HAITI-Revolution or Insurgency?
New Horizons in Hispaniola
At HaitiAnalysis we have keenly observed, how recent
turns of events have redefined even the language describing the permanent Haiti
crisis, to the point where terms like “insurgents” and “insurgency”, or
“Revolution” and “revolutionary”, are now normal lexicon of activists, and some alternative outlets.
Mainstream media however, while not calibrating as usual the increasingly
rebellious mood of the massive protests during recent weeks, using the couched
language of empire & the elites, it is nevertheless beginning to pick up on
the increasing rage of the masses, & towards the end of this New York
Times article, a protester is calling for the
population to rise up to overthrow the government.
In addition & incredibly enough,
the word “Revolution” is now also part & parcel of the Haitian-American
diaspora. We witness how this occurred at
a recent U. S. congressional panel conducted in Florida by Congresswoman
Frederica Wilson & Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. This panel was ostensibly for the purpose of
receiving input from the Haitian-American community on the current Haitian crisis, as well as to establish
criteria for future discretionary congressional funding to help Haiti, as per
Pelosi’s own words during this panel. In
this video we witness how Haitian-American Carline Paul as one
of the panelists, emphatically states during her testimony to Pelosi & Wilson
that….”This time the Revolution is going to happen”…. .
Incredibly enough, Ms. Paul directly warns Wilson & Pelosi, …”people
in Haiti told me to tell you, no interference….they do not want America to send
any kind of group in Haiti to try to calm them down, …..they do not want
America to send any troops in Haiti & they want Jovenel Moise to go, &
they want them to respect the plan that they have.” It is also noteworthy, that the key members
of this panel offering input testimony, were Haitian-American women, reminding
us somehow of the key roles that Haitian women played during the Revolution,
according to the writings of C.L.R. James in his classic “The Black Jacobins”,
describing how Haitian women accompanied the men into battle. Notwithstanding the forthright testimony that
these brave Haitian-American women proffered at this panel, in favor of true
change for the plight of the Haitian nation, Pelosi as expected showed her true
colors, as the imperialist dominatrix that she truly
is, by rudely countering positive comments about President Maduro of Venezuela
by one of the Haitian-American women at the panel, with her toxic demonizing of
Maduro, with the unproven & outlandish claim, that Maduro was “exporting corruption” in the
hemisphere, as per this Miami Herald
article. This writer must confess to some
bewilderment to Pelosi’s barb about the leader of the Bolivarian
Revolution. Perhaps Pelosi was confusing
“corruption” with “revolution”, like many American politicians used to do
during the Cold War, when they would claim that “Cuba was exporting revolution”,
as though revolution or corruption could be exported like any other commodity. Or better perhaps it could’ve been, that
Pelosi was confusing Maduro with one of Washington’s sundry corrupt puppets in
the hemisphere, like Duque of Colombia, Hernandez of Honduras, or Medina of
Dominican Republic, all pro-U.S. presidents amply known for their brazen
corruption scandals.
We believe then, these lexical developments describing Haiti’s
increasingly violent & more frequent struggles, are not entirely frivolous or capricious
uses of language, but they truly reflect what’s been evolving on the ground in
recent weeks. In fact, we find it
remarkable after decades of imperialist and foreign interference in the
internal affairs of Haiti, given the historical traditions of its people to
rise up against foreign domination, it’s almost miraculous that a more violent
reaction to these unrighteous & constant interferences by foreign forces,
hasn’t taken place in Haiti, to the point of an all out armed insurrection.
And since other outlets & analysts have amply described the latest
Haiti crisis, we at HaitiAnalysis are
presenting our unique prism, based on the glaring fact that Haiti should never
be considered in a vacuum, since after all its history is intrinsically tied to
the geographic realities & history of Hispaniola, hailing back to times even
before its foundation as an independent nation, & continuing to evolve to
this very day. At HaitiAnalysis we’re persuaded that the revolutionary spirit we see
today within the masses protesting in the streets of Haiti, is in keeping with
the traditions of struggles in Hispaniola starting against the Spanish Conquest,
& continuing with the Haitian Revolution against France.
Let’s then take a brief glimpse centuries ago, during the conquest by
the Spaniards in the late 15th Century, to the popular legend of the
beautiful Taino Queen Anacaona. She was born in the capital of
the chiefdom of Jaragua comprising roughly the southwest of
Hispaniola, in the locality known as Yaguana, or present day Leogane in Haiti,
& she was a leader of the first rebel conspiracies against the Spaniards,
paying later for her bravery with her own life.
One of her descendants was the brave warrior chief Hatuey, known as the first guerrilla
fighter & internationalist warrior of the Americas. Hatuey fled to Cuba to warn the indigenous
tribes there about the Spaniards, with about 400 warriors in the early 16th
Century, crossing the Windward Passage in canoes, emulating the epic island
hopping voyages of the ancient Arawaks, who left the Orinoco river
basin navigating towards the Antilles, around the year 1000 A. D.
Fast forwarding to the 20th Century, some Dominican
historians attest to the internationalist participation of Haitians, in what
was arguably the most dramatic event in the history of Dominican Republic
during the Cold War Era; the Constitutionalist Revolution of
1965. As we well know, the Constitutionalist
Revolution then became the “Guerra Patria” or Patriotic War, upon the flagrant
intervention of U. S. militarist imperialism under the leadership of that
venerable Texan occupying the White House at the time, President Johnson,
better known as “LBJ”. It is a fact of history perhaps lost to
present generations, concerning the internationalist participation of Haitians
in the Dominican Patriotic War. One
little known saga of this armed conflict, was the participation of Haitian poet
and combatant Jacques Viau Renaud, who fell in combat in June 1965 in Santo Domingo, killed by a mortar
round fired by U. S. troops in an urban area of Santo Domingo.
