tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/haitians-54483/articlesHaitians – The Conversation2021-09-24T16:37:45Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1685562021-09-24T16:37:45Z2021-09-24T16:37:45ZHaitian migrants at the border: An asylum law scholar explains how US skirts its legal and moral duties<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423157/original/file-20210924-26-fj91z8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C5%2C3839%2C2975&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">U.S. envoy resigned over "inhumane" treatment of Haitian migrants</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/BorderHaitianRacism/698458add41b4d3997107a6663cd318f/photo?Query=Haitian%20AND%20migrants&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1071&currentItemNo=9">AP Photo/Felix Marquez</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The U.S.’s top envoy to Haiti <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/23/us-special-envoy-to-haiti-resigns-over-migrant-expulsions.html">resigned abruptly on Sept. 22, 2021</a>, over the Biden administration’s “inhumane” treatment of Haitian migrants crossing the border via Mexico into Texas.</p>
<p>The resignation came amid debate over the U.S. decision to <a href="https://fox8.com/news/thousands-of-haitian-migrants-deported-from-us/">deport thousands of Haitians</a> entering the U.S. in search of asylum or a better life. Criticism over the policy mounted as <a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-immigration-united-states-health-coronavirus-pandemic-083b5ac02cc17a1ce06b6ac0048e99ec">images of U.S. Border Patrol</a> <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-homeland-security-chief-heads-border-removal-migrant-camp-accelerates-2021-09-20/">agents on horseback and carrying whip-like cords</a> while encountering migrants gained widespread media attention and criticism from the White House. Border <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10014399/Texas-border-agents-DENY-whipping-migrants-accuse-Biden-administration-deflection.html">agents denied using whips</a> on migrants.</p>
<p>The Conversation asked Karen Musalo, an <a href="https://www.uchastings.edu/people/karen-musalo/">expert on refugee law and policy</a>, to unpack what went on at the U.S. border and whether the Biden administration is shirking its moral and legal obligations in deporting the Haitian migrants.</p>
<h2>What’s behind the recent surge of Haitian refugees at the Texas border?</h2>
<p>Haiti is beset by extraordinarily desperate conditions of political chaos and natural disasters, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic. The assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021 catapulted the country into <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/14/world/americas/haiti-henry-moise-assassination.html">political turmoil</a>. The post-assassination power struggle exacerbated <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2021/country-chapters/haiti">pre-existing political violence</a> and dysfunction. Violent gangs, often <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2021/country-chapters/haiti">with ties to the state</a>, are increasingly a threat.</p>
<p>In addition, Haiti suffered a devastating 7.2 magnitude earthquake in August, just two days before being hit directly by tropical storm Grace, with a <a href="https://disasterphilanthropy.org/disaster/2021-haiti-earthquake-and-tropical-storm-grace/">combined toll</a> of <a href="https://www.nbc12.com/2021/08/22/haiti-raises-earthquake-death-toll-passes-2200/">over 2,200 dead</a>, 12,000 injured and hundreds of thousands displaced, many in remote regions that have yet to receive aid. The pandemic has exacerbated these woes. Less <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations?country=OWID_WRL">than one-half of 1%</a> of the population has received even a first dose of a vaccine.</p>
<p>This has undoubtedly swelled the number of people trying to leave the nation. But many of the migrants arriving in the U.S. in recent weeks left Haiti before the recent turmoil. Haitian migrants have been <a href="https://cgrs.uchastings.edu/sites/default/files/A-Journey-of-Hope-Haitian-Womens-Migration-to%20-Tapachula.pdf">trapped in Mexico</a> for several years under various <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-central-americans-asylum-protections-20190715-story.html">Trump-era policies that limited</a>, and then eliminated, the possibility for them to request asylum in the United States. At the same time, others who left Haiti in years past for countries in South America have suffered from <a href="https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/in-depth/2021/06/11/400406/many-haitians-are-migrating-to-the-u-s-after-facing-racism-poverty-in-latin-america/">deep antipathy and racism</a> in their host countries, living in perilous conditions with only precarious legal status at best.</p>
<p>It appears many asylum seekers in Mexico, including Haitians, took heed of Biden’s promises during the presidential election campaign <a href="https://joebiden.com/immigration/">to restore the asylum system</a>. That may have been a factor in their decision to present themselves at the Texas border seeking the <a href="https://ijrcenter.org/refugee-law/">protection guaranteed under law</a> for those fleeing persecution.</p>
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<img alt="A uniformed Mexican police officer talks with a Haitian migrant wearing a mask." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423180/original/file-20210924-25-jbvkju.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423180/original/file-20210924-25-jbvkju.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423180/original/file-20210924-25-jbvkju.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423180/original/file-20210924-25-jbvkju.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423180/original/file-20210924-25-jbvkju.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423180/original/file-20210924-25-jbvkju.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423180/original/file-20210924-25-jbvkju.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A Haitian migrant pleads with a Mexican police officer blocking access to the Rio Grande river.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/MexicoUSBorderMigrants/243ec96d0e9749eda7e7ccd02b18ef56/photo?Query=Haitian%20AND%20migrants&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1071&currentItemNo=41">AP Photo/Felix Marquez</a></span>
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<p>It should be remembered that the U.S. has long played a role in Haiti’s troubles. When Special Envoy for Haiti Daniel Foote resigned, coverage <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/daniel-foote-abruptly-quits-over-inhumane-deportation-of-haitian-migrants">focused on his protest</a> against what he described as the inhumanity of returning Haitians to a “collapsed state … unable to provide security or basic services.” Overlooked was his equally damning indictment of the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/read-resignation-letter-from-u-s-special-envoy-for-haiti-daniel-foote/3136ae0e-96e5-448e-9d12-0e0cabfb3c0b/">U.S. as a puppet master</a> in Haiti’s political breakdown, for example by supporting the unelected prime minister and his political agenda.</p>
<h2>Doesn’t the US have a legal obligation to process asylum seekers?</h2>
<p>Both <a href="https://ijrcenter.org/refugee-law/">international</a> and <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1158">U.S. law</a> recognize the basic human right to seek asylum. The U.S. has ratified two treaties, the <a href="https://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/publication/1967-protocol">1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees</a> and the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/cat.aspx">1984 Convention against Torture</a>, which prohibit the U.S. from returning people to countries where they risk persecution or torture. As a practical matter, this means that people must be able to request asylum at the U.S. border, or within U.S. territory, so that they have the opportunity to prove whether or not they fit within the category of persons legally protected from forced return.</p>
