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Why the US Owes Haiti Billions – The Briefest History
Why does the US owe Haiti Billions? Colin Powell, former US Secretary of State, stated his foreign policy view as the "Pottery Barn rule." That is - "if you break it, you own it."
The US has worked to break Haiti for over 200 years. We owe Haiti. Not charity. We owe Haiti as a matter of justice. Reparations. And not the $100 million promised by President Obama either - that is Powerball money. The US owes Haiti Billions - with a big B.
The US has worked for centuries to break Haiti. The US has used Haiti like a plantation. The US helped bleed the country economically since it freed itself, repeatedly invaded the country militarily, supported dictators who abused the people, used the country as a dumping ground for our own economic advantage, ruined their roads and agriculture, and toppled popularly elected officials. The US has even used Haiti like the old plantation owner and slipped over there repeatedly for sexual recreation.
Here is the briefest history of some of the major US efforts to break Haiti.
In 1804, when Haiti achieved its freedom from France in the world's first successful slave revolution, the United States refused to recognize the country. The US continued to refuse recognition to Haiti for 60 more years. Why? Because the US continued to enslave millions of its own citizens and feared recognizing Haiti would encourage slave revolution in the US.
After the 1804 revolution, Haiti was the subject of a crippling economic embargo by France and the US. US sanctions lasted until 1863. France ultimately used its military power to force Haiti to pay reparations for the slaves who were freed. The reparations were 150 million francs. (France sold the entire Louisiana territory to the US for 80 million francs!)
Haiti was forced to borrow money from banks in France and the US to pay reparations to France. A major loan from the US to pay off the French was finally paid off in 1947. The current value of the money Haiti was forced to pay to French and US banks? Over $20 Billion - with a big B.
The US occupied and ruled Haiti by force from 1915 to 1934. President Woodrow Wilson sent troops to invade in 1915. Revolts by Haitians were put down by US military - killing over 2000 in one skirmish alone. For the next nineteen years, the US controlled customs in Haiti, collected taxes, and ran many governmental institutions. How many billions were siphoned off by the US during these 19 years?
From 1957 to 1986 Haiti was forced to live under US backed dictators "Papa Doc" and "Baby Doc" Duvlaier. The US supported these dictators economically and militarily because they did what the US wanted and were politically "anti-communist" - now translatable as against human rights for their people. Duvalier stole millions from Haiti and ran up hundreds of millions in debt that Haiti still owes. Ten thousand Haitians lost their lives. Estimates say that Haiti owes $1.3 billion in external debt and that 40% of that debt was run up by the US-backed Duvaliers.
Thirty years ago Haiti imported no rice. Today Haiti imports nearly all its rice. Though Haiti was the sugar growing capital of the Caribbean, it now imports sugar as well. Why? The US and the US dominated world financial institutions - the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank - forced Haiti to open its markets to the world. Then the US dumped millions of tons of US subsidized rice and sugar into Haiti - undercutting their farmers and ruining Haitian agriculture. By ruining Haitian agriculture, the US has forced Haiti into becoming the third largest world market for US rice. Good for US farmers, bad for Haiti.
In 2002, the US stopped hundreds of millions of dollars in loans to Haiti which were to be used for, among other public projects like education, roads. These are the same roads which relief teams are having so much trouble navigating now!
In 2004, the US again destroyed democracy in Haiti when they supported the coup against Haiti's elected President Aristide.
Haiti is even used for sexual recreation just like the old time plantations. Check the news carefully and you will find numerous stories of abuse of minors by missionaries, soldiers and charity workers. Plus there are the frequent sexual vacations taken to Haiti by people from the US and elsewhere. What is owed for that? What value would you put on it if it was your sisters and brothers?
US based corporations have for years been teaming up with Haitian elite to run sweatshops teeming with tens of thousands of Haitians who earn less than $2 a day.
The Haitian people have resisted the economic and military power of the US and others ever since their independence. Like all of us, Haitians made their own mistakes as well. But US power has forced Haitians to pay great prices - deaths, debt and abuse.
It is time for the people of the US to join with Haitians and reverse the course of US-Haitian relations.
