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| Republic of Haiti République d'Haïti Repiblik d Ayiti | |
|---|---|
 Flag
 Coat of arms
| |
 | |
| Capital and largest city | Port-au-Prince |
| Dominant mode of production | Capitalism |
| Government | Semi-presidential republic |
• President | Ariel Henry |
| Area | |
• Total | 27,750 km² |
| Population | |
• 2018 estimate | 11,439,646 |
Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the western side of the island of Hispaniola. Due to French colonialism and French and Statesian neocolonialism, Haiti is an overexploited country with an average daily wage of under $5.[1] Haiti has a starvation rate more than 50 times higher than nearby socialist Cuba.[2]
History[edit | edit source]
French colony[edit | edit source]
Before the Haitian Revolution, slave traders imported up to 40,000 Africans a year to work on slave plantations in Haiti, which was then a French colony known as Saint-Domingue. The average life expectancy during this period was only 21 years and slaves had to work from dawn until late at night.[3]
Haitian Revolution[edit | edit source]
In August 1791, slaves began an uprising against their French colonial masters. It was the only successful slave revolt in the world. In 1801, Napoleon invaded Haiti in an attempt to reinstate slavery. Haiti declared independence on January 1st, 1804.[3] Thomas Jefferson, a slave owner, banned all trade with Haiti in 1806.[4]
General Toussaint Louverture, who had been leading the revolution since 1791, was captured by the French forces in June 1802 and extradited to France where he died in exile.[5] When he saw the French ships approaching the shores of Haiti in 1801, he wrote in a letter to his Lieutenant Jean-Jacques Dessalines:
...We have no other resource than destruction and flame. Bear in mind that the soil bathed with our sweat must not furnish our enemies with the smallest aliment. Tear up the roads with shot; throw corpses and horses into all the fountains; burn and annihilate everything, in order that those who have come to reduce us to slavery may have before their eyes the image of hell which they deserve.[6]
After Louverture's arrest, Jean-Jacques Dessalines became the general of the rebellion and continued the war against the French. It ended in a French loss in November 1803 after the Battle of Vertières. Dessalines declared formal independence on January 1st, 1804. He renamed the country from Saint-Domingue (its colonial French name) to Haïti, from the native Taino Ayiti, and promulgated new laws such as:
- The permanent abolition of slavery for all people in Haiti.
- A complete ban on foreign land ownership.
- The exclusion of all whites [settlers] from the country.
- The confiscation of property owned by settlers.[citation needed]
Dessalines was assassinated by his officers in 1806.
In 1822, President Jean Pierre Boyer briefly occupied the eastern part of the island (now the Dominican Republic) and freed the slaves there.[7]
In 1825, French ships sailed to Haiti and demanded that they pay back former slave owners whose slaves had been freed in the revolution. From 1825 to 1857, Haiti spent an average of 19% of its revenue to pay back the debt. In 1888, France threatened to invade Haiti if it could not clear its debt.[3] The debt was only fully paid by Haiti in 1947.
Statesian occupation[edit | edit source]
Throughout the 19th century, the U.S. Navy violated Haiti's territorial integrity at least 15 times. In 1889, the USA sent gunboats to Port-au-Prince to try to force Haiti to give it access to the port of Môle Saint-Nicholas. When Haitian officials refused, the USA harmed Haiti's economy with high tariffs.[8]
300 U.S. Marines invaded Haiti in 1915 and occupied it until 1934.[9] Only 16 invaders died, but they killed over 3,000 Haitians.[3] They murdered President Theodore Guillame Sam in the streets and replaced him with a puppet president. The USA established martial law and Jim Crow policies in Haiti during the occupation.[10]
Duvalier regime[edit | edit source]
In 1959, the CIA helped autocrat François Duvalier, also known as "Papa Doc," become the dictator of Haiti. His secret police known as the Tontons Macoutes killed 30,000[11] to 100,000[12] Haitians on top of the many routine extrajudicial killings, massacres of protestors, use of torture in prisons and unlawful detainments.[13] In August 1959, a group of 30 Cuban and Venezuelan rebels arrived to try to overthrow Duvalier. The U.S. Navy and Marines, which were already in Haiti to train Duvalier's forces, defeated the rebels after 10 days of fighting.[14]
After Duvalier's death, his son Jean-Claude Duvalier became the leader of Haiti in 1971 at the age of 19. In November 1985, the Haitian army killed four children in Gonaives, causing an uprising against the Duvalier regime. The US Air Force escorted Jean-Claude Duvalier from Haiti to France in February 1986 to protect him from the popular rebellion that ousted him.[3]
Post-Duvalier period[edit | edit source]
Shortly after Jean-Claude Duvalier fled the country, Henri Namphy succeeded him as President of Haiti. He took power as a military regime and continued the policies of the Duvaliers. On election day in 1987, Namphy's forces committed a massacre in which 17 died.[15]
A series of coups followed in Haiti, with Namphy leading two of them.[16] Namphy was eventually arrested during a coup in 1988.[17] Leaders quickly succeeded one another until a transitional government held elections in December 1990.
