By Mumia Abu-Jamal from death row
Haiti on our minds
[T]he little community of Haiti, anchored in the
Caribbean Sea, has had her mission in the world, and a
mission which the world had such need to learn. She has
taught the world the danger of slavery and the value of
liberty. In this respect she has been the greatest of all our
modern teachers.
--Frederick Douglass, 1893
The recent coup d'etat in Haiti, where the
Americans spirited the president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, out
of power and out of his own country, is just the latest event
in 200 years of U.S. complicity and support of repression in
Haiti.
During the hard-fought Haitian Revolution, which occurred
roughly a decade after the U.S. revolution, the government of
George Washington, which talked about "liberty to all men,"
entered the conflict, but not on the side of liberty. The
Washington administration authorized the grant of $400,000--a
vast sum in the 1800s--not to support the forces of freedom,
but to the white planters. They sent money to the French for
arms and food to support their resistance to the uprising.
America's secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson, writer of the
Constitution, did the actual paperwork. When it came to slavery
or freedom, the Americans, slave owners themselves, chose
slavery to support.
By Jan. 1, 1804, Haitian independence would be declared, and
for the first time in world history, a slave army bested
imperial armies, and freedom resulted.
How did the U.S. respond? Did they welcome them to the
brotherhood of free nations? The words of a U.S. congressman,
said some 20 years after Haitian independence, stated U.S.
policy towards the Black Republic: "Our policy with regards to
Hayti is plain. We never can acknowledge her independence...
The peace and safety of a large part of our Union forbids us
even to discuss [it]." So said South Carolina Senator Robert
Hayne in 1824.
It wasn't until 1862, when the Civil War was raging, that
the U.S. recognized its nearest free neighbor. They couldn't
recognize it for almost 60 years because they didn't want
Blacks in the U.S. to see a free Black people, as diplomats and
leaders of government, functioning in the U.S. The official
U.S. policy was white supremacy.
From 1915 to 1934, the U.S. occupied Haiti, fighting a
bitter guerrilla war that left thousands dead. They murdered
guerrilla leader Charlemagne Peralte in 1919, and then paraded
his nearly naked, chained body, to try to stifle the Cacos
Rebellion.
They installed and supported the Duvalier regimes, and since
the fall of that dictatorship, have actively and secretly
supported Duvalierist elements in the army and the
government.
Indeed, they trained many of the people who were the most
repressive elements in the army, and backed the FRAPH, which
was an anti-democratic terrorist army in Haiti.
They have always opposed Pere Aristide, for his support of
the Lavalas movement (Creole for "the flood," or the
masses).
Think of it this way: in the last century, how many times
have you ever seen the U.S. support anything in Latin America?
How many times have they trained, backed, and armed the
right-wing militaries? Even torturers, rapists and mass
murderers?
Why would Haiti be any different?
The recent soft expulsion of Aristide opens the door to
bring back Duvalierist elements to the fore, to "discipline"
the riotous, rebellious Haitian people, who've never forgotten
their revolutionary origins. They want Haiti "stable" to
perform as a docile labor force for the bourgeoisie, both in
Haiti and the U.S.
The empire, based on dominance, control and fear, cannot
countenance the Haitian example of people's power, of, yes, the
barest fraction of "democracy." Thus, they use various means to
achieve the same ends. Thus, the removal, at gunpoint, of
Aristide, the good of the Haitian people."
Let the Haitian people decide their own government! It isn't
for the U.S. to decide for them.
It's time to end this empire, for the good of the people of
America, and for the good of the people of the world.
We must demand it, and then work for it, to end this reign
of madness.
March 7, 2004
Reprinted from the April 8, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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