#2939: Griot Chirac and Ayiti (Saint-Vil adds) (fwd)

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From: Jean Saint-Vil <jafrikayiti@hotmail.com>

Here is an attempt to comment on the feedback received from the non-list 
member who responded to my previous post.

He/she wrote:

>None of what Chirac said in his statement should be offensive. On the
>contrary, what he was saying is that Haiti was not a colony (in the way
Ø Martinique and parts of Canada and the US were).

Unfortunately I see nowhere in the text that Chirac qualifies what he said. 
Maybe I missed a crucial  part of his answer. But I don't think so.




>We were colonized by the
>french for only a few years (I'm not 100% sure how long) andChirac's
>point is that theirs,unlike the Spanish, was not a lasting legacy in
>Haiti (or Hispanola for that matter) even though we did adopt their
Ø language

Someone is able to decipher Chirac's point. I am still awed!

What I have been reading in history books all these years tell me that on 
September 20th 1697 the « Traité de Riswick» recognized for the europeans 
that France has sovereignty over western Ayiti (which the europeans called 
St. Domingue). In Michael Heiln expanded « Written in Blood, University 
Press of America, 1996) we read « the agreed frontier traced its way from 
the North along the Rivière Massacre… ». Unless I missed some important 
reading, it seems to me the French kept their self -appointed right over the 
western part of the land of the Tayinos (Ayiti) up to 1825 and that colony 
was hell on earth for the Africans who laboured in it for hundreds of years, 
  providing coffee, sugar, cocoa, indigo - wealth of all kinds!….to enrich 
France, finance the Renaissance and so on ... Although 22 years earlier they 
have lost the colony at the hands of Dessalines, Sanite Bélair and the 
African maroons who revolted and beat Napoleon's Army.

What is it that I am missing?

Is Jean Fouchard Lying when he states « Saint-Domingue fut un moulin a 
broyer les nègres autant que la canne et le principal tombeau de la Traite. 
La COLONIE mangeait ses esclaves à un rythme vertigineux que ne pouvait 
compenser les arrivages pourtants incessants et de plus en plus massifs des 
négriers, et encore moins les naissances »…What colony is Fouchard referring 
to? is it not the western side of the island of Ayiti colonized by FRANCE?

Is it no true that French colons and slave drivers from Nantes, le Havre, de 
la Rochelle and several other french ports made their fortune and that of 
their country on the backs of thousands of Africans ?

« En général 70 à 75% des cargaisons de 150, 200, 400, 500 et jusqu'à 800 
nègres - d'après les indications de «Affiches Américains» parvenaient à 
Saint-Domingue » (Les marrons de la liberté (1972), Fouchard).

What is it that I am missing?

Is it the fact that Chirac used the word «Haiti» not the word 
«Saint-Domingue»? Thus technically speaking, since the europeans called the 
land they stole from the Tayinos «St. Domingue» and «Hispanola», then, just 
like the land owners, Ayiti officially diasppeared from the face of the 
earth. Therefore, being non-existent it could not be a french colony.  Or is 
it my lack of appreciation for the relatively short ? period of time between 
1697 and 1803? I guess, only 106 years of slavery based colonization does 
not qualify to be remembered as such. I am sorry if I am sounding annoying 
but is it me or Chirac?

D-e-s-p-i-t-e
>this failure to have control and power over us (which is what colonizers

>seek to possess,) the french have continued their unnecessary but
>(thankfully) v-o-l-u-n-t-a-r-y support of our Caribbean Island, and
>plans to reinforce and strengthen this undying support as we enter the
new
>millenium. This is my interpretation of Chirac's address. If anyone has
a
>differing opinion, please share).  Make sure you don't bring baggage to
>the table though

My view is indeed quite different.  France have taken out of Ayiti far more 
than the whole of Europe could ever afford to repay. So this voluntary 
support provided by the french agencies of all sorts is somewhat like 
Michèle Bennet and Jean-Claude Duvalier throwing bright 50 cents  to the 
people of Ayiti from whom they have stolen millions of dollars. No this 
African man is not grateful and yes I do carry luggage because it irrates me 
to see so many Africans happy to sing « mèsi papa Chirac - vive nos ancêtres 
les Gaulois» - 200 years after 1803.

>...Don't r-e-a-d  i-n-t-o anything (i.e.,
>nowhere did Chirac imply what the writer cliamed he did about,
"relations
>with zenglendo as friendly"; please, no personal attacks (unless
>warranted) on Chirac or anyone else - if you do attack, explain
Ø yourself...

