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The Role Of The United States In The Fate Of Haitiby Nirit Ben-AriDecember 9, 1999 "They don't want to see us unite
It was the first black independent republic in the New World. It was the richest island in the Caribbean. Today, it is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and one of the poorest in the world. What happen to Haiti in almost 200 years of history? Haiti is not isolated from the world. Its history is the result of its exceptional start-up, and the unheard tale of agony and plight of its people is the result of its relations with the world that surrounds it. This article revisits Haiti history, emphasizing the role of the United States in its sorrowful fate and recounting on Haiti-US relations on the national and individual levels. Haiti declared independence in 1804. A nation of free slaves and uneducated farmers, the Haitian people were left to define the nature of their society. Being the largest and the richest colony in the Caribbean Haiti had, as estimated by Rod Prince, the author of "Haiti: Family Business", 480,000 enslaved persons in 1871. Unlike other Caribbean islands, Africans were brought to Haiti from all of Africa, not only from Western Africa. Other then Africans, there were mulattos who were the children of white planters and black African slave mothers. In most cases they were the result of rape. Therefore, the Haitian society contained different languages, religions and cultures and was not homogeneous. It was a society that was created artificially as part of European colonialism. The collective memory of 400 years of slavery created hatred toward whites. In the world around them, racist theories about the supremacy of the white race were presented as science. It influenced the Haitians thus generating a society in which mulattos were given different status than blacks. According to Prince, "the image of the 'useful' white person was retained in the shape of doctors, teachers and priests. The urban elite aspired to French styles of behavior, establishing a social order based on skin color. The conflict between the mulatto and black elite became a permanent source of political instability" (Prince, 1985:18). In addition, Haiti was practicing self-government in a world of colonies whose economy is based on slavery, and therefore was not recognized in the first years by any white government. It did not have support and was helplessly depended on white people's markets, simply because there were only white governments in the world of 1804. The newly independent country, whose market did not have too many partners to begin with, suffered yet another blow by a huge indemnity it was required to pay to France in return for its recognition. Prince gives the details: "France required an indemnity of 150 million French francs, payable mainly to French planters who had lost their property in the revolution. The sum was reduced in 1838 to 60 million, but was, nevertheless, a burden, which the devastated Haitian economy could only repay by borrowing from France, and later US, banks. The debt was not repaid until 1922" (Prince, 1985:17). Moreover, the naturally rich island was deteriorating slowly, mainly because that era was characterized by unawareness of the importance of environmental friendly practices. Prince gives an example for such a damaging practice, "The ex-slaves' search for land led them to make forest clearing, starting a cycle of deforestation and soil erosion which is now one of Haiti's greatest problems" (Prince, 1985:17). All of the above, together with another legacy of colonialism, saying, authoritarian power and concentration of wealth in the hands of a small elite, dominated Haiti from its beginning to this day. Indeed, Haiti's first steps had a crucial effect on the years to come. * * * * * * In 1957 Francis Duvalier assumed office in Haiti by an army-organized elections (Farmer, 1994) and founded a dynasty. At the time of his death in April of 1971, his son Jean-Claude had succeeded him. "Papa Doc" and "Baby Doc" regimes, that ended in 1986, were characterized by corruption, oppression of the poor masses, arbitrary terror, abusive police and army, extreme human rights violations, killings, jailing, torture, disappearance, absent of individual freedom and lawlessness. It is estimated that 60,000 people had died because of the Duvalier regime (Farmer, 1994). The mainstay of the political control since 1958 has been the Volontaires de la Securite National (VSN) or Tonton Macoutes, an armed militia under the command of Duvalier. The Tonton Macoutes were primarily responsible for the atrocities of the Papa Doc's regime. At the same time, the country saw no substantial development. Alex Dupuy, author of "Haiti in the New World Order", summarizes the Duvalier' regime, "The primary beneficiaries of the regime's policies were the Duvalier family; the top government and military officials; foreign