<p>This international legal framework has been codified in U.S. law, primarily through the <a href="https://www.acf.hhs.gov/orr/policy-guidance/refugee-act">Refugee Act of 1980</a>, along with later statutes and regulations. It is universally acknowledged, including <a href="https://www.justice.gov/file/23326/download">by the Supreme Court</a>, that in passing these laws Congress intended to bring U.S. law into conformity with the United States’ international treaty obligations.</p>
<p>It is entirely legal to approach U.S. borders and request asylum. Statements by the administration that <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57387350">people should not come</a>, that they are doing something illegal when they seek protection, and that there is a right way and wrong way to seek asylum are, in my opinion, not only callous and cruel but also false statements of the law.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/09/23/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-september-23-2021/">White House has asserted</a> that Haitians are not coming into the country through “legal methods,” which would indeed be impossible since all legal methods have been foreclosed to them.</p>
<p>As part of the Trump administration’s dismantling of the asylum system, the White House in March 2020 <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/order-suspending-introduction-certain-persons.html">ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention</a>, over the objections of its own scientists, to use a 1944 public health law known as “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/08/02/1023187217/title-42-foes-go-back-to-court-to-try-to-end-covid-measure-blocking-asylum-seeke">Title 42</a>” to bar asylum seekers from entering the United States. This law had never been used before to dictate the movement of people across U.S. borders, which is instead the province of immigration laws. And despite the Biden’s campaign promises to restore the country’s asylum system, the administration continues to rely on Title 42 – <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/573016-why-is-the-biden-administration-turning-its-back-on-asylum-seekers?rl=1">despite most Americans now being vaccinated</a> – to keep asylum seekers out. </p>
<h2>Can you tell me a little more about Title 42?</h2>
<p>Even before COVID-19 struck, Trump administration aide <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/04/08/qa-us-title-42-policy-expel-migrants-border">Stephen Miller had inquired</a> about using the government’s public health authority to shut U.S. borders to people seeking asylum. He was told there was no legal authority to do so. The emergence of the pandemic provided a pretext for the unprecedented use of this little-known law dating back over 75 years. It formed part of the <a href="https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v7n8/v7n8p15.pdf">Public Health Service Act of 1944</a> to allow for the quarantine of anyone, including a U.S. citizen, arriving from a foreign country. It was never intended, nor until 2020 was used, to expel noncitizens from the United States. In fact, when Congress enacted the initial version of this law, references to immigration were deliberately omitted precisely to avoid the use of its provisions to discriminate against immigrants.</p>
<p>But the March 2020 order by the Trump administration <a href="https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news/public-health-experts-urge-us-officials-withdraw-order-enabling-mass-expulsion-asylum-seekers">targets one group, and one group only</a>: noncitizens who lack documentation and arrive by land.</p>
<p>All other people arriving in the U.S., including American citizens, lawful permanent residents and tourists arriving by plane or ship, are exempt. As currently employed by the government, this public health law has displaced existing immigration law, which allows people to request asylum. And in doing so it has also eliminated the due process protections that are part of our immigration laws.</p>
<p>On Sept. 16, a federal court found the use of Title 42 to expel people seeking asylum to be a clear violation of U.S. law and <a href="https://cgrs.uchastings.edu/news/federal-court-blocks-title-42-expulsions-families-seeking-safety">granted a preliminary injunction</a> against the practice. The court stayed its own order for 14 days to allow the government an opportunity to appeal its decision.</p>
<h2>Is there a history of discriminatory US migration policy against Haitians?</h2>
<p>Haitians have suffered from <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/haitian-migrants-racism/2021/09/22/e400793e-1be1-11ec-bcb8-0cb135811007_story.html">discriminatory treatment in immigration</a> for decades, and it would, I believe, be naïve to attribute this adverse treatment to anything other than systemic racism, which pervades so many aspects of American society. Shortly after the U.S. enacted the <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-94/pdf/STATUTE-94-Pg102.pdf">1980 Refugee Act</a>, it <a href="https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/RS21349.html">began to stop</a> Haitians on the high seas and to return them to Haiti so that they could not apply for asylum in this country. This violation of international law was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1993, and the practice continues to this day. Before the border was closed to them, Haitians who reached the U.S. and applied for asylum were denied at a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/immigration-race-and-ethnicity-mexico-haiti-asylum-seekers-a81ac1148118db38824d2d8f62139b87">higher rate than just about any other nationality</a> – notwithstanding the dire human rights conditions in their country.</p>
<p>After Haiti’s catastrophic earthquake in 2010, the government gave <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2010/01/21/2010-1169/designation-of-haiti-for-temporary-protected-status">Temporary Protected Status to Haitians</a> already in the United States, thus shielding them from removal. In 2017 the Trump administration <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/20/us/haitians-temporary-status.html">terminated the status for Haitians</a>, giving them until July 2019 to leave or to face deportation.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This story was updated on Sept. 26 to add a denial from border agents.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168556/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karen Musalo receives funding from the National Science Foundation,</span></em></p>The Biden administration has used a public health provision to deport thousands of Haitian migrants entering the US via Mexico.Karen Musalo, Professor of International Law, University of California College of the Law, San FranciscoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1642772021-07-26T12:23:24Z2021-07-26T12:23:24Z4 Haitian novels that beautifully blend history, memory and reality<p><em>Following the July 7, 2021 assassination of Haiti’s President Jovenel Moïse and after one Haitian official requested that the U.N. and U.S. send troops to help stabilize the nation, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/10/world/americas/haiti-us-troops-opposition.html">many Haitian activists and artists recoiled at the prospect of yet another outside intervention</a>.</em> </p>
<p><em>The Haitian-American novelist Edwidge Danticat is one artist who has repeatedly railed <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/haiti-us-occupation-hundred-year-anniversary">against past U.S. occupations</a> of Haiti. In her foreword to Jan J. Dominique’s “<a href="https://caribbeanstudiespress.com/?product=memoir-of-an-amnesiac-4">Memoir of an Amnesiac</a>,” she highlights a tension that exists in Haiti’s collective memory – pride over the revolution for freedom and independence from France in 1804, and frustration over continuous foreign meddling, brought to a new height with a 20-year occupation by the U.S. military starting in 1915.</em></p>
<p><em>“Never again will foreigners trample Haitian soil, the founders…declared in 1804,” Danticat writes. “Yet in 1915, the ‘boots’ invaded,” which meant that Haitians like the father of the narrator in Dominique’s tale would “never truly know a fully free and sovereign life, having had not just his country but his imagination invaded and occupied by the Americans.”</em> </p>
