23167: Bellegarde-Smith: Eduardo Galeano- Haiti: The White Curse (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: P D Bellegarde-Smith <pbs@csd.uwm.edu>
>
>
>The White Curse
>by Eduardo Galeano
>
>The Progressive magazine, June 2004
>http://www.progressive.org/ <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.
>
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