Background to Haiti's Occupation

by Marty Goodman

This latest rape of Haitian sovereignty is the third U.S. military occupation. The first was 1914-1934, under "liberal" Democrat Woodrow Wilson, and the second was the U.S.-led UN intervention of 1994-1998, under Bill Clinton. All three occupations were billed as bringing "democracy" to Haiti.

The first U.S. occupation created a brutal Haitian Army trained in counter-insurgency. Afterwards, the U.S. backed the Duvalier family dictatorship (1957-1986). Washington bankrolled Aristide’s political opponents, including the CIA-created death squads known as FRAPH.

On Sept. 30, 1991, U.S.-trained Haitian generals, on the CIA’s payroll and in league with death squads, overthrew Aristide. That began a three-year reign of terror that took the lives of up to 6000 Haitians.

In 1994, Aristide signed the "Governor’s Island Accord" as a condition for the U.S.-led UN intervention that restored him to power. The accord not only called for "reconciliation" with the coup-makers (army and paramilitary forces were never truly disarmed) but also adherence to World Bank objectives in Haiti, which included opening up to multi-national sweatshops, lowering tariffs on imports, and privatizing public services. Following legislative elections in 2000, which observers said were "flawed" in favor of Aristide’s Fanmi Lavalas Party, the U.S. held up over $500 million in aid for needed services.

Aristide is a former Catholic priest who once regarded himself as a socialist. Aristide had a vast following among Haiti’s poor majority who live on less than $1 a day. He first won the presidential election in 1990 with 67.7 percent of the vote. He won again in 2000 with a large majority but far less participation, as enthusiasm had ebbed.

Washington always mistrusted Aristide’s mass base among the poor. His policies, such as incremental increases in the wages of factory workers and the presence of some 500 Cuban teachers, further infuriated Washington. Haiti is one of the most unequal societies on earth. Less than 1 percent owns almost half the wealth, while about 80 percent are unemployed and about the same percentage illiterate. Life expectancy is about 52 years.

However, Aristide’s politically vague and disorganized Lavalas movement was led by middle-class liberals and leftists. In power, they did nothing to change the class structure of Haiti. Land reform, a burning need for Haiti’s peasant majority, did not exist. Haiti’s 30,000 assembly workers in the capital have no unions. Radicals in Haiti and their supporters in the U.S. allowed themselves to be co-opted by the populist rhetoric (and jobs) of the Aristide government. Hopefully, they are learning there is no substitute for a working-class program and a fight for real working-class power.