HAITIANS IN AFRICA
The Failure of Categories: Haitians in the United Nations Organization in the Congo, 1960 – 1964
Article in Journal of Haitian Studies · August 2014 DOI: 10.1353/jhs.2014.0001
Regine Jackson
Agnes Scott College
The United Nations and its specialized agencies began recruitment efforts to replace European administrators of African bureaucracies as early as 1958. After the Democratic Republic of Congo achieved independence from Belgium in June 1960, the UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld launched the most extensive and prominent among these efforts: the United Nations Organization in the Congo or ONUC (Organisation des National Unies au Congo).4 For four years, the Civilian Operations Program recruited
French-speaking professionals and technicians from all over the world to help establish the country’s infrastructure and to supplement the small Congolese leadership class. Hundreds of Haitians—teachers, professors, engineers, and doctors—went to Africa as part of the ONUC program. By 1962, Haitian émigrés constituted the second largest contingent of UN staff experts working in the Congo.5 Maurice Dartigue was Chief of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) Africa Division. Dr. Athemas Bellerive directed the World Health Organization (WHO) medical team that included several Haitian doctors (see Figure 1). And in 1963, ONUC’s military force was commanded by Max H. Dorsinville.6
A relatively large number of Haitians participated in the UN programs in Benin and Cameroon, as well as in the Congo. Some Haitians spent career lifetimes with their families there. Yet what is known about the experiences of the estimated 7,500 Haitians in African countries amounts to undocumented fragments that have accumulated over time and are repeated in literature and various commentaries.
The historiography of post–World War II pan-Africanism focuses primarily on Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa as sites of resistance and black internationalist activism. As Martin and West note, referring to Gilroy’s The Black Atlantic and The Practice of Diaspora by Brent Hayes Edwards, “That literature, even in its more recent diasporic and Black Atlantic variations, displays a consistent Afro-Saxon bias.”7 When Haiti is mentioned at all, it is frozen in time in 1804; in popular and scholarly perception, Haiti’s impact on the world is effectively limited to the Haitian Revolution. The connections between Haiti and Africa—and the relationships between Haitian and African peoples—are imagined as largely symbolic, with no attention to the ways Haitian émigrés took tangible, self-determined action on behalf of African sovereignty.8
Equally troubling, Africa only enters the scholarship on Haitian migration in the work of epidemiologists. Here, the “Haitian hypothesis” proliferates, alleging that Haitian people brought AIDS to the United States in the 1970s after returning from Africa.9 The overall effect of these accounts is that Africa is written out of the Haitian diaspora and vice versa. More familiar narratives of migration to North America, Western Europe, and the nearby Caribbean dominate the scholarship, which naturalizes certain sites as destinations for Haitian migrants and for transnational political activity.10
The gaps in the historical record suggest a muting, if not complete erasure, of accounts that do not fit within the dominant discursive framework. The growing body of scholarship on the postcolonial period demonstrates that questions about the future of Africa animated blacks in the diaspora, who exhibited their support for the cause of African independence and development in a variety of ways. However, Haiti emerges as the “exceptional” case, somehow outside other transnational pan-Africanist movements, and Haitian migrants are locked within the mythic tropes of exile and refugee. In the current scholarly context, the idea that Haitians exercised some agency in their migration to Africa is unimaginable.
Based on a case study of Haitians in the ONUC, I propose that new interpretive frames are needed to see migration to postcolonial Africa as part of a long tradition of Haitian internationalism. As categories of analysis, “exile” and “brain drain” neglect important dimensions of migrant subjectivities. Even the term “expatriate” is baggage-laden, connoting not only whiteness but also lavish lifestyles, hedonistic pleasures, and social irresponsibility.11 I examine what is remembered about these Haitian émigrés: the common stories that circulate in the various commentaries and available accounts of the events surrounding their migration. My analysis is informed as much by what has been preserved in the archives and our collective memories as by what is missing. I make two interrelated observations: 1) the idea that Haitians saw postcolonial Africa as a space of possibility is notably absent in both official histories and personal accounts; and 2) certain interpretations of Haitian migration to the Congo seem to challenge the very logic of powerful discursive frames. I argue that this “failure of categories”—a phrase borrowed from Michel- Rolph Trouillot’s now-classic text Silencing the Past—narrows our ability to imagine how Haitians contributed to the project of mid-twentieth-century black internationalism as well as our modes of theorizing the Haitian diaspora.12 What is perhaps most significant about the story of Haitians in the ONUC, however, is how it impacts the production of Haitian history.
