Amidst mass protests against their US-backed dictator, Abby Martin covers how the US Empire has determined the destiny of the Haitian people for generations.

Transcript

Major demonstrations continue to rock Haiti as protesters demand that US-backed President Jovenel Moise step down from office. On February 7th, his constitutional mandate to rule ended. But instead of holding new elections, or stepping down, he’s just staying put. The Biden Administration announced it would continue to recognize Moise as the legitimate President, and actually declared he has the right to stay in power through 2022.

For almost two years now there have been daily mass protests demanding Moise step down over extreme corruption, including the embezzlement of billions of dollars for social programs. These demonstrations have been met with severe violence, many times with the assistance of occupying United Nations troops.

But while Haiti has drawn the attention of the world, it’s a good time to revisit the history of not just how Moise ended up in power, but how the American Empire has determined the destiny of the Haitian people for generations.

Haiti, once known as the “Crown Jewel” of the French Empire, was a center of the slave trade. But in 1791 an unprecedented Slave Revolution swept the island, driving out the French and then defeating the Spanish and British Empires. During this war for liberation, America’s Noble Founding Fathers jumped into the fray; people like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and other slave owning politicians rushed financial and political support to their slave-owning counterparts in Haiti.

Against all Empires, the Haitian people were victorious, and in 1804 established the first ever free Black republic. In those early years of Haitian independence, the United States had barely started to become an Empire. In the late 19th and 20th century, after completing the vicious colonization of Native land from coast to coast, this Baby Empire took its first steps as a territorial empire. In 1915, US Marines invaded Haiti. The first act of the invading Marines was to seize all the gold from Haitian banks and transfer it to the National City Bank of New York. All of Haiti's banks were put under the control of American banks.

The United States announced that Haiti was now under the rule of a new constitution, a constitution written by Franklin D. Roosevelt who, of course, was not Haitian. This new constitution allowed the purchase of Haitian land by foreign capitalists, which began immediately.

But with Revolution in their blood, the Haitian masses fought back against this new colonial rule. The most famous and beloved leader in the anti-occupation movement was Charlemagne Péralte. So the US Marine Corps hunted down Peralte, executed him, tied his dead body to a door, and paraded it through the streets of Haiti for all to see. They had a photographer capture an image of the national hero’s mutilated corpse, put it on a leaflet and dropped thousands of them from airplanes all across the island. American rule of Haiti began with acts of sheer terrorism like this one.

The US military occupied Haiti and ruled it as an outright colony for 20 years. But colonial rule gave way to neo-colonialism, where the United States installed total puppets, but with rigged elections so they could pretend to be supporters of democracy.

But even that was short-lived. In the 1950s and the thirty years that followed, the United States gave up on the veneer of democracy and backed the brutal dictatorship of The Duvalier Dynasty. This was total facist rule: suspension of elections, suspension of all political rights, no free press,