investors; the Haitian industrial and commercial bourgeoisie; the clientalistic professional, technocratic, and administrative bureaucratic cadres; and the large base of the tontons macoutes. For the majority of the population, the three decades of Duvalierism had meant political repression and abject poverty" (Dupuy, 1997:48). Prince points out that in 1983, two years before the fall of the Duvalier dynasty, "the Duvalier family's personal fortune (was) rumored to amount to some US$400 million, while the annual Gross National Product per head stood at US$315. In the countryside, where people live outside the cash economy on the edge of starvation, it is about US$50 per head" (Prince 1985:43). An opposition to Duvalier emerged during the 1970s and gathered momentum in the 1980s. After the departure of Jean-Claude Duvalier in 1986, the Conseil National de Gouvernement (CNG) was formed, headed by Lt. Gen. Henry Namphy, and three other Duvalierists military officers. The Haitian masses reacted with rejoice to the end of the Duvalier regime, but soon after realized that it was Duvalierism without Duvalier. The CNG had abandoned its reformist facade and moved sharply into the right. The military-led government relied on the Duvalier' army to pursue intimidation, violence, and assassination of political leaders, trade union activists, and organized peasant cooperatives (Dupuy, 1997). Namphy was overthrown by a coup d'etat on September 1988. He was replaced by Gen. Prosper Avril, a former Duvalier military officer. To remain in power, Avril had to buy loyalty from the public employees, the soldiers of the Presidential Guard, and the business elite. The result of his actions brought to a deficit of the government budget by US$60 million in one year. His regime featured the same characteristics of the former government, saying, same kind of constant human rights violations. The opposition had launched a call for unity against dictatorship, and different organizations formed alliances, joined their forces and called for the unconditional departure of Avril. It brought Avril to resign as president and to leave Haiti on March 1990. His fall led to the formation of an interim civilian government and to democratic elections under the supervision of the United Nations in November 1990. Although joining the run for presidency at the last moment, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a young priest who gained popularity among the poor in Haiti during the 1980s, won the elections with 67% majority. Aristide, the first Haitian leader to be elected in free elections in ages, and the first one to be left wing, socialist and dedicated to the poor, was overthrown by a military coup d'etat in September 1991. The junta that had overthrown him remained in power until October 1994 when Aristide returned to office and remained there until the end of his term in 1996. During the junta regime it is known that 4,000 people were killed, 300,000 became internal refugees, thousands more fled across the border to the Dominican Republic, and more than 60,000 took to the high seas to seek asylum in the United States. Terror and intimidation direct at civilians and impunity were the characteristics of those years (Farmer, 1994). * * * * * * Where was the US all these years? "Two centuries ago", reminds us Noam Chomsky in an introduction for Paul Farmer's "The Uses of Haiti", "the American Republic, which had just gained its independence, joined European powers in aiding France's violent repression of Haiti's slave rebellion. When the rebellion nevertheless succeeded, the US exceeded all others in the harshness of its reaction, refusing to recognize Haiti until 1862, in the context of the American Civil War" (Farmer 1994:16). 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) $40.4 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 $10,000 monthly salary and called his congressional colleagues to do with $2000 a month rather than the $7,000 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. The first attempt for a coup d'etat occurred in January 6, 1991 but it failed. On September 23, 1991, while in New York, Aristide addressed the United Nations, using the phrase "everyone must have a place at the table", referring to the poor. He called the wealthy to share their bounty, to reinvest profits locally rather than abroad, to pay taxes, to work to provide jobs for the unemployed and the hungry (Farmer 1994). At the same time in Haiti, the speech did not fit well with the elite, including the military. It was this speech, together with the reforms and the cut off in military and state positions that Aristide introduced during his first months in office that had brought the rich in Haiti to worry about the traditional ways that made things easy for them. The people with the money together with the people with the weapons were ready to get rid of Aristide. When Aristide returned to Haiti, on September 