NEWS & LETTERS, October - November 2009
Black/Red View
Haiti's terrorist army
by John Alan
As John Alan is ill, we are reprinting his column from May 1992. It remains a significant description of the relations between Haiti and U.S. imperialism, now with the addition of UN troops aiding in the repression of Haiti's people.
Haiti has not been a top story in the news in recent weeks. According to Haitians living in the U.S. with contacts in Port-au-Prince, Haiti is still a fearful place to live. The army and the police continue to persecute people believed to be supporters of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. And the OAS (Organization of American States) economic embargo is a cruel farce; it does nothing to hurt the army and the wealthy, but is creating a near famine among poor Haitians.
As for the negotiations between the National Assembly and Aristide for his return to power, there is no movement. The army leaders have veto power over the negotiations and are adamant in their opposition to Aristide's army "reform" proposal.
With last September's bloody coup in mind and the continuing arrogance of the army's leadership, it's time that we take a brief look at the history of the Haitian army. Why has it been a source of political power ever since the U.S. Marines left Haiti in 1934?
First, it is obvious that the Haitian army does not exist to defend Haiti against an external military force. And second, while the army can't be separated from the existing class relations in Haiti, it remains clear that its original role as the Garde, i.e., the U.S. Marine-trained predecessor to the current army, was for Haitians to fight other Haitians. During the U.S. occupation the Garde participated in joint action with the Marines against peasant nationalists, killing at least 6,000 peasants led by Charlemagne Peralte and Batraville. Another 5,500 peasants died in forced labor camps the Garde ran for the occupiers.
These figures are only the official estimates; no one knows the exact number of Haitians killed and executed by the Marines and the Garde. The record of the 1921 U.S. Senate hearings on the massacre of Haitians is filled with details of atrocities.
If one digs into the history of the development of the Haitian army, only one conclusion emerges: it has played an objective role in establishing U.S. hegemony in Haiti.
There is nothing new in the U.S. practice of setting up puppet armies to terrorize indigenous peoples in the Caribbean and Central America. However, the Haitian army is unique; it is the oldest and largest puppet army in the Caribbean and has long been the pathway to power for a succession of dictatorial presidents, including Francois Duvalier. Duvalier played internal politics with generals to establish his personal hegemony over the army, but now neither he nor his son Jean-Claude Duvalier is around; only the army remains.
The present stalemate between the totalitarian army and the forces of liberal reform has brought Haiti to a crossroads in history that could go either way. The masses of Haitian people could impose their own solution by uprooting the army or "reform" could be imposed from the outside.
In the U.S. Senate, Bob Graham is recommending that George H. W. Bush get the so-called democratic governments of this hemisphere to organize a multinational "peacekeeping force to assure Haitian stability." The key word is "stability," meaning that they don't want the masses to engage in their own self-determination.
The trouble with outside "liberation" is that it is limited to the goals of the "liberators." It is hard to believe that Senator Graham's idea of "liberation" is the same as that of a worker getting low wages in an American-owned firm in Haiti.
The absolute opposition to the Haitian army comes from the Haitian masses who want to uproot the army, which is an outpost of American imperialism. If the Haitian masses did that, it would be a great historic leap; precisely the type of historic leap that their slave ancestors made when they translated "The Rights of Man" to mean self-emancipation and rose up in revolt against their French slave masters.
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