US-Haiti, An Analysis

By Noam Chomsky

ZNet Commentary - March 9, 2004

http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=5115§ionID=11

Those who have any concern for Haiti will naturally
want to understand how its most recent tragedy has been
unfolding. And for those who have had the privilege of
any contact with the people of this tortured land, it
is not just natural but inescapable. Nevertheless, we
make a serious error if we focus too narrowly on the
events of the recent past, or even on Haiti alone. The
crucial issue for us is what we should be doing about
what is taking place. That would be true even if our
options and our responsibility were limited; far more
so when they are immense and decisive, as in the case
of Haiti. And even more so because the course of the
terrible story was predictable years ago — if we
failed to act to prevent it. And fail we did. The
lessons are clear, and so important that they would be
the topic of daily front-page articles in a free press.

Reviewing what was taking place in Haiti shortly after
Clinton "restored democracy" in 1994, I was compelled
to conclude, unhappily, in Z Magazine that "It would
not be very surprising, then, if the Haitian operations
become another catastrophe," and if so, "It is not a
difficult chore to trot out the familiar phrases that
will explain the failure of our mission of benevolence
in this failed society." The reasons were evident to
anyone who chose to look. And the familiar phrases
again resound, sadly and predictably.

There is much solemn discussion today explaining,
correctly, that democracy means more than flipping a
lever every few years. Functioning democracy has
preconditions. One is that the population should have
some way to learn what is happening in the world. The
real world, not the self-serving portrait offered by
the "establishment press," which is disfigured by its
"subservience to state power" and "the usual hostility
to popular movements" - the accurate words of Paul
Farmer, whose work on Haiti is, in its own way, perhaps
even as remarkable as what he has accomplished within
the country. Farmer was writing in 1993, reviewing
mainstream commentary and reporting on Haiti, a
disgraceful record that goes back to the days of
Wilson’s vicious and destructive invasion in 1915, and
on to the present. The facts are extensively
documented, appalling, and shameful. And they are
deemed irrelevant for the usual reasons: they do not
conform to the required self-image, and so are
efficiently dispatched deep into the memory hole,
though they can be unearthed by those who have some
interest in the real world.

They will rarely be found, however, in the
"establishment press." Keeping to the more liberal and
knowledgeable end of the spectrum, the standard version
is that in "failed states" like Haiti and Iraq the US
must become engaged in benevolent "nation-building" to
"enhance democracy," a "noble goal" but one that may be
beyond our means because of the inadequacies of the
objects of our solicitude. In Haiti, despite
Washington’s dedicated efforts from Wilson to FDR while
the country was under Marine occupation, "the new dawn
of Haitian democracy never came." And "not all
America’s good wishes, nor all its Marines, can achieve
[democracy today] until the Haitians do it themselves"
(H.D.S. Greenway, Boston Globe). As New York Times
correspondent R.W. Apple recounted two centuries of
history in 1994, reflecting on the prospects for
Clinton’s endeavor to "restore democracy" then
underway, "Like the French in the 19th century, like
the Marines who occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934, the
American forces who are trying to impose a new order
will confront a complex and violent society with no
history of democracy."

Apple does appear to go a bit beyond the norm in his
reference to Napoleon’s savage assault on Haiti,
leaving it in ruins, in order to prevent the crime of
liberation in the world’s richest colony, the source of
much of France’s wealth. But perhaps that undertaking
too satisfies the fundamental criterion of benevolence:
it was supported by the United States, which was
naturally outraged and frightened by "the first nation
in the world to argue the case of universal freedom for
all humankind, revealing the limited definition of
freedom adopted by the French and American
revolutions." So Haitian historian Patrick Bellegarde-
Smith writes, accurately describing the terror in the
slave state next door, which was not relieved even when
Haiti’s successful liberation struggle, at enormous
cost, opened the way to the expansion to the West by
compelling Napoleon to accept the Louisiana Purchase.
The US continued to do what it could to strangle Haiti,
even supporting France’s insistence that Haiti pay a
huge indemnity for the crime of liberating itself, a
burden it has never escaped - and France, of course,
dismisses with elegant disdain Haiti’s request,
recently under Aristide, that it at least repay the
indemnity, forgetting the responsibilities that a
civilized society would accept.

The basic contours of what led to the current tragedy
are pretty clear. Just beginning with the 1990 election
of Aristide (far too narrow a time frame), Washington
was appalled by the election of a populist candidate
with a grass-roots constituency just as it had been
appalled by the prospect of the hemisphere’s first free
country on its doorstep two centuries earlier.
Washington’s traditional allies in Haiti naturally
agreed. "The fear of democracy exists, by definitional
necessity, in elite groups who monopolize economic and
political power," Bellegarde-Smith observes in his
perceptive history of Haiti; whether in Haiti or the US
or anywhere else.

