It was President Nicolas Sarkozy of France who exhorted the international community this time around to work finally to lift what he called Haiti’s “curse.” It seems a not inapt description of the ongoing tragedy in the western portion of Hispaniola, although it must be said that the French themselves in historical times were responsible for a good part of that ‘curse.’ It is true, however, that Haiti’s natural situation is not ideal. It is part of an island which is perched on the boundary where the North American plate meets the Caribbean plate, and where there are faults both in the north and the south. The last big earthquake measuring 8 on the Richter scale was in 1946 on the northern one in the Dominican Republic, and last Tuesday, the southern fault released pressure with a force not seen along this line since 1770. In the process it visited disaster on Port-au-Prince and southern Haitian towns on a scale which stunned even this disaster-prone region.
And then of course, Haiti lies in the hurricane belt and is no stranger to flooding either. In more recent times the years 2004 and 2008 stand out; in the case of the last-named year, the country was battered by no less than four hurricanes and tropical storms. Having said that, however, Cuba has demonstrated how disaster preparedness can prevent loss of life in hurricanes, while Haiti’s floods claim far more lives than they should because of mud-slides caused by man-made erosion. And in this latest catastrophe, the unbelievable casualty figures for a nation this size would have been reduced had California-style building codes been in force and if there had been some contingency plans for events of this kind. Apart from anything else there is the fact that in the aftermath of the earthquake, government in Haiti collapsed along with the buildings, so there is no one in charge. This makes it unique in terms of modern disasters, where donor agencies and nations have invariably had functioning central governments and/or local authorities with which to co-ordinate relief.
But above all else it is Haiti’s history which has ‘cursed’ it, and that has everything to do with men and not the particular physical space the nation occupies on the planet’s mantle. Haiti is rightly respected in the region for being the first – and only – former slavocracy to successfully throw off the planters’ shackles in open revolt and establish a free and independent state. It did so, however, in a hostile world, where powerful forces worked to undermine it, and where European nations in the first instance were anxious to demonstrate to their own enslaved populations that a free Black state – later republic – could not succeed. Subsequently, of course, they treated it with total contempt, the product of the unrelieved racism of the era.
It was France in particular, which torpedoed any hope the fledgling republic might have had of laying down a firm economic foundation, by imposing an indemnity of 150 million French francs – an astronomical sum at the time – for loss of property during the Haitian Revolution. It also then required special tax concessions for every French ship entering Haitian ports, thereby further reducing the government’s ability to pay. The ‘debt’ was not finally liquidated until 1879. President Boyer of Haiti had agreed to the indemity in 1825 in exchange for diplomatic recognition, which he regarded as essential before his country would be allowed to function in the then international community.
The active antipathy of the outside world apart, there were also internal factors which militated against Haiti’s development, although these cannot be blamed on anyone; they were in a sense, at least partly the consequence of the sudden appearance of a nation which was in conception far ahead of the times. The first challenge faced by Toussaint L’Ouverture even before Haiti became independent, was what kind of economy there should be. He and his two successors, Dessalines and Christophe, favoured the continuation of a large-scale plantation system to facilitate trade and make the state financially viable. However, particularly under Christophe, this involved varying degrees of forced labour, since the former workers did not want to go back to the estates.
Christophe, in fact, did not rule both portions of the island; it was the gens de couleur, or Coloureds, as they were known in the anglophone West Indies, who were in control in the south under their leader, Pétion. He parcelled out land to small farmers, and while economically, the southern government barely survived, politically it was tolerant and fairly open for the period. When Christophe committed suicide in 1820, Pétion’s successor, Boyer, managed to gain acceptability in the north as well, unite the country, and introduce the southern economic system throughout the island. While a popular move, it came at a longer term cost. Since the landholdings were often subdivided as succeeding generations inherited them, over time the parcels tended to become smaller and smaller, leaving Haiti’s farmers as subsistence agriculturists, and putting enormous pressure on the land. It is the shortage of land which is partly responsible for the destruction of Haiti’s forest, only two per cent of which now survives, the other reason being the cutting of trees for charcoal used in cooking. The consequence is that the country is now an ecological disaster area.
Had there been some kind of extended period of political stability, Haiti over time might have been able to develop a modern economy centred on urban areas, but the interludes of democratic peace never lasted long enough to allow this to happen, although there were occasions in the nineteenth century when there was development, and power was peacefully transferred. In general, however, there has never been a settled political framework which could evolve undisturbed and permit institutions to grow.
The issues go back to Haiti’s first independent rulers, Dessalines and Christophe, who were faced with constructing a political model for the new state. They had little to guide them. It was not a democratic era; the slogans of the French Revolution had been overwhelmed by Napoleon’s imperial ambitions, and the United States, although having drafted a remarkable constitution, was nevertheless in terms of practice a long way from democracy in the modern sense of that term. As it was, Dessalines who proclaimed Haiti’s independence in 1804, followed Napoleon’s example and declared himself emperor, while Christophe became king, and attempted to recreate European-style norms, including a class of nobles.
There were other elements in the political story too. Dessalines was assassinated, and thereafter, with some exceptions, Haiti had a problem with legitimacy and the peaceful transfer of power. In addition, the military played a role in politics down the centuries; it was the army, of course, which secured Haiti’s independence, and the first leaders needed its support to give them legitimacy, but it subsequently interfered at fairly regular intervals to effect leadership changes, or even take the reins of power itself, Raoul Cédras’s coup being a modern case in point. (The army was finally disbanded in more recent times.)
Then there is the legacy of political brutality which in the last century was best exemplified by François ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier, whose reign of terror was enforced by the Ton-ton Macoutes. Nearly all revolutions are accompanied by great brutality, but the last general sent by Napoleon to reimpose slavery and French rule in Haiti – Rochambeau – was unbelievably savage, and Dessalines responded to his excesses in kind. The legacy reared its head again periodically, largely because of the absence of a settled political framework, and also because of the failure to institutionalize a formula for the peaceful transfer of power.
The net result of all of this is a country without institutions, something for which it is paying heavily in this most recent disaster. Even the United States has made its historical contribution to the problem with the occupation of Haiti in 1915 for self-interested reasons which will not be elaborated on here. It stayed until 1934. Apart from putting down a rising in 1919, and using forced labour to build roads, the Americans exacerbated a social situation which is another recurring thread in the Haitian tapestry, namely, the racial stratification of the society which also reflects the distribution of wealth.
At the top was the Coloured elite, which was – and still is – mostly wealthy and educated and which the US occupation authorities favoured, and then there was the Black majority, including the Black middle class, against whom they discriminated. That too left an unfortunate legacy and played a role in François Duvalier’s perception of the political situation, since he himself was a member of the Black middle class.
As has been noted by several commentators, in recent times the attention span of the international community where Haiti is concerned has been short. At the moment as was said above, there is no one in charge in that country and in the immediate term at least, it looks as if only the US has the logistical capacity which can fill the breach. In the longer term it may be that the international community could consider giving Haiti what one observer called “wardship” status under the UN, to allow time for building physical infrastructure, stimulating economic development and establishing functioning institutions largely uncontaminated by corruption. It would, of course, be a temporary arrangement, because ultimately Haiti has to run its own affairs without international interference. At the moment, however, it will not be able to lift the ‘curse’ on its own without sustained outside help. The issue is only how that is to be achieved.
The region in a larger sense owes Haiti a debt for the symbol it represents, while several countries are more specifically indebted to it for the help they received for their own revolutions; still others both in and out of the region owe the hemisphere’s second republic a debt because of their past actions towards it. Now is the time for them all to do something substantial.
