Haiti does not need gunboat diplomacy

OTTAWA—Foreign policy analysis is rarely framed in racialized terms. There is good reason for that. It can, if one is not careful, render the argument inadequate. However, in the case of Canada’s longstanding role in Haitian politics, it is not only appropriate, it is necessary. Haiti is quite literally about anti-Black racism, about Black-skinned descendants of enslaved Africans perpetually trying to free themselves of the power wielded by white-skinned westerners. In 1825, King Charles X of France ordered the Black Haitians to pay 150 million francs to secure their independence, 10 times more than the price the United States paid to purchase Louisiana. Afraid that the slave rebellions could spread to their soil, the Americans isolated Haiti. In 1915, they outright invaded it, leaving in 1934, but not before siphoning off 40 per cent of Haiti’s national income. Then there was former U.S. president Donald Trump, who in 2018 put his racism right out in the open. He referred to Haiti as a “shithole” country. Bhagwant Sandhu is a retired director general with the federal government. Photograph courtesy of Bhagwant Sandhu Rudyard Kipling wrote his famous poem, A White Man’s Burden, in 1899. He was urging the United States to assume colonial control of the dark-skinned Filipinos, which the U.S. did. Flagrant violations of international law are not possible these days. You have to make a public case and recruit allies. The recent visit to Ottawa by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was designed to do exactly that; and the Trudeau Liberals are marching in lockstep. “Haiti needs us,” said Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly as she stood next to Blinken at an Ottawa press conference on Oct. 27. Canadian armoured vehicles were meanwhile touching the tarmac in Haiti, ostensibly for an “assessment mission.” That is how we always help Haiti, with guns and violence. At times, we have stationed up to 1,000 Canadian Armed Forces and RCMP personnel in the island nation. Haiti does not need gunboat diplomacy. It needs to be able to chart its own course, without being thwarted by unelected autocrats, like the current self-appointed prime minister Ariel Henry. It also needs Canada to mind its own business. In 2004, then-prime minister Jean Chrétien helped orchestrate the overthrow of Haiti’s first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Aristide’s attempts to improve the lot of poor and Black neighbourhoods was seen as dabbling in socialism. His departure was facilitated by something called the core group, a cluster of bureaucrats from white colonial powers: France, Spain, the United States, and the Eureopean Union. The core group works hand-in-glove with Haiti’s power elites to handpick presidents and prime ministers, arguing the classic Kipling refrain: the natives are not ready to govern themselves. Speaking of Haiti’s elites, if their economic clout was not enough to differentiate them from the rest of Haitian society, they also like to define themselves as racially white. This cabal of white oligarchs includes a dozen families who collectively control 90 per cent of Haiti’s national wealth. With names like Bigio, Apaid, Mevs, Brandt, Acra, and Madsen, Black Haitians have given them the catchy acronym “Bambam” which in phonetic Creole roughly translates to “Gimme, gimme.” Or more appropriately, white greed. Joly and Blinken want to convince us that Haiti is under siege by armed gangs. What they are not telling us is that when ordinary people get desperate, they organize, they push back, and when they get really desperate, they pick up arms. The gangs referred to by Joly and Blinken go by another name: the Revolutionary Forces of the G9 Family and Allies. They are led by a former policeman and neighbourhood organizer, Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier. In 2021, Cherizier stood in front of a mural of Che Guevara and declared, “we have to overturn the whole system, where 12 families have taken the nation hostage.” Blinken’s approach to the Haitian crisis is to do what he has done elsewhere: gear up for a military occupation. In 2003, Blinken formulated then-Senator Joe Biden’s argument to invade Iraq, couching it as “a vote for tough diplomacy.” In 2011, he helped develop then-president Barack Obama’s strategy to bomb Libya. Chances are Blinken’s plans for Haiti are crafted already. The Canadian visit was probably just to tie up the loose ends of public opinion and to set the stage for an eventual UN Security Council vote to send in the army. We don’t have to support Blinken’s agenda. We could mediate a national reconciliation process. We could help set a firm date for national elections in Haiti. We could ask that Henry resign, and that the only elected officials—Haiti’s 10 Senators—form an interim government. These are the same senators who passed a resolution on Oct. 9 to negate Henry’s requests for foreign military intervention. We could even force the core group to balance its colour divide by involving countries from Haiti’s own backyard: Cuba and Barbados come to mind. But we won’t do any of that. We will do only what the U.S. wants us to do—which is precisely why ordinary, everyday Haitians neither care for, nor trust us, anymore. Bhagwant Sandhu is Canadian foreign policy commentator and author. He retired as director general from the federal public service. The Hill Times

Haiti does not need gunboat diplomacy

It needs to be able to chart its own course, without being thwarted by unelected autocrats. It also needs Canada to mind its own business.

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Haiti does not need gunboat diplomacy

It needs to be able to chart its own course, without being thwarted by unelected autocrats. It also needs Canada to mind its own business.

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