Noam Chomsky on the Torture of Haiti
An interview with Noam Chomsky by Jason Silverstein
Noam Chomsky spoke with our editor-in-chief Jason Silverstein about the history of “benevolent” intervention in Haiti, manufacturing consent for those actions, and the need for massive reparations.
Image by Σ, retouched by Wugapodes.
JS: You've written about the way that foreign interventions are advertised as benevolent, but those benevolent actions haven't had such benevolent outcomes for Haiti.
NC: The history is utterly grotesque. The United States joined with other imperial powers to try to crush the Revolution. For the U.S., it was particularly significant, because this was a revolution of free black men. Haiti was the first government of free men in the Western hemisphere. The United States was a slave state.
After trying to crush the Revolution came a series of interventions, every one of them more brutal the last. The worst was Woodrow Wilson in 1915. Wilson invaded and in effect restored slavery. His Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, was so racist. Wilson’s Marines kicked out the parliament, because they refused to accept an American law, which would have granted American corporations the right to own Haiti. So the Parliament was disbanded. Then a new Parliament was introduced to approve the American law — with, I think, 99% approval, maybe 5% voting.
The American troops were carrying out such horrifying atrocities. There were plenty of war crimes. The result was to leave the National Guard — the brutal, vicious National Guard — to suppress Haiti. If you look at the scholarly literature, this is regarded as a humanitarian intervention.
We go onto the Duvalier years. In the Reagan years, uprisings were suppressed. The younger Duvalier won the vote by the usual 98-99%. The Reagan administration hailed it as a great victory for democracy. Finally, they were kicked out.
In the first free election, it was taken for granted that the American candidate would win, a former World Bank official. Nobody was paying attention to what was going on in the hills and the slums. To everyone’s shock, Aristide won, a populist priest.
The international institutions, even the World Bank, hailed Aristide’s policies. A coup was inevitable. The coup came seven months later, which was basically supported by the United States, which then restored its close relations with Haiti. This goes on under Clinton.
The most shocking case, in my view, was 1995. I was in Haiti at this time. The terror. I’ve never seen such fear and misery as there was in Haiti, under the occupation.
The CIA was testifying that the US had blocked all oil shipments. On the ground, you could see that that wasn't true. The rich oligarchs who owned the place were building oil terminals.
Finally, the Clinton Administration agreed to send the Marines to “save” the Haitians. I was reading the AP reports. One of the reports was the Clinton administration had allowed the Texaco Oil Company to illegally ship oil to the military junta. No one covered it. It kept being reported over and over in the AP reports, but not a word in the press.
This is normal. The same after the US-French-Canadian kidnaping of Aristide in 2004 and sending him off to Central Africa, basically banning his party, so they could control the situation. Essentially no reporting. It is a 200 year record of horrors.
The American troops were carrying out such horrifying atrocities. There were plenty of war crimes. The result was to leave the National Guard — the brutal, vicious National Guard — to suppress Haiti. If you look at the scholarly literature, this is regarded as a humanitarian intervention.
JS: What is the role of the media in manufacturing consent for the United States, the UN, Canada, and others to impose itself on Haiti with heroic military intervention?
NC: The media are private megacorporations, which produce a product that they sell to other businesses. They're very tightly linked with the state. You get the obvious conclusion: huge corporations selling consumers to other businesses tied to the government. What do you expect the media product to be? Something that represents the interests of the major force they are connected with.
My feeling is the intellectual community is no different. For example, places like Harvard, the liberal, intellectual elite, and how they handle things. I don’t think it is very different than the media. They are different kinds of pressures — you’ve been around Harvard, you know what the pressures are. You say the right things, you move up. You say the wrong things, you’re censured. A lot of pressures that lead to conformism. It is very effective.
You've read Animal Farm, of course, but it's very unlikely that you've read the introduction to Animal Farm, which was suppressed. It was found 30 years later in his unpublished papers. The introduction is addressed to the people of England. Now, I'm quoting, he said, in England, unpopular ideas can be suppressed without the use of force. He gave a couple of examples. One reason: the press is owned by wealthy men who have every reason to want these ideas to be suppressed. That’s Ed Herman’s argument. The other, he said, if you are properly educated, you just have it instilled into you that there's certain things it wouldn't do to say. That’s my side. There's certain things that it wouldn’t do to say and, after a while, not even to think.
JS: These invasions are discussed as bringing democracy, but they are usually democratic elections where the results are 98% for a candidate yet only 5% of population can vote. And so, you know, the United States does a magic trick — an illusion of democracy.
The United States, France, and Canada should be paying enormous reparations to Haiti for 200 years of brutal torture, and then let them run their own affairs. They tortured people for 200 years. They know what they should do.
NC: Thomas Carothers was in the State Department in charge of the Democracy promotion activities. He's a very honest guy. He did the most careful scholarly study of U.S. policies of democracy promotion. He concludes that all US leaders have a psychic disorder. They're all in favor of democracy but in practice they always oppose it. So, there's some psychic disorder somewhere. Then he goes into it in more detail. In Latin America, there have been advances in democracy, but they're in the South where U.S. influence is least. If you move closer, where U.S. influence is greater, progress is less. He says the reason is that the U.S. does defend democracy, but it has to be top-down democracy with elites in power which are favorable to U.S. interests. This is coming from a guy who is dedicated to democracy promotion.
JS: Frederick Douglas said, “Haiti is black, and we have not yet forgiven Haiti for being black.” How much is racism at the heart of this endless torture of Haiti?
NC: It’s a large part of it. It shows up very clearly in the Wilson invasions. The Haitian invasion was just vicious, and the Marines were very frank about it. In Haiti, it had been a slave country and now the slaves were free. It was intolerable in the United States. There was a lot of concern at the time about slave revolutions, one of the reasons for the second amendment. You had to have armed militias, something Antonin Scalia didn’t talk about.
JS: The media portrays Haiti as if it is unable to take care of itself, but that’s the desired product of foreign intervention, right? The perpetual need for foreign intervention. When the military comes to restore order, it is a very particular kind order they want to restore. If the desired product of foreign intervention is that there's always a reliance on foreign intervention, is there a way out of of this?
NC: The United States, France, and Canada should be paying enormous reparations to Haiti for 200 years of brutal torture, and then let them run their own affairs. We know exactly what ought to be done. They tortured people for 200 years. They know what they should do.