Haiti: a Slave Revolution

Haiti A Slave Revolution IH 200 years after 1804 Edited and Compiled by Pat Chin, Greg Dunkel and Kim Ives International Action Center New York 2004 TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface: Why This Book Editors v Acknowledgments ix Timeline xi Haiti’s Agonies and Exaltations Ramsey Clark 1 Photo Essay on Haiti selected by Pat Chin 17 Part I – Haiti in History 35 Thank You Dessalines Félix Morriseau-Leroy 37 Haiti Needs Reparations, Not Sanctions Pat Chin 43 Haiti’s Impact on USA—what ‘voodoo economics’ & high school textbooks reveal Greg Dunkel 47 Cuba, Haiti and John Brown—to rebel is justified Sara Flounders 61 Lecture on Haiti Frederick Douglass 67 The Birth of the Haitian Flag—its heroic history Fleurimond W. Kerns 99 U.S. Embargoes against Haiti—from 1806 to 2003 Greg Dunkel 105 Part II – Aristide’s Election 109 The Only Way Paul Laraque 111 Interview with Ray Laforest—Haitian trade union organizer Johnnie Stevens 113 Crushing Victory for Aristide—Despite Bazin’s maneuvers Haïti-Progrès Staff 121 Carter Tries To Intimidate Aristide Haïti-Progrès Staff 125 Aristide: The People’s Candidate —Barricades road against Macoutes Haïti-Progrès Staff 129 Part III – After the Coup 135 Exile Is Stale Bread Paul Laraque 137 The Real Objectives of the Occupation Ben Dupuy 139 Behind the U.S. Rhetoric on Haiti Sam Marcy 151 Tenth Department Haitians Massively Mobilize Greg Dunkel 157 Part IV – After the Second U.S. Occupation 163 Reign of a Human Race Paul Laraque 165 No Greater Shame Edwidge Danticat 167 Fear & Loathing in Haiti—Aristide’s second inauguration Stan Goff 175 Class Analysis of a Crisis Kim Ives 189 Haiti: A Political and Class-conscious People Maude LeBlanc 195 Haitian Struggle for Freedom Mumia Abu-Jamal 197 Review of a Review: Answering recent distortions Kim Ives 199 Struggle of Haitian workers—alliance with USWA Local 8751 Steve Gillis & Frantz Mendes 207 Bibliography 207 Author Biographies 215 Index 219 PREFACE: WHY THIS BOOK Editors For nearly a decade, the Haiti Support Network {HSN) has supplied practical help to progressive groups in Haiti by building support for them here in the United States. We have held meetings, film showings and speaking tours, written articles, sent delegations to Haiti, appeared on radio shows and produced a yearly newsletter. As the bicentennial of Haiti’s independence approached, we con- sidered how to commemorate this singular event in the history of the world, the successful revolution in Haiti against the French slave owners. Just holding a meeting or a series of meetings didn’t seem to be enough. So we decided to write a book to mark Haiti’s 200 years of struggle against racism and colonialism, to mark the only time slaves managed to rise up, break their chains and set up a new state and social order that reflected some of their aspirations and hopes. Over the years, the HSN has frequently used the facilities of the International Action Center (IAC) for a meeting or work session and they enthusiastically agreed to work with us to mark Haiti’s bicentennial by publishing, promoting and distributing this book. The mainstream press and the politicians say they celebrate the bicentennial of the world’s first Black republic and its achievements. But they explain its poverty and political instability by pointing to “poor leadership,” a lack of “democratic traditions” and isolation due to ge- ography and language. This book is going to combat 200 years of racist indoctrination and propaganda about the Haitian Revolution. It is essential to challenge these stereotypes in order to build true, informed solidarity with Haiti. Chapters in this book point out how the United States and other imperialist powers like France and Germany have persecuted, exploited and from time to time, occupied Haiti and how the Haitian people have resisted by any means possible. At least half of Haiti’s population in 1790 were killed before 1812 and still the Haitian people won. They crushed France’s genocidal attempt to re-enslave them by crushing Napoleon’s army. This hard-won vi Haiti: A Slave Revolution victory meant Haiti was a beacon of hope and inspiration to enslaved African people of the United States, even after they obtained their freedom. Frederick Douglass, the famous Black abolitionist who was the U.S. consul in Port-au-Prince in the 1880s, expressed this clearly in a speech, included in this book. This book is not a traditional history of Haiti. It’s a people’s history. We link historical events to current realities and show a continuity of oppression and resistance. This book exposes some little known and carefully hidden history. For example, how the slave-owning George Washington got his slave-owning secretary of state Thomas Jefferson to