Haiti--The Maelstrom

So graphic was Haiti’s economic collapse, its unending race hatreds, and its grinding poverty, one can understand how a Pat Robertson—working from a religious point of view—could suggest that these multiple disasters must have risen out of some pact with the devil.
It may have seemed that way to many Haitians. On the other hand, American troops must have seemed like a blessing. American army engineers built almost 200 bridges, hundreds of miles of roads, schools and public buildings. No Europeans were allowed to forcibly collect on debts.
Agriculture became viable. Sugar, cotton and other crops were making money again. The Americans settled several boundary issues with the Dominican Republic—the larger half of the island. Land was given back to Haiti.
Then, in 1934, President Roosevelt gave Haiti a new constitution and pulled the troops out. Angry Dominicans struck back, retaking their old borders. As many as 20,000 Haitians were slaughtered in less than a week.
Two more coups, a resignation in the face of a general strike and finally came the election of 1957. Francoise Duvalier, who instituted one of the most racist regimes ever seen on earth, was voted in as president.
“Papa Doc”, as he was known, was from the lowest class in Haiti—the former slaves, the black underclass. He came with—and violently represented—all of the hatred Haitian blacks felt for the “gentlemen of color”—the Creoles, the Mulattoes.
He and his private army of bully boys—the Ton ton Macoutes—set out to either kill or drive the Mulatto class out of Haiti. Thousands of Haiti’s most educated citizens fled to places like the newly free French colonies in Africa where their expertise could be of benefit and they could make a living.
(Back in 1961, I had a good friend in New York City who worked as an executive for a large retailer. He was a refugee from Papa Doc who took his abilities and education with him. His family had been among the Haitian elite. His sin was his light color. He was often amused at the racial prejudice he faced in New York because of his DARK color, especially being married to a Parisian.)
Papa’s son, “Bebe Doc”, succeeded Papa in 1971 and continued the anti-mulatto program until he was thrown out in 1986. He took refuse, ironically, not in Africa among his fellow blacks—but in Paris. A new constitution was put in place the next year.
Elections scheduled for 1987 didn’t happen because the Ton ton Macoutes, aided by the Haitian army, shot dozens of people around the country. Bereft of much of its educated class, the nation sank further into chaos.
Finally the American military stepped in in 1994—to restore a very corrupt Jean Bertrand Aristide to power. He abolished the Haitian army and, by 2000, he was rigging elections and using his new “police force” to intimidate the opposition.
This time a United Nations peace keeping force stepped in to create and maintain order of some sort. They stayed until their headquarters fell down around their ears in the recent earthquake.
You are left with a desperately poor nation, dominated by descendents of ex-slaves who never had proper opportunity for education or improvement. The educated class has been driven out. The military does not exist. Infrastructure has been allowed to decay for the past seventy-five years. There is no real economy.
One can almost ask, what is there to rebuild? We may have to start from the very beginning—and do all of the educating and building that should have been done back in 1804. That’s what we face in Haiti. Sending in the Red Cross for a few months isn’t going to fix it. It will take far more than the Corps of Engineers. More tomorrow.