SINCE the vile allegations directed at hard-working, legal, Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio by the leadership of the Republican Party (GOP/ MAGA), I’ve been hard-pressed to think of another country and/or people that has endured more hardship than Haiti and Haitians.
It’s difficult to find a clearer example of man’s inhumanity to man, than the lie that Haitian migrants are stealing and eating the pets of Ohioans. More reprehensible is the fact that the perpetrators of this lie are doubling down on it, even after its initiator retracted her story and authorities in Springfield insisted, they had no evidence supporting her story. Incredibly, J.D Vance, MAGA’s Vice Presidential candidate is insisting the lie served its purpose, by spotlighting the “failed immigration policies” of the Biden/Harris administration. Vance has calculated that the lie will have a net positive electoral effect. Also, he may hope that some among the 500,000 Haitians who are legally settled in the US, may not feel so offended, to vote against the Trump/ Vance ticket. Here, I remembered the Haitian Uber driver whom I met in early 2020, who thought former President Trump was the best thing since sliced bread. I wonder whether he still thinks that way.
My heart goes out to our Haitian brothers and sisters who have made the painful decision to leave their beloved country to seek a better life, elsewhere. Those who moved to Ohio, albeit temporarily, are reported to be as law-abiding and hardworking, as many in other US cities. Still, in the minds of the GOP leadership, that does not matter. For them, the best way to dramatise the US’s immigration problem is to give it a “black face.”
It’s been easier for me to understand, than to accept the toxic mix of factors and circumstances that have beset the people of Haiti, since its Independence on January 1, 1804. Admittedly, some of Haiti’s problems are self-inflicted, including a series of coups, waves of repressive and corrupt, dictatorial rule, and racial tensions preceding Independence. Practically every President of Haiti has changed the country’s Constitution to advance their ambitions.
However, none of this negates the destabilizing effects of external stressors, that have deprived Haitians of the right, and the means to govern themselves. Haiti continues to pay an unimaginable price for being the first black country to assert the right of its people to live, free of the indignity of slavery and colonialism. Tellingly, while Boukman, Toussaint, and Dessalines helped to end slavery, and declare Haiti’s Independence, ending colonialism has proven to be intractable. Although vanquished militarily, colonial powers contrived to re-enslave Haiti, financially and economically, by requiring it to pay 150 million Francs-roughly, between $20-$30 billion in today’s money-as compensation to French plantation owners for “losses” suffered after Haiti abolished slavery and claimed its Independence, and with their unceasing interference in Haiti’s internal affairs.
Unsurprisingly, Haiti has not recovered. How could it? How can the people of any country survive, far less prosper under this kind of sustained, psychological, social and economic pressure? In such circumstances, political and social instability is almost inevitable. Between 1804, and 1996, twenty-three of Haiti’s leaders were overthrown, two were assassinated and one was executed. In July 2021, Jovenel Moise was the last President to be killed, while in office.
A series of disasters, including outbreaks of HIV/AIDS and swine fever, and devastation caused by Hurricane Hazel in 1954, and the earthquake in 2010 which claimed 250,00 lives have not helped, creating a legion of migrants who have settled in countries as near as the USA and as far as Chile.
In 1750, Haiti was considered the richest colony in the world and generated as much as 50% of France’s Gross National Product (GNP) through its exports of sugar, coffee, cocoa, tobacco, cotton, indigo and other exotic goods. Now it’s been reduced to the status of a failed state.
While much has been said about human rights violations committed by some past Presidents of Haiti, notably Dessalines and “Papa Doc” little mention is made of abuses committed by the US military during its occupation of Haiti, between 1915 and 1934, which were exposed by the Forbes Commission, appointed by the US Congress. Instructively, the Commission also criticised the exclusion of Haitians from positions of authority during the occupation.
The US has been Haiti’s largest donor and trading partner. Without this support, Haiti would probably have fully collapsed. However, Haitians must wonder how their country would have fared if the US had not intervened during President Aristide’s second term in office. Ironically, it was the US that restored Aristide to power in 1994, after he went into exile following a military coup in 1991. The decade spanning President Aristide’s first term in office which ended in 1996, and his return in 2001, marked Haiti’s longest spell of democracy. While this was not a trouble-free period, the fact that it featured peaceful transfers of power, raised hopes that Haiti may be turning the corner. These hopes were dashed in March 2004, when the US again intervened and removed President Aristide, who inexplicably found himself on a US military aircraft, bound for the Central African Republic.
Crucially, democracy was also a passenger on that flight. Sadly, it has yet to return from its self-imposed exile. Haiti’s last elections were held in 2016 and there’s been no President since July 2021, when President Moise’s met his demise. Yet another attempt is being made, this time through the auspices of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to restore democracy to Haiti. A transitional administration was installed to pave the way for general elections and the return of some semblance of democratic governance to the country. It’s an incredibly tough remit, more so because it is being attempted in a climate of entrenched racial animosities and organized criminality. The simple reality is that democracy is the only way forward for a country that was once labelled the world’s “First Black Republic.”