Miami Herald: Hostage release is proof the US cavalry is not coming to Haiti
(Miami Herald) Whether or not 12 captured North American missionaries escaped or were intentionally let go by their Haitian captors after a hefty ransom was allegedly paid is up for discussion days after their release.
But one thing appears to be clear: the cavalry, namely the U.S. government, did not rescue the American and Canadian missionaries kidnapped two months ago by a powerful Haitian gang. Hard to believe.
In fact, the abduction and now the return home of the hostages says plenty about U.S.-Haiti relations: There is a lack of respect brewing.
Here’s proof: the release of the missionaries seems to have surprised the FBI agents, who had been in Haiti since the abduction offering guidance to Haitian authorities as the gang negotiated with relatives of those held captives.
The missionaries were found wandering on a mountain with no obvious help from the outside.
More telling is the abduction of the American citizens in the group in the first place. American victims have always been off-limits to Haitian gangs, and it appears that is no longer the case.
The U.S. government is obviously losing its slim diplomatic hold on the troubled island. But does it care? Maybe not. Already influential gangs have steadily taken over new sections of the capital after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July. They appear to be becoming the de facto government, aggravating Haiti’s already acute economic crisis and giving more fuel to Haiti’s political crisis.
Haiti’s government has asked for U.S. military assistance or some time of U.S. or UN intervention. The request was rejected in Washington, which has since said its recruiting other countries like France, the United Kingdom and Canada to help.
Brian Nichols, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere, recently implied to journalists that Haiti’s problems do not require outside intervention.
“I think there’s broad agreement that the security situation in Haiti is a policing challenge, and it’s not a military challenge,” Nichols told reporters.
Great. As we said, the cavalry is not coming to Haiti.
— Miami Herald
The American Occupation (1915-34)
(NYTimes, Dec. 19 - 2021) The politics of slavery and racial prejudice were key factors in early American hostility to Haiti. After the Haitian Revolution, Thomas Jefferson and many in Congress feared that the newly founded Black republic would spread slave revolts in the United States.
For decades, the United States refused to formally recognize Haiti’s independence from France, and at times tried to annex Haitian territory and conduct diplomacy through threats.
It was against this backdrop that Haiti became increasingly unstable. The country went through seven presidents between 1911 and 1915, all either assassinated or removed from power. Haiti was heavily in debt, and Citibank — then the National City Bank of New York — and other American banks confiscated much of Haiti’s gold reserve during that period with the help of U.S. Marines.
Roger L. Farnham, who managed National City Bank’s assets in Haiti, then lobbied President Woodrow Wilson for a military intervention to stabilize the country and force the Haitian government to pay its debts, convincing the president that France or Germany might invade if America did not.
The military occupation that followed remains one of the darkest chapters of American policy in the Caribbean. The United States installed a puppet regime that rewrote Haiti’s constitution and gave America control over the country’s finances. Forced labor was used for construction and other work to repay debts. Thousands were killed by U.S. Marines.
The occupation ended in 1934 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy. As the last Marines departed Haiti, riots broke out in Port-au-Prince, the capital. Bridges were destroyed, telephone lines were cut and the new president declared martial law and suspended the constitution. The United States did not completely relinquish control of Haiti’s finances until 1947.
US-Haiti and Favored Candidates
At crucial moments in Haiti’s democratic era, the United States has intervened to pick winners and losers — fearful of political instability and surges of Haitian migration.
After Mr. Aristide was ousted in 1991, the U.S. military reinstalled him. He resigned in disgrace less than a decade later, but only after American diplomats urged him to do so. According to reports from that time, the George W. Bush administration had undermined Mr. Aristide’s government in the years before his resignation
François Pierre-Louis is a political science professor at Queens College in New York who served in Mr. Aristide’s cabinet and advised former Prime Minister Jacques-Édouard Alexis. Haitians are often suspicious of American involvement in their affairs, he said, but still take signals from U.S. officials seriously because of the country’s long history of influence over Haitian politics.
For example, after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, American and other international diplomats pressured Haiti to hold elections that year despite the devastation. The vote was disastrously mismanaged, and international observers and many Haitians considered the results illegitimate.
Responding to the allegations of voter fraud, American diplomats insisted that one candidate in the second round of the presidential election be replaced with a candidate who received fewer votes — at one point threatening to halt aidover the dispute. Hillary Clinton, then the secretary of state, confronted then-President René Préval about putting Michel Martelly, America’s preferred candidate, on the ballot. Mr. Martelly won that election in a landslide.
A direct line of succession can be traced from that election to Haiti’s current crisis.
Mr. Martelly endorsed Jovenel Moïse as his successor. Mr. Moïse, who was elected in 2016, ruled by decree and turned to authoritarian tactics with the tacit approval of the Trump and Biden administrations.
Mr. Moïse appointed Ariel Henry as acting prime minister earlier this year. Then on July 7, Mr. Moïse was assassinated.
Mr. Henry has been accused of being linked to the assassination plot, and political infighting that had quieted after international diplomats endorsed his claim to power has reignited. Mr. Martelly, who had clashed with Mr. Moïse over business interests, is considering another run for the presidency.
Robert Maguire, a Haiti scholar and retired professor of international affairs at George Washington University, said the instinct in Washington to back members of Haiti’s political elite who appeared allied with U.S. interests was an old one, with a history of failure.
Another approach could have more success, according to Mr. Maguire and other scholars, Democratic lawmakers and a former U.S. envoy for Haiti policy. They say the United States should support a grass-roots commission of civic leaders, who are drafting plans for a new provisional government in Haiti.
That process, however, could take years.
