Haiti Hurts

#15 Soysauce,

The Battle of Algiers (torture, summary executions and all) was nothing compared to what the FLN did to the Harkis after the French left. Despite their all too obvious flaws, the European colonial powers were never as bad as what followed.

BTW, if the Haitians can sue the French, can the French sue the Haitians for the murder of every single white in Haiti during the slave rebellions?

It`s interesting to watch the administration which claims to promote democracy in the middle east (at the point of the gun) derail democracy in its own backyard. The assistant secretary of state Roger Noriega was assistant to Jesse Helms who hated Aristide with passion, and is now the point man for hemispheric affairs. It appears that he engendered the coup in Haiti of the first democratically elected president in 200 years. Flashback to iran & chile...
It`s amazing that none of the external power brokers - france, canada or US - admonished the ragtag army of ex-soldiers and FRAP remnants, reserving instead all their criticism for Aristide.

#8 macgupta
I also read that haiti is suing france.
Those of you who thought france was somehow a more civilized colonial power (their behavior in india was perhaps a bit civilized), watch the reprint of The Battle of Algiers to see how ruthless they can be. Their behavior vis-a-vis haiti in the latest crisis has been characteristically shameful. Iraq was an exception.

.......... it is extremely ridiculous to accuse america every time the natives riot in some god-forsaken place .......... there are some places on earth that no one can fix - not god and not the us .............. the us was in haiti for more than ten years in the early twentieth century just as the british were in the nwfp for over a hundred years - haitians and pathans are still running amock defecating on the streets and blowing each other up ............. some cultures are incapable of change ................

.............. on the other hand look at germany and japan - they benefitted from occupation because fundamentally they were civilized societies that had gone astray ............ a mustang can be tamed, but you cannot put lipstick on a pig and pass him off as a horse ................

.......... in any case, just like the reverand aristede and nawaz sharif and benazir bhutto, we will see another ``elected`` leader being hounded out of port au prince in another five years and people like ferozk clamoring for america to do something .............. why? ....... i don`t want my tax dollars being wasted on a lost cause - it might be cheaper to bring all the haitians to ny city and put them on welfare ...............

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And Pakistan doesn`t hurt?

The Na Pak fauj has started massacaring Paksitani civilians again as per their 50 year old glorious traditions of genocides and killing Pakistans own citizens. Baywaqoof logo once again we are facing a crisis worst than the debacle of 1971. Time to act and and to speak out is now before its too late.

re: hamidm2 # 4

I have no problems with the United States intervention in Haiti or any where else in the western hemisphere, but on the historic scale United States` interventions have not been fruitful towards the emergence of democractic institutions. Prior to Jean-Bertrand Aristide, there was Baby Doc Duvalier, who also happened to be a worst of sort of dictator and for a long time, he too was tolerated by the United States. Aristide was also tolerated by the United States and it seems that the United States paeans for democracy are hollow.

Interventions and invasions for the sake of democracy and liberation are a slippery slope and once you embark on such a course of action, you have to be consistent and not selective. I still hold the view and tahmed32 bitterly disagreed with me, but Pakistan was a better candidate for United States` indulgence in the March of 2003 than Iraq. We had weapons of mass destruction, we had a non-democratic government and we, as a people, wished for democracy.

The war in 2003 was not about democracy or liberation, but about economic greed and there is nothing wrong in that sentiment, but it would be nice to admit the truth once in a while.

Ciao

Arjun:

``How come i don`t see him and other Iraq war supporters aren`t calling for the liberation of the Haitian people?``

The Haitian people are already liberated. Did you see Saddam on the run coz Iraqi people were bashing up Baathist secret police?


`` Is it because the haitians are black and aren`t worthy of liberation? Isn`t that racist? ``

You ask your own question and derive your own answer. Rather self-serving.

``Where are all those people who called us pro-Saddam because we opposed the Iraq war? ``

Reight here ;)

another banana republic

National Public Radio - I forget which program - had something about Haiti. Haiti was a slave country, and the slaves rose and liberated themselves. Afraid that the notion of freedom for slaves would spread, the US banned Haitians from American shores. And the French plantation owners wanted compensation for their property. In 1825 the French asked the Haitians for 150 million francs as reparations; they asked this with a fleet with five hundred cannon by Haitian shores. The Haitians felt compelled to pay.