29, 1991, a group of Haitian soldiers attacked his residence and massacred the people who were with him. He was taken to the National Palace under singing bullets and met Brigadier General Raoul Cedars, then head of the army. Cedars declared he was the president and attempted to kill Aristide, an attempt that was halted by the French ambassador that was present there. Aristide was than escorted out of Haiti to Caracas on a plane dispatched by the Venezuelan president (Farmer, 1994). The masses, armed with sticks and rocks, met soldiers with Uzis (a deal with Israel, another friend of the US) and realized that their prophet is gone and they are powerless. It seems unlikely that the US had been neglectful for rumors of coup. After all, Haitian army officers were on CIA payroll. Also, as Dupuy reminds us, "it was 1991 and … Washington … was reassessing its long-standing Cold War policy of instinctively supporting military or right wing dictatorships in the hemisphere in the name of anti-communism" (Dupuy 1997:132). It is likely, then, that the US was actually behind the coup. The first response of the US, with the Organization of American States (OAS) was a statement calling for Aristide's prompt reinstatement. They could not openly recognize the government led by the putschists, although the elimination of Aristide was exactly what the US was waiting for, because in an OAS summit in 1989 the organization adopted a resolution calling its member states not to recognize a government that comes to power by a military coup (Vendrell, 1999). Also, human rights violations under the junta received some international attention, and the US had to find a way to give the impression that it does not cooperate with a military regime, but at the same time to make sure that Aristide does not go back to power. With some help from their friends in the media, and thanks to the ignorance of the Americans and most of news consumers, they were able to do that. Soon after the coup, an OAS delegation traveled to Port-au-Prince to initiate an "open dialogue" with the putschists. An "open dialogue" with murderers? How odd, that at this point the US readily granted them status of a legitimate partner at the negotiating table. From this point on, the putschists were on equal level with Aristide, which should never have happened. This decision set a pattern that prevailed throughout the negotiation. The media did not sit idle and allied with Washington to deceit the public. In the New York Times, Thomas Friedman wrote in October 8, 1991 issue: "Washington was most interested in the restoration of constitutional democracy in Haiti, not a particular individual" (Farmer, 1994). To add insult to injury, Howard French of the New York Times, wrote articles under the following titles, "Haiti's Democracy, Such as It Was, Is Swept By a Chaotic Coup" (Farmer, 1994), and "Aristide's Autocratic Ways Ended Haiti's Embrace of Democracy" (Farmer, 1994). From Caracas, Aristide found himself in a defensive position. He reminded, "Not one political assassination occurred during our Administration. Not one political prisoner was jailed. No boat filled with frightened political refugees fled Haiti for US shores" (Farmer 1994:191). But in the mean time, the CIA published a document describing Aristide as a maniac-depressive who had been prescribed lithium in the past, and even a murderer and a psychopath. General Cedars, the report continued, belongs to the most promising group of Haitian leaders to emerge since the Duvalier family (Farmer, 1994). OAS, however, imposed sanctions on Haiti. At the same time, the poor in Haiti, devoted to their priest (the "radical firebrand", according to the Bush administration), told American reporters that they are determined to endure the embargo, without complaint, if it brings back their president (Farmer, 1994). However, the embargo was not enforced. Dupuy writes, "The Bush administration, under pressure from US-owned assembly industries in Haiti, permits those industries to continue their export and import activities. The nonaction allows the junta to receive oil deliveries and other supplies. The cross-border trade between Haiti and the Dominican republic flourishes. The administration also fails to carry out its threat to freeze the assets and cancel the visas to the United States of those known to have participated in the coup" (Dupuy 1997:177). When Marc Bazin, who contested against Aristide in the elections and was called "the American candidate" as long as he had been involved in Haitian politics was sworn in as a Prime Minister in June 1992, the embargo was elegantly eliminated. Meanwhile, the US, in its undercover pro-putsch policy, was repatriating Haitian refugees forcibly, arguing that there is no repression in Haiti, and denying the violence in the streets. According to a CIA report, in Port-au-Prince there was no evidence of oppressive rule (Farmer, 1994). Moreover, by defining the "boat