I want the U.S. military invasion of Haiti to stop now. Soldiers are trained to kill, not provide humanitarian relief. And the U.S. military is about domination and conquest, as Haitians know too well.
We lived through a brutal U.S. military occupation from 1915 to 1934. We endured the U.S.-supported Duvalier dictatorships that followed. We saw the hands of the U.S. government in the regime changes of 1991 and 2004 that forced President Aristide from office.
The strong-arm tactics of the U.S. are on display again. Soldiers took over the airport the day after they arrived, over the objections of the Haitians working in the damaged control tower, who were pushed aside like trash.
The U.S. military is using the airport for important things, don’t you see? Those buried under the rubble—hundreds of thousands of homeless Haitians who have not eaten or found clean water to drink when the mountains crumbled on them—can wait.
First, the Americans, Canadians, and Europeans who have been stuck in Haiti for two interminable days must be rescued immediately. Haitians, with nowhere to go, can wait.
The United States has blocked lifesaving first responders from landing, including Haitian doctors and nurses and other rescue teams. It is exploiting this disaster to direct Haiti’s priorities and impose its own agenda.
Right now you need U.S. government clearance to land in Haiti. This is not independence. This is not self-rule.
Haitians are heartbroken and in unspeakable pain. But we are not idiots or under so much duress as to not object to the United States, Canada, and France speeding up their proxy U.N. occupation plans for taking Haitian lands and divvying up Haiti’s oil, gold, iridium, and other mineral resources behind the veil of this emergency relief. The earthquake’s depopulation of the coastal areas of Port-au-Prince may make that acquisition all the easier.
Haiti needs 12,000 doctors. Obama sent 12,000 troops to help us to death.
Haiti is not in conflict or at war with anyone. Haitians are not a violent people. In fact, there’s more violence in Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia than there is in Haiti.
And as much as the U.S media and the Pentagon wanted footage of U.S. soldiers rescuing Haitians, the people that could get saved got saved mostly by Haitians frantically using their bare hands to dig through the rubble and lift pulverized concrete in the immediate forty-eight hours after the earthquake. They did what they could to save themselves, as they have been doing since 1503 when the white settlers’ “New World” began.
Go home, U.S. troops. Please.
Ezili Danto's whole article appears on page 24 of the March 2010 issue. Subscribe to The Progressive for just $14.97 by clicking here for immediate access.