This brief history shows why the US owes Haiti Billions - with a big B. This is not charity. This is justice. This is reparations. The current crisis is an opportunity for people in the US to own up to our country's history of dominating Haiti and to make a truly just response.
(For more on the history of exploitation of Haiti by the US see: Paul Farmer, The Uses of Haiti; Peter Hallward, Damming the Flood; and Randall Robinson, An Unbroken Agony)
- Posted in
82 Comments so far
Show AllYep, owes billions figuratively. The problem with taking the statement literally is that the US literally owes billions all over the world. From a Canadaian perspective, I can never understand why when LBJ slapped Prime Minister Pearson, our PM didn't just "kick him back in the b----" ???
i've always maintained the position that by any rough estimate, let alone tracing every single "dollar" accrued towards American Power and Affluence....
if the USA REALLY were to pay what it REALLY owes the rest of the world for its affluence....
the USA TODAY
would be a a FOURTH WORLD country. every single american family down on its knees in abject poverty and begging to be "forgiven" for the "US NATIONAL DEBT" -- regardless of who they are , whether they are part of the entire sorry US Scheme of enriching itself at other nations' expense or not.
if the USA were to pay back what it owes, on a list of people it has stolen from -- from the Native Indians, to the africans that were enslaved...to nations invaded, economies destroyed or undermined....plus all the consequences of its meddling and empire building......
the USA would be in so deep a hole of indebtedness -- so deep - it can't be IMAGINED to EVER extricate itself out of it.
Billions? it would be TRILLIONS -- and not JUST in mere TENS of trillions - it would be HUNDREDS of TRILLIONS of Dollars and even - when all the 'dividends' are counted....
quite likely - in some mathematical calculation - be in the QUADRILLIONS of dollars of indebtedness to countries and people everywhere
as a result of what John Perkins - Former CIA "economic hitman" -- defines as:
the growth of an Empire that is a "very very vicious sytem of exploitation that Dehumanizes and Enslaves People Everywhere".
THAT AMERICAN SYSTEM - would be owing the world so much - that if AMERICANS really HAD to be MADE to pay it back - they will not see SEVERAL GENERATIONS before they can even BEGIN to COUNT how much they really owe.
Canada's hands are not exactly clean when it comes to Haiti's recent history. Also, from the perspective of the First Nations, I don't think there would be much of a difference between the USA and Canada.
and yet obama sends in shrub bush and clinton to "help"....
It's all of a piece with everything the corporate/military/Wall Street toady does. Use a natural catastrophe to give a boost to the lie that the smug "stars" of the power elite are actually the "big guns" and that they (as embodiments of beneficent big brotherism or "paternalism", if you like) will bring the glow of U.S. "can do" to the less fortunate of the world.
Of course, if anything actually is done, Bush and Clinton will have little to do with it. A real leader would have drafted someone with actual demonstrated administrative and organizational ability and made it clear why and that we meant business.
But, ha ha, who would even think of that happening now? It's a game to protect and advance global interests and to maintain a decrepit facade. That's all it is. My loathing of Obama grows daily.
Are you saying that USan elites are exploiting the Haitian catastrophe to help cultivate delusions of non-existent integrity in the eyes of their 300 million captive consumption slaves? It wouldn't be the first.
Mostly that the real exploitation takes place under layers of delusion, one of which is the conflation of smiling (or smirking) front men with the illusion of benevolent and efficient power for the good. It's old, it's tired, much of the world knows it's bullshit; but it's still effective on the "captive consumption slaves" who are trained to think in the simplest and most cartoonish terms.
Obama is like a hackneyed comic in a smoky, disreputable club who is blathering the same old schtick that everyone has heard a hundred times before. The old routines still evoke a faint reaction in the flaccid veins of the crowd.
