23570: radtimes: Why the U.S. fears the spirit of Dessalines (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: radtimes <resist@best.com>

Haiti today
Why the U.S. fears the spirit of Dessalines

http://www.workers.org/ww/2004/haiti1021.php

Oct. 21, 2004
By G. Dunkel

An Oct. 10 Associated Press dispatch from Port-au-Prince reported that 26
people, including some police, had met violent deaths in Haiti since Sept.
30. Other sources put the figure at 60. A Brazilian soldier with the United
Nations occupation troops was injured by gunfire.

The struggle continues to be sharp over the kidnapping of President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the installation of a new regime chosen by
Washington. There are rumors that a major demonstration will be held on the
anniversary of the assassination of Jean-Jacques Dessalines.

Dessalines, the first head of state of the new Black republic, was
assassinated in the first coup in Haiti's history, on Oct. 17, 1806.

Understanding what Dessalines did and the forces that conspired to stop him
and his program for the newly freed slaves of Haiti helps illuminate what
is happening today. It explains why the people of Haiti have not stopped
struggling to end foreign occupation and the oppression it breeds.

While Toussaint Louverture was the Haitian leader who opened the door for
freedom, it was Dessalines who led the people through it.

It is uncertain whether Dessalines was born in Africa or Haiti. In his
youth he often ran away from his slavemasters, and his body was covered
with scars from the whippings he received. Soon after the revolution
started in 1791, he joined and quickly became a leader.

He was courageous, leading from the front of his troops. He was disciplined
and determined as well as skillful and wily. He became one of Toussaint
Louverture's main generals. When Napoleon sent Gen. Victor Emmanuel
Leclerc, his brother-in-law, with 40,000 veteran troops to re-enslave
Haiti, it was only Dessalines and a handful of L'Ouverture's other generals
who put up a stiff resistance.

After the battle of Crête-à-Pierrot, the French captured L'Ouverture with a
ruse and shipped him off to France to die in the Jura Mountains. When the
Haitian masses learned that the French had reimposed slavery in their
colony of Guadeloupe, their low-intensity resistance changed into a mass
uprising with the slogan, "Live free or die."

Haitians died by the tens of thousands, responding so heroically to the
gruesome, inhuman tortures inflicted on them by the French that the morale
of the French troops suffered while the Haitians became more resolute.

In his dispatches to Napoleon, Leclerc said he saw no solution to the
stubborn Haitian resistance except genocide. Then an epidemic of yellow
fever struck, particularly afflicting the French Army. The Haitian Army
began to reorganize and re-equip. With many new volunteers swelling their
ranks, their counter-offensive began to gain momentum. Polish and German
soldiers, who had been brought to Haiti by the French as mercenaries, began
to desert to the Haitians' side.

On Jan. 1, 1804, Dessalines and his general staff proclaimed Haiti an
independent state, where slavery would never be permitted.

The constitution of 1805 said all Haitians would now be called Black--the
terms metis (mixed race) and affranchis (freed African) would no longer be
used. Another article of the constitution made it clear that the Poles and
Germans who had been naturalized because they fought for Haiti would also
be full citizens.

Late in 1804, Dessalines ordered the execution of all the white French
slave owners still remaining in Haiti. Priests, lawyers and skilled workers
were spared. The 1,200 former slave owners had remained a threat to a
country whose cities were in ashes, its people exhausted, embittered and
decimated by a genocidal war, and that was surrounded by slave-owning states.

Haitian and progressive historians point to Dessalines' decision to move
against speculators and generals who were trying to gain control of the
vast tracts of land abandoned by the French slave owners as a reason for
his assassination. These "grandons" (large land owners), together with the
"metis" based in the cities who wanted to control Haiti's commerce, joined
together to get rid of Dessalines.

The two wings of Haiti's ruling class--the merchants and land
owners--continued to be in a struggle with the peasants, who were armed
until the first U.S. occupation in 1916. This explains a lot of Haitian
history, which otherwise can seem a succession of coups and countercoups.
Neocolonial subjugation, sometimes enforced by occupation or armed
aggression, was another important factor.

