Sam and Emma interview Brian Concannon, an expert with over 20 years’ experience in Haiti, and what he says is highly interesting:
And if you wonder why I put “president” in quotes, there’s a reason for that. Namely, the salient facts that (a) Jovenel Moïse was NOT democratically elected, he was installed; and (b) his installation was in line with the interests of our usual suspect in all things hemispheric mayhem, namely the good ol’ US of Amnesia. Which was, as the good folks above point out, hostile to Haiti from the moment its slave population overthrew their masters in the early 1800s, and attempted to create a democracy by and for the people, not the money, on Haitian soil. Haiti has been economically and politically punished ever since. Can’t have the tyranny of a good example, can we?
And of course, their abuse of Haiti is the blueprint for their abuse of so many Latin American and Caribbean countries. Particularly Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba. Cuba, particularly, suffers from the “tyranny of a good example” syndrome afflicting Washington, since the brothers Castro and their guerrillas of the July 26 movement overthrew a dictator who was, like Moïse, Washington’s lackey in the land. It’s been under a blockade since the early 1960s, once it became clear that Fidel Castro intended to be his own man, and run Cuba for the Cubans, and not for foreign sugar, tobacco, and rum interests that happened to be squatting on Cuban soil — along with Mafia-run nightclubs and bordellos.
And anyone who had positive dealings with Castro’s Cuba would suffer the same consequences. Venezuela has been in the crosshairs ever since Hugo Chávez (sadly missed!) struck up a friendship with Fidel, and a political alliance between their two countries. Chavecito was no puppet of any “dictator”, however; he was operating under the inspiration of his own local liberators: Simón Bolívar, Ezequiel Zamora, and Simón Rodríguez, particularly. Bolívar, for his part, took inspiration from Haiti’s slave revolt when, a few years after it, he succeeded in helping five entire countries throw off the Spanish colonial yoke.
The fact that Moïse, Washington’s man in Haiti, supported that nobody, Juan Guaidó, whom nobody in Venezuela elected to the presidency, just says it all. It wasn’t the final nail in his coffin, but it was definitely a nail nonetheless.
So you can see how this whole thing forms a circle: Haiti is the original model for so many Latin American freedom fights, and also the template for all the many times Washington has tried to crush them, with varying degrees of success. This time, the failure was an epic one. But don’t expect capitalism’s lackeys — including those currently in the White House — to be quick to get that message.
