Guerrilla History - Haiti and Western Intervention w/ Pascal Robert - Dispatch

Episode Date: November 11, 2022

In this Dispatch episode, we provide a grounding on the history of Western intervention in Haiti in order to analyze the current situation taking place there, and the prospects for even expanded intervention.  For this, we bring on Pascal Robert, who's writing on Haiti has been very useful in shedding light on a locality that the Western media tends to ignore unless convenient for them.  W're also joined by our friend James Ray as a guest host for this episode.  Enjoy, and share! Pascal Robert is a writer, political commentator, contributor to Black Agenda Report (if you're not already reading BAR, you should start right now!) and Newsweek, and is cohost of the This Is Revolution Podcast.  He can be followed on twitter @probert06 James Ray is a political commentator and a friend of the show. You can follow him on Twitter @GoodVibePolitik and on TikTok @JamesGetsPolitical Help support the show by signing up to our patreon, where you also will get bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory  We also have a new (free!) newsletter you can sign up for!

You don't remember Den Van Booh? No! The same thing happened in Algeria, in Africa. They didn't have anything but a rank. The French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare. But they put some guerrilla action on. Hello and welcome to guerrilla history. the podcast that acts as a reconnaissance report of global proletarian history and aims to use the

lessons of history to analyze the present. I'm your host, Henry Huckimacki, joined by one of my usual co-hosts and a guest co-hosts today. From my usual co-hosts, we are joined by Professor Adnan Hussein, historian and director of the School of Religion at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. Hello, Adnan. How are you doing today? I'm doing well. It's really great to be with you, Henry. Yeah, always nice seeing you. Unfortunately, we were not able to be. joined by Brett O'Shea, host of Revolutionary Left Radio and co-host of the Red Menace podcast. He had something rather pressing come up at the very last minute. Yeah, Brett, I hope that you get that sorted out very quickly.

But we are joined by a great guest host today. We have our friend James Ray, who some listeners may remember from our panel discussion on why historical knowledge is important for political activism and organizing. So James, welcome again to guerrilla history. Can you briefly let the listeners know who you are? Yeah, absolutely. Hi, everybody. My name's James. I do political commentary as well as organizing within the DSA, BDS working group, and the Philadelphia Young Communist League.

Great. Happy to have you on the show again. I know you and I, we're pretty good friends. So we talk all the time. And you've had about five minutes notice before coming on to the episode today. So, you know, if James lays an egg for this episode, he has an excuse. But I'm sure that that won't happen. We are joined also by our guest today, who's an excellent guest to talk about the current topic.

We have Pascal Robert, who's a writer, political commentator, contributor to Black Agenda Report, Newsweek, and co-host of This Is Revolution podcast. Hello, Pascal. It's a pleasure to have you as we are going to be talking about Haiti today. Thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to discussing the subject matter. Absolutely. So, of course, we're talking about Haiti because Haiti's been in some news recently. you know, depending on the political slant of the news, you will be seeing different contexts for why Haiti or different perspectives of the situation in Haiti today.

But before we get to the situation today, I think that it's particularly important that we lay out some of the history of Western intervention in Haiti because it's looking like there's going to be some more coming down the pipeline. And just before I turn it over to you, Pascal, to just give us a sketch of the history of Western intervention in Haiti. particularly post-independence. I want to direct the listeners also to check out the episode of Revolutionary Left Radio, which Brett did with our friend Alex Avenia, who will be a guest on guerrilla history again very soon, about the Haitian revolution. So you can listen to that episode to hear that aspect of the history.

And also James did a great TikTok video. It's about 10 minutes long talking about the history of Western intervention. You can pitch that at the end, James. But Pascal, why don't you tell us about it? of the history of Western intervention in Haiti. Sure, absolutely. I think to talk about the history of Western intervention in Haiti, actually one has to go back to the 19th century to talk about the remittance that Haiti

was put in a position to have to pay to France for its independence. For those you don't know that Haiti is the first and somewhat say only country born of a slave revolt that happened in the way to 18, India, Western Hemisphere between 1791 and 1804. where African slaves basically for three European empires, the French, the Spanish, and the British, and eventually became independent from the French. Within 20-some-odd years of the,

a little bit over 20 years after the independence, France refused to recognize the independence of Haiti and was constantly menacing the country and demanding that the country do what was necessary to recuperate itself under the control and dominion of France as a nation state. Because Haiti was proud of its independence and refused to do so, though that was completely anathema to many of the Haitian generals,

there was a faction of the Haitian elite who was willing to make a concession to France, to pay a repatriation to France in order to maintain diplomatic relationships and hopefully to get recognized. Now, it is true that France did send out, you know, threats of military embarkments to try to gain this concession. But one of the things we have to remember about the Haitian revolution is that there were various class and color internal divisions that existed in the Haitian Revolution.

