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| Posthumous 1813 painting of Louverture (Figure & Caption Source) |
The Trotskyist Fraction--Fourth International (FT-CI, for some reason they use the Spanish acronym in an English language newspaper) has posted a thundering proclamation about Haiti entitled Declaration: End Imperialist Intervention in Haiti, Solidarity with the Haitian People. The Declaration is authored by a whole raft of acronyms, to wit:
The following is a declaration from Left Voice in the United States, the MTS in Mexico, the LTS in Venezuela, and the OSR in Costa Rica — all part of the Trotskyist Fraction-Fourth International (FT-CI) — in the face of a new stage of military intervention in Haiti. It is a call for international solidarity with the Haitian people.
The errors begin at the top. Here is the lede paragraph.
The forces of U.S. imperialism, the United Nations, and ally countries like France are preparing a new colonial military intervention in Haiti called the “Multinational Security Support Mission.” These are the very powers that have brought Haiti to unprecedented levels of political crisis and social chaos, as a result of recurring foreign military occupations, imperialist plunder, and support for local power groups and business elites.
Assuming there is such a thing as "US imperialism", then it's weird that it's so dedicated to destroying Haiti. In our Comrades imagination, "US imperialism" is a conscious entity whose primary mission is to screw people over--presumably just for the fun of it. They certainly aren't in it for the money--Haiti's contribution to global GDP rounds to about zero, and it's not worth the cost of sending even a single soldier. Plundering from zero results in zero profit.
The Comrades blame "foreign military occupations" for the turmoil. I think they have this wrong. It is the absence of "foreign military occupations" that leads to chaos--not their presence. The reason the foreigners have left Haiti is not because the Haitians are such doughty fighters against "colonialism," but rather because there is no feasible payback from any continued occupation. Who the hell needs Haiti's problems!?
Haiti's history boasts one world-class genius (Toussaint L'Ouverture), followed by a long succession of illiterate and semi-literate thugs. Toussaint, born a slave, taught himself how to read and write French and as a teenager read the literature of the French Revolution. His goal was not "decolonization," but instead, in the spirit of the Revolution, to end slavery and to gradually (as they became literate) admit the former slaves as citizens of France. Toussaint understood that without French literacy and government, Haiti had no chance of becoming a civilized, modern country. He absolutely did not want independence.
The French, defeated militarily, captured Toussaint by deceit and locked him in a jail up the French mountains, where he froze to death in 1803. Absent their genius leader, his mostly illiterate lieutenants went on a murderous rampage killing all white people and driving the survivors into exile. And so--as Toussaint predicted--Haiti cut itself off from the rest of the world. The country, stuck in poverty, has been led to this very day by a succession of thugs and tyrants. Among the first was the execrable "King Henry," who brutally forced the former slaves back into slavery to build himself a palace named Sans Souci.
And it's only gone downhill from there, relieved only by occasional and intermittent foreign occupations to enforce some law and order. Far from causing Haiti's problems, it's the so-called "imperialists" who at least temporarily ameliorated them. Our Comrades have the story precisely backwards.
The best thing that could happen to Haiti right now would be an invasion by the US Marine Corps. That would put a quick end to the gangs and the riots, and the people of Haiti could get back to earning a living. But the Marine Corps ain't coming--they'd get too much pushback from the Progressive Left--including our Comrades in the FT-CI--that it wouldn't be worth the hassle. So instead the US is now asking for United Nations "peacekeeping troops" from Kenya, of all countries.
The Kenyans may be fine people, and Kenya at least has a semi-stable government--albeit 7500 miles away from Haiti. But the problem with poorly trained soldiers a long way from home, supervised by the corrupt and inept United Nations, is one ends up with results graphically described by our Comrades:
These interventions include the 13 years of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) from 2004 to 2017, during which UN “peacekeeping” troops committed atrocious violations of human rights, sexual exploitation, at least 2,000 reported cases of sexual assault against women and minors, as well as the killing of 30,000 Haitians as a result of the introduction of cholera into the country’s most important river in 2010.
While cholera probably "introduces" itself without any help from the UN, the rest of what they say is certainly true. The UN mission was a disaster.
The Comrades won't have any trouble convincing me that the UN is not a force for good in the world. This is most recently illustrated in Gaza, where UN employees actively participated in the murder of Israeli civilians on Oct. 7th. Which makes the UN at least partially culpable for the disaster that's happened since.
Haiti is beset by street gangs--which our Comrades describe this way:
Haiti’s gangs — a legacy of the dictatorship of François Duvalier and later his son Jean-Claude, who oversaw the emergence of the paramilitary “tonton macoute” — won ground with the help of Haiti’s economic and political elite. In recent years, they have increasingly acted autonomously, through kidnappings and arms smuggling, with the support of different sectors of Haiti’s elite that depend on them as paramilitary security forces of social containment. These gangs act with the implicit consent of the police, carrying out murders, rapes, and lynchings in order to quell social unrest and rebellion.
Haiti’s elite are the ones who have maintained historic links with organized crime, oftentimes with the complicity of imperialist forces; indeed a great part of the military arsenal that the gangs depend on comes in large part from the United States. Some of these influential figures have positions in the “transitional council” and have well-known ties to the gangs.
Street gangs appear spontaneously when there is a breakdown in law and order. They almost always evolve from kin and clan loyalties, and thus are often neighborhood or geographically based. I'm surprised the Comrades think they are evil. After all, in our country Left Voice and the FT-CI advocate for the abolition of the police and for community control of law and order. "Community control" is just another word for street gangs.
More, the Haitian gangs released around 5000 prisoners, which our Comrades should be very happy about. It's a great example of decarceration, which they enthusiastically support.
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I think our friends have this precisely backwards. After all, it's Mr. Barbeque who has all the guns. It's fanciful to think he works for the unarmed, overweight and effeminate elites. Most likely it's the "elites" who are victimized, being extorted and robbed blind by the gangs. The "imperialists," whoever they are, just sit by and scratch their heads.
The Declaration ends with a list of demands. I'll list them here, with my comments in italics.
- For the right to self-determination of the Haitian people! Haiti needs law & order before they can even think about "self-determination."
- No to imperialist military intervention! Yes to a disciplined force that can defeat the gangs and restore law & order.
- Out with colonial imperialism in Latin America and the Caribbean! I still don't know who these supposed "imperialists" are.
- Down with the IMF and the World Bank! What!? The IMF lends money to poor countries. They also issue a so-called "reserve currency" known as special drawing rights. It's useless monopoly money that has no impact on the world economy. The IMF is both harmless and useless. Ditto for the World Bank.
- For a socialist Haiti within the framework of a Federation of Socialist Republics of Latin America and the Caribbean! Absolutely! And I'm for the Tooth Fairy and her army of Free Unicorns!
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