T.Mayheart Dardar Stories

Disclaimer: The following writings are the personal works of Michael Dardar and do not necessarily express the opinions of the tribal council of the UHN.

Haiti and the Empire;
An Indigenous perspective

by T.Mayheart Dardar

“ The French Revolution became Americanized in it’s purest and most dramatic form in St. Dominque, where the free people of African descent rose up for equality, and in August, 1791, the slaves revolted en masse. After many years of civil and international war, slavery was definitively abolished and Haiti established herself as the second independent nation in the America’s.”

Africans in Colonial Louisiana
Gwendolyn Midlo Hall

It is of great interest to note the reaction to Haitian independence by the first independent nation in the Americas.

Thomas Jefferson, the great father of democracy, refused to recognize the emergence of a new democratic government in the Caribbean. In fact it was not until 1862 that the United States formally recognized the government of Haiti.While Toussaint L’ Ouverture was leading the overthrow of the French masters of St. Dominque, Thomas Jefferson was busy attempting to expand the new American Empire. The main impediment to American expansion was the Indigenous Nations of North America, the rightful owners of the land so eagerly sought by the new nation. Jefferson’s solution, born of racist notions of European superiority, was for Indigenous Americans to forsake their culture and identity and become yeoman farmers in an American Utopia.

American history calls Jefferson’s policies benevolent, suggesting that he simply wanted to meld the Native population into what would become the great melting pot of American culture. In fact what little benevolence that is found in Jefferson’s Indian policy is due to the reality that, at the time, the United States did not have the military strength to simply take what they wanted. Given his situation Jefferson sought ways to take Indian land that avoided direct military action. One method he used to acquire land was to establish trading houses in tribal territory and encourage tribes to run up debts that they could not possibly pay without selling off huge portions of their land. Another method was to appoint political chiefs to by-pass the traditional Indigenous governments. Indian agents, sent from Washington, would only deal with these chiefs. Often both strategies would work hand-in-hand with the political chiefs running up debts for their personal benefit and pushing the responsibility for the debt off on the tribe.

“…Even so, Jefferson’s Indian policy was neither equitable nor humane, and it’s legacies of dispossession, poverty and isolation remain on Indian reservations in the American west in the twenty-first century.”

The Indian Frontier in the age of Jefferson
R. Douglas Hurt
Purdue University

The real legacy of Jefferson’s Indian policy is the foreign policy used today, by the United States, in places like Haiti. Concepts in today’s terminology, such as regime change, can trace their roots back to the dealings between America and the Indigenous Nations in the years following the revolution.

The United States began its policy of intervention in Haiti in 1888. By 1891 American troops were occupying parts of the island to protect American interest. Woodrow Wilson sent Marines to the island in 1914 and again in 1915. The intervention and occupation continued through the administrations of four Presidents. In 1934 Franklin Roosevelt, using the Jefferson model of a political chief, appointed Francois (Papa Doc) Duvalier via a staged military coup.

“Papa Doc created a brutal dictatorship backed by the Tontons Macoute, a Haitian Praetorian Guard. Upon his death, Jean Claude or Baby Doc Duvalier replaced his father until his overthrow in 1986. Both mouthed the anti-communist line, brutalized their own people and received U.S. support.”

Haitian Redux
Saul Landau
Znet 26 Feb. 04

Though it is front-page news today, Haiti is by no means the only sovereignty in the Americas affected by U.S. foreign policy. Indeed the real purpose on the Monroe Doctrine was not so much to protect the Western Hemisphere from European intervention but rather to reserve the Americas for strictly U.S. intervention.

The Spanish-American War, sold to the public as fought to protect American and Cuban interest, was about nothing more than American Imperial ambitions in Cuba and the Philippines. In 1900 American and European troops fought Chinese insurgents during the Boxer Rebellion. In reality the rebellion was an attempt by the Chinese to save their country from foreign exploitation.

In our more enlightened times, since the end of world war two, America has been involved, either directly or indirectly, in intervening in Italian elections (1947-1948), attempting to overthrow a sovereign government in Albania (1949-1953), supporting a series of repressive governments in Guatemala (1953-1990’s) and many other interventions for the sake of U.S. interest. (see A Brief History of U.S. Interventions; 1945 to Present by William Blum)

Jefferson’s trading house debt strategy has matured into the strongest weapon used by the Industrial West to subjugate the Third World. Capitalist institutions like the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the World Bank are backed by the military and economic might of the United States and are able to dictate their terms in any trade agreement. Agreements like NAFTA and FTAA have nothing to do with free trade but are codified treaties that continue to shift wealth and resources into the hands of the West’s financial elite.

