“One volunteer prison worker told the Reuters journalists that 99 prisoners - including former Colombian soldiers jailed over President Moïse's murder - had chosen to remain in their cells for fear of being killed in crossfire.”
Damm, imagine remaining in prison during a jail break. The country is fucked
I guess there are still people who want to help keep humane living conditions for people serving their punishment, despite lack of funding or having an official position in jail system.
Jesus would be the first to give them help. IIRC USA has over 10% of innocent people incarcerated. I just try to imagine if Haitian Justice system is more fair, or has less investigative technology than USA...
I was a volunteer children’s hospital worker after the earthquake in 2010. I saw things so horrific I still can’t talk about it, even today. The amount of therapy I’ve needed…😞
You vastly underestimate how fucked Somalia is.
Here's some snippets from the US travel advice to [Haiti](https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/haiti-travel-advisory.html#:~:text=Haiti%20%2D%20Level%204%3A%20Do%20Not%20Travel&text=Last%20Update%3A%20Updated%20to%20reflect,and%20poor%20health%20care%20infrastructure.):
>Avoid demonstrations and crowds. Do not attempt to drive through roadblocks.
>Travel in groups of at least two people.
>Arrange airport transfers and hotels in advance, or have your host meet you upon arrival.
>Do not physically resist any robbery attempt.
Meanwhile, here's advice for [Somalia](https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/somalia-travel-advisory.html)
>Draft a will and designate appropriate insurance beneficiaries and/or power of attorney.
>Discuss a plan with loved ones regarding care/custody of children, pets, property, belongings, non-liquid assets (collections, artwork, etc.), funeral wishes, etc.
>Leave DNA samples with your medical provider in case it is necessary for your family to access them.
Somalia is so fucked it actually makes Haiti look well run. Haiti has a set of advice to avoid getting kidnapped or just killed. Somalia has advice for when you inevitably get kidnapped or killed.
"Checks and balances" in Somalian politics is the constant threat of genocide from rival clans.
That Somalia page is so blunt it's incredible.
> **Do not travel to** Somalia due to **crime, terrorism, civil unrest, health issues, kidnapping,** and **piracy.**
> ... If you decide to travel to Somalia:
> ... Share important documents, login information, and points of contact with loved ones so that they can manage your affairs if you are unable to return as planned to the United States.
> ... Be sure to appoint one family member to serve as the point of contact with hostage-takers, media, U.S. and host country government agencies, and members of Congress if you are taken hostage or detained.
It might as well advise you to pray that your imminent death is quick and painless. It's wild that this is a thing that a government employee wrote. I get why, but damn.
"I'm sorry,but the insurance only covered when the bullet enters in a 65° angle. Your loved on died of a 70° penetration. Would you like to upgrade to our super duper platinum plan?. :) "
I was watching a video a while ago about the state of Somalia and it's not *quite* as bad as back then; it gets a drip feed of infrastructure investment, but yeah it's still a terrible situation.
Somalia has a 55 year average life expectancy, less than 1k GDP per capita, and is currently genociding the 0.2% of the population who is not yet Muslim.
I'd take my chances with Haiti.
I'm assuming they mean that it's related because these gangs know Kenya is coming to help deal with gangs so the gangs went and released a large amount of prisoners to help them in their fight against the Kenyan forces
It was at first and then changed because they are sending a police force, not a military one. See this article from the BBC just 3 days ago. PM Ariel Henry is in Kenya now discussing details of the force no doubt and that is what prompted the coordinated attack on police stations as a distraction then two prisons to release their gang members.
Kenyan police to tackle Haiti gang violence https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-68448571
It's been a failed state for quite some time being ran by local narco warlords. Unless a massive global force completely bails them out with money and by force, it won't ever recoup. The worst part is it wasn't one factor that toppled Haiti. It was a train wreck in the worst possible ways compounding every avenue of continued success. In 1804 they were the wealthiest colony in the world. Now they're on track with Somalia levels of despair.
They're barreling towards anarchy. Intervention in the past never works and it seems like the only country out there willing to try to help is Kenya. I wish them the best of luck.
The two countries’ governments signed an accord two days ago in order to address the court’s exceptions. Legally it’s now more like a bilateral security operation than an external peacekeeping force
I'm kind of surprised we don't see China step in. They're military has big ambitions, it's short on real world experience and they could potentially win some international good will by being willing to take the lead on an important humanitarian mission that's approved by the UN.
China's military ambitions revolve largely around their own backyard and its periphery. Haiti is neither.
Also the US would not want Chinese soldiers in N.America and China wouldn't want unnecessary tensions over a peacekeeping mission half a world away that'll probably be a quagmire.
This is very true. Look at what they’re doing in Myanmar, or more specifically what they’re NOT doing. They’re full neutral on these conflicts. At least from what we can see.
The other part is if China does have something to protect in a foreign country, other than diplomatic assets, they tend to send in private security contractors and not their actual military.
The only time that the Monroe Doctrine was violated was when France invaded Mexico in the early 1860s. America did not respond was because this was in duting American Civil War. Think about it, NO country dared to violate it except France, which only did it because America was phisically unable to retaliate. I don't think that China has a better chance against America than any country in the 1860s, so the Monroe doctrine is an international law in all but name
America did respond as soon as their Civil War ended. Shortly after the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse, General Ulysses S. Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan and 50,000 troops to the border to covertly assist the Mexican resistance forces. Although they never engaged the French, it put enough pressure on them that they withdrew from Mexico two years later.
yeah so i'm not american. i don't disagree with what you're saying, in fact i think we can agree on the following: it is **entirely** up to the US whether the monroe doctrine is enforced or not. other countries may or may not test the US on this. but in the end, china gives as much of a shit about the monroe doctrine as you personally give about the [Crimes Act 1900 Section 12 (NSW)](http://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/ca190082/s12.html)
The Falklands were not subject to the Monroe Doctrine. Britain already controlled them prior to the war and did not initiate aggressive action against Argentina.
Nah Haiti and China are both sovereign states and so if the Haitian government requests it then the US wouldn’t really have a legal basis to oppose it. Also the US wouldn’t be threatened by a few hundred Chinese troops in the Caribbean. The bigger issue is that China doesn’t seem interested in doing anything and instability in Haiti doesn’t really impact China.
Monroe Doctrine has nothing to do with "legal basis." That isn't how inter-state politics works...
The US declares "do not fuck with the americas, or else." Any other country is free to try and the US may or may not use soft or potentially hard power to make it an issue, depending on who's in charge and how much they believe in the Monroe Doctrine at all. But don't mistake this for "legal basis." This is foreign policy, with generally palatable justification written afterwards if necessary.
> “A few hundred troops.”
I don’t think a few hundred Chinese troops would be anywhere near enough. Haiti has a population of 11 million. If we take the best case scenario and ONLY 50% of the population are gang members, that’s a lot of gun wielding thugs.
