The howling ghosts of colonialism haunt Haiti as violent anarchy and gang rule escalate

By Bryan Rostron

Bryan Rostron has lived and worked as a journalist in South Africa, Italy, New York and London. He has written for The New York Times, the London Sunday Times, The Guardian and The Spectator and was a correspondent for New Statesman. He is the author of the recently published ‘Lost on the Map: a memoir of colonial illusions’ (Bookstorm) and six previous books, including ‘Robert McBride: The Struggle Continues’ and the novels ‘My Shadow’ and ‘Black Petals’. He lives in Cape Town.

18 Mar 2024

There’s no more shocking proof of the lingering consequences of colonialism than the violent anarchy devastating Haiti. Brutal gangs now control most of the country.

This is the end result of European powers ruthlessly squeezing the tiny Caribbean republic dry — and the subsequent amnesia about a systematic crime against humanity, especially among the Western nations most implicated in that mobster-style extortion of a poor country: France and the United States.

What was once called Saint-Domingue was so profitable, producing 60% of the world’s coffee and 50% of its sugar, that it is estimated one in eight people in France depended on trade with that distant Caribbean colony.

But in 1804, after an astonishingly successful slave revolt, the world’s first black republic, Haiti, was declared. Clearly colonial powers felt that the shock of such a massive loss of revenue and the scandalous example of an independent black republic could not be tolerated. So they set in motion measures, right up to the 21st century, to crush such a show of independence.

The initial strike was the arrival in 1825 of a squadron of 15 French warships in the capital, Port-au-Prince. Faced with the bargaining power of 500 cannons, Haiti was forced to agree to pay 150 million francs in compensation for the loss of France’s profitable plantations and all their human chattels.

This debt, though later reduced to 90 million francs, was not paid off until 1947. In fact, it was a “double debt”, as to pay it off Haiti was compelled to take loans, at interest, from French banks — which also helped to finance the construction of the Eiffel Tower. By 1914, 80% of the Haitian government’s budget went to pay off this debt at the expense of an increasingly impoverished population.

In that same year, a United States warship anchored at Port-au-Prince, and a team of marines marched to the so-called Haitian National Bank, from where they removed gold reserves worth $500,000 (approximately $15-million today). This was taken back to New York “for safe-keeping”.

The following year the Americans invaded with the standard justification of “restoring order and maintaining stability”. That occupation lasted until 1934, and during some of those 19 years, more was spent from the national budget to pay the US officials enforcing the occupation than on the then two million population.

More:
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2024-03-18-the-howling-ghosts-of-colonialism-haunt-haiti-as-violent-anarchy-and-gang-rule-escalate/