
1232, and 1234 and online at rwor.org.)

Shortly after the coup earlier this year, we packed our notebooks,
pens, tape recorders and a French- English dictionary and headed out
to East Flatbush, Brooklyn, now home to many Haitians who fled
poverty and repression. Haitians in New York City have been in the
streets many times in recent years protesting U.S. intervention and
domination of their country, as well as other outrages of this system
like the depraved police attack on Abner Louima and the murder of
Patrick Dorismond. We had already talked with people at protests
against the February coup. Now we hooked up with members of the
Haitian Coalition for Justice, the Haitian Information Center, and a
Haitian activist we know. The activist translated to and from Kreyol
(Haitian Creole), the main language spoken by people in Haiti. Our
conversations went back and forth in Kreyol, French, and English. We
showed people the RW/OR articles on Haiti and explained we wanted to
know what life was like for their friends and family members still in
Haiti.

The Destruction of Haiti's Agriculture

Until the mid-1980s, Haiti was an agricultural society in which
people raised their own food as well as food for export. We learned
how that has changed as capitalist "free trade," "globalization," and
"free market economy" have been forced on the Haitian people.

At a crowded barber shop, our activist friend introduced us in
Kreyol. We talked for a long time about the lives of the people in
Haiti and their history. One man we met there, Henri, told us that
pigs once formed the backbone of the peasant economy, especially in
the southern part of the country: "My parents raised and sold pigs.
When school time came, they could send the kids to school using
income from selling pigs. We had food to eat."

But starting in 1979, the U.S. and the U.S.-backed Duvalier regime
carried out a program of slaughtering all the pigs in Haiti --in the
name of eradicating swine flu. The U.S. sent American pigs that were
supposedly "better"--but the pigs from the U.S. were not adapted to
the conditions in Haiti and were unable to survive. Henri's parents
haven't raised pigs since and have fallen deeper into poverty. They
used to eat twice a day; now they eat once a day. No one has work. He
and other family members in the U.S. and Canada send money to help
the folks back home--that's the only way they survive. His family
stretches the money as far as possible. They need 20 cups of rice per
week but try to make do on 12-15 cups--and they share with neighbors
who have nothing.

As barbers and customers listened and sometimes joined the
discussion, Henri explained that fish from the rivers used to be a
good source of food for the peasants. But in the mid-1970s,
agricultural chemicals imported from the U.S. poisoned the water and
killed the fish. In the late 1980s, economic sabotage by the U.S.
destroyed cement, bread, cooking oil, and other industries in Haiti.

A state-owned Haitian-U.S. joint venture produced sugar for export as
well as domestic consumption and employed over 4,000 people. Henri
said: "The Americans destroyed that. The [Haitian] bourgeoisie
started importing sugar--they said it would be cheaper. We used to
export sugar--now we were importing it." Once the Haitian sugar
industry was destroyed, sugar became more expensive than before.

In the late 1990s, Haiti lost 25,000 acres of agricultural land after
the U.S. sold Haiti agricultural chemicals that made the crops come
up black, shriveled, and inedible and destroyed the land for further
agricultural use.

Today, much of the agricultural production in Haiti is tied to U.S.
corporations. People are forced to grow mangoes, coffee, and other
crops for export while their children go hungry. Patrick, an
agricultural expert from Haiti we spoke with, explained, "People have
land, but not the means for production.... Farming could sustain a
family of three, but give them a chance to do it. They need water,
seeds, fertilizer, insecticide.... Instead, we get international food
aid and this destroys agriculture."

Patrick said that in 1990 President Jean-Bertrand Aristide asked the
U.S. to channel aid through Haiti's Ministry of Agriculture instead
of handing out food so the farming sector could be rebuilt. Patrick
thought this demand was a major reason for the U.S.-backed 1991 coup
that forced Aristide into exile. He said food aid to Haiti following
the 1994 U.S. invasion--to reinstall Aristide as president--drove
down prices, which forced many more peasants off their land.

Patrick described a trip he took in Haiti in 1992: "I was driving
from Baie de Henne to Mole Saint-Nicolas. I had some bread and
avocados. Down the road there were people begging for food. You
couldn't just give them food from the car, you had to get out and
serve them -- because they were too weak to come up to the car
themselves." Starving people are often not strong enough to get to
the places where food is being given out -- something he saw then and
is sure is happening today.

Rice was once a major food crop in Haiti. Under pressure from the
U.S., Aristide lowered import tariffs on rice. Haiti was flooded with
rice from the U.S., which was cheaper because growers receive
government subsidies. This drove Haitian farmers out of rice
production and off the land. Haiti is now the fifth largest importer
of rice from the U.S.

A Haitian activist told us about a rice farmer from the central
department of Artibonite, the "breadbasket" that used to feed the
country. This farmer can't make a living by growing rice in Haiti, so
he has lived and worked in the U.S. for over 15 years. But every year
he goes back to Haiti, plants rice, returns to the U.S. to work, goes
back again for the harvest, then returns to the U.S. again-- "to take
a political stand." Last year this farmer harvested 150 bushels of
rice--but he has been unable to sell the rice. "Haitian peasants
don't produce any more," the activist told us.

As a result of the destruction of Haitian agriculture over the last
30+ years, Haiti imports much of its food. So when Haiti's currency
(the gourde) fell against the dollar, food prices stayed more or less
pegged to the dollar. One Haitian activist told us bread that cost
one gourde in 1994 now costs 15 to 20 gourdes. When we asked him what
had happened to wages and salaries during that same period, he
answered, "What wages? What salaries? There are no jobs any more!"