people" as "economical refugees" rather what they really were, political refugees escaping prosecution and not poverty, the White House "implicitly endorsed the coup, disregarded the military's human rights violations, and encouraged its further repression of Aristide's supporters" (Dupuy 1997:140). The change of governments in the White House and the new Clinton administration in November 1991 changed the situation. Clinton first had to deal with the "boat people" crisis, but in that issue he followed Bush in commanding to repatriate the refugees. Secondly, the embargo was stiffened, and thirdly, the military and Aristide were brought to the negotiation table in Governor Island in New York. Peace talk sounds right, but we have to consider the consent of the conflicting parties. Aristide did not want to sit with the people who overthrew him in the negotiating table, because it legitimizes the coup. Cedars and his fellow drug-dealers murderers were not legitimate partners for negotiation, although the US elevated them to the level of partners from the very beginning as was indicated earlier. However, it was made clear to Aristide that if he wanted the help of the powerful, he had to play by the rules. As Dupuy writes, "The Haitian bourgeoisie, under Washington's hegemony and with the full weight of the US government and the international financial institutions behind it, had regained the upper hand" (Dupuy 1997:147). The consent of Aristide, therefore, was forced upon him because Aristide would under no circumstances agree to treat the coup d'etat and the killing that followed it as if they had never happened. The concessions that Aristide had to make were, as Dupuy lists, "granting a general amnesty to the coup leaders and reigning in the popular movement through a politics of "reconciliation" with the antidemocratic camp; forming a broader-based government that included representatives from the boureoisie who opposed Aristide and supported the coup against him; accepting the US neoliberal agenda developed by the USAID and the multilateral lending and regulatory institutions; and agreeing to hold new presidential elections in 1995 and not to reclaim the years Aristide lost from his five-year term due to the coup" (Dupuy 1997:138). In1987 the Haitian parliament, with the memory of Duvalier "President for life" amendment of the constitution, made a new amendment, this time providing that a President in Haiti cannot serve two consecutive terms in office (Vendrell, 1999). Therefore Aristide not only had to give up the years he lost, but he could not run again in the 1996 elections. At the same time in Haiti, as a response to the Governor Island agreement and the anticipated return of Aristide, the worst Duvalierist torturers were returning and announced their plans for Haiti's future. A key lawyer, Justice Minister Guy Malary was murdered. A group of attaches occupied the National Assembly, took hostages, and vowed to "cut off heads" of Aristide's supporters. United Nations (UN) and OAS observers had their radio system and telephone lines cut in a single day. Even before the return date of Aristide on September 30, it was clear that the agreement between Aristide and the murderers of the de facto government was not going to happen (Farmer, 1994). As the situation escalated in Haiti, the Clinton administration was pressured by liberal and black members of congress to change the policy, and the sanctions were tightened and enforced. The poor were of course bearing the brunt while the affluent Haitians and the bourgeoisie were cushioned from its worst effects. Since the upper class was not hurt by the sanctions, the junta was holding the government still and did not make any signs of removing from power. Therefore, on July 31, 1994, UN's Security Council where the US is a permanent member with veto power, authorized the US to use "all necessary means" to facilitate the departure of the military leadership from Haiti, and this action was taken under Chapter VII in the UN Charter. Finally, on September 19, 1994, about 20,000 US troops entered Haiti peacefully after a US delegation had reached an agreement with the Haitian military junta that would let Aristide step down in return for amnesty for them and the Haitian military (Farmer 1994). Aristide, pressured by the US and subjected to patronizing criticism from Congress members for being ungrateful to his liberators, agreed to allow the junta to remain in power until October 15 and thanked Clinton for the intervention. Maimed and cornered, Aristide remained in office until the end of his term in 1996.
