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Haiti has been a site of resistance against colonialism & white supremacist rule for centuries now.
Haitians are currently demanding the resignation of the current president Jovenel Moïse
News stories often report on the poverty in Haiti as well as political corruption and instability. But to get a full view of Haiti we have to understand it's history.
Haiti is located on the western end of an island named by colonizers as "Hispaniola". It was home to Indigenous people called the Arawak also called "Taino" by the colonizers.
At least two decades after Christopher Columbus landed on the island many of the Indigenous people had been murdered or enslaved and their labor used to fuel the wealth of the settlers and their colonial masters.
The Spanish enacted cruel brutality upon the people despite their kindness and forced them to work in gold and copper mines.
Haiti was later colonized by the French who turned it into a sugar colony. Enslaved Africans were used to fuel the exports of sugar back to Europe.
They were brutally exploited and many often died only after a few years because of the cruel conditions. The French figured they could just purchase more Africans and didn't need to keep them alive.
The French set up a class-based racial hierarchy. The colony was ruled by the plantation owners. At the bottom were enslaved Africans. In between were many mixed-race freemen and the poor whites.
By the end of the 18th century, most of the population was of African descent. This meant that the ruling elite was outnumbered by those who were enslaved and freemen who were of mixed race but didn't have full equality.
Africans had risen up against the colony before and many had formed maroon communities. The social stratification and political turmoil on the island and in France allowed for a full-blown revolutionary movement.
CLR James chronicles the Haitian Revolution in "The Black Jacobins".
The Haitian revolution inspired many enslaved Africans in their quest for freedom. Haiti abolished slavery and announced that anyone who showed up on the island would be free.
Colonial powers have made Haiti pay a price for daring to free themselves. France forced Haiti to pay back 21 billion dollars in debt for the loss of its "property". Haiti was also forced to export its goods to France at a discount.
In 1915 the United States occupied Haiti for 19 years. They seized Haiti's national treasury and under occupation, they forced Haiti to pay almost half its income towards debt to the US and France.
In 2004, Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was overthrown in a coup and kidnapped by American forces.
Haiti's poor economic progress is not just a relic of "corruption" or "mismanagement" but a direct result neocolonial capitalism where Haitian labor is exploited by multinationals and the economy is constricted by debt by international banks.
The United States receives up to 80 percent of Haiti's exports.
https://www.leftvoice.org/new-evidence-shows-un-troops-engaged-in-sexual-abuse-of-children-in-haiti UN troops are also complicit in the brutality enacted upon Haitians by foreign powers.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/why-haitians-say-they-wont-stop-protesting Haitians have been protesting corruption, embezzlement, and oppression from their government over the past few years and have long fought corruption, neo-colonialism, and Haitian elite rule.