The threat of democracy in Haiti in 1991 was even more
ominous because of the favorable reaction of the
international financial institutions (World Bank, IADB)
to Aristide’s programs, which awakened traditional
concerns over the "virus" effect of successful
independent development. These are familiar themes in
international affairs: American independence aroused
similar concerns among European leaders. The dangers
are commonly perceived to be particularly grave in a
country like Haiti, which had been ravaged by France
and then reduced to utter misery by a century of US
intervention. If even people in such dire circumstances
can take their fate into their own hands, who knows
what might happen elsewhere as the "contagion spreads."

The Bush I administration reacted to the disaster of
democracy by shifting aid from the democratically
elected government to what are called "democratic
forces": the wealthy elites and the business sectors,
who, along with the murderers and torturers of the
military and paramilitaries, had been lauded by the
current incumbents in Washington, in their Reaganite
phase, for their progress in "democratic development,"
justifying lavish new aid. The praise came in response
to ratification by the Haitian parliament of a law
granting Washington’s client killer and torturer Baby
Doc Duvalier the authority to suspend the rights of any
political party without reasons. The law passed by a
majority of 99.98%. It therefore marked a positive step
towards democracy as compared with the 99% approval of
a 1918 law granting US corporations the right to turn
the country into a US plantation, passed by 5% of the
population after the Haitian Parliament was disbanded
at gunpoint by Wilson’s Marines when it refused to
accept this "progressive measure," essential for
"economic development." Their reaction to Baby Doc’s
encouraging progress towards democracy was
characteristic - worldwide — on the part of the
visionaries who are now entrancing educated opinion
with their dedication to bringing democracy to a
suffering world - although, to be sure, their actual
exploits are being tastefully rewritten to satisfy
current needs.

Refugees fleeing to the US from the terror of the US-
backed dictatorships were forcefully returned, in gross
violation of international humanitarian law. The policy
was reversed when a democratically elected government
took office. Though the flow of refugees reduced to a
trickle, they were mostly granted political asylum.
Policy returned to normal when a military junta
overthrew the Aristide government after seven months,
and state terrorist atrocities rose to new heights. The
perpetrators were the army - the inheritors of the
National Guard left by Wilson’s invaders to control the
population - and its paramilitary forces. The most
important of these, FRAPH, was founded by CIA asset
Emmanuel Constant, who now lives happily in Queens,
Clinton and Bush II having dismissed extradition
requests — because he would reveal US ties to the
murderous junta, it is widely assumed. Constant’s
contributions to state terror were, after all, meager;
merely prime responsibility for the murder of 4-5000
poor blacks.

Recall the core element of the Bush doctrine, which has
"already become a de facto rule of international
relations," Harvard’s Graham Allison writes in Foreign
Affairs: "those who harbor terrorists are as guilty as
the terrorists themselves," in the President’s words,
and must be treated accordingly, by large-scale bombing
and invasion.

When Aristide was overthrown by the 1991 military coup,
the Organization of American States declared an
embargo. Bush I announced that the US would violate it
by exempting US firms. He was thus "fine tuning" the
embargo for the benefit of the suffering population,
the New York Times reported. Clinton authorized even
more extreme violations of the embargo: US trade with
the junta and its wealthy supporters sharply increased.
The crucial element of the embargo was, of course, oil.
While the CIA solemnly testified to Congress that the
junta "probably will be out of fuel and power very
shortly" and "Our intelligence efforts are focused on
detecting attempts to circumvent the embargo and
monitoring its impact," Clinton secretly authorized the
Texaco Oil Company to ship oil to the junta illegally,
in violation of presidential directives. This
remarkable revelation was the lead story on the AP
wires the day before Clinton sent the Marines to
"restore democracy," impossible to miss - I happened to
be monitoring AP wires that day and saw it repeated
prominently over and over — and obviously of enormous
significance for anyone who wanted to understand what
was happening. It was suppressed with truly impressive
discipline, though reported in industry journals along
with scant mention buried in the business press.

Also efficiently suppressed were the crucial conditions
that Clinton imposed for Aristide’s return: that he
adopt the program of the defeated US candidate in the
1990 elections, a former World Bank official who had
received 14% of the vote. We call this "restoring
democracy," a prime illustration of how US foreign
policy has entered a "noble phase" with a "saintly
glow," the national press explained. The harsh
neoliberal program that Aristide was compelled to adopt
was virtually guaranteed to demolish the remaining
shreds of economic sovereignty, extending Wilson’s
progressive legislation and similar US-imposed measures
since.