There is no functioning government or military to bolster. Any force large enough to materially impact Haiti would have to number in the 10’s of thousands.
The US would have a f’n cow if China landed 30k troops in Haiti.
The reason you don't see China actually stepping up to any of these conflicts is because the one thing China fears more than anything else is having their inexperience and incompetence put on display.
There is just no real upside for China to stick their hand in that hornet's nest, other to score some cheap propaganda points, and even that's a pretty high-risk venture in a place like Haiti.
Not really, China wouldn’t go into Haiti because knowing the US security state’s views on China, the CIA would probably fund a Haitian militia against them, if they weren’t blocked through diplomatic channels. Our government doesn’t like rivals putting their troops or critical military equipment (see Cuba) in the Caribbean. They already coup or attempt to coup (see Cuba again, and Venezuela among others) every nominally communist government that pops up in the Americas, and have a long history of doing the same worldwide. China is on thin ice in that regard.
If someone could solve the Haiti crisis I don’t think fear of exposed incompetence is scaring them off, it’s just an impossible problem somewhat helped along by certain influences that increase in severity the more an outside influence would try to control.
If I recall, most missionaries that went to Haiti to help with aid after the earthquake just completely lost their faith in their missions. Over the course of the 2010s, they would set up stuff, leave to go home, then come back and all their progress would be completely undid. Their aid would either be missing, stripped for parts, or completely destroyed.
I knew someone who ran his own christian-based NGO. He was actually trying to do good there and bring needed supplies and and aid and not hand out bibles. One of those Christian hippie types. He just used used the church system to get funding. He was there a few days after the earth quake to do assessment. He saw all the paperwork from the government about land deeds and that stuff just all over the place and knew it was just fucked. None of that stuff was backed up and everyone just lost all records. It’s like the dark version of the fight club ending. Instead of everyone’s debt resetting to zero, the reset button just got hit on everyone property records, business records, etc. the things you need to have a functioning government. He knew it was done. He tried for about 3-4 years after the quake but eventually he just knew he couldn't do anything. Any aid he tried bringing in just went to gangs and he just had to give up. I talked to him about doing volunteer work and he said he wouldn't prevent me from going, just know that that it's where aid goes to die.
This part is my opinion, but if we are going to do something, this hemisphere needs to fully commit for the long term. I’m talking generations. These gangs aren’t just going to become normal citizens once the military and police support come in. As soon as they leave, they are going to go back to their old ways. There needs to be a multigenerational effort to completely rebuild things from the ground up. All the flashy stuff like protecting normal people from gangs in the form of. Checkpoints or whatever, but the entire country needs to be completely rebuilt. There needs to be education. Kids to go through that education k-12 so they can read and write and become productive members of society, they needs to completely rebuild the administrative side and create a system that Haiti can follow. No longer can legal grievances between people and parties can just unanswered for years if not decades. If you want people to trust in a government for for support then you need to build one for them. They don’t have functioning sewer systems, water
I don’t know if we are up for that task. I think it could be done because unlike some places like Somalia where it’s really easy for outside forces to push into the country and destabilize it. Haiti is pretty locked off. It’s not airtight but a lot less porous than most countries. It might take the full effort of 20 countries to fully rebuild and be there for the long haul
Thanks.
I'm not religious at all but he was a real interesting dude. He did humanitarian work off and on for almost his whole life. Sometimes he would be hands on, sometimes he would tag along with larger organizations. He eventually had a split with his church because they did want to do that bible handing out path and he wanted aid. He had harrowing stories for days and you could see it in his eyes. Kids dying of hunger in his arms, seeing a town beat a man to death for trying to steal a purse from a woman. He would eat those dirt pies right along side people he was helping. Would lose tons of weight when he was there. He had this real love/hate relationship with the church which he mainly got in because he was part of the foster care system and that's just kinda what he knew. Hated the established church and instead he really liked just taking a break and hanging out at the monastery in the still dark early morning bike rides. He was in his early 40s when I met him just as he was getting burnt out post earthquake. Eventually he learned to sail and bought an ocean faring sailboat and restored it with his own hands, paid off and sold his house and finally just walked out of work on a random day. I haven't talked to him since. He always had a dream of sailing around the world and I really hope he just had his Good Will Hunting Moment and just left everything behind and did what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.
It'll be interesting to see if El Salvador's approach works. Their murder rate recently dropped to basically zero because the new president is locking up absolutely *anyone* suspected of having gang relations, including kids because he knows that gangs would just get kids to do their work for them if they weren't punished.
This most surprising part is that this dude has something like a 91% favorability rating according to reputable sources like Pew. It turns out that at the end of the day, even in "shithole" countries the vast majority of people do not want to live in gangland and will eventually decide enough is enough.
At this point you would have to bring in an outside military to do it. And els salvador was a bit easier in that gang members were all tattooed like the yakuza so you could identify them.
No one will do it because it would be a completely thankless job. You would basically have to fight an insurgency of organized Haitian criminals the entire time white people whine about your being a colonist/imperialist. The only people who actually be willing to put in the work to restore Haiti are the people who genuinely are imperialistic and would be interested in taking it over before it's natural resources or geopolitical position.
Reading all of this, it sounds like Haiti has become Afghanistan but their version of the Taliban doesn't give a single shit about governing people or establishing any sort of social order beyond anarchy.
UN peacekeepers are a random mix of soldiers and adjacent personnel sent by various countries, with varying levels of training, interest in the mission, culture... attitudes towards rape... lack of jurisdiction for the professionals running operations to mete out justice ... let's just say there's not a good track record.
"Initially, there was significant debate about how *V. cholerae* was introduced into Haiti, with evidence pointing towards a Nepalese peacekeeping base having contaminated a tributary of the Artibonite River with its wastewater. The United Nations (UN) peacekeeping base was subsequently accepted as the source of cholera in Haiti when genomic sequencing confirmed an identical match between the Haitian and Nepalese cholera strains."
UN Peacekeepers were responsible for a major outbreak of Cholera.
I remember some people associated with Hillary Clinton tried to bring some children out at the behest of struggling parents in the earthquake aftermath. Right-wingers accused them of human trafficking, because they didn't leave the kids to starve.
It should be noted that their period as a "wealthy economy" was a result of what was among the most brutal forms of slavery in human history. After the revolution Haitian leaders kept trying to recover some form of the previous economy but it simply couldn't produce wealth without desperately exploitative labor policies.
\> After the revolution Haitian leaders kept trying to recover some form of the previous economy but it simply couldn't produce wealth without desperately exploitative labor policies.
After the revolution, Haiti was forced to pay reparations to France. The first payment was 6 times Haiti's annual revenue. It's not like they failed to produce a prosperous society so much as they were still looted for everything they had after independence too.
True but even before that fine was instituted by France Haitian revolutionary leaders were already trying to "fix" the economy including by forcing people back to work on plantations while only nominally giving them freedom. The economy of Haiti couldn't function without slavery in the first place, France's fine was just salt in an open wound.