<p><em>A specialist in Haitian literary and historical studies from the University of Virginia, <a href="https://dh.virginia.edu/people/prof-marlene-l-daut">Marlene L. Daut</a> has selected four Haitian-authored novels that sit with this contradiction, along with many others.</em> </p>
<p><em>By guiding readers through Haiti over the past century, she shows how these contemporary writers magnificently paint the entanglements of memory, history and imagination that make Haitian art, from all times, so enduring and brilliant.</em></p>
<h2>1. Évelyne Trouillot, “<a href="https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/4887">Memory at Bay</a>” (2010)</h2>
<p>In “Memory at Bay,” Trouillot explores the ruthless juxtaposition that exists between Haitian President-turned-dictator <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/duvalier-francois-papa-doc-1907-1971/">François “Papa Doc” Duvalier</a>, called “the Deceased” in her novel, and Haiti’s subjugated position in the Western world. </p>
<p>Many years after the death of Duvalier and the fall of his successor and son, “<a href="http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/baby-doc.htm">Baby Doc</a>,” the Deceased’s bedridden wife tries to cast her husband as both a protector of the Haitian people and a target of the West’s quest for revenge. </p>
<p>“After all, how could the Western countries ever forgive or forget <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/18/opinion/france-year-of-napoleon.html">Napoleon’s debacle</a>, the sorry defeat of the French army … and the rout of the French colonizers at the hands of an army of former slaves?” the Deceased’s wife thinks. The widow attempts to paint her husband as having been the only one to stand up to the “former colonialists, the one-time occupying power, and all those who wanted to use the country as a springboard for their ambitions.” </p>
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<img alt="Government officials carry a casket." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412915/original/file-20210723-21-9csy05.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412915/original/file-20210723-21-9csy05.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412915/original/file-20210723-21-9csy05.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412915/original/file-20210723-21-9csy05.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412915/original/file-20210723-21-9csy05.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412915/original/file-20210723-21-9csy05.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412915/original/file-20210723-21-9csy05.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">After Francois Duvalier, known as ‘Papa Doc,’ died in 1971, his son, Jean-Claude, took power, continuing the family’s brutal reign.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/obsèques-de-françois-duvalier-en-avril-1971-à-port-au-news-photo/1188892101?adppopup=true">Reporters Associes/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The attendant caring for her in a nursing home in France has a different memory of the Deceased and his legacy. Coming from a family devastated by <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/article2538933.html">the Tonton Makouts</a> – Duvalier’s murderous henchmen responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Haitians – the nurse finds herself disgusted at having to care for an integral culprit in her country’s devastation. </p>
<p>“So many overlooked stories of men and women just guilty of having been alive at the wrong moment, in the wrong place,” she thinks, as she briefly contemplates whether to kill the widow. “My father, my uncle, the resister whose grandchildren will never know him, Madame So-and-So’s husband, the grocer’s cousin, his friend’s godfather, the mother of the little girl who will not be born, the boy who should have been born.” </p>
<h2>2. Dany Laferrière, “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/down-among-the-dead-men/oclc/801365229">Down Among the Dead Men</a>” (1996)</h2>
<p>Set in 1996, after the fall of the Duvalier regime and during <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Mission_in_Haiti">the United Nations’ occupation of Haiti</a>, this partly autobiographical tale tells the story of a never-named protagonist – a stand-in for Laferrière – who decides to come home to Haiti for the first time in 20 years.</p>
<p>Haiti has changed a lot during his exile in Montreal, where he was making his living as a writer. He no longer recognizes the capital, Port-au-Prince, which has seen massive migration from the countryside into the city. The result is overcrowding, famine and generalized misery. </p>
<p>In a chance encounter with a shoeshine man, the narrator is told that these changes mean “All the people you see in the street, walking and talking, most of them died a long time ago and they don’t even know it. This country has turned into the world’s largest cemetery.” </p>
<p>Such commentary encourages the narrator to write a book about “the other world.” He wonders “[i]s it here or elsewhere?” After unwittingly accepting from a powerful Vodou priest “the most terrifying offer anyone could make a writer: to take him to the kingdom of dead,” the narrator meets in succession the Vodou god <a href="https://www.learnreligions.com/papa-legba-4771384">Papa Legba</a>, master of the crossroads, and <a href="https://scholars.direct/Articles/anthropology/iap-3-018-table1.html">Ogou Feraille</a>, the god of war. </p>
<p>Ultimately, the narrator ends up as disappointed with the spirit world as he is with the mortal one. “This was hardly Dante’s inferno,” he remarks. “I’d been expecting…a universe so powerful and rich in symbols, so complex that it would have helped me… Instead, I ended up with a giggling adolescent goddess and the complaints of her father, the supposedly fearsome Ogou Feraille.” </p>
<p>All of this happens parallel to searing political commentary about the punitive and insulting measures forced upon Haiti by the world powers after the 1991 military coup that unseated <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2013/07/18/world/jean-bertrand-aristide-fast-facts/index.html.">President Jean-Bertrand Aristide</a>. For example, along with U.N. “peacekeepers,” a comical cast of foreign investigators arrive to study why the people of the northwestern town of Bombardopolis do not need to eat for months at a time. The foreigners conclude that it is because they are all plants, and not human beings. </p>
<p>The irony of course is that foreign meddlers are the ones who have caused the starvation. “Hunger remains the most effective weapon,” one character wryly remarks.</p>
<p>Sometimes the sardonic humor stings a little too much: “When everyone starts joking in a country, you know that all hope is gone,” the narrator’s friend Manu complains. “Humor is the weapon of desperate people.”</p>
<h2>3. Edwidge Danticat, “<a href="https://edwidgedanticat.com/books/the-farming-of-bones">The Farming of Bones</a>” (1999)</h2>
<p>In this work of historical fiction, Danticat transports readers to the Dominican Republic, to the border town of Alegría. There, Haitian workers are living “a cane life” – engaged in the brutal work of planting and cutting sugar cane, “travay tè pou zo, the farming of bones.” </p>
<p>Hewing closely to the historical record, Danticat captures the horrors of Dominican dictator General Rafael Trujillo’s <a href="https://ed.ted.com/lessons/ugly-history-the-1937-haitian-massacre-edward-paulino">massacre in 1937</a> of tens of thousands of Haitians living and working along the border. The more fictional sections follow the escape of Amabelle Désir, who had many years before witnessed the death by drowning of her parents, both migrant herbal healers, as they tried to cross the Dajabón River separating Haiti and the Dominican Republic. </p>