And one of the things we also have to realize that there were factions of Haitian generals who had strong allegiances to wanting to have connections to France. One of the things that, for example, two of the Haitian presidents that took power in the country within 30 years of the revolution

were Haitian generals that came back with Napoleon Bonaparte's army to subdue the revolution. So you have to realize that, and basically this stems from a phenomenon, that still plagues Haiti to these days that oftentimes when people hear about the Haitian revolution in the context of hates and society, they view it as a kind of black versus white kind of dynamic. And that often obscures the fact that really you have a contestation

between three different classes of individuals in a society that still spill over to the functionality of Haitian society today. You have what are called. the African Bossal. What are the African Bossal? Those were Africans or blacks who were born in Africa that were brought to Haiti in the transatlantic slave trade. They generally were at the lower end of the socioeconomic order because they had not acculturated themselves to the French social economic system as effectively as their

black cohorts who were born on the island who were called Creole blacks. Rio blacks were blacks who were born on the island, who spoke better French, sometimes they were free people of color, oftentimes they had properties. Sometimes they even own their own slaves. And also you even also had mulattoes, which is, I know it's a majority of term in today's society, but people who are biracial who oftentimes owned slaves and own 25% of the African Borsal. So because of these contentious dynamics that existed because of the revolution, after the Haitian revolution, there was a lot of battleground in terms of allegiances to the countries that took place, particularly relative to France. So you will find that Alexander Petchon, who was one of the early presidents of the country, initially requested France to actually be paid or ammunition.

to maintain contact with France because he felt that France was he wanted to maintain that French Republican kind of discourse okay so there were elements within the Haitian ruling class who viewed that they actually sought out to maintain a relationship with France

because it was necessary for the nation state to function because they viewed themselves as French citizens and these tended to be people who came from the mulatto class who don't forget the French were their biological fathers. Many of them wanted to inherit land from the French.

Many of them viewed themselves as wanting to aspire to be French citizens. So when Desalines in 1804, named Haiti a black republic, if you're a black nation, if you will, not yet a republic, it alienated many of those forces. So the first, to answer your question, would be the remuneration that Haiti had to pay to France

that was in American dollars today, something over $20 billion. It took the United States, it took Haiti up until 1947 to pay off the debt. It was charged with massive amounts of interest. And you can make the argument that that indemnification is what really put the initial shackle on the country that let it down to a spiraling road of poverty. So that's one. The next is you have also, foreign intervention in trade in Haiti that goes on very early on because there's a lot of

money to be made in terms of the coffee that's trading in Haiti, the Indigo and a lot of the products. So you have European countries who are also trying to get the British, the British are always playing a role in trying to get involved in trade. So what happens towards the late 19th century, international commerce between European powers like Germany, and other powers start to compete for a stronghold in the Caribbean for developing economic control. As a matter of fact, Germany becomes such a major, major training partner with Haiti that some speculate that one of the motivations for the United States seeking the Panama Canal and entering World War I was to neutralize the role of Germany in the Western Hemisphere. So you have Germany coming in as well.

And every time there's a presence of a foreign power engaging in trade and hague, the United States is always alarmed, particularly under the Monroe Doctrine, which gives the United States complete sway over the country that are happening in the West. So you have to realize that also after having a country become independent from a slave revolt, there's a great deal of distrust in the eyes of the United States of the capacity of Haiti to deal with influence. fair dealings with these European powers because they're like, they always see Haiti as a threat because the United States own slaves for so long. The United States has a Jim Crow economic system. So that's

a phenomenon that happens as well. Going into the 20th century, I hope I'm not going too slow to but going into the 20th century, we have the U.S. occupation of Haiti that comes in in 1915 to 1934. It's a consequence of political instability

in the country, but it's really is a pretext for the United States fleecing the coffers of Citibank of Haiti's capacity to actually pay its remuneration to France. This is a very brutal occupation. The United States re-implements the Corvay system, which is a

kind of semi-slavery system that requires Haitians to go back to almost a plantation like labor. The United States takes complete control, dominion of control, of Porto Prince to Capitol, restructuring the Capitol so that now peasants have to come into the Capitol

and basically go into the city to find work and are being exported off the land. And one of the things is the consequence of the U.S. occupation is that a model for development that's actually somewhat consistent up until today persists, starts with the U.S. occupation, in that evacuating peasants from their lands in the mountains, in the hills, and forcing them to get into cheap labor in the cities, really starts with the U.S. occupation in 1915. 15. And that model becomes a kind of persistent model that plagues the country to the point where it metastasizes and kind of explodes into the problems that we have today. So that's another major occupation. That occupation is in 1934. You can make the argument to the next occupation that comes about is the occupation that under Aristee, when Arishti is taken out in the 1991 coup, there is a menusta UN, UN, military force that's kind of coming

to bring him in power. But the next major occupation is when you have the minutiae force that comes to the power in 2003 as a result of the Ottawa Accord, which was executed in Canada by a variety of embassies from foreign countries like France, like the United States,

Spain, and a few other occupying force that make up what is called the core group. The core group is a consortium of foreign ambassadors to European countries that have historically had an antagonistic relationship with Haiti that basically have taken up the decision to be the arbiters of the affairs of the Haitian people, much to the chagrin of Haiti as a nation state.