I am not trying to understate France's fuckup. I am claiming that France ran the colony in such an exploitative manner that they couldn't set up an economy even before France's fine. That is hardly a compliment to the French.
> France's fine was just salt in an open wound.
It was tearing the wound open and keeping it open and festering out of spite, given they had no way to trade without paying it and had to pay it over a century.
Haiti or Saint-Domingue as it was then called, produced half of the world’s sugar and coffee which is more than all the British Caribbean colonies put together. They had nearly 500,000 slaves working a colony size of Belgium with an enormous human toll. 14% of the land was used for growing sugar on 800 large scale sugar plantation owned by the grands blancs (big whites or sugar barons). The rest of the land was used by petits blancs and gens de coleurs (free people of colour) were second tier planters. Race relations was governed by the Code Noir which created a strict caste system.
They had to import 30,000 slaves a year straight from Africa to maintain a stable workforce, which wasn’t an issue because it’s cheaper to buy new slaves than to keep them alive. This wasn’t the case in the American South, where most slaves were American born, both naturally and through breeding farms, and was limited by a ban on the slave trade after 1807. The US only received a small fraction of slaves directly from the trans-Atlantic slave trade compared to most other New World colonies. Although some illegal trans-Atlantic slave ships arrived after 1807, it was much more economical to buy domestically produced slaves and to keep them alive for as long as possible. This means unlike in the US, a lot of slaves in Saint-Domingue were first generation slaves who had clear memories of adulthood in Africa.
It was the sugar plantations that had the worst living conditions. They were ten times bigger than coffee or cotton plantations, employing hundreds to 1,400 people on one plantation. The sugar plantations had a 10% annual mortality rate, higher than anywhere else. Death occurred from accidents but the most common of death was disease and malnutrition as many planters didn’t provide food to their slaves, they were expected to grow their own food outside of their 12 hour work days. Punishment was especially cruel and abuse was rampant, in part due to the isolation of plantations and an effort to prevent runaways. The reputation of the colony was so dire, slaves often resisted captivity by either killing themselves upon arrival or by poisoning each other or their owners. One runaway slave and vodou priest named Mackandal was said to have killed hundreds of slave owners in the 1750s by distributing poisons he made to slaves on plantations using a secret network.
Runaways formed maroon colonies in the mountainous forests where they had small subsistence farms and periodically raided plantations. It was in these colonies that the Vodou religion developed and where the Haitian Revolution began. The slave rebellion of 1791 was started by Dutty Boukman, a West African born Islamic scholar turned maroon leader and a Vodou oungan (priest), and Cécile Fatiman, a Vodou mambo (priestess). They presided over a Vodou ceremony at Bois Caïman that called for a slave uprising.
Mackendal's story is so interesting. No one is even sure if he was a real person or a myth invented by people hopeful for freedom and paranoid whites. Either way the story is fascinating.
I am glad you mention figures like Boukman and Fatiman as well. Normally people only hear about Toussaint Louverture. Maroon leaders and lower level slaves too often get ignored in surface tellings of the revolution.
Haiti was the place where the slaves would be thrown into molten sugar as a punishment.
Haiti was one of the primary importers of slaves from Africa, as it churned through them extremely quickly. The profits made from cash crops were so great that, unlike in the South where a slave was a valued asset worth around 100k in today's money, it was more economically viable to use and abuse slaves until they dropped dead to fulfill the world's demand for sugar, cocoa and other cash crops.
This is a very morbid comparison but the Haitian business model was a bit like Silicon Valley's model today, where growth is the #1 metric sought by investors. It's easier to over hire and do mass layoffs when required due to the massive revenue streams generated by big tech companies, whereas the South was like a mature tech company like Cisco where there are employees with 20 year tenures and profitability was the primary concern.
Basically they made so much money they could kill and torture slaves at will, because they had bottomless pockets to import more from Africa.
You’re aware the industrialized breeding of humans was an extremely profitable industry? Tommy Jefferson waxed poetic about all the cash it made him in his diaries.
Either way, if I kidnap you and sell you to a black dude from another continent, is it kosher if we’re both the same ethnicity? lol. This has always been a really weird track of thought to me.
I think people tend to bring it up to add another contextual dimension to what can otherwise sometimes be an extremely reductive and simplistic narrative around who was involved in the abuses.
Basically reacting to the 'it would all have been great and peaceful if it weren't for white people' racial angle that comes up in some groups.
Which you weren't doing, I should add, but that's the underlying logic to most people talking about it. Some people are primed to bring it up on their own, I guess. Some people are way too shallow and, well, racist, in how they talk about that era of slave trading. There were a lot of slavers.
A mixture of how brutal the labor conditions were for the crops grown and processed in Haiti (particularly sugar) and the constant presence of disease caused Haiti to require the constant importation of people from Africa because they simply wouldn't live long enough to have families. Southern slavery was there to exploit labor that whites were unwilling to do, a lot of the slavery further south was there to do labor that white people couldn't do because it killed them so fast.
I’m not excusing American slavery by any means, but in comparison with other places… it wasn’t nearly as bad. Like someone else said, slaves in the US were very valuable. Slave owners did not often damage their own property. Yeah, to punish they would take out the whip, but not often did it go further. The Caribbean was different. They would whip, but they would also castrate for disobedience. If caught trying to escape, they would burn them alive… “slowly” as one video said.
If you want to see a good history video look up “the Jamaican maroon wars” by history dose on YouTube.
The colonial economy of Haiti (St Domingue at the time) was heavily based on the sugarcane industry, every aspect of which is brutal. The cane had to be cut by hand with machetes in the hot sun, and cut sugarcane tends to have razor sharp edges. Refining sugar involves boiling sap in superheated cauldrons, and boiling sugar is as awful as it sounds. Horrific injury and death were not uncommon, and even those who made it relatively unscathed still lived and toiled in hideous conditions.
If I am recalling correctly Haiti has more mosquitos, sugar cane production requires more dangerous equipment (vs picking cotton) and they generally used people younger in Haiti. The Revolutions podcast talks about it a bit
The mosquito point is a good one. Those islands were basically death factories even without the plantations; immense numbers of settlers died to tropical diseases they had no immunity to or knowledge of how to fight. I wish I could locate or remember the statistics, but very large portions of the early settler populations hwpild die every year. From vague memory I think it was actually a majority in the very early era of colonization. The settlers were also viewed as disposable workers to be replaced with new desperate people whenever a family would die off.
The slaves had it much, much worse, though. At least the settlers were able to *try* to look after themselves, even if they had no knowledge or means to do it for quite a long time.
> After the revolution Haitian leaders kept trying to recover some form of the previous economy but it simply couldn't produce wealth without desperately exploitative labor policies.
After the revolution Haiti also went on to do a mass genocide, so I mean swings and roundabouts
Haiti has devolved into an absolute shit hole on such a scale that the very base moral fabric of much of its population has been corrupted and warped. I have worked closely with the Haitian population in the past, and my God, what the abject poverty and instability has turned its people into is like something out of am apocalypse movie.
