Haiti, I'm Sorry – Facing Reality - Monday-13-August-2001
by David Comission
A PROMINENT Jamaican businessman was recently asked to comment on the wanton violence and social decay that has so disfigured Jamaican society. His response was to contemptuously describe the calamity as “the Haitianisation of Jamaica”.

The comment really disturbed and hurt me. It seems as though many of our Caribbean people are totally ignorant of the critical and constructive role that Haiti played in the history of our region, and of the calculated campaign of subversion that has been waged against the Haitian people.

How many of us know, for example, that it was the enslaved Blacks of Haiti, who struck the most devastating blows against all three of the world’s major slavery systems? Of course, I refer to the slavery systems of England, Spain and France.

During the 18th century, Haiti, then known as Saint Dominique, was one of the world’s economic power-houses. Unfortunately, that formidable economic power was based on a French organised system of slavery that consumed the lives of 40 000 enslaved Africans every year.

All the black slaves of Haiti desired to be free and to be able to enjoy some of the vast economic fruits of their labour. Thus, when the advent of the French Revolution provided an appropriate opportunity, the enslaved Blacks of Haiti declared their own freedom and determined never to be enslaved again.

Almost immediately, the nations of England, Spain and Napoleonic France attempted, in quick succession, to re-enslave the black people of Haiti. Each of these nations invaded Haiti with massive armies. And each of them went down to resounding defeat.

As a result, the slavery systems of these European powers were dealt devastating blows from which they never recovered.

The new government of independent Haiti then went on to give material assistance to such Latin American anti-colonial fighters as Simon Bolivar and Miranda, in return for an undertaking by these revolutionaries to abolish slavery in all liberated territories.

All of this was simply “too much” for the major European powers of the day.

The response of the French government was to refuse to recognise the independence of Haiti, and to demand the payment of “reparations” to French slave and plantation owners who had lost their “human and other property”.

The United States, Britain and other slave-owning countries agreed with France and, in solidarity, also refused to recognise the sovereignty of Haiti.

In order to secure “recognition”, and to avoid the prospect of further military invasions, Haiti was forced in 1825, to agree to pay the French government “reparations” of 150 million gold francs.

The subsequent implementations of this “agreement” had devastating consequences for Haiti. As Professor Lyonel Paquim explained in his book The Haitian:

“One people and fifty million gold francs on a country of one million people, totally devastated after a long, earth-scorching war, was indeed an insane price to ask, let alone pay. This heavy debt came to be settled only in 1922. But meanwhile, its effects were calamitous.”

It opened the door to foreign economic penetration . . . incredibly crooked loan schemes . . . and may have been the cause of most of Haiti’s economic future misfortunes.

But this was not the full extent of the subversion of Haiti! In 1915, the government of the United States forced upon Haiti a so-called treaty that virtually stripped Haiti of its sovereignty and placed responsibility for governmental affairs in the hands of American officials.

From 1915 to 1933, the United States “occupied” Haiti, and presided over the further devastation of the national economy and spirit of the nation. One striking legacy of the years of American rule was the notoriously corrupt Duvalier dictatorship that was fastened unto Haiti.

At another level, the black masses of Haiti suffered a devastating blow when, in opposition to Emperor Dessalines’ efforts to redistribute “slave property”, the mulattos of Haiti revolted and assassinated Dessalines.

Several subsequent leaders of Haiti, reflecting and wielding “mulatto power” imposed an oppressive system of landlessness on the black Haitian masses, and institutionalised a disrespect and disdain for their culture.

Up to today, the black masses of Haiti have been denied the opportunity to fully express their undoubted creativity and energy.

“Haiti, I’m sorry . . . we misunderstood you . . . one day we’ll turn our head . . . and look inside you . . .”

David Comissiong is the president of the Clement Payne Movement and director of the Commission For Pan African Affairs.