It’s totally outrageous. Haiti is the poorest country in the
hemisphere. It’s in miserable condition. It also happens to be
the leading target of US intervention in the 20th
century. Ever since Woodrow Wilson occupied it, restored slavery,
overthrew the parliamentary system and basically turned it into a US
plantation; ever since then the US has supported brutal dictators, a
murderous national- all of whom never had an embargo on them no matter how
many atrocities they were carrying out. In the early 90’s Haiti had
its first democratic election. To everyone’s surprise they elected a
populist priest who [won] through large scale organization and activism in
the slums and the hills (who nobody was paying any attention to).
The US moved in immediately to undermine the regime: it cut off aid,
supported anti-Aristide elements, and a couple of months later a coup
came. The Bush administration, and later the Clinton administration supported
the coup. They broke the OAS embargo that was an effort to oppose
the coup leaders who were carrying out horrible atrocities and
torture. Actually I was there at the time and I don’t think I’ve
ever seen such terror; the people were really terrified. The
Bush and Clinton administrations supported [the coup], they even secretly
authorized illegal dispatches of oil (in violation of presidential
directives) to the military junta and its wealthy supporters. When the United States government thought that the Haitian population
had been tortured enough, they moved in and carried out what is called a
“liberation.” In fact they did allow the elected government to come
back, but on very strict conditions; namely that it accept the policies of
the candidate the US had supported in the 1990 Haitian election, who only
won 14% of the vote, and who the population had voted against. So
the Aristide government was allowed back in under the condition that it
accept US demands for an extremely harsh neo-liberal regime which has
pretty well devastated what’s left of the country. And now they have the
gall to impose an embargo. Did they ever impose an embargo when the dictator Duvalier was in
power? Even in the 90’s when the OAS did impose an embargo the US
was undermining it. This is so outrageous that it’s hard to find
words. In fact it’s kind of striking that the only two countries in the
hemisphere that are under embargo are the former slave countries; Cuba and
Haiti. There’s talk about paying reparations for slavery (not that
it will ever get anywhere); but what’s going on is the opposite: the
former slaves have to pay us. Those are the two countries under
embargo. There’s a third which had plenty of slaves, Brazil; and
today the US and Canada and other rich countries are desperately trying to
undermine democratic elections by compelling the government through
financial and other pressures to follow the policies the population voted
against. If we had any honesty, we’d be looking at these things. What do you think the US objective is in maintaining this embargo
against Haiti? Partially just revenge against an independent populist leader.
Certainly not corruption. I’m sure it’s corrupt, and brutal, and
everything else they say, but not more than other countries that the US
supports. If we start running down the list of countries the US
supports, Haiti looks pretty good by
comparison.
I’d like your opinion on a situation quite close to
home a situation which really hasn’t received much press at all in
Canada. The US government has vetoed the delivery of $500 million in
approved aid loans to Haiti from the Inter American Development
Bank. These loans were earmarked specifically for improving
education, health, and clean water. Ostensibly the loans are being
withheld because the US government and the OAS believe that the votes for
8 senate seats were not counted properly in the May 2000 Haitian
elections. Despite the fact that all senators involved have resigned
their seats, the embargo remains.
http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20030125.htm
Torturing
Democracy
ZNet, January 25,
2003
