Haiti and imperialist Domination

95 years of domination is enough. Haiti is in worse shape than ever. Who needs help like this.Since capitalism reached the stage of imperialism, many imperialist countries started to develop relations with Haiti. From the onset, these relations were nothing else but relations of domination.
In order to better advance, I will divide this analysis into three periods.

1916, US occupation president, Dartiguenave, surrounded by US Marines

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Haiti and Imperialist domination

Since capitalism reached the stage of imperialism, many imperialist countries started to develop relations with Haiti. From the onset, these relations were nothing else but relations of domination.

In order to better advance, I will divide this analysis into three periods:

1] A first period that will cover the period from our independence till 1915,
2] A second period that will cover from 1915 till the sixties,
3] A third period that will cover from the sixties till today.

I will insist more on the third period.

Before 1915, the relation of Haiti with imperialism was mostly based on trade. In trade, Haiti was always disfavored. The trade relation was unequal. Haiti was selling its products at an undervalued cost and at the same was buying products from imperialist countries at an overvalued cost. This type of trade relation systematically held back the development of Haiti.

Beside this unequal exchange, Imperialist countries used other tactics to continue the pillage of Haiti. We could mention loans with high interest, what Haitians call “Kout Ponya”. In addition to these high interest loans, many times imperialist forces intervened militarily and forced Haiti to pay indemnities: in 1850, 500 millions dollars to the US, in 1872, 18 thousands Germans Mark to Germany, in 1877, 682,000 Lbs to the English, in 1874/84 179, 750.00 to France, and in 1914, the US pillage the Haitian National bank.

In this period, Imperialist countries did not really invest in Haiti. All of these practices such as unequal exchange, loans with high interest and forced indemnities totally blocked the development of Haiti and at the same time we start witnessing an atrophic and deformed type of capitalism developing in Haiti.

Many reasons explain that type of economic relation with imperialism. I will only insist on the two most important ones.

First and foremost, inside Haiti existed anti-national social classes. These social classes held political power. It is through the domination of these anti-national, anti-popular classes that imperialism was able to dominate Haiti.

The second reason was the political domination of Haiti by imperialism. The political domination took many forms, and the most humiliating form was the constant and repeated military interventions.
In this period also we need to mention the inter-imperialist struggle for hegemony in dominating Haiti. Imperialist countries such as France, Germany and the US were in a constant struggle for hegemony. In this first period, France played the hegemonic role.

The second period:

In this period, we witnessed some important developments full of consequences. To better cover this period I am splitting it in two: 1915 to 1934 and 1934 to 1968.

1915 to 1934

This is the time of the first US occupation. Imperialist hegemony changed hands. France was no longer hegemonic. US dethroned France and became the hegemonic imperialist country till today. It wasn’t that they wanted to make Haiti pay for the insolence of being independent. It was not also because we were the first “Black nation” or “Black people”. This was not the case. To think so primarily is to have a pretty limited view and conception of imperialism. This domination was based on the politics of US imperialism toward Latin America and the Caribbean. While European Imperialist countries were engaged in their first inter-imperialist war [hate to call it World War, totally a bourgeois arrogant concept], the US used that period to control most of Latin America and the Caribbean. The constant struggle for peripheral countries to dominate was one of the forms these rivalries took.

The development of direct investment made in Haiti by US imperialism increased considerably. These investments were geared to capitalist enterprises. This investment allowed the development of the capitalist mode of production in Haiti. But because of the existing structure of domination, because of the specific form of the development of the capitalist mode of production, this specific type of capitalism was not able to destroy the feudal mode of production, even if at this time the feudal mode of production started to deteriorate and decompose. These two antagonistic modes of productions existed side by side, a condition for a constant state of crisis, but in the final analysis, also to benefit imperialism and the Haitian dominant classes.

Imperialism restructured the State Apparatus to defend its interest. This restructuration was an underpinning element guaranteeing the political domination of Haiti. It was this state apparatus that organized the repression of the nationalist and patriotic forces led by Charlemagne Perralte and Benoit Batraville

US imperialism consolidated its relations with the Haitian dominant classes. The patriotic resistance forced them out of Haiti but they had consolidated their social base and guaranteeing their domination over Haiti.

They totally decimated the National Bourgeoisie by political repression and by judicial measures. A law passed in 1918, in the production of Alcohol, bankrupted more than one hundred national business. This period of imperialist domination marked the first wave of migration to other countries, Cuba for example.

1934- 1968

US imperialism was the imperialist power dominating Haiti. Direct investment continued to increase. They came also with other mechanisms to assure the economic domination, such as concession contracts and aid.

These mechanisms were also paired with changes in US Imperialism. Finance capital was slowly but surely becoming the principal form of extracting surplus value, slowly replacing industrial capital. They were progressively more interested in the circulation of capital as a means to extract surplus value rather than through industrial capital.

