Former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, in a reading of a Fidel Castro post, asserted with his usual verve that Haiti is a pure product of American imperialism. This statement would later be echoed by an ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), Ricardo Seintenfus, who stated in an interview that “Haiti’s greatest misfortune is its close proximity to the United States.” For American professor Bill Quigley, the United States owes Haiti billions of dollars because ever since it [Haiti] broke the yoke of slavery, the United States has considered it an old plantation.
“The United States has no permanent friends or enemies, only its interests.” Henry Kissinger
How can the poorest country in the hemisphere resist the most powerful nation, which is the main instigator of its dysfunction? The United States is, after all, a territory more than 330 times larger and an economy with a GDP approximately 200 times larger than Haiti’s. The fortune of its richest citizen is worth nine times Haiti’s GDP.
Those unfamiliar with the realities of poor countries are quick to conclude that extreme poverty and corruption are simply products of the irresponsibility of indigenous peoples who refuse to organize their own countries. Criticism is easy, especially when those who advance it are ignorant of imperialism’s modus operandi and are shaped by the ideological instruments of those who benefit from this criticism. And this is precisely the case for the United States, whose cultural influence and media dominance are unparalleled in the world.
Some will understand the impossibility for a community whose primary concern is survival through emigration to have sufficient cohesion to organize and respond articulately to certain forms of oppression. In addition to dismantling social cohesion, poverty causes a lack of resource people, which is one of the main causes of the inability to organize and make collective decisions. According to a World Bank study, more than 80% of Haitian graduates live abroad. Moreover, the oligarchy and a large part of the intellectual elite are traditionally the main elements opposing Haiti’s interests. What remains in Haiti, primarily its youth, is nothing more than a by-product of a carefully planned system of destruction. Swallowed up by American acculturation and tied to the excesses of a deleterious global economic order (consumerism, acculturation, media distraction, etc.), it proves incapable of grasping the root of the problem in order to grasp the real issues.
History will absolve
One day, the power of the United States will surely come to an end. Historians will begin to question the cynicism of this superpower, which so unashamedly coexisted within its fold with one of the most impoverished countries on the planet.
They will look back into the annals of history and see that Haiti became the world’s first Black republic by fighting the world’s most powerful army in 1803. The United States quarantined it for sixty years before recognizing its independence.
Subsequently, this superpower occupied this small territory for 19 years, from 1915 to 1934. It supported one of the most ferocious dictatorships for 29 years, reoccupied the territory in 1994, and imposed an embargo that devastated its economy.
This power was the surest bulwark of the anarcho-populist and anti-democratic regimes that long dismantled Haiti’s institutions. They will discover that this country impoverished its peasantry by forcing them to kill their Creole pigs in order to import those from the United States.
They will also see that a portion of Haitian territory, the island of Navase, was confiscated by the United States and entry to Haitian citizens is prohibited.
Historians will question this cynicism, especially because this country, whose heroes supported the northerners in the Battle of Savannah, did not benefit from any consideration from the Americans to help its people evolve.
What they will not fail to highlight, above all, is the cold indifference of the first Black president of the United States toward the world’s first Black republic.