Aristide presidency[edit | edit source]
Social democrat Jean-Bertrand Aristide democratically won the 1990 elections, taking office in February 1991 and marking the first time in Haiti's history that a President was democratically elected since independence in 1804.[18] He was overthrown with CIA support[3] only seven months into his term.[1] In 1993, CIA-backed death squads killed scores of Aristide's supporters.[3] Aristide was restored as president in August 1994 and demanded that France pay back $21.7 billion that was extorted from Haiti. In addition, he doubled the minimum wage and launched a campaign to collect unpaid taxes from the rich.[1]
The United States overthrew Aristide a second time in 2004 with the support of France and Canada,[19] and USA-backed UN troops invaded and occupied Haiti under the MINUSTAH (Mission des Nations Unies pour la stabilisation en Haïti) mission. The UN troops withdrew in 2017 after causing a cholera epidemic that killed 10,000 Haitians.[3]
Starting in 2004, Haiti was ruled under a provisional government headed by Prime Minister Gérard Latortue who had been living in Florida prior to his appointment.[20] His regime was supported by the United States, Canada and France.
U.S. invasion threats[edit | edit source]
After President Jovenel Moïse's assassination in 2021, the USA installed Ariel Henry as leader of Haiti. In 2022, Henry and the OAS called for another Statesian invasion of Haiti.[21]
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Robert Roth (2022-06-06). "Haiti: The Ransom is Still Being Paid" Black Agenda Report. Retrieved 2022-07-06.
- ↑ "Malnutrition". World Health Rankings. Archived from the original on 2022-01-16. Retrieved 2022-02-07.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 Alex Johnson (2022-06-21). "New York Times series The Ransom absolves capitalism for Haiti’s oppression" World Socialist Web Site. Archived from the original on 2022-06-28. Retrieved 2022-06-29.
- ↑ Vijay Prashad (2017). Red Star over the Third World: 'Red October' (pp. 22–23). [PDF] New Delhi: LeftWord Books.
- ↑ Marlene L. Daut (June 2020). "The Wrongful Death of Toussaint Louverture" History Today.
- ↑ Toussaint Louverture (1802). Letter: Toussaint L’Ouverture to Jean-Jacques Dessalines, 1802 [Adapted].
- ↑ Domenico Losurdo (2011). Liberalism: A Counter-History: 'Crisis of the English and American Models' (p. 152). [PDF] Verso. ISBN 9781844676934 [LG]
- ↑ David Vine (2020). The United States of War: 'Going Global' (pp. 184–5). Oakland: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520972070 [LG]
- ↑ Michael Parenti (1995). Against Empire: 'Intervention: Whose Gain? Whose Pain?; A Global Military Empire' (p. 22). [PDF]
- ↑ Peter James Hudson, Jemima Pierre (2021-08-04). "Haiti: On Interventions and Occupations" Black Agenda Report. Archived from the original on 2022-06-12. Retrieved 2022-10-22.
- ↑ Jon Henley (2010-01-14). "Haiti: a long descent to hell" The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2022-01-27. Retrieved 2022-02-07.
- ↑ Steve Kangas. "A Timeline of CIA Atrocities" Archived from the original on 2022-01-02. Retrieved 2022-02-07.
- ↑ "'You cannot kill the truth': The case against Jean-Claude Duvalier" (2011-09-22). Relief Web.
- ↑ William Blum (2003). Killing Hope: 'Haiti 1959-1963: The Marines land, again' (pp. 145–146). [PDF] London: Zed Books. ISBN 1842773682
- ↑ Jill Smolowe (1987-12-21). "Haiti Living with A Nightmare" Time Magazine.
- ↑ Phil Davison (2018-07-12). "Henri Namphy: Coup leader and former president who said, ‘Haiti has only one voter – the army’" Independent.
- ↑ "HAITI'S MILITARY RULER IS OUSTED IN COUP, ESCORTED TO THE AIRPORT" (1988-09-18). Deseret News.
- ↑ "Profile: Jean-Bertrand Aristide" (2011-03-03). BBC.
- ↑ Black Alliance for Peace (2022-10-19). "No to Foreign Military Intervention In Haiti! Yes, to Haitian Self-Determination!" Black Agenda Report. Archived from the original on 2022-10-20. Retrieved 2022-10-22.
- ↑ “Latortue, who lived in Boca Raton [Florida] both before and after he was tapped to lead a transition government in Haiti during 27 months in the early 2000s, was 88 years old.”
Jacqueline Charles. "Connoisseur of Haitian history, former Prime Minister Gérard Latortue dead at 88" Miami Herald. - ↑ "PSL Editorial – No U.S. Invasion of Haiti!" (2022-10-11). Liberation News. Archived from the original on 2022-10-11. Retrieved 2022-10-12.