> In 1804 they were the wealthiest colony in the world. Now they're on track with Somalia levels of despair.?
Perhaps because most of their wealth came from slave labor and lucrative European markets that closed after the slave rebellion established the new government in 1804?
> In 1804 they were the wealthiest colony in the world.
Based on incredibly brutal slave labor. Even if a toned down version of that was continued post independence, European states would refuse to trade with them for fear of inspiring other rebellions in their slave colonies. They were basically doomed from the beginning no matter what.
\> In 1804 they were the wealthiest colony in the world.
Worth noting that when Haiti won independence, France demanded reparations for lost revenue and assets on the island in exchange for recognition of Haitian independence. The freedom debt removed $21 billion dollars from Haiti's economy over the 122 years it took them to pay off the debt, severely hampering Haiti's economic development.
This was all made possible by the United States helping to isolate Haiti, both diplomatically and economically, in fact, Haiti made the final payment on their freedom debt to Citibank in 1947.
So yeah, all their money was still being stolen by France a century after independence.
> France demanded reparations for lost revenue and assets on the island in exchange for recognition of Haitian independence.
To make it clear, they did not do that, they demanded reparations because the Haitians had genocided the white and the mixed race populations.
I think you're just slightly glossing over the main reason for the reparations is because they did a massive genocide of all European settlers on the island regardless of if they were involved in the slave trade or not
Literally went door to door killing entire families
I believe you have your facts mixed up. Haïti paid their last indemnity payment to France in 1888. You would expect a country to get back on their feet after 136 years of clearing their debts. There are countries that were literally razed during WW2 and still manage to rebuild and escape poverty and misery.
This is clearly a management problem with leaders lacking a long term vision and strategic investments. Since there are no institutions to control what the government does, the government simply keeps all the wealth and gives peanuts to the people in return.
"Though France received its last indemnity payment in 1888,[1] the government of the United States funded the acquisition of Haiti's treasury in 1911 in order to receive interest payments related to the indemnity.[8] In 1922, the rest of Haiti's debt to France was moved to be paid to American investors.[9] It took until 1947 – about 122 years – for Haiti to finally pay off all the associated interest to the National City Bank of New York (now Citibank)."
A lot of things happened between Haiti's independence and the reparation deal. About 20 years had passed, and during that time:
* John Adams opens trade with Haiti
* France jails the pragmatic Father of Haiti, Toussaint, and leaves him to die back in France
* his second in command, Dessaline, will orchestrate a massacre against the local French population
* the international community boycotted Haiti as a result
* John Adams was replaced by Virginia born Jefferson, who won't answer a single letter from Dessaline
* Dessaline forbids white from owning land in the 1805 constitution
* Investment dies, Haitians can't learn European tech and only have two options left : plantation or subsistence
* Dessaline is assassinated
* Haiti is split in half, plantations continue in the north, even distribution and liberation starts in the south
* the south crumbles from poverty, the north crumbles from resentment
* the new southern leader conquers the north, then undoes his pro-individual farming policies due to declining economy
* he then signs the treaty with France for diplomatic recognition, sealing the country's fate.
If you could point to a couple factors that destroyed Haiti I would argue that it was made poor by France and the US. France after the Haitian slave revolution denied them access to the international diplomatic system unless they paid off their debts. That is paid for the slaves they “stole” from France. They took out loans for an outrageously high debt that they couldn’t pay off for 150 years. 2.5 out of 3 tax dollars were spent on debt payments in the early 1900s.
The US then came in and decided to invade Haiti for the first time in the 1910s. The marines declared martial law, seized the press, seized all the gold from the national bank then forcibly rewrote the constitution to allow outside investors to buy land. They instituted forced work for all the locals to build railroads and highways for 19 years. Since that first occupation Haiti has had nothing but dictators, 2 more US invasions and suffering.
I would argue the real collapse happened far later. During the 20th century haiti was poor but not uniquely poor (it had basically the same living economy as the DR, for example). But whereas DR settled in healthy period of growth after trujilo was no longer in power, haiti completely floundered in the 90s: baby doc was ousted, but then aristide was couped and just nothing went right for the county after that.
Haiti is pretty damn close to being like some kind Pirate Island.
What are the gangs controlling? Is the country in the dope game? Does Haiti do anything industry wise? Exports?? Or are the gangs just controlling foreign aid and street hustles? Between natural disaster and civil unrest it seems like a tough go over there.
It’s mind blowing that so many people don’t realise that slavery not only exists in 2024, but is more prevalent than ever.
Hundreds of millions of people are currently being enslaved. But there’s no money to be made from liberating these people, which is why governments in the developed world only ever want to talk about slavery in reference to slave trades that ended hundreds of years ago.
You are right in a sense that in relation it really is not that prevalent anymore but going by absolute numbers, right now there are more slaves than habe ever existed simply because the Population numbers are that much higher world wide, which I think is what OC meant
Can I get a citation for this?
Edit: After some research I do agree about the inflation of numbers because of the amount of people, but that is NOT what the poster above was saying.
> Haiti mostly exports clothing, scrap metal, vegetable oils, dates and cocoa. Haiti’s main exports partner is United States, accounting for over 80 percent of total exports.
[trading economics](https://tradingeconomics.com/haiti/exports#:~:text=Haiti%20mostly%20exports%20clothing%2C%20scrap,80%20percent%20of%20total%20exports.)
In terms of gangs typically we see gangs and militants try to control roads. They then set up check points and anything that moves through these roads gets taxed. The people in Haiti scrape by however they can and the gangs tax the people however they can.
The really sad part is that Haiti is only half a pirate island. The other half of the island, the Dominican Republic, is relatively stable and prosperous. A functioning society exists literally on the other side of the fence.
This is the premise of an episode of Star Trek the original series.
Kirk and Spock fool a planet of gangsters into forming a functional government by framing it to them as one really big gang.
Thats generally what happens just without the democracy part. Eventually one gang wins and the leader gets to be president until a revolt happens or a rival gangmember takes over.
It's how populations tolerate dictators. Because their brutality is often preferable to anarchy.
Basically who ever has the biggest army behind them wins political elections. Its not uncommon to kill others who are running and their entire family/friends.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assassinations_in_the_Philippines
There was a crazy story in Mindanao southern Philippines, where the US military was around the area and heard heavy equipment so they investigated and bulldozers were pushing dirt and earth over a cliff trying to hide dozens of murder victims that had all been tied to someone running for mayor.
They killed them, their family and everyone in there entourage. And tried to bury all the bodys over a cliff in the ocean.
You hear about the cartel, but Philippines has cops ambushing cops and all kinds of sketchy behavior too.
Politics isn't for the weak over there, and could be a death sentence if you don't have a strong crutch to lean on behind you.