What a loser.
start a list. without even going through the details in cents and dollars -- just a very rough list:
how much would the USA OWE for destroying economies, futures, landgrabs, corporate malfeasance, the Manipulative Dollar hegemony...wars, toppling popularly elected regimes elsehwere, provoking wars and instabilities..."sanctions"..it arms sales escalations, its war machinery competition..its capitalism's fancy "financial products" and "solutions" and "prescriptions"......etc?
list as many:
philippines, vietnam, laos, cambodia, nicaragua, honduras, chile, peru, colombia, panama, brazil, argentina, venezuela, mexico, guam, okinawa, japan, china, pakistan, afghanistan, iraq, iran, saudi arabia, yemen, kenya, nigeria, congo, south africa, palestine, ukraine, other former "soviet" republics, russia itself, north AND south koreas, indonesia, india, etc....
are the people of such countries through generations such IDIOTS for becoming POOR?
are they so UNWISE ?
the USA had NOTHING to do with suppressing THEIR national independence and prosperity?
hey teddy:
what about us, the US citizens, don't we count? At least 90% of us was robbed and by whom? The very same people who profited in other countries did the same to us since the taking got smaller over the past 100 years or so. And who are these gifted people, well as every one knows they're very connected with politicians and were able to screw our whole financial system by using MIT mathematicians and PHD's from other disciplines ending with our latest financial calamity. But just to be safe they were able to talk our politicians into allowing brokerage houses and investment houses to become full service banks, thereby qualifying to get to our tax money for a quick bail out. Just to be fair, actually all banks were in cahoots with the above mentioned article.
El Salvador, Cuba, Haiti. Even larger more powerful countries like Brazil have allowed USan exploitation thugs in to ravage the Amazon. USan foreign policy toward every state on the globe is geared toward USan corporate exploitation of that state's natural and human resources, including its soldiers for the task of oppressing its people. While USan elites busily work to concoct/implement ever-evolving foreign exploitation rackets, USan media busily work to keep the USan consumption slaves distracted with material opiates. Sugar Plums from Sugar Daddy.
why is the Shrub in Haiti?
To see what he can steal, I suppose.
lord_buckley: Yeah, and maybe both he and Clinton (especially Clinton) will be able to get in a spot of "sexual recreation" while they are there.
To do his 'Katrina trick'.
I hate to say it, but something is wrong with President Obama. Why is he sending the man who was leading our country when the CIA deposed and exiled Betrand Aristide. Does he not have any sense of history. My thinking is that the president was solicited by these past presidents who had the authority to help haiti become self-sufficient. It's funny how quick they are to want to get involved when haitian diplomats had to beg our leaders to do something about the murderous junta. And then bush took away the elected leader that clinton helped to restore to power. And now they are paying lip service about how this is not politics. Tell that to the haitians who have been victimized for so long now. If haitians had a self sustaining economy then the major disaster would have been much less destructive.
“You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.”
-Abraham Lincoln-
Great article.
Unfortunately, the perspective on the U.S. and Haiti that is spoonfed to the American public through our mass media is epitomized by a cartoon that ran yesterday in my local daily newspaper (The Gainesville (FL) Sun), a subsidiary of the New York Times. It's by syndicated cartoonist Nate Beller, and carries the caption "Helping Hand in Haiti." It's a split cartoon, one side showing the post-equake rubble and labellel "Act of God," the other side labelled "Act of Humanity" and shows an Uncle Sam figure reaching out to a hand that extends from that rubble. You can see the cartoon here:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/NateBeelerToons/Helping-Hand-in-Haiti-81619267.html
So there you have it; the quake is God's work, the humanitarian relief effort is the work of the U.S.A. Without degrading that effort (I've contributed some money myself), I'm wondering how many Americans will turn a blind eye and deaf ear to information and rhetoric like Quigley presents in this article, reassuring themselves that, since they and other Americans are contributing so much to the relief of Haiti, we could not possibly be responsible in any way for what "God" did to the country.
I was waiting for an article like this. I'm sure progs will adopt this articles line and it shall carry them to electoral victory.
Is that all that matters?
Billy Hall and guess who: I wasn't sure whether to take guess who's comment as satire or as a serious political analysis. But no matter, the electoral consequences of the quake and of any reaction to it is certainly not "all that matters." What really matters is that we begin NOW to address the U.S. neo-liberal and imperial domination of the world for the force for world-destructiveness that it is. I'm not too worried right now about who will ride what in the next election, but that we use whatever resources and knowledge and will we have to make of the Haitian earthquake a "teaching moment" to learn and teach about what the inequities of our foreign policy hath wrought.
