Dear Editor,

The suggestion by the AFC to offer sanctuary on Guyanese soil to Haitians in distress must be supported. In the late eighties conditions in Haiti had inspired this very initiative from the late former President Desmond Hoyte, but this proposal meet with strong resistance from donor countries for reasons I never understood. The politics of the world has changed somewhat and this apocalyptic disaster that has befallen Haiti must be met within a humanitarian context and the possibilities that must be offered through our benevolence. Haiti is a historical enigma; on behalf of all the African peoples that were brought into slavery they demonstrated that slavery was not an accepted condition when they waged a fanatical and savage war of independence, becoming the first enslaved people in the annals of recorded history in the Western Hemisphere to win a slave revolt. This was no doubt what contributed to their isolation and social deterioration, as they were in 1815 the only free African nation in a literal sea of European colonies. Haitian troops fought in the American War for Independence, saving the revolutionary army from annihilation at Savannah. They also fought with Simón Bolívar in the Venezuelan War of Independence. Their ideals, heroics and disappointments were many and cannot be made reference to here. For Europe, the scourge of Emperor Napoleon, the Glorious defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo will one day be shared by the Haitian people who defeated General Leclerc’s army of eighty-three ships and 35,000 men that had sailed from France in 1801 and others that followed, amounting to some 60,000 men, misled by Napoleon, but intended to return Haiti to slavery, this French army when accounted for, was not available at Waterloo.

As a member of ACDA, the Haitian crisis is a pivotal concern; the helplessness of the Caricom Community must be recognized as well as the fact that many of our brother island nations are themselves vulnerable to such terrible ‘acts of God’ or ‘nature’ for geological reasons. The then capital of Jamaica, Port Royal, on June 7, 1692, was overwhelmed by an earthquake and was completely destroyed, and there are other natural situations being monitored now that are of serious concern to the Caribbean and some southern North American states that are bordered by the Atlantic. Though Guyana itself faces a threat from the sea, to which our government seems indifferent, yet, we are the only Caricom nation that is situated to offer sanctuary to a Haitian community. True, we can claim the inability to finance such a humane act, but there are a list of nations in the Americas and Europe that can be implored on humanitarian grounds to facilitate it. We can easily offer a new life to some 50-60,000 Haitians in our north-western areas, where I understand President Hoyte had intended to settle the Haitians in the late ’80s. The Haitians are an industrious people, a Caribbean people whose history, culture and geography bind them to us in a parallel humanity. We are bound by these dictates to give them circumstances that are better than what they now face and will face in the near future. I have seen their persistence in the Brooklyn area, and in watching the CNN coverage I have shamefully recognized that with their deplorable social conditions their cemetery is still better kept than ours.

Yours faithfully,
Barrington Braithwaite