<p>Amabelle will eventually lose her lover, Sebastien Onius, to the troops of the “Generalissimo,” after Trujillo gives orders “to have all Haitians killed.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man stoops over next to a cart." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412918/original/file-20210723-23-1cb9dov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412918/original/file-20210723-23-1cb9dov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412918/original/file-20210723-23-1cb9dov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412918/original/file-20210723-23-1cb9dov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412918/original/file-20210723-23-1cb9dov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412918/original/file-20210723-23-1cb9dov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412918/original/file-20210723-23-1cb9dov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Haitian migrant worker cuts sugar cane in the Dominican Republic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/photo-julio-etchart-cdref00613-news-photo/876373114?adppopup=true">Julio Etchart/ullstein bild via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As Haitian characters are tortured or executed because they cannot trill their Rs to pronounce “perejil,” the Spanish word for parsley, Haiti’s glorious revolutionary past seems to fade into the background of the torturous present.</p>
<p>“When Dessalines, Toussaint, Henry, when those men walked the earth, we were a strong nation,” one man who escaped the massacre states. “Those men would go to war to defend our blood. In all this, our <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Stenio-Joseph-Vincent">so-called president</a> says nothing…nothing at all to this affront to the children of <a href="https://theconversation.com/meet-haitis-founding-father-whose-black-revolution-was-too-radical-for-thomas-jefferson-101963">Dessalines</a>, the children of <a href="https://www.historytoday.com/archive/feature/wrongful-death-toussaint-louverture">Toussaint</a>, the children of <a href="https://theconversation.com/inside-the-kingdom-of-hayti-the-wakanda-of-the-western-hemisphere-108250">Henry</a>; he shouts nothing across this river of our blood.”</p>
<h2>4. René Depestre, “<a href="http://www.akashicbooks.com/catalog/hadriana-in-all-my-dreams/">Hadriana in All My Dreams</a>” (1988)</h2>
<p>Near the end of “The Farming of Bones,” a guide taking visitors to King Henry’s famous <a href="http://www.citadellelaferriere.com/">Citadelle</a> says, “Famous men never truly die…It is only those nameless and faceless who vanish like smoke into the early morning air.” </p>
<p>Beginning in 1938, just one year after Trujillo’s massacre, Depestre’s “Hadriana” trails the life, death and reemergence of a white French woman born in Haiti named Hadriana Siloé, who appears to mysteriously die while saying her wedding vows. She is then suspected of having been transformed into a zombie when her body goes missing from its grave. </p>
<p>During her funeral-turned-carnival, historical figures from different eras join the masked wake, as “historical memory” has gotten “mixed up to the point of ridiculousness.”</p>
<p>And so readers are treated to scenes of the Haitian emperor Jacques the First, who ruled Haiti from 1804 to 1806, playing table tennis with his partner, Joseph Stalin, while Venezuelan freedom fighter <a href="https://daily.jstor.org/bolivar-haiti/">Simón Bolívar</a> dances alongside King Henry Christophe, who became <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/the-king-of-haiti-and-the-dilemmas-of-freedom-in-a-colonised-world">king of northern Haiti</a> in 1811.</p>
<p>“This masked occasion had convoked three centuries of human history to [Hadriana’s] wake,” her childhood friend Patrick says. They “had come together to dance, sing, drink rum, and refuse death, kicking up the dust on my village square, which, in the midst of this general masquerade, took itself for the cosmic stage of the universe.” </p>
<p>In the end, it is not just history but all of life that appears to be one large carnival as the contours of death come alive on the streets of the living. </p>
<p>This tale has a happy ending, though. Decades later, Hadriana is revealed to be alive after all and describes how she miraculously escaped from the botched attempt to turn her into a zombie. She even gets married, not to her original fiancé but to Patrick, who has chronicled all that took place in her absence.</p>
<p>The true romance here may be that unlike so many of those who have disappeared in yesterday’s and today’s Haiti, Hadriana and Patrick live to tell their story.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 109,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164277/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marlene Daut does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Confronted with centuries of exploitation by their country’s ruling class and foreign powers, Haitian writers warn against the impulse to seek solace in outside intervention or cynical humor.Marlene Daut, Professor of African Diaspora Studies, University of VirginiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1163372019-09-23T12:26:50Z2019-09-23T12:26:50ZGas shortages paralyze Haiti, triggering protests against failing economy and dysfunctional politics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293556/original/file-20190923-54759-187nwjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C7%2C5145%2C3437&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Haitians gather at a closed gas station in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, hoping it will open eventually, Sept. 4, 2019. Gas shortages have forced stations across the country to close or reduced their operating hours in recent weeks.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Haiti-Fuel-Shortages/f7e0d1ea517a4a1a94ea9a5d1090c302/23/0">AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Gasoline is fueling unrest in Haiti for the second time this year.</p>
<p>The Caribbean country, which relies heavily on oil imported from Venezuela, has suffered fuel shortages and <a href="https://theconversation.com/routine-blackouts-in-haiti-symbolize-a-loss-of-political-power-for-its-citizens-110950">blackouts</a> since Venezuela’s crisis-stricken government <a href="https://www.apnews.com/1f261ed6fc964244af509cf09ed0a863">stopped oil shipments earlier this year</a>. </p>
<p>Throughout September, an acute <a href="https://rezonodwes.com/2019/09/17/crise-de-carburant-lapin-annonce-une-augmentation-des-prix-du-diesel-et-larrivee-prochaine-de-140-mille-barils-de-petrole/">fuel shortage</a> has triggered street protests in the capital of Port-au-Prince, forcing schools and shops to close. Hospitals are <a href="https://lenouvelliste.com/article/207090/les-responsables-de-lhopital-general-crient-a-laide">barely functioning</a>. </p>
<p>The crisis is beginning to ease in Port-au-Prince as <a href="http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/latestnews/_Vessel_arrives_to_ease_gas_shortage_in_Haiti?profile=1228">more oil arrives</a>. But the rest of the country remains paralyzed. </p>
<p>In Haiti’s Cap Haitian region and rural northeast, the humanitarian situation is dire. For over a year, a <a href="https://reliefweb.int/disaster/dr-2018-000106-slv">severe drought</a> has left people with <a href="https://www.mnnonline.org/news/cap-haitien-is-out-of-fuel-water-and-food/">hardly any access to water</a>. Crops have shriveled and <a href="https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-28779-haiti-security-the-dominican-republic-closes-its-border-with-haiti.html">the Dominican Republic just closed its border with Haiti</a>, so <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1866/FFP_Fact_Sheet_Haiti.pdf">food that once came from there is in short supply</a>. </p>
<h2>A failing economic model</h2>
<p>Haiti’s fuel shortages are one manifestation of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/routine-blackouts-in-haiti-symbolize-a-loss-of-political-power-for-its-citizens-110950">political crisis that has destabilized the country</a> since the violent 1991 coup d'etat that <a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1991/12/25/997991.html?pageNumber=1">replaced President Jean-Bertrand Aristide</a> with a repressive military regime. </p>
<p>That three-year dictatorship left Haiti’s democracy fragile. Haiti has had 11 prime ministers since 2010. The <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R45034.pdf">deeply dysfunctional government of President Jovenel Moïse</a> has not yet passed a 2019 budget. </p>
<p>This prevents the government from receiving the international loans that it relies on to fund over <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-haiti-climate-aid-comes-with-strings-attached-108652">20%</a> of its operating budget. As a result, the government owes <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article235260167.html">US$130 million</a> in arrears to its fuel suppliers.</p>
