Haiti – the lost cause

It is heartbreaking that our iconic, touchstone neighbour, Haiti – the first country to abolish slavery and lead a successful slave revolt – has descended into its present, deep state of crisis.

As I write, violent gangs remain in control of the capital, seeking the sacking of the US-backed present prime minister, having freed thousands of prisoners from their cells. In response, an international force, including Jamaica, Belize and Bahamas is ready to join African forces in a UN-authorised multinational mission to back Haitian police in restoring security.

The country’s violence – 5,000 killed in 2023 – has been perpetual and predictable and, in many ways, has become endemic. After centuries of corrupt government and foreign intervention, the people now live with the unremedied devastation wrought by recent countless hurricanes and earthquakes.

After over 200 years of giving its colonial master, France, its marching orders, the country’s lack of essential infrastructure is shocking – water, roads, schools, medical facilities, sewage – people have no work and generally poor housing.

At least two-thirds of Haiti’s food is imported. Haitians do not even dare to hope that their chronic state of underdevelopment would or could improve. Their country is classed as the poorest in the Western hemisphere and one of the poorest in the world, when, ironically, it was once the richest in the French empire.

One can lose good friends by expressing honestly-held views about Haiti, just as one could about the atrocious goings-on in Gaza. For both, reason is suspended by the sheer weight of history. We want to celebrate the incredible feat of defeating imperial France, but it is hard to accept that what transpires today is a direct result of what ensued in Haiti once power had changed hands in 1791. It was not plain sailing for the legendary Toussaint L’Ouverture once he became governor of Haiti, not internally, nor with Napoleon.

Slavery and empire were violent and so was the forging of the new state created by former slaves. Jean-Jacques Dessalines, L'Ouverture's general, who succeeded him and finally led Haiti to its 1804 independence, was not moderate. He declared himself emperor and oversaw the murder of the remaining French in Haiti after seizing their land.

That may have set the precedent for violent government and the military as a power broker. The country’s de-facto split between a monarchy of former slaves and a republic of elitist free people of colour determined the sociopolitical chaos that has ensued.

The centuries of political in-fighting and corrupt hogging of power have been as damaging to Haiti’s stability and development as the undermining of Haitian self-interest by foreign intervention and genuine international lack of interest in the development of what was widely regarded as a rogue state.

If one were to speculate on why Haiti is such an abject failure economically and politically, from our own experience of self-rule and independence, we must deduce that former slaves would have very little knowledge and no experience of running a country. They probably had little or no exposure to French management systems, which anyway would have been deeply colonial in nature and totally unsuited to the needs of a fledgling, independent country. Trade was almost impossible, since no country was an obvious trading partner and the country was entirely dependent on others for everything except its primary products. It is clear that the Haitian revolution was too far ahead of its time to consolidate the gain.

The French were always notoriously jealous colonisers. Like later on with Algeria, France was unforgiving of Haiti. In 1825 it used force to extract reparations for former French slave owners of 150 million francs, of which France says 112 million was paid – roughly US$560 million in 2022 – in return for recognition of Haiti as a republic. For 125 years Haiti was saddled with that outrageous debt. France also demanded a 50 per cent discount on French goods supplied, depriving Haiti of much-needed revenue for self-development.

We must also add into the mix Haiti’s geographical location – too close to the US. Fearing the influence of the Haitian slave revolution, the US did not recognise Haiti’s independence for over 60 years until its own southern states, with their slave-driven economies had capitulated, but exported more goods to Haiti than to any other country in the Americas, and apparently at exploitative prices.

Then, from 1915-1934, the US occupied Haiti in an attempt to restore political stability after a rapid change of presidents. Academic research shows that after that occupation, the US continued to control Haitian public finances until 1947, keeping 40 per cent of Haiti's national income to repay US loans and reparations to France.

The US occupied it again in the mid-1990s, having earlier established and funded the Haitian National Intelligence Service. It also played an open and major role in Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s removal from office and now in Ariel Henry’s unelected prime ministership, which gang leaders reject in favour of new elections.

The current peacekeeping mission may be international, but for good or ill, Haiti has never really been free of external influence and domination and nothing will change soon.

Haiti’s history seems doomed to repeat itself.