To trap Third World countries within their system massive amounts of money and capital are funneled to dictators and repressive governments (none of which finds its way to the poor and needy of those countries). These regimes faithfully repress their populations in support of American policy, adhere to the anti-communist or anti-terrorist rhetoric and are hailed by the West as progressive. If their people happen to rise up in some sort of populist revolution the West still holds them liable for the debt accrued by the government who repressed them.

With the strangle hold of debt the Empire demands concessions from the new government, concessions that are euphemistically called liberalizing the economy by the American government. Among these concessions are opening up markets to foreign investors (in Haiti this meant reducing tariffs on U.S. grown rice, bankrupting thousands of Haitian farmers), privatizing state run resources (such as utilities and water, in some cases making these basic needs unavailable to the poor), and control of labor (suppression of union activity and maintenance of below subsistence minimum wage).

Thus when Jean Claude Duvalier fled Haiti in 1986 the forces of Empire used debt service and CIA-backed subversion to keep the Haitian people under the control of Western capitalist interest. Finally, in 1990, the unthinkable happened. A charismatic priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was elected to the Haitian Presidency by an overwhelming majority of the people. Preaching Liberation Theology he came to power with a commitment to the poor and downtrodden. For almost nine months he worked to re-channel the wealth and resources of the country to its poor majority. This of course made enemies for him among the rich minority (about 1%) of Haiti, as well as international capitalist entities and the government of the United States.

On September 29th, 1991 a military coup sent Aristide into exile and plunged Haiti back into chaos. When the U.S. government had decided that the suffering Haiti would now accept economic liberalization they brought Aristide back in 1994. Since his return Aristide has been prevented, by the dictates of the IMF and the United States, in implementing many of the reforms to uplift the poor that he had begun in 1991. Trying to work his way around these impediments and delay implementation of the worst of the liberalization programs Aristide again drew condemnation from the Empire.

In the 2000 elections Aristide was given the Presidency, again winning a huge majority of the popular vote. The people of Haiti looked to their brave priest who stood between them and the avarice of the corporate elite.

The American government called the election flawed despite the fact that several international observers called it a fair election. The issue was seized by the opposition party, who immediately began to call for Aristide’s resignation.

The United States has a massive amount of resources at its disposal to deal with Third World Nations so it does not have to rely on its Department of State. Using the International Republican Institute and funds channeled through the National Endowment for Democracy the U.S. established, funded and trained an opposition party to counter the popularity of Aristide. Ex-Duvalier era thugs and killers were recruited, armed and trained to become a rebel force.

An example is a rebel leader prominently featured in the national press, Louis Jodel Chamberlain. Shown amid victorious rebel forces after fall of Aristide’s government on February 29th, with a brand new M-16 in his hand (part of a large shipment of arms sent to the Dominican Republic prior to the uprising of anti-Aristide forces, who were also near the Dominican border). Chamberlain was convicted of murder in asthenia for killing an Aristide supporter. He was a leader of army death squads and after the 1991 coup was responsible for the deaths of thousands of his fellow Haitians. It would seem that those people who kill for causes contrary to American interest are terrorist while those who kill in line with American interest become freedom fighters.

I think back to the Creek War in the early eighteen hundreds when the Red Stick Creeks rose up against the continued encroachment on their territory by the United States. To fight against this force (Creek and other tribal warriors united against the Americans) Andrew Jackson recruited William McIntosh, a Creek Chief, and Pushmataha, Chief of the Choctaws as well as a band of loyal (loyal to the U.S. not their tribes) Creek, Choctaw and Cherokee warriors. The force of loyalist Indians had no reservations about killing their own in support of American policy. Divide and conquer was a strategy used to perfection against the Indigenous Nations of North America and it still works today, in Haiti.

With all these weapons at their disposal the Americans were able to produce a regime change in Haiti and come away, in the world press, with no blood on their hands. The democratically elected President of a sovereign nation has been deposed and a band of killers has been given a seat at the table of the new government. In the name of freedom and democracy another repressive U.S. client state arises. Unfortunately this is not a new or uncommon event, studies have shown a direct correlation between U.S. aide and human rights abuses. The most repressive regimes, as long as they go along with the Western capitalist agenda, can count of Favored Nation status.

So what does all this mean to the Indigenous Nation within the United States? What does the Haitian situation tell us about American plans and goals for this hemisphere?