<p>Haiti’s financial struggles are also, in large part, the result of an ill-conceived <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Haiti-From-Revolutionary-Slaves-to-Powerless-Citizens-Essays-on-the-Politics/Dupuy/p/book/9781857437102">economic system</a> that has failed to meet Haiti’s needs for over a century. </p>
<p>Ever since the American military <a href="http://classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/bellegarde_dantes/Occupation_americaine_Haiti/Occupation.html">occupied</a> Haiti from 1915 to 1934, its economic and social policies have been designed to attract foreign investment. The plan, which was crafted in the 1910s and 1920s by the U.S. military government, was to <a href="https://ufdc.ufl.edu/AA00000879/00001/49j">“develop” this rural Caribbean country</a> by making it an <a href="https://www.routledge.com/State-Failure-Underdevelopment-and-Foreign-Intervention-in-Haiti-1st/Gros/p/book/9780415890328">appealing operating environment for U.S. firms</a>. </p>
<p>In practice, that meant keeping Haitian wages, corporate taxes and tariffs low. In exchange, the theory went, foreign investment would bring infrastructure development and jobs, benefiting all Haitians. </p>
<p>American agro-corporations began profitably cultivating cash crops like coffee, bananas and sugar in Haiti in the <a href="http://classiques.uqac.ca/contemporains/anglade_georges/atlas_critique_haiti/atlas_critique_haiti.html">early 20th century</a>.</p>
<p>In 1926, American businessmen backed by the American military government seized more than 12,000 acres of fertile land from Haitian peasants in the Cap Haitian region to <a href="http://faculty.webster.edu/corbetre/haiti/misctopic/dauphin/history.htm">grow sisal</a>, a fibrous plant used in weaving. To make room for this massive industrial operation, <a href="http://classiques.uqac.ca/contemporains/Castor_Suzy/Occupation_americaine_Haiti/Occupation_americaine_Haiti.html">thousands of families were evicted from their land</a>. </p>
<p>The intensive cultivation of just one crop over two decades so depleted the soil that food production across Cap Haitian was <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Peasants-and-Poverty-Routledge-Revivals-A-Study-of-Haiti-1st-Edition/Lundahl/p/book/9781138818750">threatened</a>. </p>
<p>This process of exploitation followed by scarcity and environmental degradation has <a href="https://www.rienner.com/title/Haiti_Trapped_in_the_Outer_Periphery">repeated itself for decades</a>. </p>
<p>Chasing low-wage labor and free trade, U.S. corporations and military agencies have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1987/04/12/world/another-blow-for-haiti-a-sugar-mill-closes.html">established sugar cane plantations</a>, <a href="https://lenouvelliste.com/article/180653/myrtha-gilbert-fait-la-chronique-de-shada-une-extravagante-escroquerie">rubber plantations</a> and <a href="https://www.globalresearch.ca/made-in-haiti-dumped-in-haiti-slave-labor-and-the-garment-industry/5342396">textile factories</a> in Haiti for the past 100 years, with similarly disappointing results for workers and the environment.</p>
<h2>Empty industrial parks</h2>
<p>I am a cultural anthropologist who studies industrialization and <a href="https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sea2.12071">informal economies</a> in Haiti. Over the past seven years, I’ve spoken with dozens of Haitian factory workers, small farmers and entrepreneurs about their experiences with this kind of foreign-funded development project.</p>
<p>After decades of extremely business-friendly policies, three quarters of Haitians still live on <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/haiti/overview">less than $2.40 a day</a>. The United States, Haiti’s main trade partner, has continued to enjoy the favorable trade policies it created in the early 1900s, which allow U.S. companies to sell <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/history-created-haiti">government-subsidized American rice and sugar to Haitians</a> at prices that have left Haitian farmers unable to compete.</p>
<p>One modern development project is painfully emblematic of Haiti’s failed economic model.</p>
<p>The Caracol Industrial Park, which opened in northeast Haiti in 2012, was supposed to be <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/05/clinton-foundation-haiti-117368_Page4.html">the centerpiece of the reconstruction effort</a> in Haiti after its devastating 2010 earthquake. <a href="http://bostonreview.net/world/jake-johnston-haiti-earthquake-aid-caracol">Developed</a> by the Clinton Foundation, U.S. State Department and the Inter-American Development Bank, Caracol was supposed to create 60,000 jobs in the garment and assembly industries on farmland that, at the time, fed 4,000 people.</p>
<p><a href="https://2009-2017.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2012/10/199451.htm">According to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton</a>, the industrial park would “put Haiti finally on the path to broad-based economic growth.” </p>
<p>The development took advantage of new, post-earthquake <a href="https://books.google.fr/books?id=IJD8AgAAQBAJ&pg=PT8&dq=hope/help+haiti+dupuy&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwibp9bKq4zjAhXi8eAKHdOGCLAQ6AEIMDAB#v=onepage&q=HELP&f=false">U.S. policies</a> offering duty free Haitian garment exports and giving tax breaks to corporations that moved into this new Haitian free-trade zone. </p>
<p>Today, fewer than 15,000 people work in the factories at Caracol – a quarter of promised jobs. Most work long hours in <a href="http://cepr.net/blogs/haiti-relief-and-reconstruction-watch/haitis-apparel-factories-reports-find-wage-theft-sexual-harassment-and-poor-safety-and-sanitation-standards">bad conditions</a> for less than US$5 a day. </p>
<p>The Haitian peasant farmers <a href="https://www.actionaidusa.org/blog/us-funded-industrial-park-forces-haitian-farmers-off-land/">evicted by the Haitian state from their land</a> so the park could be built did not get jobs at Caracol, nor were <a href="https://www.accountabilitycounsel.org/client-case/haiti-caracol-industrial-park/#case-story">government promises to resettle</a> them met. Today, many of them live in poverty on the outskirts of the park.</p>
<h2>A bridge to nowhere</h2>
<p>Failed factories and exploitative agricultural ventures are not solely responsible for Haitians’ poverty – or for their anger. </p>
<p>In June 2019, protesters <a href="https://haitiantimes.com/2019/06/10/demonstrators-call-for-resignation-of-haiti-president-during-sunday-protest/">took to the streets</a> to demand the resignation of President Moise of the Tet Kale Party, who is <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article231122978.html">accused of embezzling funds</a> through fake construction companies. </p>
<p>Moise and his Tet Kale predecessor, President Michel Martelly, are accused by his own government of <a href="https://www.apnews.com/87b6c953f8cf4bfa8284851d9c741369">siphoning billions of dollars in development aid</a> from Petrocaribe, a Venezuelan <a href="https://caricom.org/projects/detail/petrocaribe">fund</a> that provided low-interest loans to help rebuild Haiti in exchange for oil purchases. </p>
<p>The scheme was revealed in a <a href="http://www.cscca.gouv.ht/view.php?download_file=documents/249.pdf">stunning, 604-page report</a> submitted in May 2019 to the Haitian Senate by the Superior Court of Auditors and Administrative Disputes. </p>
<p>The report explained why construction that began on hundreds of roads, bridges, hospitals, wharves, schools and soccer stadiums after Haiti’s 2010 earthquake <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10714839.2019.1617488">was never finished</a>. In southern Port-au-Prince, a gigantic half-built hospital and a bridge to nowhere serve as daily reminders of government embezzlement.</p>
<h2>Haiti’s bright side</h2>
<p>Fuel shortages and unscrupulous politicians may be a daily reality in Haiti, but there are positive things happening there, too. </p>
