How colonial intervention accelerated Haiti's descent into hell

Earlier this month, gangs in Haiti joined forces to attack the region's two central prisons, freeing more than 4,500 inmates, looting stores and hospitals, and setting fire to cars, police stations, and some houses along the way. There have also been attacks on the international airport. The powerless Haitian police force failed to overcome the criminals.

As a result, dozens of people are dead and thousands are internally displaced. Emboldened gangsters now believe they can do anything. A state of emergency was declared for three days, then extended to one month by what remains of the government, but there have been no other forms of communication. Downtown Port-au-Prince has been a real battlefield in the last few days.

Prices have risen, and some products are already scarce. But vegetable, fruit, and other local product vendors act busy and carefree, as if thugs had not attempted to set fire to the Ministry of the Interior and attack the National Palace. Still, the risk of the state's total collapse is genuine.

Prime Minister Ariel Henry himself has been missing in action since his trip to Kenya to sign a controversial protocol agreement to bring 1,000 police officers to Haiti to help control gang violence.

Henry requested the force 18 months ago at the United Nations, the same organisation that failed to stabilise Haiti despite multiple peace missions. Henry took action without the approval of Haitian civil society or a widespread consultation. In doing so, he admitted a failure to restore security, but assured he would remain in power as the troops would help him win a consensus during elections.

Following a diplomatic slap from the Dominican Republic, Henry finds himself stranded in Puerto Rico under FBI protection because the international airport of Port-au-Prince has been inoperative since the unsuccessful attempt by armed gangs to seize it.

Since then, the PM has become a persona non grata in the neighbouring Dominican Republic. It seems that the Haitian Army has been able to occupy positions, support the police, and stop the attack. The same army the PM failed to mobilise to fight the gangs 18 months ago.

This recent descent into hell in Haiti did not come out of nowhere. It is the result of several interdependent historical, political and social factors, coupled with public policies against citizens and foreign policies detrimental to the country's development. At every level, we find Haitian, American, European and Middle Eastern actors and international financial institutions helping to accelerate this descent into hell.

In particular, two unavoidable actors have stamped the future of this country with a burning iron. The first is France, which despite its investment in education in Haiti, dared to demand reparations after independence, syphoning the equivalent of billions of dollars from 1825 to 1889.

This is a debt that the United States would redeem during its occupation from 1915 to 1934. Firstly, Haiti had to borrow money from France at loan-shark interest rates to pay the initial instalment of its ransom.

When the United States landed, it bought up what was left of Haiti's debts, so Haiti no longer owed France, but American creditors. This resulted in a double debt, from the first loan to pay the ransom and then the interest payments to the French and Americans.

These financial woes are not made-up stories to help locals absolve themselves of any responsibility regarding the decay of Haitian political movements.

If anything, the country's political disorganisation is a consequence of the accelerated poverty it has experienced since the beginning of debt repayment. Haiti's lack of funds have rendered leaders incapable of thinking about the country's development.

During the period of the double ransom payment, Haiti invested little in its people. When this happens, a country creates individuals who are ready to do anything to survive, who resist by disconnecting from the state, or who become influenceable and exploitable individuals at the expense of the future of their own country.

Thus, we have young people in the shantytowns who have been armed since former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was in power in the 1990s until today, in hopes of protecting themselves or having economic power.

We also have farmers who resist selling their small properties to large corporations, holding on to their rights to hold this land, as enshrined during independence. But to keep resisting, they need access to a health network, school, electricity, technical knowledge, and technology to innovate their agricultural practices. Yet, the farmers were most heavily taxed to contribute to the payment of the double debt. This extortion still weighs heavily on Haiti.

Twenty years ago, when France did not invest enough in its suburbs and outskirts, and especially in the inhabitants of these places, it saw violent results that it did not like. The world saw a reality in France that it ignored: a lack of investment in people, wherever they're from, produces violence.

Similarly, when Haiti was deprived of investments for its people in education, health, the economy, and sanitation, the country created individuals inclined to anything. After wrenching its independence from France in 1804, the Haitians were on the path to building a nation.

Still, ransom payment and embargoes by the powers at the time would asphyxiate the country. Because this independence was contrary to the colonial, racist, discriminatory, and enslaving status quo.