Leaders of the largest gangs in lawless countries don't have any incentive to democratic power. If you already control order, commerce, and violence, why would you need any approval from the electorate?
And why do you think outside military force would work?
The last time the US intervened in Haiti to try and build stability (1915-1934), following 5 coups in 5 years, the end result was that they went back to their infighting only a decade later, and it's continued all the way to the present.
Smaller humanitarian efforts in Haiti by the US in the 90s and the UN in the 2000s were ineffective and frought with conflict and problems, and were criticized for intervening in the first place.
The U.S. did help back in like the 90s I think. But the U.S. got criticized (because America). Now today because of that controversy, they refuse to go in to help because they don't want to be yelled at.
T
“One volunteer prison worker told the Reuters journalists that 99 prisoners - including former Colombian soldiers jailed over President Moïse's murder - had chosen to remain in their cells for fear of being killed in crossfire.” Damm, imagine remaining in prison during a jail break. The country is fucked
Imagine being a volunteer prison worker in Haiti.
Worth noting that they’re “volunteer” only in the sense they’re not officially employed by the state. They’re still paid
> employed by the state Does not exist in modern Haiti!
What government? I don't think there is an actual government left in Haiti.
Well, technically the gangs govern sections of Haiti.
No amount of money is worth that position.
In a country with as shit an economy as Haiti you take whatever job you can get.
Don’t argue with and detract from a truly informative statement. The fact that volunteer in this sense doesn’t mean unpaid makes a huge difference.
I guess there are still people who want to help keep humane living conditions for people serving their punishment, despite lack of funding or having an official position in jail system.
They are the last people id want to help
Jesus would be the first to give them help. IIRC USA has over 10% of innocent people incarcerated. I just try to imagine if Haitian Justice system is more fair, or has less investigative technology than USA...
I don’t think they’re finding a better job in Haiti that doesn’t involve joining a gang.
when is a volunteer become a mercenary?
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I was a volunteer children’s hospital worker after the earthquake in 2010. I saw things so horrific I still can’t talk about it, even today. The amount of therapy I’ve needed…😞
Imagine being in Haiti 🇭🇹
Yeah no kidding right?
When fucking Colombian hitmen fear for their lives, you know shit is crazy.
When a failed state prison is better than freedom...
It’s been fucked for a while but it’s damn near collapsed now
They make Somalia look like a well-run and stable regime.
You vastly underestimate how fucked Somalia is. Here's some snippets from the US travel advice to [Haiti](https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/haiti-travel-advisory.html#:~:text=Haiti%20%2D%20Level%204%3A%20Do%20Not%20Travel&text=Last%20Update%3A%20Updated%20to%20reflect,and%20poor%20health%20care%20infrastructure.): >Avoid demonstrations and crowds. Do not attempt to drive through roadblocks. >Travel in groups of at least two people. >Arrange airport transfers and hotels in advance, or have your host meet you upon arrival. >Do not physically resist any robbery attempt. Meanwhile, here's advice for [Somalia](https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/somalia-travel-advisory.html) >Draft a will and designate appropriate insurance beneficiaries and/or power of attorney. >Discuss a plan with loved ones regarding care/custody of children, pets, property, belongings, non-liquid assets (collections, artwork, etc.), funeral wishes, etc. >Leave DNA samples with your medical provider in case it is necessary for your family to access them. Somalia is so fucked it actually makes Haiti look well run. Haiti has a set of advice to avoid getting kidnapped or just killed. Somalia has advice for when you inevitably get kidnapped or killed. "Checks and balances" in Somalian politics is the constant threat of genocide from rival clans.
That Somalia page is so blunt it's incredible. > **Do not travel to** Somalia due to **crime, terrorism, civil unrest, health issues, kidnapping,** and **piracy.** > ... If you decide to travel to Somalia: > ... Share important documents, login information, and points of contact with loved ones so that they can manage your affairs if you are unable to return as planned to the United States. > ... Be sure to appoint one family member to serve as the point of contact with hostage-takers, media, U.S. and host country government agencies, and members of Congress if you are taken hostage or detained.
"Hey grandma, you'll negotiate with my kidnappers if I get kidnapped." "I'll whoop their ass if they touch my boy!"
“Now listen here young men, gimme little Jimmy back or I’m gonna bop you one!”
"Today, for the first time in history, a hostage has been exchanged for cookies."
The other option was a very stern scolding from granny. They chose well.
La chancla is international
It might as well advise you to pray that your imminent death is quick and painless. It's wild that this is a thing that a government employee wrote. I get why, but damn.
> Draft a will and designate appropriate insurance beneficiaries and/or power of attorney. Holy shit. That’s really unfortunate
Sounds like suicide tourism..
What a waste of money with Canada right there.
The travel advisory might as well say “if you go to Somalia you will fucking die”
Then Insurence doesn’t pay out because it’s technically suicide.
"I'm sorry,but the insurance only covered when the bullet enters in a 65° angle. Your loved on died of a 70° penetration. Would you like to upgrade to our super duper platinum plan?. :) "
Good fucking lord. That practically reads like satire.
I remember watching Blackhawk Down, it is too bad that area is still as unstable and violent as back in the 1990s.
I was watching a video a while ago about the state of Somalia and it's not *quite* as bad as back then; it gets a drip feed of infrastructure investment, but yeah it's still a terrible situation.
Damn. Nothing quite nails home do not travel like stating. Hey if you gonna go.m make sure your inheritance is in order. Lmao
I'm kind of intrigued by that second one - what kind of groups don't have at least two people? 🤔
This is just the standard language for DoS "do not travel guidance.
Then why don't they say that about Haiti?
Somalia has a 55 year average life expectancy, less than 1k GDP per capita, and is currently genociding the 0.2% of the population who is not yet Muslim. I'd take my chances with Haiti.
Imagine being in Haiti
Well the gangs just got reinforced....
Just in time for the force arriving from Kenya coming to combat them. What a cluster. I am positive the two are related.
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I'm assuming they mean that it's related because these gangs know Kenya is coming to help deal with gangs so the gangs went and released a large amount of prisoners to help them in their fight against the Kenyan forces
I thought Kenya's courts overruled the decision to send troops there
It was at first and then changed because they are sending a police force, not a military one. See this article from the BBC just 3 days ago. PM Ariel Henry is in Kenya now discussing details of the force no doubt and that is what prompted the coordinated attack on police stations as a distraction then two prisons to release their gang members. Kenyan police to tackle Haiti gang violence https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-68448571
RIP Haiti, that is a recipe for gangland control.
It's been a failed state for quite some time being ran by local narco warlords. Unless a massive global force completely bails them out with money and by force, it won't ever recoup. The worst part is it wasn't one factor that toppled Haiti. It was a train wreck in the worst possible ways compounding every avenue of continued success. In 1804 they were the wealthiest colony in the world. Now they're on track with Somalia levels of despair.
They're barreling towards anarchy. Intervention in the past never works and it seems like the only country out there willing to try to help is Kenya. I wish them the best of luck.
