Haiti and the Dominican Republic were originally one island, named Hispaniola (“Little Spain”) by the invading Spanish. The western third was ceded to France in 1697 and became Haiti. The Dominican Republic remained under Spanish rule.
I include some details on the Dominican Republic in the next section, but we will focus on Haiti which has been under the control of the U.S. since the invasion of Haiti in 1903, 120 years ago.
In a subsequent chapter – “National Prosperity” – we will observe the advances, or rather the lack of them, that have been made by the people of Haiti while under the protection of the beneficent invader.
Haiti, prior to the arrival of Europeans was first colonized by Carib and Arawak tribes from other parts of the Americas.
1514 – Spanish Conquistadoes murder 285,000 Hispaniolans. Only 14,000 remain after the genocide, disease and slave labour in the Spanish Gold Mines.
1697 – Haiti created and becomes a French colony.
1791-1804 – After 13 years of war, Toussaint Louverture leads the most successful slave revolt in history and establishes Haiti as independent republic, the second in the region after the U.S.
The Republic is born in ruins, with towns burned down, estates destroyed, and the people exhausted by war.
Three years before Haiti succeeds in overthrowing the French, the U.S. start to show an interest in foreign expansion. 1800 marks the year of the first U.S. Marine landing. By 1900, there have been eight U.S. Marine landings in the independent Republic.
1903 marks the year of the first full U.S. invasion and subsequently, 19 years of military occupation.
1918 – 40,000 Haitians rebel and overcome the local Police, but the rebellion is put down with U.S. Marine reinforcements.
1922 – U.S. install Dictator Louis Borno who oversees concentration camps and torture, along with forced labour to expand American economic interests in crops for export. Workers were shackled in chains and unpaid. Roosevelt proudly writes Haiti’s constitution for them, ensuring that Haitian land may now be bought by foreigners.
1957 – U.S. client “Papa Doc” Duvalier elected. Haiti becoming a byword for poverty, repression and the notorious Tontons Macoutes, Papa Doc’s private army. U.S. aid for the Duvalier dictatorship continued at about $70 million per year right through until the fall of Baby Doc 30 years later.
1971 – Papa Doc passes his brutal legacy to Baby Doc.
1985 – 40,000 have fled Haiti in the last 6 years.
1986 – The Duvalier dictatorship falls. Baby Doc embezzles $900 million as he flees into exile.
1994 – U.S. invasion to install Jean Bertrand Aristide.
To argue the claim that U.S. intervention is an act of benevolence to assist the Haitian people would require a great deal of denial of the factual record, and of looking the other way. Such an unusually bold claim might be supported by a previous example of U.S. benevolence in another State somewhere else in the Caribbean. We search in vain. It is clearly apparent from the record that there is no theoretical point in Third World history or geography where U.S. interference becomes benevolent.
An apologist for U.S. atrocities may cite increased Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to show the positive effects of U.S. intervention. Unfortunately for the apologist, as we shall see, the increase in GDP co-incides with a decrease in living standards as experienced by the ordinary population and as measured by increasing levels of infant mortality, illiteracy, malnutrition and deaths from preventable diseases. These are the true indices of whether living standards are improving.
There is no contradiction between increased GDP and decreased living standards – you only have to think about whose pocket swallows the increased GDP. More GDP for the foreign corporations means less for the people. Increased beef production together with decreased local consumption has been cited as an example of this. During the potato famine in Ireland in the 1840s it was the same. There was no shortage of food, the problem was that while the potatoes failed, the beef was being exported abroad.
Economic growth may mean a few more jobs in the Corporation, and this is of course how the idea of Economic Growth is peddled to us globally. But while those few with the new jobs gain a few dollars more, the general population lose their living standards. This is the well-concealed downside of economic growth when it is exported from the host country onto the worldwide Stock Exchanges.
And so twenty five years later in 2020, after I wrote the above paragraphs, I return to the subject of Haiti. The earthquake of 2010 was the moment when the world looked on to see whether the US would help. And in characteristic fashion, they did.
The decisions were made not by the Haitian Parliament but by the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission of which the 12 Haitian members complained that they were a token presence, only there to rubber stamp the decisions of ex-US President Bill Clinton and international partners.