<p>In 2012, the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/arts/interruptthisprogram/parc-de-martissant-a-breath-of-fresh-air-in-port-au-prince-1.3321178">42-acre Martissant Park</a> opened in southern Port-au-Prince. It features a large library, dense forests and environmental and educational programming.</p>
<p>To restore this urban forest and make it useful to locals, the Haitian foundation <a href="https://www.fokal.org/index.php/en/">Fokal</a> worked with city and state officials to remove and compensate squatters, upgrade surrounding neighborhoods and institute municipal trash pickup – a rare example of <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/factsreports/2828">good governance</a>.</p>
<p>And, in January, a coalition of peasant farmers evicted to make way for the Caracol Industrial Park won a <a href="https://www.devex.com/news/idb-settles-accountability-case-in-haiti-granting-land-to-farmers-94129">historic settlement</a> against the International Development Bank. With legal help from the Accountability Counsel, an American nonprofit, 4,000 people will receive <a href="https://www.accountabilitycounsel.org/2018/12/haitian-farmers-reach-historic-agreement-with-development-bank-and-government-to-address-harm-from-post-earthquake-project/">reparations</a> in the form of small plots of land, employment and training opportunities. </p>
<p>As frequent protests in Haiti show, people are well aware of the systemic problems hurting their economic and political systems. On the street, in their neighborhoods and abroad, they are demanding better.</p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116337/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vincent Joos receives funding from the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>Haiti has been paralyzed by general strikes and crippling fuel shortages for much of September. Its government is barely functioning. Here’s the history behind the crisis.Vincent Joos, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Florida State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1109502019-02-07T22:22:26Z2019-02-07T22:22:26ZRoutine blackouts in Haiti symbolize a loss of political power for its citizens<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257542/original/file-20190206-174883-1dabcxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Blackouts are common in Haiti. In this February 2006 photo, Haitian electoral workers count ballots by candlelight during a routine blackout in Port-au-Prince. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Haiti’s public utility company just announced it’s reducing output again. The move comes after <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article224706115.html">a series of blackouts</a> throughout the country, some lasting weeks. The power outages are the result of a weeks-long fuel shortage that has led to fuel rationing and gas station closures as reserves run dry.</p>
<p>Haiti is dependent on fuel imports, and the national electrical grid is small and inefficient. Haiti’s already weak infrastructure has been damaged by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/04/why-is-haiti-vulnerable-to-natural-hazards-and-disasters">a string of natural disasters</a>. Yet, for many Haitians, blackouts are not just the result of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-haiti-climate-aid-comes-with-strings-attached-108652">country’s vulnerability</a>; they are also a symbol of political crisis.</p>
<h2>Blackouts routine in Haiti</h2>
<p>Blackouts are expected occurrences in Haiti. When they inevitably happen, talk quickly turns to the government’s inability to provide basic services. </p>
<p>Most electricity comes from the state-run provider, Electricité d’Haiti (EDH), <a href="https://www.bu.edu/ise/files/2018/03/FINAL-Haiti-Electricity-Report-March-2018.pdf">which is seen as being poorly managed and corrupt</a>. When the lights go out, as they invariably do, the problem of the lack of services is made abundantly visible.</p>
<p>Electricity is a charged political issue in Haiti. Only about <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2012/09/27/haiti-strategy-focuses-reconstruction-capacity-building-stronger-institutions">25 per cent of the population has access</a> to electricity, and those who do rarely have it all day, every day. Private businesses and wealthy families rely on diesel generators for their shops and homes. Poor Haitians use wood, charcoal or kerosene.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257591/original/file-20190206-174873-kcjvu8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257591/original/file-20190206-174873-kcjvu8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257591/original/file-20190206-174873-kcjvu8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257591/original/file-20190206-174873-kcjvu8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257591/original/file-20190206-174873-kcjvu8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257591/original/file-20190206-174873-kcjvu8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257591/original/file-20190206-174873-kcjvu8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Haiti’s president Jovenel Moïse is seen in this January 2018 photo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Most governments have sought to expand access to energy sources and to subsidize their cost. Most recently, President Jovenel Moïse <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article156759119.html">pledged to bring “24 hours around the clock” electrical service</a> to Haiti within two years. Instead, he presides over a country wracked by chronic energy shortages.</p>
<h2>The politics of fuel</h2>
<p>The Caribbean has some of the highest utility rates in the world. In 2005, Venezuela launched Petrocaribe, an oil alliance designed to alleviate fuel costs and promote economic co-operation. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.haiti-liberte.com/archives/volume4-46/How%20Washington%20and%20Big%20Oil%20Fought%20PetroCaribe%20in%20Haiti.asp">Under the plan</a>, member states paid only 40 to 70 per cent of the price of fuel imports. The remainder was deferred, to be repaid over 25 years with an annual one per cent interest rate. Funds from fuel sales were to be spent on social development programs.</p>
<p>The current fuel shortage in Haiti is part of a larger story about the fallout from the <a href="https://nacla.org/news/2019/01/24/venezuela-another-crossroads">crisis in Venezuela</a>. In 2017, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/haitians-want-to-know-what-the-government-has-done-with-missing-oil-money">the Haitian Senate released a report</a> claiming that $1.7 billion from the Petrocaribe fund had been lost or stolen and that the program had racked up US$2 billion in debt. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b9f2b7c3917ee4972f3f2d0/t/5c53bdabeef1a194097d4a44/1548991930156/PETROCARIBE++31+JANV.+19.pdf">just-released audit</a> conducted by Haiti’s Superior Court of Accounts and Administrative Disputes confirmed these claims and added that many of the development projects sponsored by Petrocaribe funds were never finished or never existed.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257547/original/file-20190206-174851-w8xr4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257547/original/file-20190206-174851-w8xr4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257547/original/file-20190206-174851-w8xr4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257547/original/file-20190206-174851-w8xr4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257547/original/file-20190206-174851-w8xr4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257547/original/file-20190206-174851-w8xr4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257547/original/file-20190206-174851-w8xr4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Residents walk amid roadblocks placed by anti-government protesters in Port-au-Prince in November 2018. Demonstrators demanded that the president resign for failing to investigate the Petrocaribe scandal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Petrocaribe scandal and the energy crisis have both given rise to renewed calls to privatize Haiti’s energy sector. Haiti has been forced to end its involvement in Petrocaribe; the country now buys its fuel from American providers, in U.S. dollars, continuing a long-standing program of <a href="https://nacla.org/news/2018/02/16/new-energy-empires-podcast">American energy imperialism</a> in the region. </p>