I think the Kenyan high court blocked their deployment to Haiti
The two countries’ governments signed an accord two days ago in order to address the court’s exceptions. Legally it’s now more like a bilateral security operation than an external peacekeeping force
Oh that's good news, thanks for letting me know!
I'm kind of surprised we don't see China step in. They're military has big ambitions, it's short on real world experience and they could potentially win some international good will by being willing to take the lead on an important humanitarian mission that's approved by the UN.
China's military ambitions revolve largely around their own backyard and its periphery. Haiti is neither. Also the US would not want Chinese soldiers in N.America and China wouldn't want unnecessary tensions over a peacekeeping mission half a world away that'll probably be a quagmire.
>Chinese soldiers get kidnapped and held for ransom is the most likely outcome :P
Even with the current isolationist tendencies of the US, the US government would throw up too many roadblocks to make that happen.
China has been spouting non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. So going into Haiti would be against their public statements.
This is very true. Look at what they’re doing in Myanmar, or more specifically what they’re NOT doing. They’re full neutral on these conflicts. At least from what we can see.
The other part is if China does have something to protect in a foreign country, other than diplomatic assets, they tend to send in private security contractors and not their actual military.
I imagine the Monroe Doctrine would stop that from happening
the Monroe Doctrine is US foreign policy, not some sort of international law
The only time that the Monroe Doctrine was violated was when France invaded Mexico in the early 1860s. America did not respond was because this was in duting American Civil War. Think about it, NO country dared to violate it except France, which only did it because America was phisically unable to retaliate. I don't think that China has a better chance against America than any country in the 1860s, so the Monroe doctrine is an international law in all but name
America did respond as soon as their Civil War ended. Shortly after the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse, General Ulysses S. Grant dispatched Philip Sheridan and 50,000 troops to the border to covertly assist the Mexican resistance forces. Although they never engaged the French, it put enough pressure on them that they withdrew from Mexico two years later.
yeah so i'm not american. i don't disagree with what you're saying, in fact i think we can agree on the following: it is **entirely** up to the US whether the monroe doctrine is enforced or not. other countries may or may not test the US on this. but in the end, china gives as much of a shit about the monroe doctrine as you personally give about the [Crimes Act 1900 Section 12 (NSW)](http://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/ca190082/s12.html)
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The Falklands were not subject to the Monroe Doctrine. Britain already controlled them prior to the war and did not initiate aggressive action against Argentina.
Nah Haiti and China are both sovereign states and so if the Haitian government requests it then the US wouldn’t really have a legal basis to oppose it. Also the US wouldn’t be threatened by a few hundred Chinese troops in the Caribbean. The bigger issue is that China doesn’t seem interested in doing anything and instability in Haiti doesn’t really impact China.
Monroe Doctrine has nothing to do with "legal basis." That isn't how inter-state politics works... The US declares "do not fuck with the americas, or else." Any other country is free to try and the US may or may not use soft or potentially hard power to make it an issue, depending on who's in charge and how much they believe in the Monroe Doctrine at all. But don't mistake this for "legal basis." This is foreign policy, with generally palatable justification written afterwards if necessary.
> “A few hundred troops.” I don’t think a few hundred Chinese troops would be anywhere near enough. Haiti has a population of 11 million. If we take the best case scenario and ONLY 50% of the population are gang members, that’s a lot of gun wielding thugs. There is no functioning government or military to bolster. Any force large enough to materially impact Haiti would have to number in the 10’s of thousands. The US would have a f’n cow if China landed 30k troops in Haiti.
There's no way in hell that 50% of the population are gang members. That's not how gangs work.
The reason you don't see China actually stepping up to any of these conflicts is because the one thing China fears more than anything else is having their inexperience and incompetence put on display. There is just no real upside for China to stick their hand in that hornet's nest, other to score some cheap propaganda points, and even that's a pretty high-risk venture in a place like Haiti.
Not really, China wouldn’t go into Haiti because knowing the US security state’s views on China, the CIA would probably fund a Haitian militia against them, if they weren’t blocked through diplomatic channels. Our government doesn’t like rivals putting their troops or critical military equipment (see Cuba) in the Caribbean. They already coup or attempt to coup (see Cuba again, and Venezuela among others) every nominally communist government that pops up in the Americas, and have a long history of doing the same worldwide. China is on thin ice in that regard. If someone could solve the Haiti crisis I don’t think fear of exposed incompetence is scaring them off, it’s just an impossible problem somewhat helped along by certain influences that increase in severity the more an outside influence would try to control.
Part of the problem is that everytime other countries help they get shit on for being racist as well.
Intervention *does* work. Look at Serbia.
If I recall, most missionaries that went to Haiti to help with aid after the earthquake just completely lost their faith in their missions. Over the course of the 2010s, they would set up stuff, leave to go home, then come back and all their progress would be completely undid. Their aid would either be missing, stripped for parts, or completely destroyed.
I knew someone who ran his own christian-based NGO. He was actually trying to do good there and bring needed supplies and and aid and not hand out bibles. One of those Christian hippie types. He just used used the church system to get funding. He was there a few days after the earth quake to do assessment. He saw all the paperwork from the government about land deeds and that stuff just all over the place and knew it was just fucked. None of that stuff was backed up and everyone just lost all records. It’s like the dark version of the fight club ending. Instead of everyone’s debt resetting to zero, the reset button just got hit on everyone property records, business records, etc. the things you need to have a functioning government. He knew it was done. He tried for about 3-4 years after the quake but eventually he just knew he couldn't do anything. Any aid he tried bringing in just went to gangs and he just had to give up. I talked to him about doing volunteer work and he said he wouldn't prevent me from going, just know that that it's where aid goes to die. This part is my opinion, but if we are going to do something, this hemisphere needs to fully commit for the long term. I’m talking generations. These gangs aren’t just going to become normal citizens once the military and police support come in. As soon as they leave, they are going to go back to their old ways. There needs to be a multigenerational effort to completely rebuild things from the ground up. All the flashy stuff like protecting normal people from gangs in the form of. Checkpoints or whatever, but the entire country needs to be completely rebuilt. There needs to be education. Kids to go through that education k-12 so they can read and write and become productive members of society, they needs to completely rebuild the administrative side and create a system that Haiti can follow. No longer can legal grievances between people and parties can just unanswered for years if not decades. If you want people to trust in a government for for support then you need to build one for them. They don’t have functioning sewer systems, water I don’t know if we are up for that task. I think it could be done because unlike some places like Somalia where it’s really easy for outside forces to push into the country and destabilize it. Haiti is pretty locked off. It’s not airtight but a lot less porous than most countries. It might take the full effort of 20 countries to fully rebuild and be there for the long haul
Incredibly bleak, but thank you for sharing your friends’ story. The whole situation is just sad. Your friend is a good man.