The Ottawa Accord sets forth the capacity to basically have, in 2003, 2004, Haiti to have another coup to remove our seat who's taken out of this second coup d'etat, and Haiti is then occupied up until about a few years ago during the hurdy earthquake when the, I think, five years ago, when the menuster or the UN forces take leave, and those forces engage in all kinds of horrible activity there. At one point, they actually put feces in a water source in Haiti that causes a cholera academic. There are many allegations of rape and all kinds of harm that were caused by these forces as well.

So there's a very long, sad and treacherous relationship between Western intervention in Haiti, the Howard argued starts with the French remuneration going back with us. Wow, that was really helpful, Pascal, to characterize that. You mentioned one thing in that history about U.S. kind of paternalistic and almost jealously guarding access to Haiti as a market, trade with Haiti, and no doubt with other Caribbean countries and nations as part of this U.S. projection of power in the hemisphere and, you know, the Monroe Doctrine and so on, it reminded me actually of some recent controversy in the current protests that have been taking place. And I'm

sure that's something we're going to talk about in a moment. But it just reminded me that there's been like a lot of hullabaloo about protesters, for example, outside the Canadian embassy, waving Russian flags and some other affiliations with pro-China and pro-Russian emblems of support from Haitians. And I'm wondering if the context for this is that the U.S. has clamped down so much historically on preventing other opportunities for Haiti to be able to negotiate for competing power. for access to trade and has been really subjected since that period of the occupation and the direct occupation in the early part of the 20th century with being totally impoverished by the loan the repayment the payments that it's had to make but also the fact that it hasn't

been allowed to act as you know a free nation to conduct its own economic affairs and affiliations and alliances but it's been sort of subject to this almost like a U.S. stranglehold. And if this is a kind of reflection of that, that like the enemy of my enemy is my friend sort of perspective. Well, one of the things that you will find is that many Haitians in the ground, particularly even of the, somewhat say, the kind of poorer classes, are very politically savvy.

They are very astute. And you'll find this in many developing third world countries, that the people on the ground are very aware. of the conflicts of the great powers and what you're the phenomenon you're talking about is is in fact that there is a portion

of the Haitian proletariat that has caught a whiff of multipolarity as a solution to the problem if you will and believe that you know we have you know we have basically been getting such a bad deal from dealing with the West and the United States and France and the Corps Group and all these other embassies that this opportunity that is being

thrown out there where China and Russia are offering a new counter-hagemonic force to the power of the West, you will see Haitian protesters on the ground waving Russian flags, waving Chinese flags. And as a matter of fact, China voted, recently voted against some adverse action by the United States in Haiti, as a matter of fact, recently. And speaking about how the long history of the United States in this country does not merit its involvement. And I was impressed to see how the Chinese stood up for Haiti in that UN meeting. But it's caused many actors on the grassroots underground in Haiti to feel like they would rather reach out to places where they frankly feel that they can get a fair

deal. But this is also happening in Africa as well. This is not only happening in 80. This is happening in many people, many places in the global south you know, even in the Gulf, as a matter of fact. You know, they're, you know, reaching out to the Russians and

I'm not necessarily saying that it's a good strategy or a positive strategy, but it just goes to show the level of discrediting that has been done to capacity of the West being an arbitrary and good faith of the affairs of the global South countries.

Yeah, just to say one quick thing before I let you hop in with your question, James, this is just to kind of concretize one of the points that Pascal just made in terms of this phenomenon that we're seeing of the proletariat in various countries, picking up the flags of various other countries and, you know, the hope that we have this coming multipolarity, which, by the way, listeners, we have an episode on multipolarity with Ben, Norton, you should go back and listen to that if you have not already. Two recent examples that come to mind, and they come to mind because they were, of course, in the media here in Russia.

In Burkina Faso, they've had, you know, multiple coups within the last couple of years. They have multiple coups within the last year. After all of these coups, there is then protests, some of them in favor of the recently deposed, you know, government and then some that are in favor of the new, you know, military junta. And in every case, you see many, many Russian flags in the crowd or just this week, which this episode will be released this week. I saw it, I think on Monday, so on the 7th of November, in the administrative capital of South Kivu district in Democratic Republic of the Congo, it's a city of about 800,000 people. There was major protests going on.

And what did we see in the crowd there? Again, Russian flags. They said, you know, we need to stop American hedging. Gemini in the region and they were appealing directly to Vladimir Putin. Like, again, as you said, Pascal, one can disagree with the strategy and I'm sure many people do for fairly sensible reasons, but this is something that we see not only in Haiti. So that was just to throw out some examples that have come up like within not only the last couple months, but even within the last week in Africa particularly.