The successful slave revolution that Dessalines led was a great shock to
the racist and expansionist states of that time, especially the United
States, Great Britain and France. How could an ill-equipped group of
runaway slaves, relying on their own forces, defeat the mighty French Army?
How could these descendants of enslaved Africans, who legally were not even
considered people in most constitutions, run a country, conduct commerce,
have a legal system and so on?

The election of President Jean-Bert rand Aristide in 1990 was another big
shock to the United States, which felt it had Haiti safely under its
neocolonial thumb. It was more a movement than an election, growing out of
decades of popular struggle against the Duvalier dictatorship and its
successors.

Eight months after Aristide took office, the Haitian Army staged yet
another coup. The United States returned him as president three years later
on the condition that he step down in 1996, at the end of his term.

Aristide himself asserted that he modeled himself on Toussaint L'Ouverture,
the conciliator, rather than Dessalines, the revolutionary.

But Aristide ran for president again in 2000 and won, with 92 percent of
the vote. This time it took three years for the coup to be organized,
because Aristide had dissolved the army in 1995. To weaken the government,
the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, with U.S. complicity, cut
off aid to the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

Having secretly got permission to use the Dominican Republic as a launching
pad, Washington then implemented a plan to invade Haiti with a bunch of
hired killers--the "Macoutes"--from the days of the Duvalier dictatorship,
along with ex-militaries and a few outright bandits. Meanwhile, the Haitian
bourgeoisie set up a "democratic" movement consisting of former students,
union leaders and opportunists of every stripe to serve as a political
cover for the invasion.

Even then, Aristide refused to leave his post. So on Feb. 29 of this year,
the Mar ines assigned to U.S. Ambassador James Foley hustled Aristide onto
a plane to Cen tral Africa and effected a "regime change."

Meanwhile, a plane from South Africa, loaded with arms and ammunition for
defenders of the Aristide government, was refueling in Kingston, Jamaica.
Aristide had obviously intended to distribute the arms to the people to
prevent the coup.

Ever since then, Fanmi Lavalas--Aristide's political party--has been
holding protests demanding the physical return of Aristide to his post, an
end to repression, the end of foreign occupation, the release of all
political prisoners, and reducing the cost of living. The National Popular
Party, which calls for class struggle and national liberation, has also
been in the streets.

On Sept. 30, the anniversary of the first coup against Aristide, these
protests intensified, as did repression from the U.S.-picked government of
Gérard Latortue. Police and UN "peacekeepers" have been going into poor
neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince, where the support for Aristide is high,
and taking young men away in trucks. This is meeting with resistance and
sometimes gunfights break out.

Cap Haitien, Haiti's second-biggest city, also saw a significant
demonstration on Sept. 30. The city of Gonaïves, however, was too busy
cleaning up after the disastrous floods from Hurricane Jeanne.

Huge mud slides cost over 2,500 Haitian lives. Around 900 people are still
listed as missing. The witch hunts for Lavalas supporters and the chaotic
regime change sponsored by the United States had left emergency services
completely broken down. The Latortue regime has done little more than
provide back-hoes to dig mass graves.

After the hurricane, Venezuela loaded two ships with tons of supplies to
help its neighbors. One went to Grenada and Cuba, the other to Jamaica and
Haiti. Cuba, though hit earlier by Hurricane Ivan, sent a team of 60
medical personnel to Gonaïves, where the hospital had been destroyed in the
floods. People, many injured, are living in the open, facing cholera and
typhoid because the water system was destroyed.

The Haitian masses won a surprising victory against French colonialism in
1804. They surprised the U.S. in 1990 by electing the nationalist figure
Aristide, even though Washington had given his opponent millions of
dollars. Their amazing resilience in the face of terrible adversity can
once again surprise the imperialists trying to re-enslave Haiti.

.