There
are periods in a country’s history when the signs
and warnings that that history will soon enter into
a dramatically different phase are clear as day.
Such is the period today in Haiti, where daily events
portend an inauspicious development for the future:
the Haitian Army may soon be returning.
The gold rush on occupied
Haiti is both literal and figurative. But Haitians
have long been aware of their human and material
wealth.
For
the past several months, paramilitary groups consisting
of former military men, former death squad members,
and new recruits have been planting themselves throughout
Haiti. They are armed, they have new uniforms,
and they are loudly demanding that Michel Martelly
make good on his presidential campaign promise to
formally bring back the army, which former President
Aristide disbanded back in 1995 to near universal
support. This past April, one of these groups of
hopeful soldiers stormed Haiti’s parliament to voice
their demands and their support for Prime Minister
designate Laurent Lamothe. It is estimated that
as many as 3,500 men and women are currently training
in impromptu military bases across the country.
President
Martelly, who was elected by only a small minority
of the populace in March 2011, has publically denounced
the armed men and asked them to disband.
But it strains the imagination to think that he
is truly ingenuous, and anyone who honestly assesses
his record would be hard pressed to assert that
he is genuinely displeased with the activity of
the renegade paramilitary. To the contrary, the
reformation of the Haitian Army is in perfect alignment
with his plans for Haiti’s future. Last year,
Martelly announced a $95 million plan to form a
new army.
To begin, the plan calls for the employment of 3,500
soldiers, as well as a National Intelligence Service
(SIN is the French acronym) that would be authorized
to handle people accused of “terrorism”.
Yet
the return of the army is far from what the majority
of Haitians have expressed that they want for their
country, which is still suffering from the January
2010 earthquake, from cholera introduced by the
United Nations (UN), and from more than eight years
of a debilitating military occupation by the UN,
the United States, France, and Canada, with Brazil
having nominal command of the UN troops.
Martelly’s
entry into office gave the green light to the unofficial
military, known as the Pink Militia in Haiti, which
has since been actively organizing itself and even
claiming authority over the law in some neighborhoods.
This past year especially, a climate of fear and
repression has descended, especially upon those
who are active in Haiti’s most popular political
organization, called Lavalas. Reports from Haiti
indicate that pro-democracy grassroots activists
are under attack by elements that are both officially
and unofficially affiliated with Martelly and who
would also like to see the return of the army.
Due to the repression, intimidation, and threats
to their lives, some activists have gone into hiding.
Many in Haiti who are old enough to remember compare
the period today with the Duvalier dictatorship,
which used the army as an instrument of repression
against the poor majority.
Martelly’s
administration and the UN have permitted these paramilitary
groups to act with near-impunity.
This should come as no surprise, however, since
Martelly—a loyal supporter of the Duvalier regime
who gained the eager support of the US State Department—has
been unwavering in his promise to bring back the
army, and because for the past eight years the UN
has consistently sided with the forces that made
the coup against the democratically elected Lavalas
government in 2004. Each of these parties—the army,
the Martelly administration, the US government,
and the UN—have a common vision for the future of
Haiti. In order for this future to be realized,
it is necessary for the army to be reborn.
*
* *
Since
Haiti is often portrayed as a hopelessly impoverished
nation with a history of political corruption and
instability, why the United States is so interested
in Haiti might seem inconceivable. “Why Haiti?”
one is led to ask. Though the answer may be difficult
to accept, the facts are incontrovertible: the United
States provided the Duvalier dictatorship and it
death squads with tens of millions of dollars; the
US helped to fund and train the Haitian-born paramilitary
that provided the cover to bring down Aristide’s
democratic Lavalas government in 2004; US organizations
including USAID and the International Republican
Institute have generously supplied anti-Lavalas
groups with resources and sponsored anti-Aristide
campaigns in the media; the US government aided
and abetted the kidnapping and forced exile of Aristide
from Haiti….But what conclusions should we draw
from all this? Why Haiti? What’s in it for the
US?
Underlying
the question “Why Haiti?” is the notion that Haiti,
a small, desperately impoverished country of ten
million souls, has little to offer such a powerful
nation as the United States. It is not commonly
known, however, that there is a vast amount of money
to be made in Haiti. Anyone who has lived in poverty
knows how incredibly costly it is to be poor. The
reverse side of this coin: How enormously lucrative
poverty can be.
It is not commonly known,
however, that there is a vast amount of money to
be made in Haiti. Anyone who has lived in poverty
knows how incredibly costly it is to be poor. The
reverse side of this coin: How enormously lucrative
poverty can be.
The
answer to the question “Why Haiti?” has been accurately
summarized by Haitians who have witnessed the powerful,
wealthy elite of this world tear apart their country
since the 2004 coup. Five or six years ago, in
the early days of the occupation, many Haitians
explained that the US sponsored the coup so that
it could pave the way for its neoliberal agenda
in Haiti, so that it could privatize Haiti.