The goal of U.S. foreign policy is a receptive, compliant government in Haiti that will not only bend to U.S. economic interest but who will also support a U.S. military and intelligence presence in their country. Situated between Cuba and Venezuela (two countries at the top of the regime change list) Haiti would be a vital base for the ongoing war against real sovereignty and democracy in Central and South America. With the rise of the Zapatistas in Mexico, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and leaders like Evo Morales in Bolivia the rights and aspirations of Indigenous People have been championed in new and progressive ways. The indigenous and poor populations have been given a renewed sense of hope. Land and resources have begun to return to the people of the land and away from the privileged elite. This, of course, is in direct opposition to the plans and schemes of the wealthy nations and their multi-national corporations who continue to bleed the Third World of its resources and capital.

The comparison between U.S. Indian policy in the days of Jefferson and the Foreign policy of today that it gave birth to is made here to show us that the Indian Wars never ended. Wounded Knee was not the last battle in the war against Indigenous America, it continues today.

Thousands of Mayan Indians have been killed in Guatemala by a succession of U.S.-backed governments, in the Amazon many tribes are pushed to the edge of extinction by the demands of foreign investors, in Canada the Lubricon Cree fight for their survival as a people against the petroleum and timber industries, while here in the United States the Shoshone people battle the Federal Government’s continued attempts to take Shoshone land.

Meanwhile we continue to hear about tribes who want to become politically active, by which they mean that they want to become involved with the Democrat or Republican political process. This last year several tribes spent millions of dollars on lobbyist, as they became major players of the American political game.

Is the future of tribes and tribal governments to be linked to political contributions? Must we become part and partial to the political system that has devastated Haiti and dozens of countries like it? Would this be the strategy of Tecumseh, Osceola or Dragging Canoe if they were alive today?

Before Tribal Government decides on Democrat or Republican they need to consider how many administrations, from both parties, have been in power since 1954. Then consider the death and destruction visited on the Mayan people of Guatemala by American interest during that time.

“…Let me tell you first our experience as indigenous people and peasants in Guatemala, and as Mayans. The people of Guatemala have been subjected to the cruelest trials in history….It was not until 1944 that a small democratic space opened for the first time in history, allowing the organization of different sectors of society. More importantly, for the first time the law recognized the right of indigenous people to be paid for their labor and to have access to social security. However, this did not last long because agrarian reform of 1952 to 1954 provoked acceleration of North American intervention, which, through the CIA, deposed the government of Jacobo Arbenz. We indigenous people benefited from land reform and from the provision of various social services, but that all ended in 1954 when counterinsurgency programs directed against indigenous peoples began…”

Juan Tiney, Mayan Indian
Latin American Coordinator of Peasant Organizations
(CLOC)

 

The civil conflict, that began after American intervention in the late fifties, has cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans. Like the Haitian people, their lives are considered a small price to pay for corporate profits. In September of 2002, Indigenous leader Manuel Garcia de la Cruz was brutally tortured and murdered. Since February of 2003 Juan Tiney has received constant threats against his life. The war against the people of the land continues.

Are we, the Indigenous Peoples within the United States, going to become part of this American dream with our cultures and traditions burned away by the fires of the great melting pot? There has always been those among us who advocated this path, William McIntosh, Keokuk, Ross Swimmer and Dickie Wilson to name but a few. These and others like them are apples (red outside but white within), descendants of the hang-around-the forts of the colonial days. They arise at every conflict looking to the BIA or the Attorney General for a resolution instead of looking to their elders or their traditions. If we as Indigenous Nations look to the Federal Government to rescue us then how can we speak of sovereignty and self-determination with any sense of sincerity?

For the Indigenous world the geopolitics of the Haitian situation has again showed us the heart of the American Empire. It shows us that the tactics and inspirations that fueled the Indian Wars are still alive today in the heart of America. If we can rise above the mind-numbing effects of assimilation we can see that the freedom and democracy preached today in the pulpit of American politics are just hollow, empty words. Joining ourselves to the political machine is not the way to become politically active. The battle is against five hundred years of Euro centric domination that has killed our people, stolen our land and now clouds our judgment.

Our heritage is not written in the words of Thomas Jefferson, it is reflected in the lives of Pontiac, Black Hawk and Red Eagle. If we want to speak, write or act on issues then we need to look at the issues of the indigenous world and not those of American politics. Monies donated to Democrats, Republicans or lobbyist are better given to organizations like Friends of the Lubricon or the Western Shoshone Defense Project. If we are to speak of sovereignty, self-determination and Native American rights then we need to think as indigenous people. We must see the world through indigenous eyes, hear with indigenous ears and judge issues with an indigenous heart and an indigenous mind.

Haiti is a wake-up call; the geopolitics of imperialism that struck Iraq has now taken down a democratic government in the Americas. It has its sight set on Venezuela and any other nation that resist its will; the Empire is at war…where do we stand?