Disappearing Jobs and Falling Standard of Living

There are some shocking statistics about Haiti. Eighty percent of the
people in Haiti are unemployed. Life expectancy is 52 years, and half
of the population is under 20. Most people are hungry all the time.

As the agricultural system was being destroyed in the 1980s, U.S.
companies began to build manufacturing assembly plants in Haiti.
Thousands of former peasants who had been driven off their land were
employed for wages on which they could barely survive.

But after the 1991 coup, the U.S. imposed an economic
embargo--supposedly to pressure the military regime that had
overthrown Aristide and seized power. The embargo caused incredible
suffering among the Haitian people. One activist explained that
during "the coup years" from 1991 to 1994, the U.S. and other
capitalists moved their factories out of Haiti because of the
political instability--to the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Costa
Rica, or other places in Latin America. The industrial parks where
the sweatshops were located closed down.

The activist described the sharp economic decline that hit the people
of Haiti: "All the different classes suffered. Only the bourgeoisie
and people working for the government did better."

In the 1980s, 80,000 people were employed in these sweatshops. By
1994, only 400 jobs were left.As of 2000, some of the sweatshops had
come back--but still, only 20,000 people had jobs in these
industries. All this left us wondering--with almost no industry or
agriculture, how do people in Haiti manage to survive? How do they
eat?

"Les Haïtiens Survivent … la Bonne Volonté des Haïtiens Étrangers"
(Haitians Survive on the Good Will of Haitians Abroad)

This Haitian saying reflects a bitter reality: The destruction of
Haiti's economy through U.S. domination means that remittances
(money) sent by friends and family in the U.S. and Canada are the
principal -- or often only--means of support for most Haitians.
Everyone we talked to said they sent money to Haiti--to family and
friends. Haitians here scrimp and save to send remittances--but it is
never enough.

Most people in Haiti have incomes of less than $1 per day. One man
who described his family as middle-class said he sends $100 every
month to help three people--two adults and a child. Before 1994, this
could be stretched to feed them for one and a half months. But the
sudden fall in the value of the gourde after the 1994 U.S. invasion
and the resulting inflation have continued for the past 10 years.
Today, the exchange rate is 53 to 57 gourdes to the dollar. Now, that
$100 sent to Haiti lasts only two to three weeks for three people
eating one good meal a day. And that is for food only; it doesn't
cover any other expenses.

The man we talked to said that the people he supports live in a house
where there are five adults and eight kids. Three of the adults are
employed--one as a teacher, another as a nurse in a private hospital.
Neither has been paid for the last five months. The third works as an
auto mechanic. When he finds work he gets paid, but work is sporadic
and hard to find. The eight people in the household survive on a
total of $300 per month in remittances from family in the U.S.--about
average for a family of this size.

Without help from Haitians abroad, there would be a famine in Haiti.
Those who don't get remittances from abroad get help from those who
do. One man we met remembered the situation in his hometown of
Basse-en-Bleu in the northeastern part of the country: "Many people
relied on your plate to survive." Neighbors would come to his house
to eat at least every third day--and that might have been all the
food they were getting. Some people, he said, had some coffee and
salt in the morning--and that was all the "food" they had for the day.

Haiti has been made into something like a giant prison camp. Many try
to escape the desperate conditions on boats headed for the U.S. and
other countries in the area. U.S. Coast Guard patrols intercept
Haitians at sea and return them to Haiti. The Haitian people are
trapped on their island country by the effects of U.S. (and
secondarily French) imperialist domination.

"I Will Fight for My People"

We found a lot of confusion among those we talked to about the source
of the Haitian people's problems and the real solution. Many people
continue to support Aristide; others oppose him. Most are angry at
the current U.S. occupation, though some are confused and think (or
are deluding themselves) that somehow the U.S. will help them and
that something good can come out of the recent events.

People are especially furious at the presence of French troops among
the occupying forces. By 1804, the slave armies of Toussaint
L'Ouverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines had driven out the French and
declared Haiti an independent republic. Today, as Haitians celebrate
their bicentennial, French troops are once again on Haitian soil--for
the first time in 200 years! People told us how insulting and
humiliating this was.

Many who support Aristide have illusions about bourgeois democracy.
But at the same time, what was striking was how politicized people
are--how much the dream of liberation is still alive and how deeply
the people are searching for answers.

A man in the barbershop told us: "We will resist to liberate our
people. I will fight for my people!" He said liberation often
requires sacrifice and hardship--and he and many other people are
ready to make such sacrifices.

We talked to people about the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist road for
liberation in oppressed countries like Haiti-- protracted people's
war--and about the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM). We
told people about the people's war in Nepal, led by the Communist
Party of Nepal (Maoist), where the masses control 80% of the
countryside. We found that people were very interested in the RW/OR
's analysis of the developments in Haiti.

Rache Manyòk Nan Revolusyon

After the overthrow of the U.S.-backed Duvalier dictatorship in 1986,
a popular slogan among the Haitian people was "rache manyòk!" Loosely
translated from Kreyol, this phrase means "pull up by the roots" or
"uproot." Rache manyòk referred to the desire of the people to go
beyond getting rid of Duvalier himself and to uproot the whole
apparatus he had in place to oppress the Haitian people for the
benefit of U.S. imperialism--the army, the Tontons Macoute death
squads, and the rich elite.

Eighteen years later, it's painfully clear that the people of Haiti
continue to be under the boot of U.S. imperialist domination. They
still must overthrow the forces that exploit and oppress them and
deeply uproot the system that keeps them utterly powerless and in the
depths of poverty. In short, the people of Haiti confront the need to
"rache manyòk nan revolusyon"--pull up by the roots through
revolution.

This article is posted in English and Spanish on Revolutionary Worker
Online
http://rwor.org
.