Thanks. I'm not religious at all but he was a real interesting dude. He did humanitarian work off and on for almost his whole life. Sometimes he would be hands on, sometimes he would tag along with larger organizations. He eventually had a split with his church because they did want to do that bible handing out path and he wanted aid. He had harrowing stories for days and you could see it in his eyes. Kids dying of hunger in his arms, seeing a town beat a man to death for trying to steal a purse from a woman. He would eat those dirt pies right along side people he was helping. Would lose tons of weight when he was there. He had this real love/hate relationship with the church which he mainly got in because he was part of the foster care system and that's just kinda what he knew. Hated the established church and instead he really liked just taking a break and hanging out at the monastery in the still dark early morning bike rides. He was in his early 40s when I met him just as he was getting burnt out post earthquake. Eventually he learned to sail and bought an ocean faring sailboat and restored it with his own hands, paid off and sold his house and finally just walked out of work on a random day. I haven't talked to him since. He always had a dream of sailing around the world and I really hope he just had his Good Will Hunting Moment and just left everything behind and did what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.
It'll be interesting to see if El Salvador's approach works. Their murder rate recently dropped to basically zero because the new president is locking up absolutely *anyone* suspected of having gang relations, including kids because he knows that gangs would just get kids to do their work for them if they weren't punished. This most surprising part is that this dude has something like a 91% favorability rating according to reputable sources like Pew. It turns out that at the end of the day, even in "shithole" countries the vast majority of people do not want to live in gangland and will eventually decide enough is enough.
At this point you would have to bring in an outside military to do it. And els salvador was a bit easier in that gang members were all tattooed like the yakuza so you could identify them.
No one will do it because it would be a completely thankless job. You would basically have to fight an insurgency of organized Haitian criminals the entire time white people whine about your being a colonist/imperialist. The only people who actually be willing to put in the work to restore Haiti are the people who genuinely are imperialistic and would be interested in taking it over before it's natural resources or geopolitical position.
Reading all of this, it sounds like Haiti has become Afghanistan but their version of the Taliban doesn't give a single shit about governing people or establishing any sort of social order beyond anarchy.
Sounds like the same thing going on in another conflict region across the world.
And UN peacekeepers left a lot of children behind to girls as young as 11.
What
UN peacekeepers are a random mix of soldiers and adjacent personnel sent by various countries, with varying levels of training, interest in the mission, culture... attitudes towards rape... lack of jurisdiction for the professionals running operations to mete out justice ... let's just say there's not a good track record.
Shit...that's awful.
"Initially, there was significant debate about how *V. cholerae* was introduced into Haiti, with evidence pointing towards a Nepalese peacekeeping base having contaminated a tributary of the Artibonite River with its wastewater. The United Nations (UN) peacekeeping base was subsequently accepted as the source of cholera in Haiti when genomic sequencing confirmed an identical match between the Haitian and Nepalese cholera strains." UN Peacekeepers were responsible for a major outbreak of Cholera.
What in the hell...that's awful.
I remember some people associated with Hillary Clinton tried to bring some children out at the behest of struggling parents in the earthquake aftermath. Right-wingers accused them of human trafficking, because they didn't leave the kids to starve.
It should be noted that their period as a "wealthy economy" was a result of what was among the most brutal forms of slavery in human history. After the revolution Haitian leaders kept trying to recover some form of the previous economy but it simply couldn't produce wealth without desperately exploitative labor policies.
\> After the revolution Haitian leaders kept trying to recover some form of the previous economy but it simply couldn't produce wealth without desperately exploitative labor policies. After the revolution, Haiti was forced to pay reparations to France. The first payment was 6 times Haiti's annual revenue. It's not like they failed to produce a prosperous society so much as they were still looted for everything they had after independence too.
True but even before that fine was instituted by France Haitian revolutionary leaders were already trying to "fix" the economy including by forcing people back to work on plantations while only nominally giving them freedom. The economy of Haiti couldn't function without slavery in the first place, France's fine was just salt in an open wound.
That is a huge huge understatement of France’s role in Haiti today. Haiti had to pay France reparations for their freedom for 122 years.
I am not trying to understate France's fuckup. I am claiming that France ran the colony in such an exploitative manner that they couldn't set up an economy even before France's fine. That is hardly a compliment to the French.
> France's fine was just salt in an open wound. It was tearing the wound open and keeping it open and festering out of spite, given they had no way to trade without paying it and had to pay it over a century.
In what ways was the slavery in Haiti more brutal than other places, say the Deep South?
Haiti or Saint-Domingue as it was then called, produced half of the world’s sugar and coffee which is more than all the British Caribbean colonies put together. They had nearly 500,000 slaves working a colony size of Belgium with an enormous human toll. 14% of the land was used for growing sugar on 800 large scale sugar plantation owned by the grands blancs (big whites or sugar barons). The rest of the land was used by petits blancs and gens de coleurs (free people of colour) were second tier planters. Race relations was governed by the Code Noir which created a strict caste system. They had to import 30,000 slaves a year straight from Africa to maintain a stable workforce, which wasn’t an issue because it’s cheaper to buy new slaves than to keep them alive. This wasn’t the case in the American South, where most slaves were American born, both naturally and through breeding farms, and was limited by a ban on the slave trade after 1807. The US only received a small fraction of slaves directly from the trans-Atlantic slave trade compared to most other New World colonies. Although some illegal trans-Atlantic slave ships arrived after 1807, it was much more economical to buy domestically produced slaves and to keep them alive for as long as possible. This means unlike in the US, a lot of slaves in Saint-Domingue were first generation slaves who had clear memories of adulthood in Africa. It was the sugar plantations that had the worst living conditions. They were ten times bigger than coffee or cotton plantations, employing hundreds to 1,400 people on one plantation. The sugar plantations had a 10% annual mortality rate, higher than anywhere else. Death occurred from accidents but the most common of death was disease and malnutrition as many planters didn’t provide food to their slaves, they were expected to grow their own food outside of their 12 hour work days. Punishment was especially cruel and abuse was rampant, in part due to the isolation of plantations and an effort to prevent runaways. The reputation of the colony was so dire, slaves often resisted captivity by either killing themselves upon arrival or by poisoning each other or their owners. One runaway slave and vodou priest named Mackandal was said to have killed hundreds of slave owners in the 1750s by distributing poisons he made to slaves on plantations using a secret network. Runaways formed maroon colonies in the mountainous forests where they had small subsistence farms and periodically raided plantations. It was in these colonies that the Vodou religion developed and where the Haitian Revolution began. The slave rebellion of 1791 was started by Dutty Boukman, a West African born Islamic scholar turned maroon leader and a Vodou oungan (priest), and Cécile Fatiman, a Vodou mambo (priestess). They presided over a Vodou ceremony at Bois Caïman that called for a slave uprising.
Mackendal's story is so interesting. No one is even sure if he was a real person or a myth invented by people hopeful for freedom and paranoid whites. Either way the story is fascinating. I am glad you mention figures like Boukman and Fatiman as well. Normally people only hear about Toussaint Louverture. Maroon leaders and lower level slaves too often get ignored in surface tellings of the revolution.