The research presented here is part of an ongoing collaborative study.13 In what follows, I juxtapose official historical accounts of the “Congo experiment” with autobiographical memories, oral histories, and written testimonials from Haitian nationals who lived in the Congo for at least one year during the 1960s. The sample is made up of men who were recruited to participate in the ONUC as well as their wives and adult children, born and/or raised in the Congo; the latter are especially privileged here. In the larger project, interviews with Haitian émigrés of the period who did not participate in the program and instead migrated to the United
The Failure of Categories: Haitians in the United Nations Organization in the Congo 37 States, or with those who stayed in Haiti, provide much-needed context for understanding local perceptions of the ONUC.
The principal archival sources I consulted are housed at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. The Papers of Maurice Dartigue, former Haitian Minister of Education, Agriculture, and Labor, were a primary focus. Dartigue went into exile in the United States after the overthrow of President Élie Lescot in 1946.14 He settled the same year in New York and began a career at the United Nations as a senior specialist in education in the Trusteeship department. He joined UNESCO in 1956, supervised the Major Latin American Project (LAMP), and was appointed Chief of UNESCO’s Africa Division in 1962. Dartigue worked with UNESCO to hire hundreds of Haitians to serve as professional and technical experts in newly independent African nations such as Benin, Cameroon, Ghana, and Nigeria. He also directed several educational and teacher-training programs in Africa until his retirement in 1971.
The Dartigue Papers attest to his important role as an advocate for Haitian migrants. They include correspondence with Haitians seeking employment opportunities outside of Haiti, as well as exchanges with Haitian presidents Paul Magloire and François Duvalier about the recruitment of Haitian professionals for projects in Africa. UN staff lists and various memoranda between Dartigue and the UN office in Paris also show him recommending Haitian nationals for posts in the Congo.15
In addition, I have conducted preliminary examinations of the records in the Council on African Affairs Collection. These include photocopies of several publications—such as the Council’s newsletter “Spotlight on Africa”—and the Printed Matter Series (1931–71) of the Ralph Bunche Papers, relating to Bunche’s career at the United Nations. Finally, the Association of Former World Health Organization Staff (AFSM) helped me to track Haitian doctors and their families who had been in the Congo in the 1960s. Archived copies of the AFSM’s quarterly newsletter, which provides news, information, and other features with the aim of promoting contacts among WHO retired staff, were a valuable resource as well. The association also collects the memoirs written by member authors in order to share valuable information about events and activities in the history of global health. Additional archival materials held in the private homes of key informants (Raoul Peck, John Dartigue, Raymond Dusseck, and others) helped fill gaps in textual, photographic, and other types of records.
Although this project aims primarily to address silences in the historical record, I am also interested in tracking the consumption of the categories used to construct individual and collective memories of Haitians in the
38 Regine O. Jackson
Congo. My concern is not only with the categories themselves, but also with the ways they structure (that is, how they both enable and disable) conceptual and empirical work.
Biden has deported nearly as many Haitians in his first year as the last three presidents – combined
February 18, 2022
Biden has expelled nearly as many Haitians in 12 months (20,200+) as were deported during the previous 20 years (21,900) under three different presidents. Indeed, Biden’s administration has likely expelled far more: In addition to these official removal numbers, another estimated 8,000 Haitians were expelled back into Mexico in September of 2021, voluntarily according to DHS Secretary Mayorkas, but in circumstances that make that characterization suspect.
The numbers
Through the end of January 2022, the Biden administration expelled 19,189 Haitians via flights to Port au Prince and Cap Haitian according to the International Organization on Migration. There have been an additional ten flights from February 1st to February 18th – bringing the estimated total number of people expelled to 20,200 and growing. For regular reporting on flights, see Witness at the Border.
