Haitian government officials say that up to 500,000 are dead, crushed beneath their homes, schools and workplaces during a mighty earthquake Jan. 12. Most were killed when poorly constructed buildings collapsed on them. Television news in the U.S. showed rows of children's bodies lying lifeless, bloodied and bruised. It is a horrible tragedy that will be largely reported as a natural disaster. There is nothing natural about it.

James Jordan of the Campaign for Labor Rights said, “I just returned from Haiti last week where I saw a people organizing for freedom and equality. I am heartbroken by the devastation, but I am also angry because I know all those people did not have to die. It is the poverty and misery imposed by the U.S. empire that creates the conditions where so many die, are injured and lose their homes because of a natural disaster. It reminds me of all the African-Americans and working people in New Orleans who died or were forced out during Hurricane Katrina.”

Haiti suffers under U.S. domination and exploitation. Poverty is abundant and hunger stalks the vast majority. Many homes are made of concrete cinderblocks with corrugated metal or other found materials used for roofing. Due to poverty and lack of materials, the bigger buildings are shoddily made and there is little regulation or standards. These came tumbling down on top of hundreds of thousands of Haitian people.

U.S. Marines are landing in Haiti before any large scale humanitarian aid or teams to dig out victims. The U.S. military's mission is to preserve the reactionary social order for U.S. corporations and to protect the wealthy few. While Haitian people are sleeping on the streets, searching for clean drinking water and digging out loved ones with their hands and sticks, the U.S. government is worrying about maintaining their military might. The U.S. supports a small Haitian ruling class composed of a few land-owning families and rich businessmen. They keep the vast majority of the island in poverty and backward living conditions.

The U.S. has dominated Haiti for decades, sponsoring military coups and death squads. In 2004, the U.S. orchestrated the ousting and kidnapping of President Aristide, a former Catholic priest and advocate for social justice and equality. Aristide opposed the privatization of state industries like the electricity and telephone companies. President Aristide put the interests of ordinary Haitians above those of the elites. Aristide still lives in exile. Haiti is suffering and many more are sure to die in the coming weeks. U.S. troops are occupiers, not liberators.

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Aristide states that U.S. envoys forced him to sign a 'resignation' letter, under the threat of bloodshed against the people of Haiti. Guy Philippe and other death squad members, convicted felons and murderers, have declared themselves to be Haiti's new government. No one should be confused about the nature of these 'rebels.' Their roots can be found in the Duvalierist regimes that terrorized Haiti from 1957 until 1986 and the CIA-tied military government that ruled in the early 1990s.

The blame for Haiti's current crisis must be placed squarely on the U.S. government, which has attempted to control Haiti's politics and economy for more than a century. The U.S. occupied Haiti militarily from 1915 to 1934 and supported the Duvalier dictatorships for decades. With the full backing of the U.S. government, Haiti's elite lined their pockets, while the majority sank deeper and deeper into poverty.

Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, has a standard of living comparable to sub-Saharan Africa. Life expectancy is 52 years. Of every 1,000 children born, more than 100 died before their fifth birthday. Haiti has the worst AIDS epidemic in the Caribbean.

Rise of Aristide: Coup and Return

The Haitian people, desperately looking for something or someone to bring them out of the grinding poverty, found hope and inspiration in Jean Bertrand Aristide. A parish priest influenced by liberation theology, Aristide worked with the poorest of the poor. Loved by the Haitian people, he was elected president by a landslide in 1990. For the first time in recent history, Haitians believed that the government would represent them and that it would work to resolve the needs of the poor majority.

Aristide's call for populist economic programs set off alarms for the richest Haitians and in Washington D.C. Leading the charge against Aristide was Senator Jesse Helms, then the chair of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee; Roger Noriega, Helm's chief of staff and Otto Reich, a fanatically anti-Castro policy maker in the Reagan and Bush administrations.

Aristide's populist experiment in Haiti was not to be allowed by Washington. Guy Philippe and other members of FRAPH, a U.S.-backed death-squad, carried out a coup that killed between 3,000 and 5,000 Haitians just months after Aristide's election.

Aristide went into exile and worked to negotiate a return to power. In exchange for the U.S. government 'backing' Aristide's return in 1994, he was forced to agree to the presence of 20,000 U.S. troops in Haiti. Aristide was also mandated to implement a World Bank economic plan for Haiti that would privatize state industries, lower tariff barriers, dismantle the traditional agricultural sector and destroy food security. The World Bank and the U.S. forced Aristide to reverse all of the populist economic programs he had promised the people.

In spite of the growing discontent over the economic policies, Aristide continued to be wildly popular. In 2000, Aristide again ran for president and again won overwhelmingly. The U.S.-backed opposition refused to take their seats in parliament, though, claiming that the election was unfair.

Bush's War on Caribbean and Latin America

When George Bush came to power, he appointed Roger Noriega, mastermind of Jesse Helms' anti-Aristide policies, to the post of Under Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs. Citing the 'undemocratic' Haitian elections, the Bush government immediately cut off international funds promised to Haiti, forced Aristide to empty the national treasury to repay International Monetary Fund loans and (via the Republican party) poured money into the coffers of the opposition forces who had been ousted by Aristide in 1991 and in 1994. The country plunged into even greater levels of poverty and social crisis. Taking advantage of the discontent, a small group of right-wing 'rebels,' aided by the U.S., invaded from the Dominican Republic and demanded that Aristide step down. When he refused, the U.S. military stepped in.

The U.S. government's role in the coup in Haiti is yet another example of the return to the gunboat diplomacy that the U.S. is so well known for throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. George W. Bush has brought back the zealous right-wing policy makers of the old Reagan-Bush era. Otto Reich, Roger Noriega and their cronies see Latin America and the Caribbean as nothing more than the U.S.'s backyard – a source of cheap labor and environments ready for U.S. corporate exploitation. They will stop at nothing to ensure imperialist domination.

However, they have underestimated the ability of the people of Latin America to resist. A similar coup attempt in 2002 against Hugo Chavez, the democratically elected president of Venezuela, was unsuccessful due to the powerful resistance of the Venezuelan people.

The people of Latin America and the Caribbean will not kneel down to U.S. aggression. The Haitian people in particular have a proud history of resisting imperialism. Two hundred years ago, under the leadership of Toussaint, the Haitian people rebelled against French rule, destroyed slavery and established the world's first Black republic. In 1986, they brought down the dictatorship of the U.S.-backed 'Baby Doc' Duvalier. There is no doubt that they will continue to fight for a free Haiti, where the country's destiny is in the hands of the Haitian people.

Cherrene Horazuk is an expert in on Latin America and the former National Director of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES).

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