The author alludes to one of the major reasons Haiti should NOT be turned into the latest "Tourist destination" hot spot.
With that as a key industry those rich white men from Canada and Europe will be flying down to "The Plantations" to live as the owners did 200 years ago.
The LAST thing the people of Haiti need is to depend on the Dollars of Rich tourists.
Localize. Thier constitution once forbid the foreign ownership of proeprty until "Uncle Sam" forced them to change it.
No foreign ownership. All of the land "The Commons". Small farms and people back on the land. Any industry is small and locally owned and controlled by the people themselves. Keep out the sweatshops.
The problem is SHOULD they go this route as they tried to in the past, the USA will back another coup.
Maybe they need Nukes.
A good open letter to David Brooks, regarding his fantastically paternalistic NYT column a couple days ago, is here:
http://blog.ijdh.org/haiti_justiceblog/2010/01/
an-open-letter-to-david-brooks-on-haiti.html
You can add your name to the letter (add yout name to the BOTTOM row of the spreadsheet) here:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AqKfDWgRAVV3dFZBZHlNSG90T25fSEp2UE9vSEZxTkE&hl=en
Is everybody OVER Oblabla now?! Sheesh.
Better he had turned to Dr. Gupta, General Honore, and Aristide than to Gates, Bush and a brace of Clintons.
from "The Haitian Tragedy and Mainstream Media Response"
kiilunyasha.blogspot.com (scroll down past fotos):
"Pres. Obama has pledged $100 million in aide to Haiti days after its worst disaster ever with a climbing death toll of tens of thousands, severe and life-threatening injuries, incalculable suffering, no infrastructure, no food, water, electricity, shelters, or even tents with some three million homeless. True to form, mainstream pundits are praising
Obama’s contribution. I was not impressed, so I decided to find out what $100 million will buy, with the help of my assistant, Nedzada. We discovered that Obama threw a party that cost $50 million more than he’s sending to Haiti. Yup! He spent $150 million on his Inaugural Ball."
See also:
"I frankly think it would have been very tough for any part of the American government to respond more quickly," Gates said Friday. "I think State and USAID have done a terrific job." [Heckuva job, Brownie.]
Retired general [Honore]: U.S. aid effort too slow
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-01-15-general-criticizes-response_N.htm
Doctors Without Borders Cargo Plane With Full Hospital and Staff Blocked From Landing in Port-au-Prince
Demands Deployment of Lifesaving Medical Equipment Given Priority
http://doctorswithoutborders.org/press/release.cfm?id=4165&cat=press-release&ref=home-center
Doctors Without Borders Relief Plane Not Allowed Into Port-Au-Prince
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7017546193
Well stated, teddy, but a bit simplistic.
You give the Untied [sic] States impossible powers. History is a web or even a vibration of competing and shared interests.
There is reason in the biblical discussion of "the sins of the fathers" as well as the seven-year forgiveness of debt.
Are you Moses, in Egypt?
-30-
I don't give the USA "impossible powers".
I simply put simply what is OBVIOUS.
that the USA has used its "powers" to enrich itself beyond its EARNED right or justifications.
and an example of this is with haiti - whose poverty we are again witnessing as a LEGACY of the "powers" that the USA had used to enrich itself at the expense of others.
in direct relation to the way the USA has "extended" its powers, in fact, overseas - such as for example, in ensuring that the WIll of the US CHAMBER OF COMMERCE is obeyed such as in destroying the livelihoods of countless Haitians (just for one country as example) - such as DUMPING US Government subsidized rice and sugar against which small producers and farmers in haiti could not compete (similarly in mexico, and elsehwere) -
THAT "impossible power" is actually VERY REAL AND regularly exercised by the USA
which americans OF COURSE are led to believe is PURELY or LARGELY "out of good old american industriousness"....
when in fact, it is nothing of the sort, nothing about American "hard work" being GREATER than that of anohter human being elsewhere -- but simply a SYSTEMIC and methodical imposition of imperial POWER against a weaker neighbor to remove from that neighbor ITS own natural rights to exercise ITS power to be independent and in that independence experience its RIGHTFUL prosperity from the labor of its own people and the resources of its own land.
