23020: Esser: The White Curse (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser <torx@joimail.com>

The White Curse
by Eduardo Galeano

The Progressive magazine, June 2004
http://www.progressive.org/


On the first day of his year, freedom in this world turned 200. But
no one noticed, or almost no one. A few days later, the country where
this birth occurred, Haiti, found itself in the media spotlight, not
for the anniversary of universal freedom but for the ouster of
President Aristide.

Haiti was the first country to abolish slavery. However, the most
widely read encyclopedias and almost all educational textbooks
attribute this honorable deed to England. It is true that one fine
day the empire that had been the champion in the slave trade changed
its mind about it. But abolition in Britain took place in 1807, three
years after the Haitian revolution, and it was so unconvincing that
in 1832 Britain had to ban slavery again.

There is nothing new about this slight of Haiti. For two centuries it
has suffered scorn and punishment. Thomas Jefferson, a slave owner
and champion of liberty at the same time, warned that Haiti had
created a bad example and argued it was necessary to "confine the
plague to the island." His country heeded him. It was sixty years
before the U.S. granted diplomatic recognition to this freest of
nations. Meanwhile in Brazil disorder and violence came to be called
"Haitianism." Slave owners there were saved from this fury until 1888
when Brazil abolished slavery-the last country in the world to do so.

And Haiti went back to being an invisible nation-until the next
bloodbath. During its brief sojourn on TV screens and front pages
earlier this year, the media showed confusion and violence and
confirmed that Haitians were born to do evil well and do good badly.
Since its revolution, Haiti has been capable only of mounting
tragedies. Once a happy and prosperous colony, it is now the poorest
nation in the Western Hemisphere.

Revolutions, certain specialists have concluded, lead straight to the
abyss; others have suggested, if not stated outright, that the
Haitian tendency to fratricide derives from its savage African
heredity. The rule of the ancestors. The black curse that engenders
crime and chaos.

Of the white curse, nothing was said.

The French revolution had abolished slavery, but Napoleon revived it.

"Which regime was most prosperous for the colonies?"

"The previous one."

"Then reinstate it."

To reinstate slavery in Haiti, France sent more than fifty shiploads
of soldiers. The country's blacks rose up and defeated France and won
national independence and freedom for the slaves. In 1804, they
inherited a land that had been razed to grow sugarcane and a land
consumed by the conflagrations of a fierce civil war. And they
inherited "the French debt." France made Haiti pay dearly for the
humiliation it inflicted on Napoleon Bonaparte. The newly born nation
had to commit to pay a gigantic indemnification for the damage it had
caused in winning its freedom. This expiation of the sin of freedom
would cost Haiti 150 million gold francs.

The new country was born with a rope wrapped tightly around its neck:
the equivalent of $21.7 billion in today's dollars, or forty-four
times Haiti's current yearly budget.

In exchange for this fortune, France officially recognized the new
nation. No other countries did so. Haiti was born condemned to
solitude.

Not even Simon Bolivar recognized Haiti, though he owed it
everything. In 1816, it was Haiti that furnished Bolivar with boats,
arms, and soldiers when he showed up on the island defeated and
asking for shelter and help.

Haiti gave him everything with only one condition: that he free the
slaves-an idea that had not occurred to him until then. The great man
triumphed in his war of independence and showed his gratitude by
sending a sword as a gift to Port-au-Prince. Of recognition he made
no mention.

In 1915, the Marines landed in Haiti. They stayed nineteen years. The
first thing they did was occupy the customs house and duty
collection facilities. The occupying army suspended the salary of the
Haitian president until he agreed to sign off on the liquidation of
the Bank of the Nation, which became a branch of City Bank of New
York. The president and other blacks were barred entry into the
private hotels, restaurants, and clubs of the foreign occupying
power. The occupiers didn't dare reestablish slavery, but they did
impose forced labor for the building of public works. And they killed
a lot of people. It wasn't easy to quell the fires of resistance.

The guerrilla chief, Charlemagne Peralte, was exhibited in the public
square, crucified on a door to teach the people a lesson.

This civilizing mission ended in 1934. The occupiers withdrew,
leaving a National Guard, which they had created, in their place to
exterminate any possible trace of democracy. They did the same in the
Dominican Republic and Nicaragua. A short time afterwards, Duvalier
became the Haitian equivalent of Trujillo and Somoza.

And so, from dictator to dictator, from promise to betrayal, one
misfortune followed another.

Aristide, the rebel priest, became president in 1991. He lasted a few
months before the U.S. government helped to oust him, brought him to
the United States, subjected him to Washington's treatment, and then
sent him back a few years later, in the arms of Marines, to resume
his post. Then once again, in 2004, the U.S. helped to remove him
from power, and yet again there was killing. And yet again the
Marines came back, as they always seem to, like the flu.

But the international experts are far more destructive than invading
troops. Placed under strict orders from the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund, Haiti obeyed every instruction, without
cheating. The government paid what it was told to even if it meant
there would be neither bread nor salt. Its credit was frozen despite
the fact that the state had been dismantled and the subsidies and
tariffs that had protected national production had been eliminated.
Rice farmers, once the majority, soon became beggars or boat people.
Many have ended in the depths of the Caribbean, and more are
following them to the bottom, only these shipwreck victims aren't
Cuban so their plight never makes the papers.

Today Haiti imports its rice from the United States, where
international experts, who are rather distracted people, forgot to
prohibit tariffs and subsidies to protect national production.

On the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, there is a
large sign that reads: Road to Ruin.

Down that road, everyone is a sculptor. Haitians have the habit of
collecting tin cans and scrap metal that they cut and shape and
hammer with old-world mastery, creating marvels that are sold in the
street markets.

Haiti is a country that has been thrown away, as an eternal
punishment of its dignity. There it lies, like scrap metal. It awaits
the hands of its people.


Eduardo Galeano, a Uruguayan journalist, is the author of "The Open
Veins of Latin America," "Memory of Fire," and "Soccer in Sun and
Shadow. " This article is published with permission of IPS Columnist
Service.
.