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Haiti FOREIGN RELATIONS
Throughout its history, Haiti's relative isolation has
constrained its foreign relations. Haiti achieved some
prominence
as a result of its successful revolution, but the
governments of
slaveholding countries either ignored or decried the
country
during the first half of the nineteenth century. In the
United
States, the question of recognizing Haiti provoked sharp
debate
between abolitionists, who favored recognition, and
slaveholders,
who vehemently opposed such an action. The advent of the
Civil
War, however, allowed President Abraham Lincoln to
recognize
Haiti without controversy. Haiti became a focus of
interest for
the great powers in the early twentieth century mainly
because of
the country's strategic location. Competition among the
United
States, Germany, France, and Britain resulted in the
breaching of
Haiti's sovereignty and the nineteen-year occupation by
United
States forces
(see The United States Occupation, 1915-34
, ch. 6).
Subsequent isolation stemmed from Haiti's cultural and
linguistic
uniqueness, its economic underdevelopment, and from
international
condemnation of the repressive Duvalier regimes.
Haiti has maintained a long-standing relationship with
the
United States. Haitians have perceived economic ties to
the
United States as vital. The United States was Haiti's
primary
trading partner for both exports and imports, its most
important
source of foreign assistance, and the primary target of
Haitian
emigration. A large number of private voluntary agencies
from the
United States functioned in Haiti. The assembly industry
of
Port-au-Prince was closely tied to the United States
economy. In
short, the economic and the political influence of the
United
States in Haiti was more powerful than the influence of
any other
country.
Still, contemporary American diplomatic interest in
Haiti has
been minimal. Washington's interest in Haiti arose chiefly
because of the country's proximity to the Panama Canal and
Central America. Haiti also controls the Windward Passage,
a
narrow body of water that could be easily closed,
disrupting
maritime traffic. In the nineteenth century, the United
States
considered establishing a naval base in Haiti
(see Decades of Instability, 1843-1915
, ch. 6). At about the time of World
War I,
the United States occupied Haiti along with a number of
other
countries in the Caribbean and Central America. Since the
1960s,
Washington has viewed Haiti as an anticommunist bulwark,
partly
because of the country's proximity to Cuba. François
Duvalier,
exploiting United States' hostility toward the Cuban
regime of
Fidel Castro Ruz and United States fears of communist
expansion
in the Caribbean, deterred the United States government
from
exerting excessive pressure against his own dictatorship.
In the 1980s, the United States expressed a special
interest
in curbing illegal Haitian immigration
(see Migration
, ch.
7).
Washington also attempted to curtail shipments of illegal
drugs
to and from Haiti.
From the 1970s until 1987, United States assistance to
Haiti
grew. After the violently disrupted elections of November
1987,
however, United States president Ronald Reagan suspended
all aid
to Haiti. In August 1989, President George Bush restored
US$10
million in food aid because the Avril government had made
progress toward holding free elections and had agreed to
cooperate in efforts to control international drug
trafficking.
The Dominican Republic was the second most important
country
to Haiti because the two nations shared a border, but the
two
countries were ambivalent toward each other. Haiti
supplied cheap
labor to the Dominican Republic, mostly to help harvest
sugarcane. Under the Duvaliers, this arrangement involved
an
annual intergovernmental exchange of funds for the supply
of cane
cutters.
For generations Haitians had informally crossed the
Dominican
Republic's border in search of work. An estimated 250,000
people
of Haitian parentage lived in the Dominican Republic. This
perceived "blackening" of the Dominican population
motivated
dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina to carry out a
notorious
massacre of Haitians in 1937
(see Politics and the Military, 1934-57
, ch. 6;
The Era of Trujillo
, ch. 1). The border
has been
an issue of contention in other respects as well. The
Haitian
economy has proved to be a desirable market for Dominican
products, effectively undercutting Haitian production of
certain
commodities and reducing the domestic market for some
Haitian
goods. Also, exiled Haitian politicians have readily
sought
refuge in the Dominican Republic and have gained allies
there in
efforts to bring down Haitian governments.
