None Dare Call It Genocide
by John Maxwell
This
article originally appeared in Jamaica
Observer.
"The United States has felt able, whenever it chose, to
‘intervene' to put the Haitians in their proper place."
It may come as a surprise to many more Europeans than to
American white people that a great many intelligent and sophisticated people of
African ancestry are convinced that there are important classes of whites who
are conspiring to wipe them off the face of the Earth.
This may be
the most pervasive conspiracy theory of all because it is made more credible by
an impressive history of genocidal attacks on black people and other
non-whites. Advocates for "Indians" of the Amazon say the natives believe they
are threatened not simply by greedy ranchers and gold miners but by
missionaries from the United states, hoping to clear oil-rich areas of the
indigenous populations as in Darfur. In Bolivia, for example, the recent
attempt by some provinces to disaffiliate themselves from the rest of the state
is seen as a kind of proto-genocide aimed at separating the richest land from
control by the majority Indian populations.
The slave
trade was itself a genocidal operation as well as a plutocratic enterprise, and
there are those who say that the damage done by the slave trade has been
grievously underestimated, in order to deprecate the importance of Africans and
their civilizations and, therefore, their worth in the world.
"There are those who say
that the damage done by the slave trade has been grievously underestimated."
King Leopold's "civilizing" assault on the Congolese,
described by him as a charitable endeavor
comparable in intent to the Red Cross, was able to kill 10 million
Congolese in 20 years, suggesting that the toll of the slave trade may have
been grossly underestimated. In South
Africa, the 50 year Apartheid regime was not only explicitly anti-African, but
in its terminal stages was frantically developing biocidal agents to eliminate
and exterminate black people all over the world. Dr. Wouter Basson, a
cardiologist, was the lead scientist in the attempt to sanitize the world for
white people. He still practices medicine in South Africa.
The United
States has always had a bad reputation in race matters. Although a black
Barbadian, Crispus Attucks was the first American military casualty of the
Revolutionary war, and blacks from Haiti, including the later Emperor of Haiti
Henri Cristophe, fought for American Independence, blacks were infamously defined
as only three fifths human when the new state proclaimed its freedom and
independence.
It was
probably no surprise that twenty years later when the new state of Haiti
proclaimed its own independence, the
Haitians, having fought for freedom over three centuries, thought it so
precious that they implemented the first universal declaration of human rights,
valuing every human being, male and female, adult and child, as essentially
entitled to the same rights.
"The Americans first sabotaged and then aborted the
Haitians' dreams of democracy."
Ever since then the Americans and the Haitians have been
at odds over freedom and human rights and the United States has felt able,
whenever it chose, to "intervene" to put the Haitians in their proper place.
There is not enough time to detail the various methods
used to pacify the restless natives of Haiti, including dive-bombing peasants
in the 1920s, installing a cruel and corrupt army in the thirties and watching
paternally as the army and the elite, empowered by the US, wreaked their
sadistic and oppressive will on the Haitian people.
Having
tolerated and fostered the wicked Duvalier dictatorships for 30 years, the US
and its elite clients were not about to let democracy loose on the Haitian
people. And when the Haitians decided to reclaim their freedom under the
leadership of Jean Bertrand Aristide, the Americans first sabotaged and then
aborted the Haitians' dreams of democracy, first by blackmail and then at
gunpoint.
‘Rock stone a' river bottam'
If the
Americans had left the Haitians to their own devices they would probably be
just as poor but a lot less miserable.
When Jean
Bertrand Aristide took office in Haiti in 1990 it was with the enthusiastic
approval of the Haitian people, who saw in him the man of their dreams of
emancipation, the little black priest who knew them and what they wanted to do.
The Duvaliers and their successor military rulers allowed the parasitic elite,
Haitian/American businessmen and other foreigners with "dual citizenship" to
rape and pillage Haiti. Aristide meant to build paradise on the dungheap their
oppressors had created. That was not the American/elite plan.
"Aristide meant to build paradise on the dung heap their
oppressors had created."
They threw him out after a few months but relented under
pressure to accept him back in 1994 to serve out the few months left of his
term. When he campaigned again for reelection after the Preval interregnum
(Haitian presidents are limited to one term) the Americans directed by the International
Republic Institute and US AID poured millions into Haiti to set up
anti-Aristide movements. It didn't work but they continued with campaigns of
lies, slander and political doublespeak designed to discredit him
internationally, if not in Haiti.
Since they
couldn't move his people they hit on a brilliant idea. They would make it
impossible for him to govern.