Another 8,000 Haitians “volunteered” to return back to Mexico in September of 2021 according to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas, speaking during a press conference about the situation in the Del Rio sector. The degree to which people voluntarily went back into Mexico must be weighed against what they were facing – certain detention and deportation to Haiti. In addition, the entire fiasco that occurred at the Del Rio crossing was an abomination of human rights violations. There has been an internal DHS investigation into Border Patrol attacks on Haitian migrants and a lawsuitbrought by the Haitian Bridge Alliance and other organizations concerning the overall poor treatment of Haitians by US immigration authorities in Del Rio.
The Trump administration expelled 6,150 Haitians. Just over 2,800 of those removals occurred early in 2017, following the Obama administration’s decision to expand deportations to Haiti in October of 2016. Indeed, of the 5,567 Haitians expelled in FY 2017, 2,737 were expelled by the Obama administration between October 2016 to January 2017. Most of the rest expelled that year occurred in February to April, and more accurately reflect an Obama policy. Trump announced his intention to suspend Temporary Protected Status for Haiti in late 2017 – but that suspension was tied up in courts throughout his presidency.
The Obama administration expelled 6,670 Haitians over an 8 year period. As noted above 40% of those removals occurred in the first 4 months of FY 2017. Temporary Protected Status was re-designated for Haiti by the Obama administration in 2011 – a year after the massive earthquake that wrecked Port au Prince in January of 2010. Despite TPS being in place and the country in shambles, deportations continued for new arrivals and so called “criminal deportees” who did not qualify for TPS. The deportations were condemned by the United Nations and others. A detailed report on these removals was published in 2015 jointly by the law clinics at the Universities of Miami and Chicago.
In 2016 the massive increase in deportations was the result of an increase in arrivals of Haitians near San Diego, and was intended then (as today) as a deterrent. The Haitians arriving in San Diego were mostly leaving Brazil where many had relocated after the 2010 earthquake. From 2010 to 2015 Brazil admitted tens of thousands of Haitians in a drive for workers to help prepare for the Olympics and World Cup. Starting in 2015, Brazil fell into a recession, and the situation for Haitians deteriorated quickly. Many tried to come to the United States in 2015 and 2016. They were mostly blocked at the border, as the Obama administration instituted its “metering” system, which forced Haitians to wait in Mexico for their number to be called. Some are still waiting.
The Bush administration deported 9,100 Haitians – during a time that included an increase in removals following the 9/11/2001 attacks and an increase in border militarization more generally. The Bush years also covered the 2004 coup d’etat in Haiti, following which the US Coast Guard interdicted and returned hundreds of Haitians caught at sea – though nothing like the number that had been interdicted in the 1990s. Those numbers are not included here or in any other year, as the people interdicted in this manner rarely make it to the United States.
Take Action to Stop Removals:
We need to tell Biden to halt the expulsion of Haitians. At least 85% of these expulsions have taken place using Title 42 policies – a faux public health order issued under the Trump Administration permitting the Department of Homeland Security to expel people without any possibility of asylum screening. So, not only has Biden removed far more Haitians, but he has shut many out of the possibility to apply for asylum in the process and at a time of great distress in Haiti.
This week members of the House and Senate called on the administration to halt the removals, writing:
Haiti is in the midst of a deteriorating political, climate, and economic crisis. In fact, Haitians now face the compounding challenge of increasing food insecurity, malnutrition, waterborne disease epidemics, and high vulnerability to natural hazards, all of which have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. … Haiti simply cannot safely accept the repatriation of its nationals, which is why we are so deeply concerned with the large-scale removals and expulsions of individuals back to Haiti. To that end, we are concerned that the Administration’s use of the Title 42 authority is depriving legitimate asylum seekers the opportunity to pursue their claims, contrary to our obligations under international and domestic law.
See who signed the letter – and thank your Representative and/or Senator if they did!
We need to keep up the pressure: the message is halt all removals to Haiti given the current humanitarian crisis, and end Title 42 expulsion for everyone!
Send a message to Congress asking them to speak out against this policy by clicking here.
Sources:
- Removals under the Biden administration, from International Organization on Migration.
- October 2020 to January 2021, the end of FY 2020 and start of Biden’s term, is estimated based flight reports, The Biden administration has not yet issued the ICE Annual Report for FY 2021.
- FY 2020 ICE Annual Report
- Fiscal years 2003-2019 Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse
- FY 2001 to FY 2002: Immigration and Naturalization Services statistics accessed at Year Book of Immigration Statistics 2002
ICE removals