Haiti: A coup regime, human rights abuses and the hidden hand of Washington

Ben Terrall

Ben Terrall examines Haiti's coup regime, human rights abuses, the sham of planned elections and the complicity of Washington on a military and diplomatic level. It's a situation that has important implications for the African diaspora. As Fr.Jean-Juste, Haitian activist for justice and human rights, is quoted as saying: "It is time for peace, justice, and greater love, particularly among us, various branches of the African Diaspora in America. Can the day come when all of us African descendants in the Americas join together for mutual concerns, unity, and greater solidarity among us in this native continent of ours? Then can we come together in even stronger solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Africa, our grandmother continent?"

In a June 2005 Jamaica Observer column about the significance of the Haitian revolution, John Maxwell wrote, "the slaves of Saint Dominique, the world's richest colony, rose up, abolished slavery and chased the slavemasters away." Maxwell, one of the more astute journalists covering US foreign policy, added, "Unfortunately for them, they did not chase all of the slavemasters away, and out of the spawn of those arose in Haiti a small group of rich, light-skinned people – the elites, whose interests have fitted perfectly into the interests of the racists in the United States. Between them, last year, on the second centenary of the abolition of slavery and the Independence of Haiti, those interests engineered the re-inslavement of Haiti, kidnapping and expelling the president and installing in his place a gang of murderous thugs, killers, rapists and con-men."

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