James, go ahead. Yeah, so I was going to note that I think when looking at Haitian history, something that I've always seen as being very, very notable is that like the U.S. response is driven not just by kind of this like capitalist and like imperialist need for like resource extraction and kind of economic and like political domination of the country. But this kind of like ingrained white supremacist element that really plays in my opinion a pretty notable role in guiding how the United States kind of reacts to both Haitian independence post-1804 as well as kind of like any attention. at Haiti at kind of using or leveraging outside trading partners outside of the United States, right? I think, you know, notably, you know, when I was going through and kind of looking through Haitian history, something I noticed was, you know, there's this initial unwillingness for the United States to even to even remotely accept that Haiti is an independent state from France, right? And this goes beyond even French recognition, right? I mean, as you know, like in the U.S. didn't even recognize Haitian independence until, like, 1864 during the Civil War. And I think

it's interesting that you see kind of like moving in like 88 with with hippolyt and then furthering you know in like 1909 when like the u.s starts to really take over the french economic role with the bank of Haiti but is also unwilling to allow a project um you know any project that is primarily guided um by you know a majority black leadership to kind of gain any kind of legs um in the u.s sphere i guess so to say so what i was more so asking is or i guess what i am more so asking is what do you think the role of, you know, like white supremacy and that kind of like ingrained white supremacist structure and like the U.S. establishment and continual like development plays in kind of the U.S. response to Haiti as a project as a burgeoning nation state, especially

post-1804. And do you think that that kind of plays a continued role in their, you know, their ongoing interventionist stance towards the country? I think that there's definitely, you cannot deny that considering that the realpolitik of what the United States was living in the 19th century when Haiti becomes a dependent, a major plantation-owning slaveocracy, that white supremacy was not a guiding principle to foreign policy in Haiti.

I mean, there's a good book I have about the role of the Haitian Revolution in the Civil War. It talks about how fear of the Haitian Revolution was guiding either in the South during the Civil War. So Haiti, you can't. cannot divorce 19th century concentration on the role of race and blackness in America from narratives about Haiti and the Haitian Revolution. It is endemic to the way in which the United States deals with the subject of black liberty, black freedom, black autonomy to consider what is going on in Haiti.

and what is happening with the Haitian nation state. So to answer your question, there's no question that white supremacy played a significant role in that period of time. And I would also argue that what continues to emanate from that 19th century understanding of why Haiti has to be particularly surveilled by the United States is the reality that there are some, there's a certain, value of global failed models. Models of failure have a value to Western Empire, in that there are certain types of countries that cannot be allowed to succeed. Cuba cannot be allowed to succeed. Venezuela cannot be allowed to succeed. Haiti cannot be allowed to succeed. And I think that Even though all of that may be motivated in part by a white supremacy, if you will,

I think that there's almost a kind of innate paranoia of empire that drives the desire to make sure that any nation state that has shown the gumption to even slightly rebel from the exigences of international capital must be punished. Yeah, just another quick point to, again, concretize what Pascal is saying because I'm loving what you're saying and it's absolutely correct. The model of failure, this we have seen many, many times, you know, not only with the examples that you gave, but let's think about Chile. One of the reasons why, and this is like in official documents that you can see from the Nixon administration, one of the reasons that they had to get rid of Iende is they could not let, particularly Italy at this time, know that socialism can be elected and can have transitions of power peacefully. You know, the idea that somebody that was a socialist could come in via an election, okay, that's bad enough for the West as a precedent. But for them to then, you know, go out of office for, you know, a subsequent socialist administration or a transition of power to a different

elected government entirely, that is a very dangerous precedent to set that, you know, hey, this this thing called socialism can operate within the confines of the society that we already have and without having these dystopian visions that the West tries to paint of these communist countries, these one-party dictatorships. Again, you know, that narrative that they paint. And similarly, then looking at Italy, again, the Communist Party of Italy was the biggest communist party in Western Europe at that time. They then had to go in and undermine the Communist Party of Italy very, very heavily throughout the 70s in order to show that once again, a communist party could not come up in Europe democratically because it would set a

horrible precedent. So the West, and in this case, particularly the United States, has a long record, not only in the examples that you gave, but also these other examples that spring to my mind that we've talked about off and on a little bit in the past on the show, that you know, not, you have to crush any sort of hope for a transition to socialism, communism, whatever, because if people have that successful precedent, it sets up a dangerous situation in other countries that may want to do that experiment. Well, I mean, that's just such a great point that you both have been making because, I mean, of course, there is a sense that the Haitian revolution, there were fears, that it could spread, right, elsewhere. So,

And that reminds me also of the subject. You pointed out, Pascal, about the different kind of class and color groupings in Haitian society and how these created certain political problems and challenges, particularly early on in that relationship with France and that you had generals sort of coming back who wanted to maintain a relationship with France. And so I wanted to ask if you saw this as a pattern working out later in say 20th century history of Haiti, of these sort of oligarchs or what, you know, kind of a Haitian elite and their transnational affiliations and connections, how have those operated in many ways to facilitate, you know, Western intervention and the consequences of.

of that on Haiti's kind of politics. It's a very, very good question. One of the things that you have to understand is that after the Haitian Revolution, you have two types of elites. You have the mulatto or the mixed-race elites. And you have the Gondon class. The Kondon class are black generals who fought in revolution, who had basically acquired land and property who were men of status.

