Haiti Gets No Respect
Haiti Gets No Respect
Junious Ricardo
Stanton
Recent
images of US Border Patrol Agents interacting with Haitian immigrants caused
shock and stir when juxtaposed against images of Afghani refugees being
shuttled onto waiting US military transport planes to he brought to the US and housed courtesy of the US government
and taxpayers. The rationale is that these people need to be recued because
they collaborated with the US
during the US/NATO occupation of that nation in what had become the United States
longest running war. President Biden took heat for his handling of the Afghanistan
withdrawal and the fact he left an unknown number of Americans in the country.
People see
how the US is bending over backwards to accommodate the Afghan refugees and the
stark contrast to the way Black Haitians are being treated as they also try to
forge a better life for themselves and their families by coming to America.
On Friday
the US Secretary of Homeland
Security Alejandro Mayorkas appeared at a press conference to provide an update
on the situation in Texas.
He stated the images of the border patrol appearing to beat the Haitians with
horse reins was “not who we are and are not our values.” He stated all the
migrants had been removed from the Del Rio area
some were processed and returned to Haiti while others were being taken
care of until their future fates could be determined.
People
around the world were outraged at the images of the US Border Patrol agents’
interactions with the Haitians. On
social media there were comparisons to how enslaved Africans were treated in
the US
during slavery and the actions of the US Border Patrol agents. Neither is a
good look especially when you consider the abysmal relationship between the US and Haiti going back to the
establishment of that Republic in 1804.
Haiti’s defeat of France
sent shockwaves throughout the Western Hemisphere especially the US slavocracy which was heavily dependent upon
slave labor to generate the workforce and profits that would make the US the
envy of the world. The resilience of the Haitian people to stave off subsequent
attempts by France, other
European countries as well as the United States to recolonize and
re-enslave it has led to formal ostracism, crippling debt and odious “reparations”
payments being imposed upon the island nation by the West. It’s as though the
Western imperialists will never forgive Haiti for defeating them and
casting off their shackles and chains.
On July 7,
2021 Jovenel Moise the unpopular President of Haiti was assassinated in a brazen
attack on his home. There are alleged links between the assassins and the U.S., “Several of the men involved in the
assassination of Haiti's President previously worked as US law enforcement informants, according to
people briefed on the matter, as US
investigators grapple with an increasing number of Florida links to the alleged hit squad. Haitian
President Jovenel Moise was killed last Wednesday in an operation that Haitian
authorities say involved at least 28 people, many of them Colombian mercenaries
hired through a Florida-based security company. At least one of the men
arrested in connection to the assassination by Haitian authorities previously
worked as an informant for the US Drug Enforcement Administration, the DEA said
in a statement in response to CNN.” Several tied to Haitian assassination plot
were previously US
law enforcement informants – Evan Perez https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/12/americas/haiti-assassination-plot-us-law-informants/index.html
The US has been
directly or indirectly involved in all the intrigue and mischief on the island
for over a century. “Between 1911 and 1915, seven presidents were assassinated
or overthrown in Haiti,
increasing U.S.
policymakers’ fear of foreign intervention. In 1914, the Wilson
administration sent U.S. Marines into Haiti. They removed $500,000 from
the Haitian National Bank in December of 1914 for safe-keeping in New York, thus giving the United States control of the bank.
In 1915, Haitian President Jean Vilbrun Guillaume Sam was assassinated and the
situation in Haiti
quickly became unstable. In response, President Wilson sent the U.S. Marines to
Haiti
to prevent anarchy. In actuality, the act protected U.S. assets in the area and
prevented a possible German invasion. The invasion ended with the Haitian-American Treaty of 1915.
The articles of this agreement created the Haitian Gendarmerie, essentially a
military force made up of U.S.
citizens and Haitians and controlled by the U.S. Marines. The United States gained complete control over
Haitian finances, and the right to intervene in Haiti whenever the U.S. Government
deemed necessary.” US invasion and occupation of Haiti 1915-1934 https://history.state.gov/milestones/1914-1920/haiti
In addition
to invasion and occupation the US
maintained indirect control over Haiti by propping numerous
dictators. The US
government, multinational corporations and oligarchs have been involved in all
the intrigue on the island either directly or indirectly for decades. “Through
framing Haiti
as a nation that lies outside modernity and progress, its only hope is through
developmental aid from former colonizers, international lending agencies, the
United Nations (UN), and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). These
global “civil servants” provide development strategies that are amenable to their
own economic self-interest. Neoliberal economic policies, odious debts,
despotic regimes, and the overthrow of democratic governments are the result of
this neocolonial order. Through racial narratives that project Haitians as
existing outside modernity, and through neocolonial influences in all phases of
Haitian life, Haitians are subject to global institutions that remove their
agency and replace it with dependency”. From De to Post to Neo-colonization: A
brief history of Haiti’s
occupations Jason D. MacCleod https://www.jasondmacleod.com/de-to-post-to-neo-colonization-history-haiti%E2%80%99s-occupations/
There is
more to the Haiti
situation than meets the eye.
-30-
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