The US did not want Aristide. In an interview that I had conducted this week with UN official Mr. Francesc M. Vendrell, who was the Director of the Department of Political Affairs of the Americas during the 1991-1994 crisis, he puts it blatantly that "the Americans did not like Aristide" (Vendrell, 1999). Dupuy reminds why the US had a problem, "In Haiti, the problem for Washington was how to compel its traditional allies - the bourgeoisie and the military establishment - to accept a minimal democracy, sever their ties with the system of corruption, and abandon their old-age practice of treating the masses like slaves, while at the same time preserving Haiti as a source of cheap labor for the assembly industries and the multinational agribusiness's. The solution lay in electing a candidate who accepted the new game plan and whom the local oligarchies and the United States supported. Unfortunately, the Haitian masses who had been excluded from this new schema, spoiled it (in the opinion of the US strategists) by voting for their own unexpected and unpredictable candidate" (Dupuy 1997:133). Is it public knowledge that the US did not like Aristide? No. So why is it a secret then? Does the US have a sinister motive to hide? The White House believes, for some reason, that it has the right to intervene in internal affairs of other countries. Of course, it does not happen unless the US has an economical or strategic interest. However, when it does occur it is under the guise of a human rights defender. The case of Haiti is only an example for the pretense and hypocrisy that Washington is prone to. The fact that a remarkable majority of Haitians had managed to agree on who should lead their country, giving one candidate among a dozen almost 70% of the vote was never respected by the US. * * * * * * The US treats Haitians on the individual level with the same degradation as it had always treated Haiti's sovereignty and national dignity. In Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, a US naval base serves as a detention camp for Haitian refugees caught in high sees aspiring to reach US shores. In a violation of the International Convention Related to the Status of Refugees, the US tests the refugees for HIV without their knowledge or consent. It detains HIV positive refugees in the camp up to two years before it repatriates them to Haiti. Farmer describes a case study of Ms. Yolanda Jean that was interned in the camp for eleven months in 1992. The camps were surrounded by razor barbed wire and guided by the military. Demonstrations were treated with beatings. Ms. Jean tells the followings about the "medical care" she received: "they gave me two pills and an injection. I asked them, why the injection? Because you have a little cold, they replied. But it was not a vaccine, it was an injection in the buttocks. And if you didn't want it … they call soldiers to come and hold you, force you to take it or they put you in the brig and bring your pills to you there. There were people who refused to have their blood drawn; soldiers came to handcuff them, tie them up in order to draw their blood. I learned that the injection that the doctor had given me was Depo-Provera (long-acting contraceptive). I began having heavy bleeding, I bled for three months, lost weight" (Farmer 1994:279-280). In the eight months after the coup of 1991, the US Coast Guard intercepted 34,000 Haitians on the high seas. The majority of these refugees were transported to the Haitian concentration camp of Guantanamo Bay. Two hundreds and seventy-eight were HIV positive (Farmer, 1994). Foreigners in the US Haitians feel they are judged by their "triple minority" status, as immigrants, blacks and non-English speaking. American people welcome Haitians with an attitude loaded with racism, prejudice and xenophobia. The consequence of that was the brutality of two police officers of the NYPD against Mr. Abner Louima, Haitian immigrant. On August 9, 1997, the police arrived at a party in a Haitian club in Brooklyn after receiving information about a fight. Mr. Louima was one of the people running out of the club although he did not take part in the fight. The cops took him to the 70th Police Precinct in Brooklyn. It was later known that Mr. Louima experienced hours of police torture, including a bathroom scene in which two officers have been accused of shoving the handle of a toilet plunger into his rectum. In a New York Times article from August 18, 1997, titled "New York Haitians Sensing Betrayal in a Land of Refuge", Garry Pierre Pierre interviewed Mrs. Wah, chairwoman of the Haitian American Alliance, who affirms that "there has always been discrimination, but not like (Louima) this. They don't respect us" (Pierre Pierre 1997:A17, B3). Pierre Pierre is mentioning that "Neighborhood residents have said the police have not responded quickly enough to their calls for help, have grown more abusive and sometimes uses ethnic slurs"(Pierre Pierre 1997:A17, B3). Take for another example the trade in Haitian blood. In 1972, traffic in Haitian blood was assured by the Hemo-Caribbean and Co., financed by the US and international capital and organized by cronies of Duvalier. North American hemophiliacs, who needed factor VIII, a coagulant then distilled from the plasma of thousands of