It is interesting to note that Chirac nor even the true french of the list 
don't findl it worth their while to explain anything (perhaps, it's because 
they know many Africans are willing to fill in the blanks for on their 
behalf. Yet, after all the writeen history I am being asked to explain why I 
say Chirac describing Ayiti/France relations as friendly is simply 
deceitful. Friends don't collect ransoms from each other. Friends help each 
other develop and grow. Friends of Ayiti would not lie about keeping 
Duvalier only for a couple of weeks, then arrange for him to spend all the 
stolen money in France and hide him away from Haitian and/or international 
Justice. France has never been, is not, and has no reason to be friends with 
Haiti. The fact that several hundred Africans are happy to sing « Vive nos 
ancêtres les Gaulois » will not change any of that. Because their allegiance 
is taken for granted anyways.


>Unless you know something I don't know, I don't think out of all the
>countries in the world, France, should be the one the writer attacks. Go
>for the U.S. instead.

Everyone knows Ayiti has many friends. What is the point of saying this 
friend has done more « good » than that one. They are all our friends and we 
ought to be grateful to each and everyone of them.


>One cannot
>throw out such statements without backing up their comments with facts.

How many more facts do we need to collect. How many more Atlantic slave 
trades do we need to have, before it becomes acceptable to say modern 
industrialised Europe was built with the blood of Africans, Tayinos, 
Iroquois and these empovrished people deserve reparations. How many more 
coup d'état need to be orchestrated in Ayiti, where the Toto Constant, the 
Michel François, the Lynn Garrisson all have their CIA cards and full 
protection after the deed, including the rapture of 60,000 pages of evidence 
taken by the U.S. officials away from Ayiti…before we can say with 
confidence that indeed we have good friends in high places.

How many?

>I'm going off like this because I'm tired of us Haitians blaming
everyone
Ø else for our mistakes

And some of us are tired to see cautious and overly civil language to 
discuss outrageous mischiefs that are plain and obvious. No Haitian in his 
right mind will say that all of Ayiti's ills come from the french, the CIA 
and what else have you in terms of external friends. Obviously, if it 
weren't for our morally repugnant political and economic « elites » we would 
not be in the mess we find ourselves in today. However, I see no reason to 
let the external scavangers off the hook just because the are internal 
scanvangers as well. Especially, when the two groups often work in tandem.

« Nèg yo piye, nèg yo piye, nèg yo piye, blan yo souse, blan yo souse, blan 
yo souse » (Chandèl - Kanaval 2000). Now, that is plain enough for me.

>  We have to take the necessary measures to
>ensure a positive future for our wonderful contry, not through
>absent-minded attacks at Chirac, or others who are trying to sincerely
>help us out. This diffusion of energy contributes to our country's
>lack of focus, which in turn rouses up emotions in all of us, causing us

I, for one have no indication that Chirac has sincerely tried to help us. I 
may indeed be absent minded. But please can someone tell me how France is 
really helping the country from which it stole most of its colonial whealth?

And, yes, for the record, I am one African who is tired to see so many 
Africans go along with the dirty games of the « friends » of Ayiti, friends 
of Congo, friends of Bangladesh etc…

If indeed there were that much good will out there. The Nations which have 
enriched themselves thru violent means, over the back of their enslaved 
brothers; instead of feigning surprise at the current poverty of their 
prey's countries and showing up with a thousand pennies  to help them, they 
would :

1) Acknowledge that the poor countries have been empovrished and continue to 
be empovrished by them, the enriched states (France, England, U.S.A., 
Spain….)
2) Stop the « upsidedown debt » payments that empovrished peoples all over 
the globe are paying to their robbers.
3) Stop the politics of forcing the empovrished peoples to accept the 
garbagerization of their countries (through the new imposed 
evanjelizazonbikasyon called free market capitalism  )
4) Treat these empovrished peoples like they did for Israel - although more 
is actually owed to them (Now that's true friendship!).
5) Stop fostering the empowerment of criminals in the empovrished states 
(Bokassa- Mobutu - ask Mitterand about them; Duvalier, Marcos - ask Reagan 
and Chirac, Cedras-Toto Constant ask Bush and Bill Clinton) while in their 
countries they continue to build more and more prisons and reverting to the 
electric chair even…(If we can all agree that Charles Manson would not be a 
good American President, why did our U.S friends want to force Cedras-Michel 
François and Toto Constant  down our chest? Why is USAID doing all it can to 
finance the neo-Duvalierist parties in the current election? - meanwhile in 
the U.S. they talk of « illegal campaign financing with funds from foreign 
countries ». Do you want more proof for this also?

Chirac said Ayiti has not been, so to speak, a french colony. He did not 
speak of 1804 or 1825 or made comparisons with current departments of 
Guadeloupe and Martinique, as far as I can tell. And even if he did, we all 
know our history. So why are we bending over backwards to try to explain 
what Chirac might have wanted to say?

Maybe some of you will be surprised when some of our friends, in the near 
future, will inform us that racial slavery was nothing but a myth created by 
black « extremists » like Charles Rangel and John Conyers..


Jafrikayiti

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