In March, amid a flare-up in gang violence that prompted the declaration of a state of emergency in Haiti, america made it recognized that – as common – Haitians fleeing for his or her lives wouldn’t be welcome on US shores.
To that finish, preparations had been being made to take care of a possible mass maritime migration of US-bound Haitian refugees by diverting them to the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, which is situated on occupied Cuban territory and is after all higher recognized for its unlawful US prison-cum-torture centre.
A March 13 CNN article quoted Basic Laura Richardson, head of the US Southern Command, on the army’s preparedness for such an eventuality: “We did a full walkthrough of our contingency plan on Gitmo final summer time with all the interagency and all of my parts.” The Stars and Stripes army journal provided extra reassurance from Richardson: “Every thing is refreshed – the tools, the whole lot is able to go.”
And whereas media studies have been cautious to specify that intercepted Haitians can be despatched to a migrant processing facility in Guantanamo that’s separate from the advanced that homes “terrorist suspects”, it’s onerous to see the US’s “contingency plan on Gitmo” as something however one more racialised carceral endeavor.
Because it so occurs, this could not be the primary time the US blocked Haitian refugees from getting into the nation by transport them to Guantanamo Bay. The truth is, Haitians had been the naval base’s first company within the Nineties, with 1000’s indefinitely detained as they tried to flee Haiti within the aftermath of the 1991 US-backed army coup in opposition to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide – to not be confused with the 2004 US-backed coup in opposition to the identical man.
This was almost a decade previous to the launch of the “conflict on terror” in 2001 and the following inauguration in Guantanamo Bay of everybody’s favorite offshore penal colony and authorized black gap. In 2010, Guantanamo was as soon as once more designated as a possible holding pen for Haitian refugees from that 12 months’s apocalyptic earthquake, which killed greater than 200,000 folks.
The anticipated maritime exodus didn’t happen however, simply in case, a US Air Power cargo airplane was instantly dispatched to fly for 5 hours a day over the devastated land, broadcasting a message in Creole from Raymond Joseph, the Haitian ambassador to the US: “Pay attention, don’t rush on boats to go away the nation … As a result of, I’ll be trustworthy with you: For those who suppose you’ll attain the US and all of the doorways will probably be vast open to you, that’s under no circumstances the case.”
Then, as now, the US’s “closed-door” angle vis-a-vis Haitian refugees can be a notch much less mind-blowingly repulsive had the US not helped itself via Haiti’s personal doorways for properly over a century – and never simply through the aforementioned coups.
Jonathan M Katz, a former Related Press correspondent within the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, writes in International Coverage how “within the 1910s, US elites started setting their sights on Haiti” – after the nation was compelled to take out big loans from US and different worldwide banks to pay reparations to France for the crime of self-liberation from French colonial rule and slavery.
Then in 1914, utilizing the mortgage reimbursement situation as a pretext, US Marines descended upon Haiti’s central financial institution in Port-au-Prince and spirited “half the nation’s gold reserves” off to Wall Avenue, as Katz particulars. The ensuing turmoil in Haiti, in flip, served as an excuse for an “all-out invasion” by the US, which went on to occupy the nation for almost 20 years and “reimposed compelled, unpaid labor, carried out at gunpoint, to construct a street system to make sure army and industrial management”.
Sounds type of like slavery.
Nor did Haiti get a break from the imperial chokehold in later many years, when within the identify of preventing communism the US lent its help to Haitian despots François “Papa Doc” Duvalier and Jean-Claude “Child Doc” Duvalier, who killed tens of 1000’s of individuals and imprisoned and tortured many extra.
They are saying previous habits die onerous – and, true to kind, the US has continued to gas each bodily and financial violence in Haiti to today. Many of the firearms and ammunition in Haiti come from the US, which is an important context when considering the present gang brutality that has displaced greater than 360,000 folks. Hundreds have been left homeless, and the specter of famine looms.
As for the ravages of US-backed capitalism in Haiti, recall the WikiLeaks revelation in 2011 that the Barack Obama administration had agitated to dam a rise within the minimal wage for Haitian assembly-zone labourers incomes 31 cents per hour.
In different phrases, it isn’t troublesome to see why a complete lot of Haitians over the previous century-plus have discovered their nation unlivable. And the US’s function in rendering it so simply makes the current Guantanamo “contingency plan” all of the extra felony.
It stays to be seen, for the second, whether or not historical past is repeated on this case and Haitian refugees are as soon as once more packed off to a US army base on occupied Cuban land. However no matter occurs, there may be sadly no contingency plan for an finish to imperial hypocrisy.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.