Well, we'll go back to Ali Lutz after this
conversation.
But just before the program, I spoke with
Randall
Robinson. He's the founder and past president
of
TransAfrica. He's currently a visiting law
professor at
Pennsylvania State University, though he goes
home
to Saint Kitts tomorrow, where he lives. His
most
recent book is An Unbroken Agony: Haiti, from
Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President.
I began
by just asking for his thoughts about the
crisis right
now in Haiti.
RANDALL ROBINSON: It's important, in trying
to find
ways to help, to be generous and to give,
and to give
generously. I would like to commend President
Obama for his strong and fast response of
a
commitment of $100 million. Operations are
already
underway. I think the world is being incredibly
generous, as I understand the pace of things
to be at
this point, the pace of giving. But, of course,
as many
lives as can possibly be salvaged need to
be salvaged
as quickly as possible, and I have every reason
to
believe that the administration and others
are doing
the very best that they can. As a private
citizen, it's
my responsibility, and our general responsibility,
to
support every effort that's being made to
save lives
in Haiti.
AMY GOODMAN: Word is now President Préval
has
said they've just burned-buried 7,000 bodies
in a
mass grave, but the most important thing right
now
is the search equipment, to go in and to save
people
who are just hanging on, perhaps who have
been
crushed, who are hidden in the rubble. And
yet, that
has yet to come. Some word is there's a lot
of aid at
the airport not able to get through, and then
other
aid just hasn't come.
RANDALL ROBINSON: Well, that's not surprising.
It's
hard for things to function when virtually
all of the
infrastructure has been destroyed. The Haitian
government is unable to function, I would
imagine,
because it's under the same burden that all
Haitians
are under. The President's home has been destroyed.
It's hard to get from point A to point B,
because the
roads are blocked, petrol is not available.
Heavy
equipment is not yet available.
But in the spirit of konbit, the Haitian Creole
word for
"collaboration and cooperation," Haitians
are doing
everything they can. They are resilient, industrious,
courageous people. They're doing everything
they
can to save the lives of their fellows, and
they're
doing it, thus far, with very little, because
it's taking a
while for that kind of assistance to materialize.
AMY GOODMAN: President Obama has tapped
President Clinton and former President George
W.
Bush to coordinate the aid relief to Haiti.
I was
wondering your thoughts on that.
RANDALL ROBINSON: Well, Amy, I'm, of course,
troubled by that. I don't think this is the
time-
neither the time nor the place to discuss
those things
that have troubled me for a long time in the
history
of American policy towards Haiti. Now the
focus
must be upon the rescue efforts that are underway
to save lives.
But I hope that this experience, this disaster,
causes
American media to take a keener look at Haiti,
at the
Haitian people, at their wonderful creativity,
at their
art, at their culture, and what they've had
to bear. It
has been described to the American people
as a
problem of their own making. Well, that's
simply not
the case. Haiti has been, of course, put upon
by
outside powers for its whole post-slavery
history,
from 1804 up until the present.
Of course, President Bush was responsible
for
destroying Haitian democracy in 2004, when
he and
American forces abducted President Aristide
and his
wife, taking them off to Africa, and they
are now in
South Africa. President Clinton has largely
sponsored
a program of economic development that supports
the idea of sweatshops. Haitians in Haiti
today make
38 cents an hour. They don't make a high enough
wage to pay for their lunch and transportation
to and
from work. But this is the kind of economic
program
that President Clinton has supported. I think
that is
sad, that these two should be joined in this
kind of
effort. It sends, I think, the wrong kind
of signal. But
that is not what we should focus on now. We
should
focus on saving lives.
But in the last analysis, I hope that American
media
will not just continue to-the refrain of Haiti
being
the poorest country in the western hemisphere,
but
will come to ask the question, why? What
distinguishes Haiti from the rest of the Caribbean?
Why are the other countries, like the country
in
which I live, Saint Kitts, middle-income and
successful
countries, and Haiti is mired in economic
despair?
