“Toussaint was a mighty man and to make matters worse he was black / Black and back in the days when black men knew their place was in the back / But this rebel he walked through Napoleon who thought it wasn’t very nice / And so today my brothers in Haiti, they still pay the price / Haiti, I’m sorry, we misunderstood you / One day we’ll turn our heads and restore your glory.”
The haunting song by David Rudder flooded my mind as the aircraft touched down at Toussaint Louverture International Airport, named after the Haitian revolutionary leader.
Later, as my taxi weaved through Port-au-Prince, the sight of mountains of rubble lining every street was overwhelming. Makeshift tents occupied every space.
It was 2012, two years after a 35-second tremor from a magnitude 7.0 earthquake left an estimated 220,000 to 316,000 people dead and another 300,000 injured.
About 1.5 million were made homeless in one of the deadliest natural disasters in the world. Poor construction practices and high population density were blamed for the astonishing fatalities.
Fast forward to now, and Haiti is rocked by a different disaster, a perfect storm of violence, poverty, corruption and poor governance, all built on foundations of slavery, colonialism, brutality and exploitation.
Jean-Martin Bauer, country director for the UN’s World Food Programme in Haiti, last week said that, with gangs in control, the country faces an unprecedented crisis and could soon experience a famine.
Haiti has run aground. The streets are owned by heavily armed criminals, while the law enforcement agencies are underequipped, understaffed and unmotivated. Kidnapping is a business model, with more than 1,500 cases recorded in the past 18 months. Any available fuel sells on the black market at more than US$132 a liter. Food is a desperate challenge for most.
To fully understand a nation’s anguish, examine its history. What has been done to Haiti in the name of “the race for wealth” is the deepest wound to the Caribbean.
Christopher Columbus landed in 1492 on the coast of Hispaniola, then called Ayiti and inhabited by the Taino and Arawak people. Columbus renamed the island and claimed it for Spain.
Then the French settled to the west and called it Saint-Domingue. By 1767, sugar, coffee, indigo and cotton were booming for the European economies, as Haiti’s labor accounted for one-third of the transatlantic slave trade.
Inspired by the French Revolution, the enslaved people in 1791 rose in revolt, a struggle that continued for just more than 12 years, despite invasions by the British, Spanish and French, and led to the creation of Haiti, the first independent black republic outside Africa. It was the world’s only successful slave revolt with the indomitable Louverture defeating the Napoleonic armies.
His general, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, authorized a constitution calling for freedom of religion, for all citizens to be known as “black” to dispel color hierarchy, and for white men to be forbidden from possessing property.
In 1825, France, backed by several warships, demanded from Haiti 150 million francs (US$161 million at the current exchange rate) as indemnity for claims over the loss of property during the revolution and, in addition, for diplomatic recognition as an independent state — reparations for the loss of their slaves.
The debt choked Haiti’s economic development as interest mounted. Haiti was forced to take loans from Credit Industriel et Commercial bank, enriching French shareholders.
The remainder of Haiti’s debt was financed by the National City Bank of New York, now Citibank, and, in 1915, then-US president Woodrow Wilson responded to complaints from US banks about Haiti’s debts by invading. Never had a country been invaded for debts owing.
The occupation lasted until 1934, deeply resented by Haitians who staged numerous revolts. France only repealed the debt in 2016, but no reparations were forthcoming, despite being the root cause of Haiti’s decimation.
Haiti has produced a portentous rogues’ gallery of leaders and coups. From 1911 to 1915, there were six different presidents, each either killed or forced into exile.
However, the most notorious in the island’s history was late Haitian president Francois Duvalier or “Papa Doc,” who was elected in 1957. His regime came to be regarded as one of the most repressive in modern history and, after his death in 1971, his son, Jean-Claude Duvalier or “Baby Doc,” presided over Haiti’s further decline as president.
The first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, faced two coups, alleged to be US-backed, and was undone by the second in 2004.
US involvement was seen again in late Haitian president Jovenel Moise, elected in 2016, whose links, along with his predecessor, Michel Martelly, to grand corruption in the Petrocaribe scandal brought unrest and protest again to Haiti’s streets.
That same year, Hurricane Matthew hit the island, causing more than 500 deaths and destruction of more than 200,000 homes. A cholera outbreak was also brought in by UN peacekeepers.
Moise’s presidential term ended in assassination in July last year, followed by another natural disaster the following month when a magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck. It killed more than 2,200 people.
This year has brought more storms and more cholera. Violence has intensified with rival gangs fighting for control in Port-au-Prince’s Cite Soleil neighborhood.
Thousands have been affected, afraid to leave their homes for food or water. Many have been killed by stray bullets. One week in July left 89 dead.
In October, Acting Haitian President Ariel Henry had to plead for the deployment of foreign troops to oppose the gangs and anti-government demonstrations.
Now Haiti is an “aid state,” almost totally dependent on foreign governments and institutions, and remittances from the diaspora. Its underdevelopment can be attributed to corruption and geopolitical manipulation.
The long-suffering, but resilient Haitians have been victims of centuries of corrupt dictatorial governments. The fortunate have fled Haiti, contributing to a debilitating brain drain.
The complicity of the colonists and successive French governments have been fundamental to Haiti’s demise, and the US’ neocolonialist role in enforcing debt repayments and the subsequent 19-year annexation of Haiti’s sovereignty is nothing short of diabolical.
Many believe that Haiti’s problems were ancestral and self-inflicted, but there is more to this story. The propensity of the US to prop up strongmen contributed over and over to the sad state of Haiti, but do not forget the opportunistic siphoning of aid by the very agencies that collected donations from around the world.
What can be done to fix Haiti? The answer lies in forming a government of integrity and substance without allegiance to any gangs. Eradicating Port-au-Prince of the violence means severing existing ties between gangs, politicians and law enforcement. A robust anti-corruption unit with muscle, a reformed police service and legislative arm is fundamental. Aid must be conditional on showing intent to rebuild a modern nation from the ground up.
Yet above all, Haiti cannot be held to ransom by the US’ whims any longer.
In 2013, I traveled to another area of the island and swam in a sulfur spring in the ocean a few meters from shore. I ate the best seafood I have ever had, prepared by the warmest people I have ever met. For that moment this could have been any stable Caribbean island.
This is the Haiti we need to see, a Haiti where the people can finally prosper in peace.
As Rudder sang: “When there is anguish in Port-au-Prince it is still Africa crying ... the middle passage is gone so how come overcrowded boats still haunt our lives?”
Kenneth Mohammed is a freelance writer, Caribbean analyst and senior adviser at Intelligent Sanctuary.
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