Disastrous Capitalism, Not Earthquake, Devastates Haiti

THE MAGNITUDE 7.0 earthquake that rocked Haiti last Tuesday did not cause the massive devastation and ruin we see in images from the island country.

Rather, the earthquake shook open the door, exposing the rot and decay that is the product of two centuries of domination by Great Power states like the U.S. and France.

And as hundreds of thousands are feared dead, and millions more are homeless, jobless and hungry, it is the disaster of corporatist capitalism that is attempting to assert its monopolistic control of “humanitarian aid.”

The Workers Party in America rejects the very idea that Washington can play a positive role in the delivery of aid and relief, not because of some abstract opposition but rather because of the brutal and criminal history that the U.S. has created in Haiti.

In our view, Washington is directly responsible for the deaths in Port-au-Prince and other Haitian cities — not just as a result of the earthquake, but also because of the political and economic domination it has imposed on the country in the name of “freedom,” “democracy” and “free trade.”

EVER SINCE THE 12-year rebellion by Africans held as slaves that led to the establishment of Haiti in 1804, the U.S. has taken every opportunity to economically and politically dominate the country and undermine its development.

For the American ruling class of the time, the existence of a free state ruled by self-liberated Africans once held as slaves undermined the very basis of the slave-based agricultural economy in the southern states.

President Thomas Jefferson initially agreed to help Napoleon retake the island by providing ships to transport his troops, and only declared “neutrality” after learning of the French dictator’s plans for using Haiti as a launching point for invading the U.S.

For nearly 60 years after Napoleon’s defeat, Washington refused to even recognize Haiti’s independence, and even imposed an economic embargo. But the U.S. did not cut all of its ties, choosing to develop a relationship with the semi-European population.

Establishing diplomatic relations with Haiti in 1862 did not fundamentally change this relationship; for the first century of its existence, it was France that dominated the island country politically and economically.

AMERICAN INTERVENTION in Haiti began in 1915, with the invasion and occupation of the island by the Marines. They would not leave until 1934.

Even after Haiti paid off the loans made by Wall Street in 1947 (loans that were the initial reason for the invasion), the U.S. continued to manipulate the country’s economic and political structures for its own gain.

In the 1950s, with the support of Washington, François “Papa Doc” Duvalier came to power. Duvalier claimed to be a supporter of the “negritude” movement (Haiti’s equivalent of a “Black nationalist” movement), but consistently acted in the interests of the U.S.

Duvalier, through his dreaded Tonton Macoutes death squads, massacred thousands of Haitians to maintain power. But because the American exploiting and oppressing classes could say he was acting as a backstop against “communist aggression,” they looked the other way while Haiti drowned in blood.

But it would be Duvalier’s son, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, who would answer not only for his own crimes, but those of his father, by being forced into exile through a popular upheaval in early 1986.

For the next 24 years, Haiti would experience a brutal cycle of military dictatorships defeated by popular uprisings, and elected leaders again ousted by military conspiracies, who are then toppled by U.S. invasions.

BUT IF ONE WERE to believe the American corporatist media, or the mouthpieces of its ideologies, you would think that the 200-year cycle of political instability, military intervention and economic crisis is the fault of the Haitians themselves.

By far, the most shameful and blatantly racist comments have come from Pat Robertson, a purveyor of political Christianity.

“They were under the heel of the French,” said Robertson on his 700 Club television show. “And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said ‘We will serve you if you will get us free from the prince.’ True story. And so the devil said, ‘OK, it’s a deal.’ And they kicked the French out. The Haitians revolted and got something themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after another.”

In Robertson’s world, a slave revolt that not only delivered people from bondage, but also inspired movements in other parts of the world (including the abolitionists in the U.S.) is “swearing a pact to the devil.”

We sense that there is more to this statement, though, than meets the eye. Given the Christians’ penchant for allegory, the current economic crisis and mass disaffection of millions of wage slaves (workers) in the U.S., we suspect that Robertson was attempting to kill two birds with one rhetorical stone.

NEEDLESS TO SAY, if there is a “devil” that has haunted the history of Haiti, it has been tightly wrapped in an American flag and came bearing loans.

Keeping Haiti in debt to Wall Street has been a central element in its domination. Since 1915, the U.S. has systematically indebted and embargoed the country. After the fall of the Duvalier dynasty, the International Monetary Fund loaned Haiti billions, but demanded privatization and “free trade.”