In this documentary by Rene Fortunato past 8:00, which is a classic
reference of the Constitutionalist Revolution, we witness the use by U. S.
forces of heavy weapons such as high caliber recoilless rifles & even
tanks, within urban
areas of Santo Domingo. We also hear the
voice of Colonel Caamaño whom we describe below, referring to the over ¨3,500
Dominicans dead¨, & thanks to Rene Fortunato’s documentary, we can
reasonably conclude the U. S. employed heavy weapons in urban combat in Santo
Domingo, thus causing high casualty
rates among Dominican combatants,
including among the civilian population.
Another little known fact of the Constitutionalist Revolution and the
Dominican Patriotic War, was the active participation of a Haitian combatant
contingent within its ranks. In this
oral history shared by Haitian combatant Lionel Vieux, he narrates the story of the
“Haitian Command” under the command of Fred Baptiste. Vieux narrates how the Haitian Command was
composed of between 40 to 50 men, and part of their mission consisted of
weapons maintenance for the Constitutionalist forces. Vieux also describes how this Haitian weapons
maintenance group was under direct command of the legendary “Coronel de Abril”,
Colonel Francisco Alberto Caamaño Deñò, whom Dr. Fidel Castro Ruz refers to as
a “Moral reserve of Latin America”, in the book “100 Horas con Fidel, de Ignacio Ramonet.”
This exemplary historic memory, of the sometimes intertwined chronicles
between Haiti & Dominican Republic, is now being dishonorably stained with
the recent official stance of D. R.’s government at the United Nations Security
Council, calling for more interventionism in Haiti, albeit couched in
diplomatic language. In spite of
whatever diplomatic terms D. R. attempts to wield, in reaction to the recent
turn of events in Haiti, it is open knowledge in the region that D. R.’s
foreign policy towards Haiti has mostly favored outside intervention by the
United Nations, & the “international community”. In this recent public statement by D. R.’s
Foreign Minister Miguel Vargas Maldonado, he calls for “greater participation by the
international community, to resolve the crisis being confronted in that
country”.
The aforementioned current diplomatic callousness by D. R. vis-à-vis
Haiti’s historical struggles to free itself from oppression, reminds us of the times
when President Mejia ruled tumultuously in D. R. between 2000 & 2004. It was during Mejia’s presidency, when Haitian paramilitary groups were
trained in Dominican territory by U. S. special forces, in order to intervene later in Haiti against
President Aristide.
In addition, that odious international
instrumentality known as the “CORE Group”, recently met with members of the
opposition, meeting afterwards “in secret” with political party leaders
including from the ruling PHTK party. The CORE Group is composed of: The UN
secretary general’s special representative for Haiti (Helen Meagher La Lime of
the U. S.), the Ambassadors of the U. S., the European Union, France, Canada,
Brazil, Spain, & the Special Representative of the OAS. Regarding the OAS, in one of our past
HaitiAnalysis articles, we exposed
the historical disgrace that accompanies this “Ministry of Yankee Colonies”, as it was forever baptized for Latin
American history, by the legendary “Canciller de la Dignidad”, Dr. Raul Roa
Foreign Minister of Cuba, in Punta del Este, Uruguay, in 1962. In the aforementioned article, we exposed the
neocolonial leanings with which the OAS is still encumbered with, when the
corrupt governments of Haiti & Dominican Republic were coaxed into voting
on January, 2019, to not recognize the democratically elected President of the
Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
Regarding that shining example of Western democracy known as Canada, one
of the key members of the CORE Group, its membership in this nefarious
international organization is no mere coincidence. It is open knowledge that 75% of the world’s mining companies
are based in Canada & are listed in the Toronto Exchange.
It is also known that the world’s second most productive
open pit gold mining complex is located in Cotui, province of Sanchez Ramirez
in Dominican Republic, operated by Barrick Gold/Goldcorp.
It is precisely because of the
suspected & proven mineral deposits of Hispaniola, including those known to
exist in Haiti, that this is one of the predominant reasons why Canada is a key
member of the CORE Group. We will spare
the grief to our readers, regarding the violations of human rights & the
environmental damages caused by Canadian mining companies worldwide, including
the island of Hispaniola.
As we’ve already stated, our HaitiAnalysis
prism on Haiti is one focusing on the internationalism & Hispaniola dimensions
of the current struggle, besides what we’ve perceived as a qualitative
evolution of the struggle by the Haitian masses, to the point where
“Revolution” & “Insurgency” are now part of the current discussions. But for the sake of compendium we will
capsulize the present crisis: As reported by the digital newspaper “Hoy” of Dominican Republic, on October
4, 2019;
these recent protests commenced on September 16, 2019, due to the chronic fuel shortages, as we
witness here, but
these shortages had been ongoing prior to this date. These well organized protests by the
opposition, have been going on as of this writing, for about four weeks. The present government headed by President
Moise, has been virtually dysfunctional owing to the fact that in March Prime
Minister Jean Henry Ceant was deposed, & the legislative branch has not
approved any of Moise’s candidates for that post. Friday October 4, 2019 was designated “Day of
National Dignity”, when massive protests took place in Port Au Prince & other
localities. The main protest movement
headed towards the UN Mission headquarters, close to the International airport,
where protestors read a message to the international community. As per the article in Hoy, as of October 4, 2019, 17 persons had died during the protests
& 189 wounded. As of this writing
& from credible sources this writer has received from Cap Haitien, that
city is under lockdown with no ongoing commercial activity, & with schools still
closed.
As usual, we’ll continue monitoring the situation in Haiti at HaitiAnalysis, providing our unique
panoramic view, keeping always in mind that Haiti does not exist in a vacuum,
due to its unique geographical & historical realities as part of the island
of Hispaniola.
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