Barbara MacDougall’s review of Haiti: Hope for a Fragile State displayed a giant lacuna on the role of the United States in Haiti.
Let’s begin with her commentary on the presidency of the former leader of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was Haiti’s first democratically elected leader, by the people of Haiti, on two occasions.
Before he had finished his first term of office he was ousted by the first George Bush, which resulted in sufficient anarchy and chaos in Haiti that refugees began making it to the shores of the United States. This prompted Bill Clinton to facilitate the return of Aristide to Haiti.
After Aristide was elected a second time, the second George Bush, like his father, arranged a coup to remove him from office. You will recall the sorry pictures in the media of Colin Powell attending at the airport in Haiti to oversee Aristide’s removal to Africa. What is most embarrassing for Canada is that under the Paul Martin government we participated in that coup. Our motives were to mend fences with a U.S. still angry over our non-participation in Iraq and it represents the first time in our history that we have engaged in colonialism.
MacDougall characterizes it this way: Aristide was a strong-man who was “finally ousted in 2004 after two kicks at the presidential can.” She displays in this comment a sad mixture of paternalism and contempt for the democratic process.
MacDougall also fails to mention that the U.S. under Woodrow Wilson occupied Haiti in 1915 and ruled by military government until 1934. The Americans took complete control of the economy and drafted a constitution allowing foreign landownership. They made sure Haiti met its foreign debt payments—mainly to U.S. banks. When the U.S. left, the only cohesive institution in Haiti was the military—with predictable results.
Toward the end of her commentary, MacDougall asserts that U.S. friendship is essential in Haiti’s future. There was a time when Haiti was self-sufficient in rice production, its staple food. Now all of its rice comes from the United States. This is no accident. Using politics and military might to steal markets is not friendship.
The newly elected president of Haiti is René Préval. Préval was a staunch and loyal supporter of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. He won the election even though the small wealthy elite in Haiti supported by the U.S. did everything it could to prevent Préval supporters from getting to the ballot boxes on election day. The U.S., for now, has acquiesced in the result, preoccupied as it is with affairs in Iraq.
Many years ago James Laxer said that the U.S. has a history of treating Central and South America as its own private preserve. Little has changed, except that some countries are managing to struggle onto their own feet while America’s attention is diverted elsewhere. If the U.S. stays diverted and leaves these countries on their own, then perhaps there will be reason to hope for a better future even for Haiti.
Robert A. Konduros
Cambridge, Ontario