There's a friction. There's a friction in terms of worldview between these two classes. because the mixed-race elites of Haitians would more easily be allowed to enter foreign ports, they were more willing to make international deals of trade than the Gondon Black elite, who would not have that luxury. As a result, the Black elite were more mercantilistic in terms of their overall outlook of how the economy should function in the country, and the mixed-race elites were more free market, they were more free traders in terms of how they are looked.

You can find a direct line in terms of how the international oligarchy, who many of whom are not even biologically tracing their lineage to Haiti, become introduced in the country and the role of the multiracial elite, allowing foreign powers to gain more and more control of the market share of the domestic business and these foreign elites

many of whom are Syrians and Lebanese ancestrally this is a phenomenon you see all over the Caribbean by the way this is not exclusive to Haiti that you have this kind of like expatriate who lead most of them as I would know lead during the Ottoman Empire

and go and live in these countries who developed profound amounts of wealth and power over their market share and comparative advantage in terms of trade skills

because these folks are coming with certain comparative advantage in terms of trade skills. They have a certain ability to hit all ports of commerce because of their international thoroughfares that have traveled as well. And they tend to dominate the economic

paradigms in these countries. But not only that. In the case of Haiti, the United States is an excellent paper that discusses this. I forgot the actual title, but you can find it on Jay Store. It talks about the role in which the United States had in supporting the particularly Syrian and Lebanese oligarchy to actually create a buffer class, to undermine the Haitian bourgeoisie and to facilitate attention within the country where they would have an advantage knowing that it would result

in a certain kind of conflict that we actually see today manifested in Haitian society where literally these oligarchs, again, many of whom are not, they don't trace the origins to Haiti. Many, some of them

even look European. When the United States is discussing trade policy in Washington, D.C., you're not seeing Haitians that look like me who are at those tables. It is mostly oligarchs who are from that kind of background

who, you know, and many of them have their own racial prejudices and economic prejudices as well. But you cannot divorce the current problem that Haiti has

from the monopoly on the economy in the face of neoliberal policy that the Haitian oligarchy has over the condition of the country. Great. So that was, you know, some great discussion. And I know I have several more questions that would fit within that part of the discussion. But unfortunately, we only have 20 or 30 minutes left in this.

And I do want to make sure that we get towards the current crisis that's taking place as this is a dispatch episode of guerrilla history. So I'd like to transition us now, Pascal, to talking about the honorary government and government in quotes here. Can you just remind the listeners, perhaps many of the listeners probably haven't been paying as much attention to Haiti as they should. How did Henri come to power? You know, talk about the assassination that took place a little bit. And then what has the governance been like since Henri has been, again, quote unquote,

in office? ALE is a doctor who was basically put in power by the core group. and the United States after the assassination of Jodomouiz. He came into power after a man named Joseph who was originally the prime minister who was in power, whose term expired.

Aion Leigh basically was chosen by the core group to supplant him and come into power. Alian Leigh has a history of being an opponent to the Aristide administration. He's kind of a hardcore member of the Martelli political party,

Ph.T.K., which is party Take Kale, which is the party of the ball head, because Martelli has a ball head. Don't even get me started. But he was a willing point. Point is not the word. He was a willing tool of the West in terms of managing the affairs of Haiti. And the way I see Ayal and Lee is that his goal is to neutralize the grassroots sovereignty of the masses who are desperately trying to. to regain control through popular election or some popular mechanism of the governing mechanisms

of the country by ensuring to the West that some puppet of their choice from the Petit Bourgeois class stays there in order to do their bidding. So his governance has been about, because don't forget, there are still neoliberal economic relationships that the United States has with Haiti. Haynes still makes underwear in Haiti. We have factories. We have all of these corporations that are making clothing with Haitian workers. So we have to remember that all of these neoliberal agreements that both the Haitian oligarchy and certain Haitian corporation American corporations benefit from are in power. The United States does not want to see all of those efforts go to waste.

Canada's was doing drilling for gold in Haiti up until recently, as a matter of fact. You know, there have been gold and discovered on the island. his main function has been to basically neutralize popular sovereignty in the country and one of the consequences of the administration is the rise of the notorious gangs that have become a major major

inhibitor to the quality of life of Asian people they are controlling economic power economic thoroughfares in the country they have the capacity to engage kidnapping. So they develop as a counterweight to the Haitian nation state because Alian Lee is viewed as so illegitimate by many of the Haitian population. And there also is on the ground, a large segment of civil society members who are protesting the Aal Yellen League. Awesome. You talk a little bit about the assassination of Moise. And I think it's kind of