The United States, which was allied with France and for its own economic configuration, did not initially recognise Haiti's independence. It was only with the Civil War that former US President Abraham Lincoln would recognise Haiti in June 1862, two years before the official abolition of slavery in the United States.

As the old saying goes in Haiti, "Haiti owes France, France owes Haiti." This saying anchors in the Haitian imagination the payment of the ransom of independence and our recognition that it is a debt owed to us in return. France will have to recognise it one day and make amends for its wrongs.

We cannot take historical facts and isolate them as if they had no effect on the course of history and the fate of people. Europe would have known a different destiny if the Allied nations had not landed in Normandy. If the Marshall Plan had not been created, the reconstruction of Europe after the war would have taken longer.

The Americans landed in Haiti in 1915 with segregationist soldiers from the South, for a 19-year occupation. During this time, the wrongs continued: there was the looting of Haiti's gold, forced labour of peasants, expropriations in favour of American companies, the reinforcement of colour prejudices and inequity (all the Haitian presidents during the occupation were mixed-race), and the beginning of a grip on Haiti's security, political and financial systems.

This policy of control and influence has not faded: either the United States turns a blind eye according to the parties in power, as it did during the François Duvalier dictatorship from 1957 to 1986, or it intervenes directly to prop up leaders according to its own interests.

For example, when President Jean Bertrand Aristide was brought back from exile in the United States in 1994 under American escort, his administration reduced tariffs on several products, thus favouring massive imports from the US at the expense of local Haitian production.

Haitian industrialists could not compete with products whose import cost was significantly lower than their local production. Similarly, American influence-peddling has persisted for fear that non-allies (meaning communists or leftists) would assume the helm of our affairs.

This persistence in installing individuals in whom society eventually loses confidence in creates a situation of constant instability. And that's what we've been experiencing for the past two years with the current government that the Americans and their allies in the international community wanted to maintain at all costs, despite Henry's inability to restore peace and stabilise the country.

Even before Ariel Henry, the advent of the destructive regime of Haitian institutions began with interference in the 2011 elections, with various influences pushing a candidate from the Haitian Bald Head Party (PHTK) to head the country, even if it meant changing the election results.

The Director-General of the Council that organised the elections even admitted to this meddling in an interview with a media outlet in Port-au-Prince. Jovenel Moise was the legacy of this party. Ariel Henry is the legacy of Jovenel and, therefore, of the same party.

Since the arrival of the PHTK, the decline has begun, with bolstered networks for importing weapons from the US to feed the gangs, more corruption between the private and public sectors under the pretext that Haiti is open for business, and more dismantling of sovereign institutions.

By turning a deaf ear to civil society, the US has shot itself in the foot again. Until American officials make a formal apology, its allies in Haiti will never forget that the country's "descent into chaos" started with US involvement in past elections.

Recent events indicate that we need to change foreign policy regarding assistance to Haiti. Otherwise, this Caribbean country will see an endless cycle of instability.

Like all countries, the right to self-determination of peoples reaffirmed after World War II in the United Nations Charter of 1945 passes through the protection of its inhabitants, the protection of its present, and the preparation of its future. Certainly, Haitians believe in democracy, according to a soon-to-be published study I worked on at Policité. But they do not trust the version of democracy applied to Haiti.

There is no doubt that Haiti, which is only a 90-minute flight from the United States, will always be a nearby ally, but it must be win-win. The country must be able to develop its own industry, promote its local production, and become less dependent on imports and foreign aids.

The Haitians themselves are not innocent in this chaotic situation. Beyond the historical balance of power and American military intervention, there is the absent Haitian political class. Without vision, or historical sense, they are influenceable and exploitable at will, and are therefore corruptible and ready to do anything to access power and stay in control.

The current security situation requires assistance because we don’t have the numbers and the tactics to combat gang warfare. Still, the political situation should remain free of foreign intervention.

However, as one does not come without the other, a new political class is needed in Haiti just as new democratic ideals and bases for Haiti's relations with its friends are required to avoid repeating past mistakes.

Contrary to popular belief, there are millions of Haitians who still love their country and want to do what's right to put it on the right track. Remember, Haiti stands as a legacy of the world's first lesson in humanity: the end of the servitude of man and woman by man.