The new international intervention in Haiti is a barely concealed repetition of the past with the brutal history of imperialist domination of the country, argues John Clarke 

Long years of exploitation, underdevelopment and corrupt and repressive governments have created conditions of social dislocation in Haiti. Normal state functions, including the preservation of ‘public order’, have been seriously disrupted. 

With prime minister Ariel Henry on a visit to Kenya ‘trying to salvage support for a United Nations-backed security force to stabilise the country in its conflict with increasingly powerful crime groups,’ armed attacks have been launched on the two largest prisons and thousands of the inmates broken out of these facilities. 

The government responded to this situation by declaring a 72-hour state of emergency, under which a curfew was imposed. During this period, the ‘police were ordered to use all legal means at their disposal to enforce the curfew and apprehend all offenders.’ 

It is reported that a major part in this violent outbreak was played by Jimmy Chérizier, a former police officer known as Barbecue, who is trying to force the discredited and unpopular Henry from office. Although there have been no elections since 2016, they have been postponed until at least 2025, on the grounds that the present situation is too unstable for them to be conducted. 

Whether or not Chérizier and the alliance he has assembled may be characterised as a grouping of criminal gangs, there is no doubt that they have nevertheless become a major insurgent force. Prison guards fled as they stormed the facilities and the organisations representing the ranks of the police sent out desperate appeals for help. 

Restoring order 

As one of the countries that has intervened in Haiti most consistently, Canada is active in promoting an intervention ‘to improve security conditions in Haiti’. The Canadian government just approved $80.5 million towards this objective and ‘a multinational security mission led by Kenya to support efforts by the Haitian National Police’ is being prepared. 

Some effort is being made to design and carry out this latest intervention in Haiti in ways that would serve to conceal the leading role and real objectives of the alliance of imperialist powers that are behind it. Its proposed activities are being presented in the mildest terms, as providing ‘training, communications and logistics for police deployed to the mission and expertise in areas like human rights due diligence.’ 

Care has also been taken to ensure that the nominal lead role in carrying out the mission is provided by Kenya and the police that are deployed are drawn as little as possible from countries readily associated with colonialism and economic domination. 

Naturally, the present regime headed by Henry is anxious to obtain the armed force it needs to regain control and it is enthusiastically pressing for the security mission to proceed. However, the scale of the present unrest and the level of violence involved makes it immediately clear that the restoration of order and governmental authority will involve operations in which ‘human rights due diligence’ is unlikely to play a leading role. 

If the present security mission goes ahead, it ‘will be the fourth foreign occupation of Haiti in 30 years.’ Although the UN Security Council has expressed its approval, this will not be an official UN undertaking, but an operation set in motion by an alliance of imperialist powers. 

The Real News Network places the mission in its proper historical context when it sets out the process of domination that has led up to the present situation. ‘Haiti is no stranger to foreign intervention. As the first Black republic and the only successful slave revolution in history, Haiti has never been allowed to prosper … Shortly after achieving independence, Haiti was forced to pay France an indemnity on its freedom under the twisted logic that by liberating themselves from slavery, the Haitian people owed reparations to their former masters. This debt and the accruing interest was not paid off in full until 1947.’ 

From 1915 to 1934, Haiti was under direct US military occupation and since ‘the 1990s, three more foreign interventions have taken place in Haiti: one direct US invasion under Clinton and another two coordinated through the United Nations.’ The most recent UN occupation began in 2004, after Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti’s first democratically elected leader had been deposed, and continued until 2019. 

The removal of Aristide, who challenged the unbridled domination and exploitation of Haiti, was orchestrated by the same powers that are working to set up the present security mission: ‘… in the winter of 2003, there was a meeting in Ottawa, Canada, and it’s called the Ottawa Initiative, and it was a meeting of leaders from the US, Canada, France, the Organization of American States.’ The agenda at this secret gathering was to find the means ‘to remove Aristide and replace a malleable government.’ 

The plans drawn up at the Ottawa initiative were put into effect the following year, when ‘US Marines landed in Haiti, landed and then drove with the US ambassador to the home of the democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, put him and his aide on a plane, and flew them to the Central African Republic.’ 

Since 2004, only the empty shell of governmental forms has been allowed in Haiti, whether the country has been under occupation or nominally self-administering. The powers behind the overthrow of Aristide established a Core Group and this body ‘has been making every single political decision on Haiti.’ 

Far from Haiti enjoying a legitimate form of representative government, the ‘only reason Ariel Henry is still in power is because he’s protected by US special forces and the US upholds them in power.’ The countries that make up the Core Group have decided that they must remain in control and that the kind of ‘malleable government’ they established in place of Aristide must be ensured permanently. 

Failed states 

From the above, it becomes clear that the proposed security mission to Haiti is simply not an exercise in good faith that seeks to restore a level of social stability that will benefit the Haitian people. It is rather the case that the present manifestations of social dislocation offer a pretext to tighten the imperialist grip on the country and prevent any challenge to the agenda of domination. 

A ‘solution’ to Haiti’s problems, in the form of yet another armed intervention, would be in line with the general approach that is taken to what are sometimes described as ‘rogue states’ and ‘failed states’. Under these two concepts, countries that seek to break free from imperialist domination or that have been plundered to the point where they are weakened and destabilised, are deemed to be in need of a restorative process of ‘nation building’, ushered in by the military power of the US or some ‘coalition of the willing’ it has assembled for that purpose. 

It is true that Haiti is experiencing shattering levels of poverty, a breakdown of public services and disrupted forms of civil administration that are undermining its functioning as a society. However, the very last thing it needs to overcome these problems is the proposed security mission. Tightening the grip of the US, France and Canada on the country, will only intensify the exploitation of the population and prevent the development of the forms of independent political representation that are desperately needed. 

Though the deployment of Kenyan, Latin American and Caribbean cops is being used to draw attention away from who is driving the operation, the security mission looming over Haiti is part of a long and ugly process of domination and control that stretches back to French colonialism and its system of slavery. 

In truth, however serious a problem criminal activity may be in Haiti, the really dangerous and destructive gangs it faces are based in Washington, Paris and Ottawa. The security mission that is being prepared must be rejected and, if it proceeds, the resistance to it that the Haitian people take up should be fully supported.