chronically under discussed in a lot of circles today. but was a fairly high-profile event as it occurred. Because you may go into a little bit more detail about kind of the conditions leading up to that, the operation itself, and what's left for it? Absolutely. One of the things that we have to understand is that Jovna Mouis, even though he's been lionized in assassination,

he was not a very popular president while he was president because he was considered to be a lackey of the Martelli administration that came before him. He came from a very poor Haitian family. He was not very well-respected or well-known, but he was considered to be a fact. in terms of being a tool of the elites that were buttressing the Ph.D.K. party. There's an all-all mechanism that we have in Haitian society called La Politique de du Bluer. La Politique de du Blur is a phenomenon that exists in Haitian society, where the fair complexion elites were taking dark complexion candidate, and they would elevate him to a position of power, having the majority of the population who is dark complexion, believing that he will be in their favor. When in reality, he is still doing the work of that fair complexion, that pulling the strings behind him.

Many people would argue that Jovna Mouise, because he was such a tool of the Haitian oligarchy, was an example of La Politique de du Bluer, a perfect example of that phenomenon. What ends up happening is that because Jovna Mouis and his inability to garner the resources from the Petro-Carib funds, that Venezuela had been willing to get to Haiti, disquandering of those monies, forces the country into austerity,

and the IMF is asking him to raise oil prices. Because of that, it forces him to put pressure on the oligarchs because he can't run the country, and he has to extract revenues from them for taxes. Not only that, because he realizes that they are trying to bleed the country so badly

for the kind of work that they do in terms of development, whether we roads, electrical grids. The Haitian oligarchs do these services for large amounts of fees. He's now trying to realize if he can get foreign competitors to undermine the role of the Haitian oligarchy as the exclusive businessman of record in doing these development deals in the country. So they were deals with ports, they were deals to build electric grids, they would deal to Bill Rhodes.

So he, if you will, stepped out of his class position and tried to displace his one-time paymasters by going to foreign competitors to see if he could find other ones that could basically fulfill these contracts.

That was a no-no. And that was a no-no that... I mean, I'm going to be very freaking. I don't think it's real reason. No one kills a Haitian president unless someone from the State Department gives a green light. It doesn't happen. It doesn't happen.

So my basic position is that someone within the context of the Haitian oligarchy was willing to pay mercenaries. I think they had the, I mean, as a fact, there was, the intercept did a report talking about how they had, they had reports of how U.S. ambassadors had been well aware beforehand that they would, they might be. be moved that had to be made against the Adjordemois administration. So this is not even speculation. So as a consequence, there was a hit put on. And my position is that it was a consequence

of the oligarchs, some segment of the Haitian oligarchy, using mercenaries to remove him as a reprisal, but trying to cut into their market share of doing development deals in the country that they normally would have had monopoly over and feeling that he was not in a class position to dare challenge them or their

authority in that area. So I'm going to hop in for one second at Nahn before you ask your question. Just because Pascal mentioned about looking at the complexion of the people and seeing if there was a dark-skinned individual that people might think that he would act in the interests of dark-skinned people, even though he was acting in the interests of lighter-skinned individuals. Any excuse to quote Walter Rodney I take, and so therefore I'm going to right here, even though it's perhaps taking us a little bit afield.

But this is from the beginning of chapter six of the groundings with my brothers, which, of course, if you haven't already read the groanings with my brothers, listeners, go out and read it now. But he starts this chapter by saying, the government of Jamaica, which is Garvey's homeland, has seen it fit to ban me a Guyanese of black man and then African. But this is not very surprising because though the composition of that government, of its prime minister, the head of state and several leading personalities, though that composition happens to be predominantly black as the. brothers at home say they are all white-hearted. These men serve the interests of a white, foreign white capitalist system. And at home, they uphold a social structure which ensures that the black man resides at the bottom of the social ladder. He is economically oppressed and culturally he has no opportunity to express himself. That is the situation from which we move. Anyway, I just wanted to quote that because like I said, any opportunity to quote Walter Rodney.

Sorry for the distraction. You're going to have you guys on our show more often, man. I'm liking the tone of this podcast, man. You guys are very quoting Walter Rodney, man. We got to talk about multipolarity. We're going to get you guys more of you guys on this revolution. I didn't know that we should do a collaboration. We'll call it this is guerrilla revolution.