In order to do this, it was imperative that the
Lavalas movement—the chief obstacle to this goal—be
destabilized and repressed. This is precisely what
has taken place in Haiti for the past eight years,
and in recent years, it is clear that these efforts
have borne much fruit. Here are a few examples:
Promptly
after Aristide was forced into exile in 2004, the
United States Congress began to deliberate on the
HOPE Act, which provided for the duty-free export
to the US of products manufactured in Haiti. It
was passed in 2006.
In
2007, President René
Préval announced that the state-owned telephone company
Teleco would be privatized. In a deal brokered
by the World Bank, the plans were consummated in
April 2010, and the company now belongs primarily
to Viettel, a subsidiary of the Vietnamese Army.
In
2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton brokered
a deal for the South Korean clothing company Sae-A
Co. Ltd. to open up shop in Haiti. US diplomatic
cables released by WikiLeaks show that the US government
worked with US clothing manufacturers to oppose
a minimum wage increase for Haitian assembly line
workers.
The
Inter-American Development Bank, Sae-A Co., and
the US government are presently constructing the
Caracol Industrial Park in northern Haiti. Ground
was broken last November, and the US has thus far
committed $124 million to the project.
In
December 2011, the Dutch company Heineken announced
its plans to increase its shareholding in the leading
Haitian brewer from 22.5% to 95%.
After
the 2010 earthquake, the Canadian firm Majescor
Resources acquired all of the shares of a Haitian
firm in order to begin searching for gold, copper,
and other minerals. Within the past couple of years,
US and other multinational investors—including Newmont
Mining Corp., Eurasian Minerals Inc., and VCS Mining—have
also acquired permits and spent millions of dollars
for exploratory drilling campaigns for minerals
in northern Haiti.
The US government aided
and abetted the kidnapping and forced exile of Aristide
from Haiti….But what conclusions should we draw
from all this? Why Haiti? What’s in it for the
US?
Thus,
the gold rush on occupied Haiti is both literal
and figurative. But Haitians have long been aware
of their human and material wealth. For instance,
the platform of Fanmi Lavalas, Aristide’s political
party, for his second term in office, included detailed
accounts and plans for the gold and other mineral
resources that have recently been “discovered” in
Haiti.
The foreign companies and corporations that want
to exploit Haiti invariably claim that their investments
will create more opportunities for the people and
that they will facilitate Haiti’s sovereignty.
History, however, tells a different story.
For
nearly a century, going back at least as far as
the US military occupation of Haiti from 1915 to
1934—US and international business interests have
made duplicitous investments in Haiti that proved
to be to the overwhelming disadvantage of the majority.
Then, as during the Duvalier dictatorship of 1957
to 1986, these interests exploited repressive conditions
to execute profitable business deals with undemocratic
regimes in the service of the Haitian and foreign
elite. The case of rice is an infamous example.
In the 1980s, in compliance with international lending
agencies—and while the country was still reeling
from Duvalierism—Haiti lifted tariffs from rice
imports, after which the US—where the rice industry
was subsidized—promptly flooded the market with
cheaper rice. Haitian farmers could not compete,
and the price of rice steadily rose once Haiti’s
dependence on the US for this staple was consolidated.
This policy destroyed Haitian rice farming and severely
crippled the country’s ability to be self-sufficient
agriculturally. In 2010, former President Clinton,
whose home state of Arkansas was one of the largest
beneficiaries of this policy, publicly apologized
for his role in this situation, which led to increased
urbanization and an increasing dependence on sweatshop
labor to fuel Haiti’s economy.
Since Haiti is often portrayed
as a hopelessly impoverished nation with a history
of political corruption and instability, why the
United States is so interested in Haiti might seem
inconceivable.
In
his book, Eyes of the Heart: Seeking a Path for
the Poor in the Age of Globalization, Aristide
describes this and other salient examples of how
foreign investors’ conditional investment in and
privatization of Haiti have adversely impacted the
society. He also provides solutions and a vision
of the future for Haiti, which are simply reflections
of the hopes and strivings of most Haitians, who
elected him president by an overwhelming majority
in 2000. During his first term in office in 1995,
with overwhelming popular support, he disbanded
the military, which had consumed 40 percent of the
national budget. Today, the people have consistently
expressed their desire for free and widespread access
to education, employment, housing, an inclusive
and democratic government, and an end to the UN/US
occupation—not for an army.
The
right thing for the United States government to
do is to break with its odious foreign policy of
supporting dictatorships in Haiti as well as its
abhorrent treatment of the Haitian people. At the
very least, it should withdraw its support of Michel
Martelly and the occupation and to stop trying to
control Haiti’s future, by economic or any other
means.
BlackCommentator.com Guest Commentator Dr. Nia Imara, PhD is a writer,
artist, and astrophysicist. In 2010, she became
the first black woman to receive a PhD in astrophysics
from UC Berkeley. Dr. Imara is a longtime member
of the San Francisco Bay Area based organization
Haiti
Action Committee. She speaks frequently publicly
on Haiti and has traveled to Haiti a number of times.
Click here to contact Dr. Imara.