THE USA uses its "impossible power" in a very, very real way:
THE TAKE AWAY other nations' rights to their own prosperity.
and THEN come in after having laid all the conditions for DISASTERS - AS IF the USA is some "savior"....rather than the INSTIGATOR and IMPOSER of the disasters.
"True generosity consist precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity. False charity constrains the fearful and subdued, the 'rejects of life,' to extend their trembling hands. True generosity lies in striving so that these hands-whether of individuals or entire peoples-need be extended less and less in supplication, so that more and more they become human hands which work and, working, transform the world." - Paulo Friere "Pedagogy of the Oppressed"
These words must be remembered by progressives as we all dig to give. As Quigley and many of the posters prove - the West owes far more than it can ever pay for what it has taken from the people of Haiti. Our task now is to help Haitians renew and carry to completion the revolution begun in 1804 so that hands which tremble now can transform the world.
Boyd Collins: beautifully stated, great quote from Friere.
Of course. False charity is the modus operandi of all tycoons from Rockefeller to Carnegie to Warren Buffett to Bill Gates. It's the capitalist way.
Getting people to give of anything but their abundance is very difficult in a country that runs on greed and fear.
What is the size of your carbon footprint?
Chop 25% off NOW, save the money and give the money to the poorest people in your town. That would really change the world.
ANYONE having more than 5 million dollars of net worth should give the excess away. Half measures is what got us to where we are now so, with all due respect to your kind heart, which I do honestly admire, most people in our country don't listen to exhortations to behave decently. Only force will change that.
"Haiti was forced to borrow money from banks in France and the US to pay reparations to France. A major loan from the US to pay off the French was finally paid off in 1947. The current value of the money Haiti was forced to pay to French and US banks? Over $20 Billion - with a big B."
Paid off in 1947 by a US loan? The French made Haiti pay for the loss by slave owners up until it was paid off by a US loan in 1947? And, you're ragging on the US for reparations. Bill, you got a screw or two loose.
I suggest you read that sentence more carefully. It doesn't say the US paid off the French in 1947. It says the loan FROM the US, used by Haiti to pay off the French, was finally paid off by them (Haiti) in 1947. Haiti began payments to the French in 1825.
Who cares; the French still got "their" money?
You were dismissing the idea of US reparations to Haiti because you thought the US had paid off the French for them. That is not the case.
I'm pretty sure that appointing the Duke and the Dauphin to symbolically head US relief efforts to Haiti wasn't Obama's first choice.
Obama probably felt forced to pick Bill and Dubya after he was informed that the Duvaliers themselves were no longer available.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Actually, Obama wanted Kissinger or "sharp pencil" Cheney but they were busy.
On January 14, 2010, Amy Goodman interviewed Bill Quigley about the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti. In addition, Juan Gonzalez reported that Cuba, China and Venezuela were already in Haiti with equipment, food, medicine, etc. At that time, the Obama administration was still assessing the situation.
www.democracynow.org/2010/1/14/us_policy_in_haiti_over_decades
Most of you probably watched the program.
Turn Haiti into a model country! Get the world's best thinkers, builders,planners, etc. to create a country that has an economy, trees, rebar structures, trade unhampered by the IMF and the World Bank--i.e. allow it to protect (tariff) it's commodities.
Empower it's people to run the place--not the wealthy who run/ruin the place now. Bringing back Aristide(too populist for the US) would be a good first step.
Of course it will take tons on money. Since France and the US worked hard to enfeeble the country (Jefferson was afraid that the slave revolts in Haiti would encourage the slaves to revolt in the US so he punished the Haitians,as did France, as did Rush Limbaugh)--it is only right that these countries help build a new self-sustaining Haiti!
Quigley is clearly pissed and exasperated. And he's right. Unfortunately, the US, as usual, has used a disaster to justify even more military presence in Haiti, the better to further exploit Haitian workers. That's how it goes, until we in the US decide that our capitalist imperialist government sucks, and has to be overthrown.
I'm glad someone else used the R word.