That quantity is said to be one year`s economic output of France, and 10 years of that of Haiti. The Louisiana Purchase was made with 64 million frances. A modern estimate of what France extorted from Haiti is 21 billion dollars.

Pakistan today knows what economic distress it undergoes when the national debt approaches the size of its GDP - imagine what having a debt 10 times the GDP is like. And imagine this while having few trading partners.

Most Haitians essentially became bonded labor, tied to the land, in the effort to pay this extortion. The roots of the great divides in Haitian society start from that time. No need to go over more recent history.

The West may shake its head at such places which seem constantly in some trouble or the other; but should accept its responsibility in helping create the problems in the first place.

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..............the marines are landing in port au prince to prevent the natives from burning it down .........once again the americans are trying to save ungrateful third world types from their own stupidity ............... where do we want the poor marines to go next ?....... riyadh or peshawar ? ...........

I think when it comes to protecting other socieities, one cannot put the whole responsibility on the USA. I think the USA, and the rest of the world, combined, need to be blamed for not stepping in to protect Hiati.

I don`t know much about Haiti. But from whatever I have heard on democracynow radio, the USA is actually interested in this revolution (or thuggery, or whatever) succeeding. They are actually supporting the guy who is carrying it out, and are opposed to the current head of Hiati. He was originally supported earlier, at one point, by the USA, though.

So I don`t think the USA is interested in going in to protect him. I do think, the USA will go in, once the current head resigns, to ensure the new guy who comes into power, is provided protection. The situation seems similar, politically, to Georgia. Where the USA supported the revolution, and opposed Sheverdnadze. A coup in Venezveula was supported by the USA, as well, recently. However, the coup-ing powers were overthrown by the people.

So in Haiti, this, ``revolution`` has the US blessing. Why? I have no clue.

ferozek,

......... the haitians kicked out the french more than two hundred years ago ...... the americans have ``intervened`` a couple of times ............ maybe some people are incapable of ruling themselves - the afghans are a prime example ............

............ if america intervened again folks like you will be jumping up and down accusing it of imperialism and whatnot .......... you can`t win for loosing ............

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The combination of generally educated and politically aware public, a democratic government, and hard work is impossible to beat.

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Our masses are uneducated and totally oblivious to the political realities. When most of the population is concerned about earning 30 or 40 rupees at the end of the day to feed the family then awareness is hard to come by.

Our society sufferes from an incurable cancer of corruption and greed. The people at the helm of affairs get there because they have the means to do so. How do you expect an educated, urbane and aware person- not very rich- to make it to the Parliament if he does not have the base and the money to support a campaign...

Hard Work is the last thing on the mind of the nation. We have systematically been trained to find short-cuts to everything and we are so used to it -sometimes taking pride in it - that we really dont want to work hard to get anything.

It is easy to suggest such things Cemendtaur Sahib but hard to put them into practice especially in a country like ours.

We need an overhaul of the system and it can never come organically. It would have to be forced and thrusted upon the people and the system.

The political crisis in Haiti and the American lack of response to it, has created an impression that America is so tied up with its obligations elsewhere, that it has lost all interest in the western hemisphere. France is spearheading the political response to Haiti and that seems to suggest that the Monroe Doctrine is being mooted. American reaction to Haiti was to make sure that no Haitian ended up landing on American shores and that qualified as the American reaction to Haiti and its political problems.

Re: arjun_m # 1

Arjun, I agree with you!

Where have the all the heros gone? Where are all the champions of freedom hiding?

Where are all the people, who were willing to attack a nation half way across the world to bring it democracy and liberation and are not willing to bring democracy and liberate a nation, which is only six hundred miles off the pan handle of Florida! Why are these people silent? Do these people realize that when you wage wars in the name of democracy, you cannot chose your wars, but must fight every where for the sake of freedom? In Iraq, they lied about the weapons of mass destruction and said that the Iraqis will cheer us and in Haiti, there are no weapons of mass destruction, but the people will cheer them!

Remember, Ben Franklin said there are no good wars and there is no bad peace and we opposed the war not because of Saddam Hussein, but because we believed that they were not interested in democracy or freedom or anything they claimed, but were waging a war of greed. Haiti proves we were right and they were wrong and if they think we are still wrong, why is their silence so loud on Haiti and their intentions of action so woefully non-existent?

Ciao

Ciao

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