"In March 2000 sixty Haitians took to the waters of the Caribbean in a boat of morondanga. The sixties were drowned. Since it was a routine story no one knew, but those sixty Haitians had been rice farmers, and growers rice in Haiti had been sentenced to become boat people, beggars, since the IMF prohibited subsidies provided by the State to domestic rice. The IMF, which is a body quite distracted, forgot to ban rice subsidies that the U.S. government gives to the domestic industry ... and now Haiti purchase their rice in the U.S.. "Eduardo Galeano
Back in the second half of the nineteenth century American physician Samuel Cartwright called "drapetomania" a disease that was sweeping the world and threatened the perfect and natural state of things. According to his diagnosis was a condition that only the black slaves suffered, a mental disorder that prevented them from accepting slavery and pushed the price to pay even the death of his freedom.
In 1804, after 35 years of revolution, paying the price for the death of a third of the population, the slaves of the former French colony managed to break the chains that were slaves and became independent. And while most of the encyclopedias omit this fact, it was Haiti, not England the first country to abolish slavery in the world. While both the U.S. where they do not necessarily understand the obvious truth that "all men are created equal" included black and so was slavery fashion, Thomas Jefferson, president and owner of slaves, consistent with the financial support that George Washington had given the French during the Haitian Revolution, supported the attempt to re-colonization of Napoleon Bonaparte. But the Haitian people and the U.S. triumphed again had to settle for adhering to the economic blockade of the revolution that proclaimed a major imperial powers and deny recognition of Haitian independence. France did in 1825, the British in 1839, but the U.S. had to meditate almost 60 years (1862) to understand the idea of \u200b\u200ba republic where blacks walk without chains. This difficulty of understanding the clearly expose the Secretary of State American, James Madison, in 1805: "The existence of black people in arms, (...) is a horrible spectacle for all white nations."
Once considered and recognized its independence in 1872 when German warships forced to pay financial claims to Haiti, Haitians sought help from U.S., citing the Monroe Doctrine, which said the U.S. would not allow any intrusion of European powers on American territory. But U.S. President Ulysses Grant was deaf.
In 1888 the U.S. Navy decided to block the Haitian coast to "persuade" to be released a U.S. ship had violated its laws. In 1891 these costs again blocked, this time to allow the government to set up a naval base in Mole Saint - Nicholas. The U.S. diplomat resume is impressive: between 1857 and 1900, the U.S. intervened nineteen times against Haiti, for reasons not yet known if by some strange chance or Manifest Destiny, always favored U.S. interests on the island.
In 1910 Washington imposed a loan from the House Speyer and Co. and National City Bank, as well as the Contract Mac Donald. This meant that Haiti lost its financial sovereignty and that great octopus Americans could monopolize the economy. Years later, Woodrow Wilson, in an act of sentimentality, was the military occupation of Haiti's capital to "help" to resolve legal disputes in which they had put the U.S. monopolies.
In 1915, after economic and political pressures from the U.S., was ousted Haitian President Davilmar Tréodore. His successor, General Sam Vilbrum ordered the slaughter of dozens of political prisoners, who were then executed in public. This, and the assumption of Kaiser's plan to invade Haiti, was a perfect pretext for Woodrow Wilson is anticipated to these hazards and grant the perfect remedy: a bloody occupation military that lasted two decades. During the occupation, the U.S. Marines and Haitian allies massacred peasant popular resistance. To avoid boredom, did not stop bombarding various rural areas and the civilian population settled there. In 1934, after collecting the debts of the City Bank and to repeal the constitutional provision that prohibited selling to foreign plantations, the U.S. Army briefly returned home. Robert Lansing, Secretary of State, contributing to the diagnosis that Cartwright had made, justified the occupation: the Haitian people have "a tendency inherent in wildlife and a physical inability of civilization." In 1937, the Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo executed in cold blood to 25,000 Haitians. U.S. wanted to help and arranged a meeting between the parties. Thanks to the efforts of U.S. diplomacy was no justice: Haiti received compensation of twenty dollars for each of the 18,000 Haitians who had been killed (1). In 1950 the White House supported the military coup that put Paul Magloire in power in Haiti. In 1957 the U.S. gave a friendly welcome to Francois Duvalier ("Papa Doc"), who remained in power slaughtering and impoverishing the people of Haiti until his peaceful death of natural causes in 1971, when his son only 19 years old old, Jean-Claude Duvalier ("Baby Doc"), also blessed by the United States, inherited the "throne democratic" and the slaughter continued until 1986. In that year, after a popular revolt, the U.S. and France agreed to help Haiti, this time moving expeditiously to the departure of the dictator unpunished.