<p>If the <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article214594110.html">new fuel prices imposed by the International Monetary Fund</a> last year are any indication, privatization and liberalization of the energy sector in Haiti will make life more expensive for most people and make the country more dependent and more indebted to foreign powers. </p>
<p>It’s <a href="https://www.publicbooks.org/why-the-lights-went-out-in-puerto-rico/">a situation reminiscent of Puerto Rico</a>, where debt and disaster have been leveraged to push through a series of neoliberal structural adjustment programs in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.</p>
<h2>Losing power</h2>
<p>In Haitian Kreyòl, the word for power outage is <em>blakawout</em>. It refers to the loss of electrical power but, like its English equivalent, can also be used to talk about a bodily condition. </p>
<p>In Port-au-Prince, it is common to hear people talk about blackouts in a number of ways. </p>
<p>Where we might say in English that a person can suffer a blackout, meaning a loss of consciousness, Haitians might say they are “living in a blackout,” a phrase that speaks to a more generalized loss of physical and social energy.</p>
<p>Sometimes they refer to power outages to complain about the government and the lack of essential services. Other times blackouts provoke memories of repression by the Haitian military and paramilitary forces, who would often cut power to neighbourhoods before conducting violent raids. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257551/original/file-20190206-174864-1741i0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257551/original/file-20190206-174864-1741i0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257551/original/file-20190206-174864-1741i0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257551/original/file-20190206-174864-1741i0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257551/original/file-20190206-174864-1741i0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257551/original/file-20190206-174864-1741i0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257551/original/file-20190206-174864-1741i0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Street vendors balance wares and spices on their heads as they walk to a market in Kenscoff, Haiti. Haitians complain about a lack of essential services in their country.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sometimes people say that when there is a blackout they simply “can’t do anything” at all, as if the lack of light and electrical power is only the visible symptom of a more general condition — the loss of agency.</p>
<p>For many Haitians, blackouts do not just signal a political crisis — they also symbolize feelings of their loss of political power. In that sense, blackouts are not just the result of a weak government. They are a symptom of a deeper crisis of sovereignty as the Haitian people continue to struggle, still, for democracy, autonomy and self-determination.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110950/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Greg Beckett receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).</span></em></p>For many Haitians, blackouts do not just signal a political crisis; they also symbolize feelings of their loss of political power.Greg Beckett, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Western UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/966952018-06-01T10:41:02Z2018-06-01T10:41:02ZWhy Florida Democrats can’t count on the so-called ‘black vote’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221272/original/file-20180531-69481-1fhgd3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=511%2C118%2C2404%2C1416&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Florida's Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson meets with residents of Miami's Little Haiti neighborhood, where Donald Trump also campaigned in 2016.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Alan Diaz</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Florida’s <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/09/bill-nelson-rick-scott-senate-campaigns-510036">midterm Senate election</a> is a race to watch on Nov. 6 – and not just because it will be a <a href="http://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2018/02/07/polls-show-nelson-scott-on-course-for-tight-u-s-senate-battle/">tight match</a> pitting a sitting governor, Republican Rick Scott, against a sitting senator, Democrat Bill Nelson. </p>
<p>Black voters, who make up <a href="https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/FL">16 percent of Florida’s population</a>, will likely help tip the race in one candidate’s favor. Black Floridians have long been a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2008/results/states/exitpolls/florida.html">swing constituency in the state</a> and have played a <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/4137295/#.Wv3pvUxFxlY">key role</a> in <a href="https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/1-million-black-votes-didn-t-count-in-the-2000-2747895.php">every close presidential race since 2000</a>.</p>
<p>But my <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=V8VhlpAAAAAJ&hl=en">research on minority politics in the South</a> shows that it is time to re-examine old assumptions about Florida’s so-called “black vote.” </p>
<h2>The Caribbeanization of black politics</h2>
<p>That’s because not all black people in the United States are <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/article18228377.html">African-American</a>. </p>
<p>Florida is home to the country’s largest foreign-born black population. One in three black Miami metropolitan region residents today is an immigrant, <a href="http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/04/09/a-rising-share-of-the-u-s-black-population-is-foreign-born/">according to the Pew Research Center</a>. Many are from the Caribbean. </p>
<p>The black immigrant population in the U.S. has more than quadrupled since 1980, <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/article18228377.html">led by an influx of Haitians and Jamaicans</a>. An estimated <a href="https://www.census.gov/prod/2010pubs/acsbr09-18.pdf">376,000 Haitians</a> represent fully 2 percent of Florida’s population. Another <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/article18228377.html">30,000 or so Floridians were born in Jamaica</a>.</p>
<p>As my 2018 book on “<a href="http://www.sunypress.edu/p-6504-the-caribbeanization-of-black-p.aspx">The Caribbeanization of Black Politics in America</a>” outlines, these demographic shifts are upending political patterns in predominantly black communities. <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/05/what-black-voters-want/559775/">U.S. political analysts have long assumed</a> that black people mostly think alike on policy issues and vote for the same candidates – namely, for <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/exit-left/476190/">Democrats</a>. </p>
<p>That’s now changing.</p>
<h2>Black Republicans</h2>
<p>I have studied voting patterns of African-Americans, Cape Verdeans and West Indians in four cities: Boston, Chicago, Miami and New York City.</p>
<p>I discovered that while these populations are mostly Democratic, foreign-born black communities in all four cities are more willing than African-Americans to put aside partisan differences and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/19/us/public-lives-away-from-haiti-discovering-the-politics-of-the-possible.html?pagewanted=1">vote Republican</a>. </p>
<p>Haitians, in particular, lean in a more conservative direction than African-Americans and other Caribbean communities. My research found that Haitian voters in Boston, Chicago, Miami and New York City are more likely to identify as moderate or conservative than African-Americans. </p>
<p>Haitians are also more likely to be members of the Republican Party and to run for office as Republicans. The first and only Haitian-American in Congress, <a href="https://love.house.gov">Mia Love</a> of Utah’s 4th district, is a Republican. </p>