What happened? And who's had a hand in it?
If Haiti
has been under a series of serial dictatorship,
who
armed the dictators? There are other hands
in Haiti's
problem. Of course Haiti is responsible for
some of
its own failures, but probably not principally
responsible. We need to know that. We need
to be
told the whole story of these wonderful, resilient,
courageous and industrious people. And we
have not
been told that. I would hope that this would
be an
opportunity for doing so.
AMY GOODMAN: In talking about President Bush,
while most people may not know the role the
US
played in the ouster of President Aristide
February
29th, 2004, probably what would come to mind
when
there's any discussion of relief efforts is
Katrina.
RANDALL ROBINSON: Yes. The problem of what
happened in February 2004 continues. We had
democracy in Haiti, and that democracy was
blighted
by the Bush administration. And now President
Aristide's party is prohibited from participating
in the
electoral process. His party is the largest
party in
Haiti. And why should we be so afraid to let
his party
participate? If Haitian people don't want
them, they
won't vote for them. That is the very essence
of
democracy, that people get a chance to stand
for
election, and the electorate gets a chance
to make a
decision. But we have obstructed that process
in
Haiti. We have done that under the Clinton
administration, under the Bush administration,
and
that continues under the Obama administration.
And
that is indeed unfortunate. I am imploring
American
media to examine this in whole part, in ways
that
media have failed to do so up until now.
AMY GOODMAN: This history, the two crises,
the
natural catastrophe that is the earthquake,
that the
Red Cross is now saying they believe perhaps
up to
50,000 people have died-and we're not talking
about, you know, just what has happened in
the past,
but what is currently happening. Who was just
quoted? Lieutenant General Russel Honoré,
the
retired general who took charge of relief
efforts in
New Orleans, said that aid should have arrived,
that
said the US military should have arrived in
earthquake-devastated Haiti twenty-four hours
earlier. Of course, as we know, people trapped
under
rubble, every minute counts.
RANDALL ROBINSON: Well, I'm not in a position
to
comment on that. I simply can't make an assessment
of how fast or how slowly they arrived or
how soon
they should have arrived. And so, I will withhold
comment on that.
AMY GOODMAN: Does it make you nervous to hear
about US soldiers on Haitian soil? If you
can share a
little more of the history of the United States
and
Haiti-or do you think this isn't the time
to talk, for
example, about 1915 to 1934, the first US
Marine
occupation, and then-
RANDALL ROBINSON: Well, I should think it
would-I
should think, Amy, it would make Haitians
nervous
under these circumstances. Of course, I'm
sure that
they are, understandably, quite happy to see
assistance from any quarter.
But it was in 1915 that Woodrow Wilson, of
course,
with a force of American Marines, invaded
and
occupied Haiti until 1934. They seized land,
redistributed it to American corporations,
took
control of the country, ran the country, collected
customs duties for that period of time, and
ran the
country as if it were an American possession.
But this has marked the relationship since
Toussaint
Louverture and an army of ex-slaves overthrew
French rule in 1804. The French exacted, of
course,
reparations from the new free black republic
of Haiti,
bankrupting the country. The Vatican didn't
recognize Haiti until the 1860s. The Western
nations
of the world, responding to a call for isolation
and
embargo from Thomas Jefferson, imposed sanctions
on Haiti that lasted until the Emancipation
Proclamation in the United States, of course
followed in the twentieth century by President
Wilson's occupation and then by the dictatorial
blight
of Duvaliers, Papa and son, and all of the
other
military generals that, of course, were armed
by the
United States.
And so, Haiti's plight up until this point
has been, in
some significant way, attributable to bad
and painful
American, French and Western policy that some
believe is caused or described, motivated
by
Toussaint Louverture's victory over Napoleon.
The
French have never forgiven the Haitian people
for
this.
AMY GOODMAN: Former President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide said he's ready to return to help
rebuild his
country in the wake of the devastating earthquake.
Why can't he just return?