"The
prevalence of disease and malnutrition is staggering in Haiti. The country is
plagued by the highest HIV rates in the hemisphere, representing nearly 60
percent of the known HIV infections in the Caribbean. Tuberculosis remains
endemic and is a significant cause of mortality. Malaria-nearly non-existent in
many other Caribbean countries-remains a deadly problem in Haiti. Even simple prevention
measures, such as childhood vaccination for tuberculosis, are woefully lacking.
"Water-related
diseases are also rampant throughout Haiti. For example, in 1999, infectious
diarrhea was found to be the second leading cause of death in Haiti. The World
Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 88 percent of diarrhea cases in the
world result from the combination of unsafe drinking water, inadequate
sanitation, and improper hygiene.xlii In the same 1999 study, gastro-intestinal
infection was the leading cause of under-five mortality in Haiti."
‘Water is Life'
If Haiti
could manage to bring clean water to the people, that alone would revolutionize
the country. It would be a powerful means of raising health standards generally
and preventing epidemic infant deaths. It would, by itself, be a new dawn of
freedom.
The InterAmerican Development Bank agreed and in 1998
said it would lend Haiti some money to set up modern water supplies in two
cities for a start. To get these loans Haiti cleaned up its debts to the
international financial institutions and got ready for some progress.
They are still waiting. The water supplies, intended to
reduce disease and infant mortality were repeatedly blocked by the United
States and its accomplices. The George Bush administration intervened illegally
to stop the IDB distributing the pittance and the other members of the Bank
including France and Canada went along with the fraud. And countries like
Jamaica, Trinidad and the rest of the hemisphere, caved in like terrified pimps
and said not a word.
"The water supplies, intended to reduce disease and
infant mortality were repeatedly blocked by the United States and its
accomplices."
Meanwhile
Aristide was getting help from Cuba to build a medical school; Dr Paul Farmer's
Boston based Partners in Health was revolutionizing the management and
treatment of HIV/AIDS, which had been decimating Haiti, and Aristide built more
schools in three years than had been but in Haiti for the past 200.
He had to
go.
Worthies
such as the Jamaican descended Colin Powell swallowed the propaganda of the
elite and their fascist North American friends. Luigi Einaudi, the American
deputy secretary General of the Organization of American states was heard to
say that all that was wrong with Haiti was that Haitians were running the
place.
They would
soon fix that.
Some of the
most fantastic lies began to be spread about Aristide: He was a devil
worshipper, a dictator, a hater of democracy, a tyrant, a terrorist, a
murderer. And one fine morning in 2004, almost exactly 200 years after the
worlds first declaration of human rights on the soil of Haiti, the American
ambassador came to President Aristide with a message. You'd better leave old
chap, or there are people here with some coffins for you and your wife.
So, the
dream was over. Aristide was gone. And, best of all, the poor, disease ridden
Haitians would not get their water supplies, would have to forget that they
were human beings deserving of rights and respect; they would still be dipping
water from gutters and puddles.
There is a
report out this last week which chronicles this bestial farce in excruciatingly
painful detail. It is published by a coalition of NGOs: the Robert F. Kennedy
Memorial Center for Human Rights, the Centre for Human Rights and Global
Justice and its affiliate the International Human Rights Clinic at Mew York
University's School of Law, and
Partners in Health, now the largest health care providers in Haiti with
its sister organization in Haiti, Zanmi Lasante, treating almost 2 million
patients last year, building houses and treating malnutrition as well as AIDS
and TB and The report is in English but is called in Haitian creole Wòch nan Soley : The Denial of the Right
to Water in Haiti. Woch nan soley
may be loosely translated into jamaican
creole as "Rock stone a ribba bottam neva know sun hot."
It is an
irresistible true story of some of the most depraved mischief ever visited upon
any people, anywhere by another people. It may be downloaded from the web at
the websites of any of the authors. Partners in Health may be found at
www.pih.org. The RFK center at www.rfkmemorial.org and the Center for Human
Rights and Global Justice at chrgj.org.
Read it and
weep with rage.
John
Maxwell of the University of the West Indies (UWI) is the veteran Jamaican
journalist who in 1999 single-handedly thwarted the Jamaican government's
efforts to build houses at Hope, the nation's oldest and best known botanical
gardens. His campaigning earned him first prize in the 2000 Sandals Resort's
Annual Environmental Journalism Competition, the region's richest journalism
prize. He is also the author of How to Make Our Own News: A Primer for
Environmentalists and Journalists. Jamaica, 2000. Mr. Maxwell can be reached at
[email protected]
Copyright©
2008 John Maxwell