Well, you know, Pascal, when I moved to Russia, I obviously wasn't able to take very many books in my suitcase, but alas, I have my copy of how Europe underdeveloped Africa right to my left here. So just this is a note. Well, I mean, this does follow from what you were mentioning just before about the Jovenel-Mois situation and also the situation of these gangs and the kidnappings. And I wanted to pick up on that because just earlier this week on Monday, the U.S. Department of Justice, right, announced that it was unsealing criminal charges of, you know, related to three individuals who were leaders of, or at least alleged leaders of Haitian gangs and putting out a $3 million

reward for the capture of these three defendants for a series of armed kidnappings of U.S. citizens in the fall of 2021, many of whom were Christian missionaries serving in Port-au-Prince, which raises just so many questions. Why do you have Christian missionaries from the United States operating in Haiti, a, you know, at least broadly speaking, a Catholic country or at least a... And secondly, also is the kind of, you know,

indictments against Lanmo San Ju, Germain Stevenson, and Vitellome Anosin. Is this also part of developing some kind of casus belly, you know, basically the rationale for an intervention that they're planning, which is why they've unsealed it

so recently? It's a very good question. I think that that's going to be the main pretext that the United States uses to justify any type of further intervention is what's seemingly the incapacity of the government to neutralize the effectiveness of the Haitian gangs

to challenge the actual functioning of the government. Yeah, yeah, okay. So that's really what's kind of being, so talking up the kind of problem of the gangs, which, of course, is a real issue that you yourself mentioned and pointed out. But then it becomes the basis now to justify new intervention. But why were these Christian missionaries there? I can't really speak today. I don't know because, I mean, there are missionaries in Haiti. They go there all the time.

But, I mean, they can be as nefarious as one imagines or they could be as harmless as one imaginers. but I can't speak as to what the moral relations are going to be in. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, just as a, you know, director of a school of religion, I always get interested in, you know, these questions of religion and religious identity. And it just reminds us of the Bolsonaro episode

and rise of fascism in Brazil that much of this is a result of the kind of Pentecostal movements, you know, support. Well, that's what I was wondering, if these were Pentecostal or, you know, kinds of missionaries they were. So that's interesting. Anyway, yeah.

There's a great deal of Protestant evangelical work being done in Haiti. So the consequence of that, you would know better than I because this is the teacher, a student of religion. So moving, I guess, forward from there, with the current and pending, what, you know, what looks like a current impending invasion, what do you see planning out in that, in that reality? Because I know the U.S. and Canada are already sending military unit, like, assets over to Haiti as we kind of speak. And it seems in a lot of ways like Western media has kind of been, I guess, testing the waters as far as like what a kind of public response might be

to an actual, either UN-backed or non-U.N.-backed U.S. pushed invasion. What do you see kind of happening from this point on? Well, I think that it's going to be very difficult for opposition to stop the United States and Canada if they so choose to have an occupying force. I think that one of the things that I think is possible that they may try to find a neighboring country to use the pretextual power. They tried to use the Bahamas recently, as a matter of fact. They actually put boots on the ground

instead of the United States. I think they might go with the same kind of UN-based format if possible. I can't really say the way in which they do it, but I'm hoping because, you know, the midterms are over. So timing is of the essence. So the fear of blowback is something that Biden has to be a little bit less aware of. So who's to say that he might not be more willing to actually shore up his concerns about stabilizing effort?

Because immigration is a factor as well. I know his administration also talked about sending Haitians to Guantanamo Bay again. That was another thing that was discussed. So I cannot be absolutely sure how the West would play this out. Well, I know that it will be disastrous in the end and that I'm trying to fight. fight it to the best of my ability. Yeah. So just one thing that I want to make sure that we can get in before we run out of time. I know that you're a little bit short of time at this point. But we just had the presidential election in Brazil. Again, Adnan just referenced our episode that

we did in the run up to that election on Bolsonaro, on the rise of fascism in Brazil with Michael Fox. It was a great episode. And you should check it out because even though the election is done, It is a historical episode talking about the rise of fascism in Brazil over recent decades. But people need to understand, you know, Lula won the election. Bolsonaro is going out. Yes, we are happy that Bolsonaro is going out. Yes, Lula is, you know, the most popular social democratic politician in the Western hemisphere, if not the world.

But his record on Haiti is quite awful. And, you know, whether it's talking about. participation within the core group, which we talked a little bit about the core group earlier. But, you know, perhaps you can talk a little bit more about that as well. Troops, you know, outright troops. So perhaps you can let the listeners know about Lula because I think that the picture, you know, the picture that people get of Lula is one of two things. Either it's like he's a crazy socialist. This is what they hear if they're following right wing media and they wouldn't be listening to this show if that was the case. Or they might be

thinking that Lula is like some socialist savior if they listen to other non-nuanced, you know, kind of left-ish media. So can you tell us about Lula's role in Haiti? Yes, Lula had sent a major embarkation of Brazilian military with the minutia to the UN forces under the Ottawa Accord, 2003, 2004, UN occupation. And the Brazilian forces were very, very brutal. They were very harsh on nation people, and he was not apologetic, as a matter of fact. He basically was very much in favor of having the presence of Brazilian troops

in Haiti, and I think he did so at the behest of the West and the corporate group contractors. I don't know in terms of what he was I believe there was something he was promised for his participation with them. I don't know what I would.