Ties with other Caribbean nations were limited.
Historically,
Britain and France strove to limit contacts between their
dependencies and Haiti, in order to discourage
independence
movements. Haiti's cultural and linguistic distinctiveness
also
prevented close relations in the Caribbean. As of
mid-1989, Haiti
did not belong to the Caribbean Community and Common
Market
(Caricom), and it had not been included in the
Lomé Convention (see Glossary),
although there had been some discussion
with
Caricom officials on both points. Haiti also maintained
few
productive relationships in Latin America.
Other countries important to Haiti included the primary
donor
countries for foreign assistance, especially France,
Canada, and
the Federal Republic of Germany. Haiti maintained special
cultural ties to France, even though the two countries
were not
major trading partners. Haiti also enjoyed a supportive
relationship with the Canadian province of Quebec, one of
the few
linguistically compatible entities in the Western
Hemisphere;
most Haitian émigrés in Canada lived in Quebec, and the
majority
of administrators of Canadian aid projects came from
Quebec.
Haiti's memberships in international and multilateral
organizations included the United Nations and its
associated
organizations, the Organization of American States, the
InterAmerican Development Bank, the
International Monetary Fund (see Glossary),
and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
In many ways, Haitians were proud of their history,
particularly the accomplishments of such revolutionary
figures as
Dessalines and Toussaint. However, the nation has suffered
both
from its uniqueness and from its similarity to other less
developed nations. Largely isolated in the Western
Hemisphere,
Haiti nonetheless has experienced political instability,
repression, and impoverishment equal to, or exceeding that
of,
other Latin American states. As the 1990s approached,
Haiti still
could not count itself among the democratic nations of the
hemisphere, despite the sincere desire of its people for
some
form of representative government.
***
James Leyburn's general social history, The Haitian
People, originally published in 1941, continues to be
the
classic introduction to Haitian political issues. The 1956
edition has a useful introduction by Sidney Mintz, a
historically
oriented anthropologist. The classic work on
Haitian-United
States relations is Ludwell Lee Montague's Haiti and
the
United States, 1714-1938. Hans Schmidt's The United
States
Occupation of Haiti, 1915-1934 reveals certain
features of
Haitian politics and relations with the United States.
Other
important political studies include Robert Rotberg and
Christopher Clague's Haiti: the Politics of Squalor
as
well as Robert Debs Heinl and Nancy Gordon Heinl's
Written in
Blood: the Story of the Haitian People, 1492-1971.
(Robert
Debs Heinl was head of the United States Marine Mission to
Haiti
under François Duvalier.) The Heinls cover Haitian history
from
1492 to 1971, but the treatment of the François Duvalier
years is
the most useful portion of this work.
David Nicholls's From Dessalines to Duvalier: Race,
Colour, and National Independence in Haiti provides
careful
treatment of the role of race, color, and class in Haitian
political history since independence in 1804. This work
provides
good insights into the factionalism and the rotating
political
elites that characterize Haitian political history.
Haiti:
Political Failures, Cultural Successes, by Brian
Weinstein
and Aaron Segal, gives good coverage of the Jean-Claude
Duvalier
years. Recent works include James Ferguson's Papa Doc,
Baby
Doc: Haiti and the Duvaliers, a journalistic account
focused
on the fall of Jean-Claude Duvalier and events of the
following
year, and Elizabeth Abbott's Haiti: the Duvaliers and
Their
Legacy, a detailed and rather personal journalistic
account
of the Duvaliers, especially the Jean-Claude Duvalier
regime in
the 1980s and the Namphy regime that followed. Simon M.
Fass's
Political Economy in Haiti: the Drama of Survival
gives an
interesting politico-economic analysis of how the system
works to
extract wealth and how the urban poor maneuver the
economics of
survival. (For further information and complete citations,
see
Bibliography.)
Data as of December 1989
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