the role of US in the fate of haiti

excerpts:

In 1915 the United States Marine Corps invaded Haiti, justifying this action under a pretense of protecting Haiti from 'political instability'. The US granted itself with complete political and administrative control over Haiti, under the "Convention Haitiano-Americaine", which many Haitian congressmen refused to sign. To bring the convention into force, the US dissolved the parliament and put the question to plebiscite. The voters were marched to voting stations and handed a white ballot marked OUI (Farmer 1994). During the twenty four years occupation, the US accomplished the following: 50,000 peasants were dispossessed in the north alone; virtual slavery was restored by American investors paying 20 cents per day for Haitians; American companies scouted Haiti for land for new plantations of rubber, bananas, sugar, sisal, mahogany and other tropical produce; Marine Corps massacred and terrorized Haitians; the racism of the US stewards, most of them recruited from the Southern states to better "handle colored people", reinforced color prejudice in Haiti. Finally, it left a government beholden to US interests (Farmer 1994), and an American trained 'non-political' army, a military institution that dominated Haitian politics ever since (Dupuy 1997).

By the time of Duvalier, in 1957, the US had already consolidated its relations with Haiti. It became an unequal relation in which the US sets the rules and the different Haitian governments play by it. Duvalier first baited Washington by flirting with the Communist bloc (Prince 1985). That brought him in his first 4 years in power (and the bloodiest ones) .4 million, much of it in the form of outright gifts. The US Marine corps were invited to train the Haitian army while Haitian troops were sent to Fort-Bening in Georgia for training. The Marines were invited to build bases and guided missiles stations on Haitian soil. In 1963, after a serious of massacres orchestrated by Francis Duvalier, the US cut off aid to his oppressionist regime out of fear that the international press might unmask that the US was in fact supporting monetarily the little tyrant. Needless to say, the US was not concerned about the suffering of the Haitians, but rather with public relations. The cut off aid was, nevertheless, restored after 4 years although there was no major change in policy.

In 1971 "Baby Doc" replaced his father. Farmer quotes anthropologist Lawless about the transition of power: "(It) was part of a deal worked out between Francois Duvalier and the Nixon administration. … The US should support the continuation of the Duvalier dynasty, and Jean-Claude, when he came to power, would support a new economic program guided by the US, a program featuring private investments from the United States that would be drawn to Haiti by such incentives as no customs taxes, a minimum wage kept very low, the suppression of labor unions, and the right of American companies to repatriate their profits" (Farmer 1994:114). Clearly, there was no true endeavor to remove Duvalier from power. In 1986, when it was clear that "Baby Doc" is about to fall, the US withdrew its support from him and provided him with a US cargo for his escape (Farmer 1994).

The elections of 1991 brought Father Arisitide to power and inconvenience for Washington. Aristide was unusual, by all means, as a broadly loved Haitian leader, and the first Haitian leader to address the poor, who are four fifth of Haiti's population. His first breakfast in the palace was not for visiting dignitaries but for hundreds of street kids and homeless poor instead. In his first month in office he declined his ,000 monthly salary and called his congressional colleagues to do with 00 a month rather than the ,000 they requested. In his first few months over 2,000 federal jobs were eliminated. The new government had to attack, as Farmer counts, "the worst health indices in the hemisphere, a moribund economy, widespread illiteracy, landlessness, the exploitation of workers, unemployment, ecological devastation, a bloated and ineffective public administration and, most of all, the entrenched gangsterism and drug trafficking closely linked to the army" (Farmer 1994:167). Aristide asked the people to be patient and to believe in him. He launched a major adult literacy program. He reconstructed the country's major hospital and other facilities and elevated the primary of health care to be the top priority of the new Ministry of Health. He announced the distribution of fallow state lands to peasant farmers. He initiated a plan to increase small farmers' access to credit. He attempted to halt erosion and desertification. The government pushed for the improvement of workers' rights and lobbied to increase the minimum wage from 15 to 25 gourdes per day. It pressed for a freeze on the prices of bare necessity products, such as bread, rice and flour. It announced a major public-works program to create more jobs through improvements of roads and other infrastructure. Key figures in a number of crime rings were arrested and gangsterism was significantly curbed. The position of chef de section, the pivotal representative of state power in rural Haiti, who has also been the main human rights abuser there, was abolished. In Aristide's effort to halt drug trafficking, the amount of cocaine passing through Haiti was reduced under the new government, as was reported by the US Drug Enforcement Agency. There was also a dramatic decrease of Haitians attempting to leave Haiti by boat, a Haitian common practice from the days of the Duvalier regime. The Haitian treasury had a positive balance. International human rights observers in Haiti reported a notable decline in human rights violations (Farmer 1994).

For the United States, Arisitide represented a departure of governance. In the first time in Haiti's history it had a left wing, socialist, working class government. US policy toward Haiti from the coup on proves that the US was not interested to see this government in Haiti, and hence consistently undermined Aristide

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