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Haiti under Occupation

Grassroots Haiti
Roundtable Discussion
A.J. Muste Room, 9/16/05
By Daniel SIMIDOR

The Haitian left, Haiti’s grassroots movement and our Committee in particular, are without a doubt opposed to the current occupation of Haiti. But right now, it is mostly a principle that we uphold. No large-scale mobilization is possible or is taking place to put an end to that occupation. The left, and the grassroots movement as a whole, are out of breath, divided and weakened. The masses lack effective leadership, and are overwhelmed by an uninterrupted crisis that involves out-of-control urban violence, aggravated poverty, massive unemployment, the lack of basic services and the high cost of living.
I. Occupation as Relief The current occupation is known by its acronym, MINUSTAH, the UN Mission in Haiti. French and US forces were withdrawn in June 2004 and replaced by a multinational force, primarily from Latin America. Until recently, that international force was led by a Brazilian general who sounded more like a social worker than a military commander.
The Workers World tendency is organizing an inquiry into the occupation’s war crimes next weekend in Washington, but in Haiti the chief complaint about MINUSTAH is that they should be doing more, not less. This is not to deny that crimes have been committed by the occupation forces against the population. But for lack of any protection from the government in place, people want the occupation forces to intervene more forcefully, to neutralize the gangs and to protect them from the police.
MINUSTAH played a very important role in terms of relief work during the two major environmental disasters that rocked Haiti recently. They also provide some basic services – clean streets in some neighborhoods, construction projects, etc. The social worker general I mentioned earlier spoke loudly and repeatedly about the necessity of aid, and that also contributed to the appearance that MINUSTAH is some sort of humanitarian mission, not AN imperialist occupation by proxy.
We also have to look at the occupation in the larger context of what can be called Haiti’s assistance deficit. The country is so depleted and impoverished that it gets by primarily on hand-outs from the so-called international community and on remittances from Haitians abroad. (There is also a very dynamic informal economy.) The three countries that shaped the current occupation, France, Canada and the US, also dangled a $1.4 billion carrot in front of Haiti to make the occupation more palatable. I’m talking about the Interim Cooperation Framework (CCI) that was subsequently reaffirmed in an extraordinary donors conference earlier this year, in Cayenne, French Guiana. The logic was that in order to put a stop to this cycle of interventions and crises, Haiti’s economy had to be shored up with a substantial infusion of funds, in order to rebuild the country’s infrastructure and provide some basic services. But the reality on the ground in Haiti is totally different. The funds come in dribbles only, not enough at any one time to make a real difference. More importantly, the whole CCI framework is primarily designed to enmesh Haiti more effectively into the global economic framework of neoliberalism.
It’s also worth noting that while the country is militarily occupied, Haiti is also confronted with a non-military occupation, primarily through the NGO sector that pretty much functions like a parallel government, and through which much of the so-called international assistance is channeled. I’m not trying to demonize the NGO sector, but merely making the point that in the absence of homegrown state institutions to do the job, the people have been conditioned to rely more and more on various forms of foreign interventions for their basic needs.
II. Occupation by proxy Another aspect of this occupation is the new Pan-Americanism that is infusing the Latin-American subcontinent. The first wind of Pan-Americanism blew during World War II, when the big stick policy was temporarily replaced with a new spirit of cooperation and regional solidarity. Why? Mainly because the bulk of US forces were engaged in the war effort, just like they are engaged today in Afghanistan and in Iraq. There is a new sense that the US model for the region has failed, and that the Latin-American countries, collectively, have to assume more responsibility for what goes on in the region.
At best, this is a challenge to US hegemony, a new spirit of emancipation rising from the bottom up. But in the MINUSTAH case, this spirit of emancipation has been subverted and, perhaps with the best intentions in the world, the governments of Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Argentina have come to assume the role of junior partners for Bush’s plan for the region.
III. Open-ended occupation Behind this OAS and UN screen, France, Canada, and primarily the US, remain actively involved in the occupation. Not too long ago, when Condoleeza Rice took over as Secretary of State, there were some intense discussions about special US combat forces being deployed in Haiti. Last week, it was France’s turn to threaten a deployment of French special police forces. Earlier this week, the Bush administration again raised the need for more troops in Haiti. Meanwhile the UN is talking about a 10-year occupation. Haiti is being used as a laboratory for an open-ended occupation, where various forms of intervention are being tested.
The MINUSTAH scenario is a set-up for failure, mainly because it’s all guns and no carrots. Adolfo Perez Esquivel, the Nobel Peace laureate went to Haiti earlier this year with a delegation, and they came back with to the obvious conclusion that what Haiti needs is not a military occupation, but a different kind of international assistance to help jump start its economic development. But that’s not what the spin-doctors are saying.
If you watched Bill Moyer’s interview on PBS’s “Wide Angle” last week with James Dobbins, former head of peacekeeping operations in Haiti, Somalia, Kosovo and Afghanistan, and now Director of the International Security and Defense Center at the RAND Corporation, you heard the argument being made that Haiti is a failed state, that the world community is growing tired of its recurring crises, but that left to its own devices Haiti is a peril for the region, and that it is therefore of vital interest for the US to assume responsibility once and for all for the crisis that is festering there.
We are at a juncture where the US, and its closest allies, France and Canada, are actively creating public opinion for a new level of operation in Haiti. According to their logic, UN peacekeeping operations and OAS “humanitarian” interventions are fine as stop-gap measures, but nothing short of a full and direct military and nation-building operation, of the Afghan variety, can bring Haiti under control.
The Haitian grassroots movement, the international solidarity movement, and our Committee in particular, have a long way to go in terms of developing a different kind of public opinion against this new colonialism that is confronting Haiti.