Just now on PRI the lady reporter said she saw the police order four unarmed men to stand in a cemetery, then the four were shot dead. When she inquired of the police, they said the four were escaped prisoners and this was the best way to handle the situation. As 4,000 prisoners were released when the prison walls crumbled, we can count on at least this number of summary executions.
Keep in mind that over 3,400 were political prisons who had never been in court. For over 2,000 such summary executions have taken place in Haiti each year since the CIA military coup dictatorship was installed in 2004.
Obedient Servant writes:
"Obama probably felt forced to pick Bill and Dubya after he was informed that the Duvaliers themselves were no longer available."
In furtherance of His mad cow disease, or whatever it is, the Obama party feasted last night on ... veal (remember the White House dog's veal birthday cake?).
Next week, a nice plate of crow.
bligh4
These "You owe because of ______ 100 years ago" arguements are annoying.
Bill somehow forgot to mention that HAITI brutally invaded and occupied the Dominican Republic- siphoning off most of the wealth of that country and suppressing the population after a twenty something year occupation.
My, what big teeth you have, grandma.
And what an appropriate handle!
Talk to Stan Goff. He will explain Haiti to you.
This story brings tears to my eyes. Who could do this and still consider themselves brothers of mankind. There are many people who wear christian clothes, but think up and perform acts that are not christian. Any way this article shows the level to which the haitian leadership has been dis-empowered. The story is about the way American hog farmers used the government to get haitian pigs out of the way so that american pigs could be introduced. The results were disastrous. That is why you have the two former presidents coming out now. It is a two pronged attack. 1. Appear to be compassionate 2. Keep a lid on any discussion on why the haitians find themselves in such a condition. Such a sorry commentary in these times.
I regret to opine that articles like these are wholly incompatible with our monarch's philosophy of Moving Forward.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Hey all you progressive gays that like to party with boys in Haiti, it's time to come clean and admit you have abused Haitians to your advantage for decades. How can you go down there and bang those kids and then return to your well paid jobs in the states and continue to ignore the poverty that forces the Haitians to sell themselves to you?
Don't tell me that Haiti isn't a gay mecca because your secret orgy ass land has been out for quite some time.
Hypocrites!
Good , VERY much needed points.
it is often reported that haiti has a very high degree of AIDS infections.....
would at least SOME americans - enjoying their "weekends" of hedonism at least admit that THEY may have been the ORIGINAL CARRIERS of AIDS - where probably -- with a few more DOLLARS to dangle in front of very poor, hungry boys and girls in Haiti , they have been getting away with doing what they wanted ...and have "unprotected sex"..and SPREAD the disease there?
after all - that is also a well-known western-spread fact in asia.
x
yes. the AIDS problem in Haiti is due to "progressive gays" from America spreading it about. it's nothing to do with Roman catholicism being the 80% majority religion, or widespread illiteracy.
way to perpetuate the "affluent gay" stereotype, too, AGG and teddy. because gays are a widely-acknowledged coddled elite in America. -_-; oh, and the "sexual predator" stereotype, because you can totally have it both ways.
Right on. brother. Between over one hundred years of French colonialism and imperialism in Haiti (see 150,000,000 French francs extorted from Haiti in 1825 to "allow" their independence (not paid off until 1947; by 1900, the Haitian gov't was giving 80% of its revenues to the French gov't) and 107 years of US imperial intervention (US support of Haiti dictators, greedy Haitian ruling class and allowing US corporations to do whatever they pleased in their exploitation of the Haiti people), the Haitian people have not had much of a chance to enjoy the natural fruits of life. Read your history books and read Common Dreams articles. We and the French owe the Haitians about twenty billion dollars to make up for our long-term thefts.
witness2truth writes:
"The story is about the way American hog farmers used the government to get haitian pigs out of the way so that american pigs could be introduced. The results were disastrous. That is why you have the two former presidents coming out now."
Hopefully they eat each other all up. Pigs do that, sometimes.
Haitians are resourceful and compassionate people. Unlike the descriptions of some reporters and televangelists. Restore power to President Betrand Aristide and stop all sweatshop policies that keep the people in bondage. If the Commondreams viewers and contributors would be so grateful to view this: http://www.documentaryphotographs.com/haiti01.html