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HAITI, OCCUPIED AGAIN

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MONTEVIDEO, Oct 4 2011 (IPS) - Look it up in any encyclopedia: what was the first free country in the Americas. The answer is always the same: the United States. But the United States declared its independence when it was a nation with 650,000 slaves that remained slaves for another century and their constitution originally held that a black slave counted as only three-fifths of a citizen.

And if you consult any encyclopedia to find out what was the first country to abolish slavery, the response will always be the same: England. Not true: the first country to abolish slavery was not England but Haiti, which is still paying penance for that sin.

The black slaves of Haiti defeated the glorious army of Napoleon Bonaparte, and Europe never forgave it for this humiliation. Haiti was forced to pay France a gigantic indemnity over a century and a half for the crime of its liberation, but not even this was enough. That black insolence continues to rile the white masters of the world.

*** We know little or nothing of all this.

Haiti is an invisible country.

The first time the world media paid attention was when the earthquake of 2010 killed over 200,000 Haitians. Tragedy catapulted the country briefly into the media limelight.

And so today Haiti is known not for its historic achievements in the war against slavery and colonial oppression or for the unique talent of its artists, magicians of scrap who can transform refuse into things of beauty.

It is worth repeating again so that even the deaf will hear: Haiti was the first independent country of the Americas and the first in the world to defeat slavery.

It deserves far more than the notoriety that blooms on disaster.

***

At present, the armies of many countries, including my own, continue to occupy Haiti. How was this military invasion justified? By claiming that Haiti was a danger to international security.

Nothing new there.

Throughout the 19th century, the example of Haiti was seen as a threat to the security of all countries that continued to practice slavery. Thomas Jefferson said it: Haiti was the source of the plague of rebellion. In South Carolina, for example, it was legal to imprison any black sailor while his boat was in port because of the risk that he might infect others with the anti- slavery contagion. In Brazil, this plague was actually called Haitianism.

In the 20th century, Haiti was invaded by the Marines for being an unsafe country for its foreign creditors. The invaders started by taking over customs operations, seized the National Bank of Haiti and turning it over to City Bank of New York. And since they were there already, they decided to stay another 19 years.

*** The border crossing between the Dominican Republic and Haiti is called Malpaso, the bad step.

Perhaps the name is a sort of warning that you entering the black world of black magic and witchcraft.

Voodoo, the religion that the slaves took with them from Africa and nationalised in Haiti, does not deserve to be called a religion. From the point of view of the owners of Civilisation, voodoo is just a black thing, the product of ignorance, backwardness, and pure superstition. The Catholic Church, which has no shortage of believers ready to sell the fingernails of saints and feathers of archangel Gabriel, worked to get this superstition officially prohibited in 1845, 1860, 1896, 1915, and 1942, but the people just didn’t get the message.

But for a number of years now, Christian evangelical groups have taken up the war against superstition in Haiti. They come from the United States where buildings do not have 13th floors, airplanes have no row 13, and a significant percentage of the people believe that God made the earth in seven days.

In the US, evangelical preacher Pat Robertson explained the 2010 earthquake with the revelation that Haitians’ victory over France was the result of voodoo, because they sought the help of Satan deep in the heart of the Haitian woods. The devil helped them out but then caused the earthquake to even the score.

***

How many years will foreign soldiers stay in Haiti? They came to stabilise the situation and provide assistance but they have spent seven years destabilising and hampering aid efforts in a country that doesn’t want them there.

The military occupation of Haiti is costing the United Nations more than 800 million dollars a year.

If the UN directed these funds towards technical cooperation and social solidarity, it might provide Haiti with a real push to develop its own creative energies and so save the people from their armed saviours, who have a tendency to rape, kill, and spread fatal illnesses.

The last thing Haiti needs is people to multiply its disasters. Nor does it need anyone’s charity. As an old African proverb put it, the hand that gives is always above the hand that receives.

But Haiti does need solidarity, doctors, schools, hospitals, and real collaboration that will make it possible to regain its ability to feed itself, which was destroyed by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and other philanthropic organisations.

We Latin Americans owe Haiti this solidarity: it would be the best way to thank this great small nation that in 1804 threw open the doors of liberty for us with its contagious example. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

(*) This article is dedicated to Guillermo Chifflet, who was forced to leave the Chamber of Deputies for having voted against sending Uruguayan soldiers to Haiti.

(*) Eduardo Galeano is a Uruguayan writer and journalist and author of ”The Open Veins of Latin America”, ‘Memories of Fire” and “Mirrors/An Almost Universal History”.

 
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