The Haitian State Apparatus also became more dependent to imperialism. The State Apparatus openly defended the interest of Imperialism with an advance sycophantism.

In this period, Imperialist powers continued their inter-imperialist struggle for control. US imperialism had hegemony on economic and political structure and French Imperialism was dominant in the cultural domain.

Again, we must insist on the role the Haitian dominant classes played in facilitating and allowing imperialism to dominate Haiti. We are insisting on this point because of the political position, dominant on the left, to only look at one aspect of imperialist relation to dominated social formations. The Haitian dominant classes were anti national, anti popular. US imperialism consolidated its relations with the reactionary dominant classes, especially the Comprador Bourgeoisie, while at the same time they were aggressively dismantling the National Bourgeoisie that just started to develop in Haiti. The Comprador Bourgeoisie was consolidated, with US backing, as the hegemonic fraction among the dominant power bloc. Although they favored the hegemonic ascension of the Comprador Bourgeoisie, hegemony once held by the Feudal landlords, they maintained some strong relations with the Feudal Landlords for political balance, as well as consolidating their relationships with the Comprador Bourgeoisie in order to facilitate their economic political line in Haiti.

In the end of this period, 1957-1968, a new fraction in the Bourgeoisie became a class by itself, the Bureaucratic Bourgeoisie. This resulted in some contradictions between the government, the center pole of the State Apparatus, and Imperialism. This was the Duvalier’s era. Even when this contradiction appeared acute at times, they were always secondary contradictions, very secondary contradictions. When the Haitian left mistook the nature of these contradictions and assigned to them a role not corresponding to the objective reality, an opportunist line that totally degenerated to a revisionist line, followed.

It is through the domination of the Haitian dominant classes, [Bourgeoisie and Feudal landlords] allies of imperialism, that imperialism could dominate Haiti. For 19 years, the US marines aggressively repressed the patriotic forces and the masses that did not accept occupation. The Haitian dominant classes collaborated with them. They organized marches, leaning on the petit bourgeoisie, demanding occupation. With unity with the dominant classes, US imperialism built a solid State Apparatus mostly capable of organizing anti-popular repression. The State Apparatus was going to defend their interests, whichever government was heading it, and the interest of the dominant classes as well as imperialism, dominantly US Imperialism.

After the occupation, the anti national and anti popular Haitian dominant classes continued to allow imperialism to dominate Haiti. The interests of the dominant classes and imperialism coincided. The same State Apparatus was defending their interest. The Haitian dominant classes accepted domination; they contributed in the domination and in its consolidation. Even when the State Apparatus was defending the interest of imperialism, US Imperialism continued to play a direct role in the political life of the country. With the role of the CIA, in Haiti, they fomented coups and used attempted coups or invasions by the opposition, in the Duvalier Era, to put pressure on the government and the dominant classes.

In the two periods aforementioned, Haiti underwent a lot of atrocities from imperialism, mainly France and the US. It is because of the nature of imperialism; these humiliating relations were needed for domination. Imperialism can’t exist without dominating other social formations, they need these social formations to export goods and capital, to extract raw materials, and to exploit labor based on the international division of labor. It is the nature of imperialism that explains such relations with dominated countries. Haiti is a perfect example, after 95 years of imperialist domination; the Haitian social formation is in a worse shape than it has ever been. In this period, a lot of governments headed the state Apparatus in the interest of the dominant classes and imperialism. We need to point out the differences in the manner these reactionary governments served imperialism and the Haitian dominant classes. All these differences are the result of many reasons such as the internal struggles among the dominant classes and the effect of popular struggles. Not withstanding all these differences, we must refrain from representing these governments as being less reactionary, less anti popular, less anti national. These differences were secondary. In fact, the whole state apparatus was totally domesticated for imperialism, and was the instrument of organizing the dominant classes against the popular masses. Many governments came and went. The nature of the state apparatus, with all these changes, remained the same, an anti popular and anti national institution.

In these two periods, the popular masses didn’t remain idle in front of imperialism. They resisted. The most advanced form of resistance was the armed resistance of poor peasants and small farmers under the leadership of Perralte and Battraville. Students protested as well. Workers organized themselves and resisted exploitation in capitalist enterprises in the sugar cane industry. Intellectuals, progressives and revolutionaries resisted. We need to also recognize the limitations of these struggles. The popular camp was not unified. The working class, the only class capable of achieving such a goal under its leadership, was not organized either at the mass levels or at the revolutionary level. But the popular resistance played a fundamental role in kicking imperialism out of Haiti, although imperialist domination remained. One thing for sure, we can’t look at imperialist domination without looking at the role of the reactionary government, the role of the anti national, anti popular state apparatus and the reactionary dominant classes.

My next posting will be on the third period.