As democracy was thereby restored, the World Bank
announced that "The renovated state must focus on an
economic strategy centered on the energy and initiative
of Civil Society, especially the private sector, both
national and foreign." That has the merit of honesty:
Haitian Civil Society includes the tiny rich elite and
US corporations, but not the vast majority of the
population, the peasants and slum-dwellers who had
committed the grave sin of organizing to elect their
own president. World Bank officers explained that the
neoliberal program would benefit the "more open,
enlightened, business class" and foreign investors, but
assured us that the program "is not going to hurt the
poor to the extent it has in other countries" subjected
to structural adjustment, because the Haitian poor
already lacked minimal protection from proper economic
policy, such as subsidies for basic goods. Aristide’s
Minister in charge of rural development and agrarian
reform was not notified of the plans to be imposed on
this largely peasant society, to be returned by
"America’s good wishes" to the track from which it
veered briefly after the regrettable democratic
election in 1990.

Matters then proceeded in their predictable course. A
1995 USAID report explained that the "export-driven
trade and investment policy" that Washington imposed
will "relentlessly squeeze the domestic rice farmer,"
who will be forced to turn to agroexport, with
incidental benefits to US agribusiness and investors.
Despite their extreme poverty, Haitian rice farmers are
quite efficient, but cannot possibly compete with US
agribusiness, even if it did not receive 40% of its
profits from government subsidies, sharply increased
under the Reaganites who are again in power, still
producing enlightened rhetoric about the miracles of
the market. We now read that Haiti cannot feed itself,
another sign of a "failed state."

A few small industries were still able to function, for
example, making chicken parts. But US conglomerates
have a large surplus of dark meat, and therefore
demanded the right to dump their excess products in
Haiti. They tried to do the same in Canada and Mexico
too, but there illegal dumping could be barred. Not in
Haiti, compelled to submit to efficient market
principles by the US government and the corporations it
serves.

One might note that the Pentagon’s proconsul in Iraq,
Paul Bremer, ordered a very similar program to be
instituted there, with the same beneficiaries in mind.
That’s also called "enhancing democracy." In fact, the
record, highly revealing and important, goes back to
the 18th century. Similar programs had a large role in
creating today’s third world. Meanwhile the powerful
ignored the rules, except when they could benefit from
them, and were able to become rich developed societies;
dramatically the US, which led the way in modern
protectionism and, particularly since World War II, has
relied crucially on the dynamic state sector for
innovation and development, socializing risk and cost.

The punishment of Haiti became much more severe under
Bush II — there are differences within the narrow
spectrum of cruelty and greed. Aid was cut and
international institutions were pressured to do
likewise, under pretexts too outlandish to merit
discussion. They are extensively reviewed in Paul
Farmer’s Uses of Haiti, and in some current press
commentary, notably by Jeffrey Sachs (Financial Times)
and Tracy Kidder (New York Times).

Putting details aside, what has happened since is
eerily similar to the overthrow of Haiti’s first
democratic government in 1991. The Aristide government,
once again, was undermined by US planners, who
understood, under Clinton, that the threat of democracy
can be overcome if economic sovereignty is eliminated,
and presumably also understood that economic
development will also be a faint hope under such
conditions, one of the best-confirmed lessons of
economic history. Bush II planners are even more
dedicated to undermining democracy and independence,
and despised Aristide and the popular organizations
that swept him to power with perhaps even more passion
than their predecessors. The forces that reconquered
the country are mostly inheritors of the US-installed
army and paramilitary terrorists.

Those who are intent on diverting attention from the US
role will object that the situation is more complex —
as is always true — and that Aristide too was guilty
of many crimes. Correct, but if he had been a saint the
situation would hardly have developed very differently,
as was evident in 1994, when the only real hope was
that a democratic revolution in the US would make it
possible to shift policy in a more civilized direction.

What is happening now is awful, maybe beyond repair.
And there is plenty of short-term responsibility on all
sides. But the right way for the US and France to
proceed is very clear. They should begin with payment
of enormous reparations to Haiti (France is perhaps
even more hypocritical and disgraceful in this regard
than the US). That, however, requires construction of
functioning democratic societies in which, at the very
least, people have a prayer of knowing what’s going on.
Commentary on Haiti, Iraq, and other "failed societies"
is quite right in stressing the importance of
overcoming the "democratic deficit" that substantially
reduces the significance of elections. It does not,
however, draw the obvious corollary: the lesson applies
in spades to a country where "politics is the shadow
cast on society by big business," in the words of
America’s leading social philosopher, John Dewey,
describing his own country in days when the blight had
spread nowhere near as far as it has today.

For those who are concerned with the substance of
democracy and human rights, the basic tasks at home are
also clear enough. They have been carried out before,
with no slight success, and under incomparably harsher
conditions elsewhere, including the slums and hills of
Haiti. We do not have to submit, voluntary, to living
in a failed state suffering from an enormous democratic
deficit.