And so we see huge investment in the creation of Caracol, a huge container port in the north that only required the removal of hundreds of local farmers in order to be built. It was financed with loans that will be repaid by the people of Haiti for decades, if not centuries, to come. Cotton is shipped in and cheap labour ships cheap clothes out. The benefits are solely for international capital not for Haitians, and certainly not for its farmers.
Haitians may have clear ideas about how the land and resources should be worked and owned but they are not in control of their country even though they have an elected Parliament. We see yet again that there is a problem with the neighbours. And again we can conclude that before anything can change at home, that the problem of the neighbours must be addressed.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
If not in Haiti then maybe the character of U.S. participation in the affairs of the Dominican Republic may be completely different. Let’s take a look.
1844 – The Dominican Republic gains Independence from European colonialists.
1916 – Invasion by U.S. Marines, met by guerilla resistance until 1921.
1920 – The Land Registration Act. Mass dispossession in its clearest manifestation. Thousands of farmers who occupied the land, but without formal written titles, are stripped of their land. It is handed over to sugar companies whose false titles to the land are legalised by the Act.
The U.S. arm, train and appoint the Officers of the new national Police Force, the National Guard, who are used by Rafael Trujillo to install himself as Dictator in 1930.
1924 – Election of U.S. favourite General Lejara. U.S. troops withdraw with U.S. controlling $33.7m of the property, the Dominicans less than $1.4m. U.S. retain control over Dominican tax revenues.
1930 – Dictator Trujillo and his U.S.accomplices in the National Guard seize power in a coup.
1937 – Trujillo kills 15-20,000 Haitians to prevent “Africanisation” of population.
1960 – Trujillo owns 65-85% of the economy, irritating the Americans. He is assassinated in a CIA-sponsored coup.
1962 – Juan Bosch elected. U.S. aid drops to zero. U.S. undermine labour and agrarian reforms. Bosch secures loans from the Swiss. Refuses Esso bid to build oil refinery.
1963 – Juan Bosch ousted in coup. Military dictatorship (again). U.S. recognise Donald Reid Cabral’s new regime as legitimate government.
1965 – Bishop of Santiago reports 70% of peasants live on the border of starvation.
1965 – Constitutionalist coup to restore Bosch. 23,000 U.S. troops invade to “protect Americans”, and oust Juan Bosch for not selling plantations to U.S. companies.
Fraudulent election to legitimise the invasion. Death squads, torture, repression, poverty, malnutrition, slave labour conditions. Mass emigration increased, as did U.S. investment opportunities. Subsequent “free and fair” elections the following year establish U.S. favourite Balaguer, the usual tactic being to remove the opposition to allow the favourite to stand unopposed, or to stand against another pro-U.S. candidate to offer the electorate a “choice”.
1966-67 – Agricultural union ‘Sindicato Unido’ broken by police action and its leaders, including Union Lawyer Guido Gil, were arrested and killed by the forces of law and order.
1975 – Juan Bosch says … “This country is not pro-American, it is United States property.
1985 – Church based group report 20% of population live in absolute poverty. Central Bank report 90% malnutrition. 54% illiteracy. 63% earn less than minimum monthly wage of $58.
As I write in 2021, The U.S. continue their support for corrupt and authoritarian leaders, usually offering a choice of two in an election. Elected leaders of a less U.S.-flavoured persuasion are routinely removed on trumped-up charges that later prove false. As we shall see in Brazil and Bolivia, this is not an uncommon strategy for removing elected leaders who displease the United States. In 2016, Transparency International lists the Dominican Republic as having the highest bribery rate in the Caribbean.
In 1985, and again in 2003, imposed IMF austerity measures spark riots.
We see yet again the evidence for continual U.S. interference in the sovereign affairs of other nations. Enormous donations to support its preferred candidates, including their latest favourite Luis Abinader, the Americans’ most loyal ally in their fight against Iran.
And the outcome for ordinary Dominicans amidst this struggle for U.S. control of the region? Infant mortality in 2020 is 21/1000 live berths, as bad as Guatemala.