The military coup in 1991 led to a U.S.-UN-OAS embargo that still affects the economic development of the country today.

This pushed Haiti into a two decade-long economic tailspin. Nearly 80 percent of Haitians live in poverty, with most making less than $2 a day. At least 225,000 Haitian children work as unpaid servants — slaves.

Massive slums like Cité Soleil and Bas-Ravine house hundreds of thousands of Haiti’s itinerant workers and permanent jobless.

The houses in these slums, as well as many of the buildings in Haiti’s largest cities, are made of weak concrete that is not reinforced by embedded steel rebar. Even before the earthquake, several of these buildings collapsed in Port-au-Prince. The reason these buildings are not reinforced with rebar is because steel is expensive ... and valuable.

To put it another way: If America’s vicious cycle of debt slavery, economic strangulation and military intervention was not the foundation of its relationship with Haiti, resulting in items like tempered steel being treated as gold, it is entirely probable that tens of thousands would still be alive today.

HOWEVER, being true to form, Obama’s White House has responded to Haiti’s crisis by ... launching yet another military intervention.

As of this writing, 10,000 soldiers and Marines are on their way to Haiti under the guise of “humanitarian assistance.” It is rumored thousands more will be sent this week.

Like we saw in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, corporatist capitalism’s response is not aid and relief, but military occupation and propaganda war. In terms of the latter, the corporatist media has dutifully repeated their performance in New Orleans, now casting desperate Haitians trying to survive as “looters” and “gangs.”

And as tens of thousands of Haiti’s people cry out for food and water, Washington’s soldiers have begun dictating who can bring in aid and supplies, turning away flights from “unauthorized” relief agencies. This has led America’s rivals to accuse the U.S. of staging a new “occupation” of the island country.

At the same time, Préval and his state, as well as the UN-sponsored MINUSTAH “peacekeeping” force, are following the orders of the generals of the U.S. Southern Command in violently suppressing incidents of “looting” by starving, homeless Haitians.

As one reporter put it, the Port-au-Prince airport where supplies (and soldiers) are arriving “looks more like the Green Zone in Baghdad than a center for aid distribution.”

IT SHOULD REALLY come as no surprise that Préval and his regime have effectively turned over control to Washington.

In the nearly 24 years since the end of the Duvaliers, the movement that put him into power, the Fanmi Lavalas, has went from “anti-imperialist” left-populists to housebroken servants of U.S. imperialism.

When Lavalas’ Jean-Bertrand Aristide first became president in 1990, he did so on a wave of mass support from slums like Cité Soleil and on the basis of being independent from Washington and Wall Street. But after being removed in a coup in 1991, Aristide turned to the U.S. to restore him in 1994.

Even though the U.S. later turned on Aristide, removing him from his second term in 2004 through another military invasion (and UN “mission”) and installing Préval, a section of the Lavalas gathered around the new head of state continued to move closer to Washington and Wall Street.

This subservience made it easier for Pré-val to accept another U.S. military invasion — not simply because it’s what Washington wanted, but also because both Obama and Préval recognized that the earthquake not only destroyed the building and roads, but also the armed institutions of state authority.

What concerns the two heads of state the most is that the vacuum created by the collapse of state institutions could be filled by forces outside their control — by working people’s organizations coordinating not only their own aid and relief, but also essential services and, ultimately, their own security.

SUCH INDEPENDENT workers’ aid and relief is exactly what we in the Workers Party advocate. Already, in areas where such self-help has spontaneously emerged, eyewitnesses describe an “organized calm” and report “no insecurity.”

This kind of independent workers’ action can be the cornerstone for broader and more sweeping advances in working people’s empowerment, including the coordinating of construction efforts, educational programs, and essential public and social services.

These neighborhood- and workplace-level workers’ committees could also coordinate with rescue and medical teams to take care of the hundreds of thousands still suffering, as well as with each other to develop a growing presence throughout the country, and ultimately the foundation of a democratic working people’s republic in Haiti.

This movement could also do what Obama and the UN refuse to do: remove all occupation forces from Haiti, and restore its revolutionary independence and spirit.

All U.S.-MINUSTAH Occupation Troops Out of Haiti!
Aid to Workers Distributed by Workers’ Organizations!
No to Lavalas/Préval/IMF! For a Workers’ Republic!