I don't remember what it was, but I think it was some kind of some kind of remuneration, not economic, but in terms of either some policy or otherwise, but he definitely negotiated with higher-ups within these core group actors regarding whether or not to participate in this endeavor, and he very much did so. So, you know, that memory stays with quite a few members of the Haitian society. Well, I know you may be having to go, Pascal. I just did want to touch quickly on the fact that as a member of the core group and you've referenced the Ottawa Accord,

the role of Canada in Western interventions in Haiti is often overlooked because we focus on the United States. And of course, we have the history with France. But in fact, you know, quite apart from, you know, the overt U.S. occupations of Haiti, you know, Canada has played a completely malign role as a sort of junior imperial partner. I don't know if you wanted, you know, just to characterize, at least particularly in light of the current possibility of a Minupah, you know, that is a mission, a United Nations mission to get rid to protect Henri. Canada, you know, is making all kinds of remarks and statements publicly, the Trudeau government,

the foreign minister at the recent organization of American states. So I wondered if you wanted to take the opportunity to analyze and characterize the role of Canada in these Western interventions. Canada has had a very, very negative role in terms of its relationship with Haiti for several years. First of all, I understand that Canada is a major mining country called a nation and that they have, Haiti has eridium, Haiti has gold. And Canada has major mining interest in Haiti. As a matter of fact, Bill Clinton, it's Hillary Clinton's brother. before he died, had contractual relationships with Canadian mining companies to extract gold from Haiti. So that could be one of the ultimate, you know, underlying relationships.

Haiti, Canada was very much involved in the plan to remove the number to an IRS state in terms of the Ottawa Accord, which was planned in Canada as a matter of fact. You know, there's a large Haitian population in Canada, and they are protesting Canada's attempts to undermine Haitian sovereignty often very much so. Canada, again right now, is involved with the core group in terms of trying to manipulate what's going on with the UNRI administration in Haiti to this day. So there's a long history of Canada being involved, involved in Haitian politics and affairs. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, they've been involved in many Caribbean countries, particularly because of banking interests and financing. But I think there is a special engagement and involvement in Haiti, partly because of, the French-speaking population in Quebec, that they feel like this is the area that they could have some particular role imperially in the Western Hemisphere. So yes, yeah.

Well, kind of following up from that, or is there anything else that you really want to kind of dig into or discuss before we kind of come to a conclusion? No, no, that's pretty much it. I think that we recovered quite a bit of basis. I really appreciated the opportunity to be on you guys' show and look forward to working together. We've got to have you guys come on this Revolution podcast. This is a great show. Very intelligent, very, very good questions here. I appreciate that and I appreciate you coming on the show. Again, our guest was Pascal Robert, writer, political commentator, contributor to a bunch of places. Black Agenda Report always highly recommended and co-host of the This is Revolution podcast. Pascal, how can the listeners

find you on social media or anything else that you would like to direct them to? Sure. You can find me at at P-R-O-B-E-R-T-0-6 on Twitter. Google my name. You can find my writings online at Black and Gender Report, Newsweek, the Huffington Post several places I've been writing online for quite a while. Excellent. And highly recommend that everybody do that. James, thanks for coming on as a guest host on the show. Can you tell the listeners how they can find you on Twitter and on TikTok?

Because, of course, I opened up by saying that you had this 10-minute thing on TikTok about Haiti. And it was very good. So you should tell the listeners how they can find out. Yeah, absolutely. You can find me on TikTok at Good Vibe Politique as well as, sorry, you can find me on Twitter through that. you put me on TikTok at James Gets Political.

And again, just to reiterate, definitely go and look up the Black Agenda Report, some of the best coverage, I think, of Haiti that I've read, especially recently. So it's something that I think is really worth thinking into. But yeah, that's kind of how you can get in touch with me, I guess. Fantastic. Adnan, how can the listeners find you and your other excellent podcast that you do? Well, I first like to just also extend my thanks to Pascal for coming on.

It's great to have him on. It's really a pleasure. and also to say the Black Agenda Report, as I've said many times before, absolutely indispensable. If you want to pay attention to politics, you've got to be reading the Black Agenda Report. But you can find me on Twitter at Adnan A-Husain, H-U-S-A-I-N, and, you know, check out the M-A-J-L-I-S. It's a podcast about the Middle East, Islamic World, Muslim, you know, diasporic communities in the West. and, you know, we get into culture, literature, as well as political and historical things. So do check it out. Thanks so much.

With the warning that when you type in the Mudgellus podcast, do not click on the Radio Free Central Asia one. I repeat, do not click on the Radio Free Central Asia one. Click on a nonce. It's not a CIA front. So as for me, listen. The other one is, exactly. I mean, Radio Free Central Asia, they might as well just call it Radio, Radio, freeze CIA. In any case, you can find me on Twitter at Huck1995, where I tweet about random garbage.

You can follow the show on Twitter at Gorilla underscore Pod, G-E-R-R-I-L-L-A. Remember, two R's, James. I'm getting better. Yes, you are getting better. You can also support the show on Patreon, help us keep the lights on and keep expanding our coverage because we are doing more than we ever have done before by going to patreon.com forward slash gorilla history. Again, G-E-R-R-I-L-A history. And until next time, listeners, Solidarity. I'm going to be able to be.