donors, were for years the indirect beneficiaries of the trade. Its direct beneficiary, however, was Miami-based stock broker Joseph B. Gorinstein who negotiated with Duvalier. The Haitians would give a litter of blood and the amber plasma was separated out. The blood was pumped back into the person who gave it. The plasma was frozen and shipped to the US with Air Haiti. The donors received $3 for a litter of plasma. Some sold their plasma once a week and earned $150 to $250 a year. The plasma was sold at a seven fold higher price (Farmer, 1994). Is there any doubt in anyone's mind that Ms. Jean in Guatanamo Bay, Mr. Louima in Brooklyn, or the Haitians that sold their blood and had rich people doing business with it, were treated inhumanly because of racism and malice? There is none in mine. * * * * * * What are the uses of Haiti? Closer from the Far East, in the backyard of the US, hard working Haitians are a perfect target for America's industries. Maximizing the profits and minimizing the expanses, American-based industries built their factories in Haiti. Hopeless, jobless, desperate and unable to unionize under the fear of the government, Haitians are willing, or shall we say forced by being in an economically unfavorable position, to work in those assembly industries for extremely low wages, without social security or health services. The US portrayed the prospering Assembly industry as their contribution for the development of Haiti. Nevertheless, this kind of industrialization is false. It indeed creates large number of jobs but on highly exploiting terms, and brings little long-term benefit to the economy. The only beneficiaries of this industry are the owners. Dupuy explains, "if the assembly industries did not prove to be the solution to Haiti's chronic unemployment problems and its underdevelopment and poverty, they certainly made it worthwhile for their investors to locate their business in Haiti. Whereas 38 percent of the US- and Haitian owned electronic assembly plants, for example, reportedly saved between 20 percent and 40 percent over US based production, 20 percent of those plants saved between 40 percent and 60 percent by doing business in Haiti" (Dupuy 1997:28). According to the report of the Christian Peacemaker Team from May 1998, in apparel factories producing garment with Walt Disney designs and labels in Haiti, Haitians were paid on a piece basis, although they are required by law to pay the minimum of $2.7US a day. If workers do not reach their production quota, they are not paid minimum wage. Aristide and his social ways, in his concern to the poor, with his support to labor unions, is jeopardizing the safe existence of those factories in Haiti. Under Aristide, people might actually stand up for their rights. Clearly, Aristide was a threat to the capitalist corporate America. Indeed, "The imperial system above all wants humbled countries, not democratic ones" (Dupuy 1997:17). * * * * * * Reading Haitian history, one gets the impression that Haiti and Haitians exist to serve the powerful. The US has to keep Haiti poor so it can have its labor shifting back and forth from Haiti to the US seeking employment. It needs to keep Haiti poor, because if, alas, Haiti is strong and prospering and Haitians enjoy freedom and prosperity in their country, it does not need the US. It does not need its exploiting assembly industries, and the people do not need to immigrate to the US and take up jobs there as cab drivers, domestic servants or other service professions, many times doing so illegally simply because they do not have a choice. The US has no interest to see Haiti independent from it, so it can not allowed a good leader to this country. The Haitian Paul Anvers asks, "you don't want us in your country? At least let us live peacefully at home. Let us elect whom we want" (Farmer 1994:177). Haitians immigrants (or refugees) in the States are the result of the US's imperialistic ways. If the US truly does not want Haitians then the message to the US should be "Do not create conditions for it". Unfortunately, the US is content with such conditions because they provide, amongst other things, for widely available cheap labor, both in Haiti as well as on US soil. Dear Paul Avers, there's where the dirty little secret lies.
Works Cited Dupuy, Alex. Haiti in the New World Order. Colorado: Westview Press, 1997 Farmer, Paul. The Uses of Haiti. Maine: Common Courage Press, 1994 Rod, Prince. Haiti: Family Business. London: Latin America Bureau, 1985 Pierre-Pierre, Garry. "New York Haitians Sensing Betray in a Land of Refuge" New York Times 25 August, 1997: A17, B3 Mr. Francesc M. Vendrell, Director of the Department of Political Affairs, United Nations. Conducted in United Nations Headquarters, New York, November 24, 1999 Dignity in Work, World Wide Web http://www.citinv.it/associazioni/CNMS/archivio/strategie/assemblyfact_haiti.html
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