send $400,000—a vast sum at the time—to support the slave-owners of Haiti in their vain attempt to put down the revolt. We connect this, the first significant foreign aid the United States ever granted, to the millions the U.S. gave Marc Bazin, a former World Bank Official, to run against Aristide in his first campaign. The Jefferson-Washington grant and the money granted to Bazin are the historical precedents for the funds the International Republican Institute gives to fund the so-called Democratic Convergence, which opposes the current Aristide government. We include the explanation given by Ben Dupuy, the leader of the National Popular Party, of why the United States invaded Haiti in 1994. We have an analysis of the huge demonstrations that the Haitian com- munity in the United States held to protest the coup against Aristide, police brutality and how they were stigmatized using the AIDS hyste- ria. These were not just demonstrations, they were also one-day strikes. Since this is a people’s history, we have a diversity of voices. Edwidge Danticat, a well-respected Haitian-American author, has a chapter on how Haitian refugees are detained in Florida. Stan Goff, who served in the U.S. Army’s Special Forces during the 1994 occupation of Haiti and was moved to condemn this occupation in his book Hideous Dream, wrote a chapter on Aristide’s second inauguration. Fleurimond W. Kerns, a columnist for Haïti-Progrès, points out in his chapter on the birth of the Haitian flag that the Congress of Arcahaie in 1803 was the occasion when the more privileged sectors in the Hai- tian revolution put themselves under the command of the most op- pressed. Former U.S. Attorney-General Ramsey Clark, who is the founder of the IAC and investigated the 1991 coup as a member of the Haiti Commission, has an overview of Haitian history. We were very happy when Local USWA 8751, representing Bos- ton school bus drivers, a union which is 75% Haitian, contributed a Preface vii chapter about how the struggle that the Haitian working class in the diaspora has waged against racism and U.S. colonialism has been part and parcel of the local’s daily activity. We hope the translations from two of Haiti’s most celebrated poets— Paul Laraque and the late Félix Morisseau-Leroy—will give the reader an impression of the Creole language’s beauty and imagery and how Haitian poets raise political themes. We could not cover every aspect of Haitian history we would have liked: for example, Haiti’s intervention in the Dominican Republic, which ended slavery there; the cacos’ struggle against the U.S. occupation from 1916 to 1922; the mass uprisings against the U.S. occupation in the late ’20s and early ’30s. We wanted to focus on the impact Haiti has and has had on the United States. We hope this book builds a better understanding of Haiti’s impor- tance in the history of this hemisphere, and indeed, the world. Pat Chin, Greg Dunkel, Kim Ives Notes If a chapter appeared earlier in another publication, we put the date when it appeared at the beginning of the chapter and the publication where it appeared at the end. We indicate the translator for chapters that earlier appeared in French or Creole. We spell the last name of Toussaint Louverture the way he did; a com- mon alternative is L’Ouverture. We italicize all the quotes from Creole that are used in this book. We use the word “voodoo” to refer to a religion in Haiti that is called and spelled “vodou” in Creole because we want to examine the contexts in which this word is used in North American English. Here are some terms that are used in the book: Cacos were armed peasants, who fought under the leadership of Charlmeagne Péralte and then Benoît Batraville against the first U.S. occupation; affranchis were slaves who bought or were granted their legal freedom under French rule, or the children of colonists and enslaved mothers freed at birth; often they had significant wealth and were slave owners; putsch is a sudden political uprising, almost a synonym for coup d’état; Lavalas, what Aristide called his movement, is a Creole word meaning sudden flood; Macoutes or Tonton Macoutes, formally the Volunteers for National Se- curity, were a paramilitary organization that François Duvalier set up to neu- tralize the Haitian Army and terrorize the Haitian people. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Every book is a collective effort. For one to be produced, the talents, skills, dedication and time of many people are vital, especially when a book like Haiti: A Slave Revolution is produced on a compressed sched- ule. We want to thank all the writers and activists who contributed to this book and made it possible to present a people’s history of Haiti.

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