Leopard In 1987 the battalion of the Armed Forces of Haiti (coincidentally trained by the U.S.) with death squads, executed more than a thousand farmers, as well as the leader of the Democratic Movement for the Liberation of Haiti, Louis- Engene Athis. This fact is remembered today as the Slaughter of Jean Rabel, and eventually was applauded for winning the White House and doubling its financial aid and military education.
Despite the systematic interference had been doing for over two centuries, in 1988 the White House emphatically denied to intervene in "internal affairs" of Haiti. Gen. Henri Namphy, an "act of sovereignty", repealed the constitution approved by referendum in 1987 and brutally repressed the people. As part of its humanitarian aid package, Washington tightened its immigration policy toward Haitian migrants, fleeing repression, were heading towards the U.S.. In February 1990 Jean-Bertrand Aristide, former priest identified with liberation theology, was elected president with 67.5% of the votes, thus being the first democratically elected president in the history of their country. When Aristide took office in 1991, proposed increasing the minimum wage from 1.76 to 2.94 dollars a day, but the Agency for Investment and Development (USAID) has objected to this proposal, arguing that would mean a "serious distortion" of the cost of labor. Months later, Aristide was the victim of a coup perpetrated by Raul Cedras and supported by the Bush administration through the CIA. A grim dictatorship that left 5,000 dead and disappeared.
was organized in 1994 from Washington out of the military junta and the return of the president who left office under the command of the operation "Restore Democracy", whose main concern was not to criticize and stigmatize return to capitalism as well as ensuring the faithful obedience of each of the "recommendations" of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
In the 1996 presidential elections, Rene Preval, Aristide's former prime minister, won with 88% of the vote. The new president, leftist and progressive training, retired from the guidelines of the economic system liberal, but the campaign continued with the privatization of several government corporations, due to constant pressure from the IMF.
In October 2000, officers in command of Guy Philippe organized a failed coup. Guy Philippe, a Haitian policeman trained at the beginning of 1990 in Ecuador by U.S. Special Forces, the same that at some point declared admirer of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, took refuge in the United States Embassy in Port-au-Prince.
Once the mandate of René Préval in 2001, Aristide was elected again, now with 91% of the vote. In 2003, Frenchman Regis Debray, who betrayed Bolivia during the campaign position of the revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara (treason latter leading to his death), then released with the help of the French government, demanding the resignation of the president, who refuses.
In February 2004 the operation came into play "secure tomorrow" U.S. State Department: sending troops with the pretext of protecting its embassy and democracy in Haiti. On 29 February, Aristide's kidnapping accomplished by U.S. troops, out of the country where the president ignoring the vote of a majority of the population. The governments of the United Nations endorsed kidnapping. Only a few governments, like Venezuela and South Africa, requested an investigation into the facts underlying the departure of President Aristide. U.S. troops, after leaving hundreds dead followers of Aristide, left the job in charge of the MINUSTAH, who are fighting those who claim for the return of their president and imprison those who carry out social work in the community (as Jean Just in Gerar December 2004). In 2006, René Préval was elected president of Haiti in an election organized and controlled by the UN. Today, Haiti is in position 150 out of 177 countries in Human Development Index of the UN. 80% of the population live in poverty. Half of Haitians have no access to drinking water. Life expectancy is 50 years. Inequality is extreme: 3% of the population has 90% of the wealth of the nation. Only 15% of the population is literate, where only 2% complete secondary school. Of those who can, 80% migrate in search of other alternatives, particularly to the U.S., the brain drain that further limits the possibilities for economic development. Remittances from those who manage to escape the Haitian capital represent 40% of its GDP.
Haiti is a clear example of the barbarism that Rosa Luxemburg prophesied as the destination of capitalism. A barbarism that now the media strive to disguise as a result of an earthquake that just took a blow to an already completely unworkable. After more than two centuries of occupation, looting and death, the collapse of the presidential palace is nothing but a metaphor for a state which is falling apart and is crying out for reconstruction.
Haiti is a nation that, despite the constant struggle with those who consider the diagnosis of Cartwright still in force, maintains its desire for freedom and are still rebelling even the high price of death. Therefore, we must remember every time we turn on our televisions, is that the horror we see today in Haiti is not result of an earthquake, but what Argentine journalist Rodolfo Walsh ever conceptualized as planned misery.
Note:
(1) 18,000 people was the number recognized by the dictator Trujillo.
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