Is the United States doomed to forsake Haiti once more? (Globe & Mail)

[struggle4progress]

Konrad Yakabuski
Washington — From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Published on Friday, Jan. 15, 2010 9:27PM EST Last updated on Friday, Jan. 15, 2010 9:55PM EST

... It was far too dangerous for the fledgling U.S. republic to acknowledge, much less endorse, Haiti's slave-led revolution. South Carolina senator Robert Hayne warned, in 1825, that the topic of Haiti could not even be discussed in the U.S. Congress so as to avoid compromising “the peace and safety of a large portion of our union.” Indeed, it was not until the U.S. was on the verge of abolishing slavery itself that Haiti could be recognized.

When the U.S. occupied Haiti for two decades starting in 1915, under Woodrow Wilson, its generals became the nation's de facto rulers and oversaw the building of basic infrastructure. It looked like progress. But it came via labour practices that Haitian peasants considered analogous to the slavery endured by their forefathers. And for what? To protect the assets of U.S. banks, which had taken over the Banque nationale de Haïti to thwart creeping German influence over the country on the eve of the First World War?

The U.S. was no more a force for good in Haiti during the reigns of Papa Doc and his son Baby Doc, who was finally driven into exile in 1986, when Ronald Reagan pulled the plug. Haitians had endured three decades of brutal treatment at the hands of the Duvaliers' tontons macoutes , all to satisfy the Cold War U.S. goal of preventing the country from slipping into the hands of a Communist antagonist as Cuba had ...

Haiti does not suffer from a “progress-resistant” culture or its indulgence in voodoo. It suffers, rather, from a gapingly unequal distribution of wealth that has left its masses without the human capital to take control of their own destiny. This appears to suit the country's elites just fine and they remain Haiti's interlocutors with the world community ...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/is-the-united-states-doomed-to-forsake-haiti-once-more/article1433381/

[hedgehog]

1. I just knew we were missing the sound of British superiority....

now my week-end is complete.

Not to defend the US role in Haiti, it's pretty shameful, but talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

[niyad]

2. uhhh, you do know that the globe and mail is a canadian paper, eh?

[struggle4progress]

3. The only successful slave revolt in the world (2004)

... The French Revolution changed everything by promoting universal ideals of liberty and equality. Plantation owners in Haiti tried to block the "dangerous" ideas coming from Paris, but the ideas spread among the slaves through smuggled pamphlets and by word of mouth. The Haitian Revolution began in August 1791 when slaves in the northern plains rebelled. Dubois describes how bands of slaves roamed the land, killing plantation owners, burning fields, and destroying equipment. The slave insurgency escalated into a brutal civil war filled with atrocities on both sides. In early 1793, Britain and Spain declared war on Revolutionary France and so Haiti was embroiled in a larger conflict. The French Republic sent commissioners to Haiti who, hoping to attract ex-slaves to fight against Britain and Spain, decided to abolish slavery ... http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0323/p15s01-bogn.html

Toussaint Louverture
... British forces landed at Jérémie and Môle Saint-Nicolas (the Môle). They besieged Port-au-Prince (or Port Républicain, as it was known under the Republic) and took it in June 1794. The Spanish had launched a two-pronged offensive from the east. French forces checked Spanish progress toward Port-au-Prince in the south, but the Spanish pushed rapidly through the north, most of which they occupied by 1794. Spain and Britain were poised to seize Saint- Domingue, but several factors foiled their grand design. One factor was illness. The British in particular fell victim to tropical disease, which thinned their ranks far more quickly than combat against the French. Southern forces led by Rigaud and northern forces led by another mulatto commander, Villatte, also forestalled a complete victory by the foreign forces. These uncertain conditions positioned Toussaint's centrally located forces as the key to victory or defeat. On May 6, 1794, Toussaint made a decision that sealed the fate of a nation. After arranging for his family to flee from the city of Santo Domingo, Toussaint pledged his support to France. Confirmation of the National Assembly's decision on February 4, 1794, to abolish slavery appears to have been the strongest influence over Toussaint's actions. Although the Spanish had promised emancipation, they showed no signs of keeping their word in the territories that they controlled, and the British had reinstated slavery in the areas they occupied. If emancipation wasToussaint's goal, he had no choice but to cast his lot with the French ... A new group of French commissioners appointed Toussaint commander in chief of all French forces on the island. From this position of strength, he resolved to move quickly and decisively to establish an autonomous state under black rule. He expelled Sonthonax, the leading French commissioner, who had proclaimed the abolition of slavery, and concluded an agreement to end hostilities with Britain ... http://www.travelinghaiti.com/history_of_haiti/toussaint_louverture.asp

[virgogal]

4. More U.S. bashing --------tiresome.

[struggle4progress]

5. Surely there is some advantage to an awareness of the broad historical outlines,

since we are all stand in the shadows of the past

The Welsh Marches
by A. E. Housman

... When Severn down to Buildwas ran
Coloured with the death of man,
Couched upon her brother's grave
The Saxon got me on the slave ...

Here the truceless armies yet
Trample, rolled in blood and sweat;
They kill and kill and never die;
And I think that each is I.

None will part us, none undo
The knot that makes one flesh of two,
Sick with hatred, sick with pain,
Strangling—When shall we be slain?

When shall I be dead and rid
Of the wrong my father did?
How long, how long, till spade and hearse
Put to sleep my mother's curse?

http://www.infoplease.com/t/poetry/shropshire-lad/the-welsh-marches.html

[winyanstaz]

6. I don't like it either...it is worse than tiresome..it is shameful...

The truth hurts.
And if we dont like it..we need to work harder to change our image and our forgion policies as well as our policies at home.