The Occupation Of Haiti

It's been a while since most people thought of Haiti in this country, but they are still trying to recover from the disaster of a few years ago -- and they are still occupied by troops from other countries. Why are those troops still there? When will they leave? Surely the need for them has long since passed.

Uruguayan writer and historian Eduardo Galeano recently gave a speech to a forum held in Montevideo about Haiti, and I really like what he had to say. Here is part of that speech:

Look it up in any encyclopedia. Ask which was the first free county in America. You will always get the same answer: the United States. But the United States declared its independence while it was a nation with 650,000 slaves, who continued being slaves for a century, and in its first constitution established that a black was the equivalent of three fifths of a person.


And if you ask any encyclopedia what was the first country to abolish slavery you will always get the same answer: England. But the first country to abolish slavery was not England but Haiti, which is still atoning for the sin of its dignity.


The black slaves of Haiti had defeated the glorious army of Napoleon Bonaparte and Europe never forgave them for this humiliation. For a century and a half, Haiti paid France an enormous compensation for being guilty of its own freedom, but even that was not enough. That black insolence is still offensive to the white masters of the world.

Currently the armies of several countries, including my own, still occupy Haiti. How is this military invasion justified? By claiming that Haiti puts international security at risk.

Nothing new.


Throughout the 19th century, the example of Haiti constituted a threat to the security of countries that still practiced slavery. Thomas Jefferson had already said it: the plague of rebellion came from Haiti. In South Carolina, for example, the law permitted the jailing of any black sailor while his ship was in port because of the risk that he might spread the anti-slave pestilence. And in Brazil, that pestilence was known as Haitianism.


In the 20th century, Haiti was invaded by the marines because it was an unsafe country for its foreign creditors. The invaders proceeded to take charge of customs and handed the National Bank over to City Bank of New York. And once there, they stayed for 19 years.


How long will foreign soldiers stay in Haiti? They arrived to stabilize and to help, but they have been there for seven years, unhelpful and destabilizing this country that does not want them.


The military occupation of Haiti is costing the United Nations more than 800 million dollars a year.


If the United Nations were to spend those funds on technical cooperation and social solidarity, Haiti would receive a strong boost for developing its creative energy. And it could thus save itself from its armed saviors, who have a certain tendency to rape, to kill and to spread fatal diseases.


Haiti does not need anyone to come and multiply its calamities. Nor does it need anyone’s charity. As an old African proverb says so well, the hand that gives is always above the hand that receives.


But Haiti does need solidarity, doctors, schools, hospitals and genuine collaboration to make possible the rebirth of its food sovereignty, destroyed by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other philanthropic societies.


For us Latin Americans, that solidarity is a debt of gratitude: it will be the best way to say thank you to this small great nation that in 1804, with its contagious example, opened the doors of liberty to us.