<p>In Florida, almost 4 percent of the Haitian-born population is Republican, according to <a href="https://twitter.com/electionsmith/status/951609118615392256">University of Florida political scientist Daniel Smith</a>. Just under 20 percent of Florida’s Haitian Americans are Democrats. Many others are not registered voters in the U.S., though they may remain active in Haitian politics.</p>
<p>Donald Trump <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/election/donald-trump/article102349877.html">campaigned in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood</a> in 2016. He went on to win <a href="https://twitter.com/electionsmith/status/951609118615392256">20 percent of Florida’s Haitian vote</a>. </p>
<p>After the election, Haitian-American activist Ezili Danto suggested that many Haitian Floridians had supported Trump in part to demonstrate that they <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/georgianne-nienaber/did-trumps-visit-to-littl_b_12930834.html">won’t always vote Democratic</a>. </p>
<p>Many Haitians also believed the corruption allegations that had been leveled against the Clinton Foundation, whose <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-37826098">work in Haiti</a> after the 2010 earthquake <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-37826098">left it with a bad reputation on the island</a>.</p>
<h2>Community tensions</h2>
<p>As Florida’s Caribbean population has boomed, these political differences have led to some <a href="https://scholarworks.umb.edu/trotter_review/vol10/iss1/5/">showdowns</a> between African-Americans and the Haitian community. </p>
<p>The election of Republican Josaphat Celestin <a href="http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/a-new-political-complexion-6352895">as mayor of North Miami in 2001</a> is illustrative. He was the first <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/19/us/public-lives-away-from-haiti-discovering-the-politics-of-the-possible.html?pagewanted=1">Haitian-American elected to lead a large U.S. city</a>. </p>
<p>As I outline in my book, Celestin’s campaign <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/19/us/public-lives-away-from-haiti-discovering-the-politics-of-the-possible.html">appealed directly to Haitian voters</a> in this municipality of 60,000, by arguing that they needed their own political representation in a largely African-American city historically governed by white elected officials. </p>
<p>The 2001 election brought not just Celestin to power but also put a Haitian-American majority onto the five-member city council, ushering in a new era in North Miami politics. Haitian voters had successfully replaced the city’s old white political leadership with new black leadership. </p>
<p>But they did so by defeating a Democrat, Duke Sorey, whom most native-born black Floridians hoped would <a href="http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2001-05-09/news/0105090006_1_mayoral-race-runoff-next-week-haitian-american">become the city’s first black mayor</a>. </p>
<h2>Motivating black voters</h2>
<p>All of this means that neither Florida Senate candidate should take black voters for granted in the midterms. </p>
<p>Nelson, the Democratic sitting senator, has tradition on his side. Black Floridians – like African-Americans nationwide – have voted overwhelmingly Democratic in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/07/07/when-did-black-americans-start-voting-so-heavily-democratic/?utm_term=.7c6cfe237770">every election since 1948</a>. In 2012, higher-than-usual black turnout <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/">for Barack Obama</a> helped Nelson handily secure his second Senate term. </p>
<p>As the only Democrat in statewide office in a state <a href="https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2018/03/26/flush-with-cash-and-popularity-scott-appears-ready-to-challenge-nelson-for-us-senate-328189">dominated by Republicans</a>, Nelson will again need <a href="http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/national/florida-sen-bill-nelson-wins-re-election-by-defeating-connie-mack/1260266">above-average black turnout to beat Scott</a>. Yet the senator recently said he believes black Floridians are already <a href="http://sunshinestatenews.com/story/bill-nelson-says-he-doesn%E2%80%99t-need-motivate-black-voters">“motivated” to vote for him</a> and has faced accusations of not courting them enough. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Gov. Scott won <a href="http://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/todays-buzz/sfl-did-black-voters-deliver-for-rick-scott-20141110-story.html">12 percent of black votes in 2014</a> – significantly more than the 8 percent of black voters Trump won nationwide in 2016. </p>
<p>Florida’s Trinidad-born Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll was the first black female Republican elected to the Florida legislature and the first black Republican woman on a statewide ticket when she <a href="http://www.theledger.com/news/20100902/state-rep-jennifer-carroll-officially-named-gop-lt-governor-nominee">ran as Scott’s running mate in 2010</a>. </p>
<h2>Scott alienates black voters</h2>
<p>Carroll resigned in 2013 amid accusations of financial impropriety. She later wrote a book accusing Scott of treating her like an “unwanted stepchild” and <a href="https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2014/08/26/jennifer-carroll-rick-scott-treated-unwanted-stepchild/14613429/">using her to win black and female votes</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221267/original/file-20180531-69521-1wbatpn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221267/original/file-20180531-69521-1wbatpn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221267/original/file-20180531-69521-1wbatpn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221267/original/file-20180531-69521-1wbatpn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221267/original/file-20180531-69521-1wbatpn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221267/original/file-20180531-69521-1wbatpn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221267/original/file-20180531-69521-1wbatpn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former Florida Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll, who was born in Trinidad, is unlikely to support Scott’s campaign this year.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As governor, too, Scott has in fact had a <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/gym3mj/floridas-republican-governor-is-fighting-to-keep-a-jim-crow-era-voting-system">very tense relationship with black Floridians</a>. </p>
<p>In 2011 he reduced <a href="https://hbcubuzz.com/2011/04/florida-gov-rick-scott-cuts-all-funding-to-states-hbcus-in-florida/">funding to two historically black private colleges in the state</a>. That same year Scott requested that the president of Florida A&M University, a historically black public university, be suspended after the hazing death of a student, a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2011/12/16/justice/florida-am-investigation/index.html">decision the college’s board of trustees rejected</a>. </p>
<p>When students protested his recommendation, Scott suggested he could relate to them <a href="https://thegrio.com/2012/01/15/black-lieutenant-governor-florida-gov-rick-scott-epitomizes-mlk/">because he grew up in public housing</a>. It was the <a href="http://politicalcorrection.org/blog/201102160003">second time</a> the governor had insinuated that all black people are poor. </p>
<p>Scott has also been <a href="http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/floridas-long-history-of-racist-voter-suppression-laws-10030500">accused of suppressing black voters</a> by making it harder for formerly incarcerated people to restore their voting rights.</p>
<p>I doubt Florida’s Haitian voters will support Scott as they did Trump in 2016. But the days of assuming that the black vote will definitely go Democratic are over.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96695/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sharon D. Wright Austin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Caribbean immigrants in Miami are upending old assumptions about black voters in Florida. Neither party should take them for granted in this November’s midterm election.Sharon D. Wright Austin, Professor of Political Science and Director of the African American Studies Program, University of FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.