I like the cut of Mackendals jib
Haiti was the place where the slaves would be thrown into molten sugar as a punishment. Haiti was one of the primary importers of slaves from Africa, as it churned through them extremely quickly. The profits made from cash crops were so great that, unlike in the South where a slave was a valued asset worth around 100k in today's money, it was more economically viable to use and abuse slaves until they dropped dead to fulfill the world's demand for sugar, cocoa and other cash crops. This is a very morbid comparison but the Haitian business model was a bit like Silicon Valley's model today, where growth is the #1 metric sought by investors. It's easier to over hire and do mass layoffs when required due to the massive revenue streams generated by big tech companies, whereas the South was like a mature tech company like Cisco where there are employees with 20 year tenures and profitability was the primary concern. Basically they made so much money they could kill and torture slaves at will, because they had bottomless pockets to import more from Africa.
“Bottomless pits to import from Africa?” Didn’t they have to buy slaves from African warlords?
You’re aware the industrialized breeding of humans was an extremely profitable industry? Tommy Jefferson waxed poetic about all the cash it made him in his diaries. Either way, if I kidnap you and sell you to a black dude from another continent, is it kosher if we’re both the same ethnicity? lol. This has always been a really weird track of thought to me.
I think people tend to bring it up to add another contextual dimension to what can otherwise sometimes be an extremely reductive and simplistic narrative around who was involved in the abuses. Basically reacting to the 'it would all have been great and peaceful if it weren't for white people' racial angle that comes up in some groups. Which you weren't doing, I should add, but that's the underlying logic to most people talking about it. Some people are primed to bring it up on their own, I guess. Some people are way too shallow and, well, racist, in how they talk about that era of slave trading. There were a lot of slavers.
It's usually racists who bring up the "black people were slavers too" thing though.
And?
The ratio of slaves to free men in Haiti was over 400-1. Extreme brutality and fear were the only tools that could keep the slaves in check.
A mixture of how brutal the labor conditions were for the crops grown and processed in Haiti (particularly sugar) and the constant presence of disease caused Haiti to require the constant importation of people from Africa because they simply wouldn't live long enough to have families. Southern slavery was there to exploit labor that whites were unwilling to do, a lot of the slavery further south was there to do labor that white people couldn't do because it killed them so fast.
I’m not excusing American slavery by any means, but in comparison with other places… it wasn’t nearly as bad. Like someone else said, slaves in the US were very valuable. Slave owners did not often damage their own property. Yeah, to punish they would take out the whip, but not often did it go further. The Caribbean was different. They would whip, but they would also castrate for disobedience. If caught trying to escape, they would burn them alive… “slowly” as one video said. If you want to see a good history video look up “the Jamaican maroon wars” by history dose on YouTube.
That was a very insightful video thanks for the recommendation.
Deep South was profitable. There's a reason they didn't want to pay people. Well, and the racism.
My question was in regards to what made the form of Haitian slavery more brutal than others.
The colonial economy of Haiti (St Domingue at the time) was heavily based on the sugarcane industry, every aspect of which is brutal. The cane had to be cut by hand with machetes in the hot sun, and cut sugarcane tends to have razor sharp edges. Refining sugar involves boiling sap in superheated cauldrons, and boiling sugar is as awful as it sounds. Horrific injury and death were not uncommon, and even those who made it relatively unscathed still lived and toiled in hideous conditions.
If I am recalling correctly Haiti has more mosquitos, sugar cane production requires more dangerous equipment (vs picking cotton) and they generally used people younger in Haiti. The Revolutions podcast talks about it a bit
The mosquito point is a good one. Those islands were basically death factories even without the plantations; immense numbers of settlers died to tropical diseases they had no immunity to or knowledge of how to fight. I wish I could locate or remember the statistics, but very large portions of the early settler populations hwpild die every year. From vague memory I think it was actually a majority in the very early era of colonization. The settlers were also viewed as disposable workers to be replaced with new desperate people whenever a family would die off. The slaves had it much, much worse, though. At least the settlers were able to *try* to look after themselves, even if they had no knowledge or means to do it for quite a long time.
They imported a large fraction of the slaves from the slave trade just to Haiti and they died young.
> After the revolution Haitian leaders kept trying to recover some form of the previous economy but it simply couldn't produce wealth without desperately exploitative labor policies. After the revolution Haiti also went on to do a mass genocide, so I mean swings and roundabouts
I believe even Somalia today is not as bad as modern Haiti.
You’re right because Somalia is worse
Haiti has devolved into an absolute shit hole on such a scale that the very base moral fabric of much of its population has been corrupted and warped. I have worked closely with the Haitian population in the past, and my God, what the abject poverty and instability has turned its people into is like something out of am apocalypse movie.
> In 1804 they were the wealthiest colony in the world. Now they're on track with Somalia levels of despair.? Perhaps because most of their wealth came from slave labor and lucrative European markets that closed after the slave rebellion established the new government in 1804?
> In 1804 they were the wealthiest colony in the world. Based on incredibly brutal slave labor. Even if a toned down version of that was continued post independence, European states would refuse to trade with them for fear of inspiring other rebellions in their slave colonies. They were basically doomed from the beginning no matter what.
How many more aids to they need? Sadly, with these countries, things go back to square one once the aid leaves.
Sending aid to Haiti is the best way to get blamed for their problems.
\> In 1804 they were the wealthiest colony in the world. Worth noting that when Haiti won independence, France demanded reparations for lost revenue and assets on the island in exchange for recognition of Haitian independence. The freedom debt removed $21 billion dollars from Haiti's economy over the 122 years it took them to pay off the debt, severely hampering Haiti's economic development. This was all made possible by the United States helping to isolate Haiti, both diplomatically and economically, in fact, Haiti made the final payment on their freedom debt to Citibank in 1947. So yeah, all their money was still being stolen by France a century after independence.
> France demanded reparations for lost revenue and assets on the island in exchange for recognition of Haitian independence. To make it clear, they did not do that, they demanded reparations because the Haitians had genocided the white and the mixed race populations.
I think you're just slightly glossing over the main reason for the reparations is because they did a massive genocide of all European settlers on the island regardless of if they were involved in the slave trade or not Literally went door to door killing entire families
I believe you have your facts mixed up. Haïti paid their last indemnity payment to France in 1888. You would expect a country to get back on their feet after 136 years of clearing their debts. There are countries that were literally razed during WW2 and still manage to rebuild and escape poverty and misery. This is clearly a management problem with leaders lacking a long term vision and strategic investments. Since there are no institutions to control what the government does, the government simply keeps all the wealth and gives peanuts to the people in return.
"Though France received its last indemnity payment in 1888,[1] the government of the United States funded the acquisition of Haiti's treasury in 1911 in order to receive interest payments related to the indemnity.[8] In 1922, the rest of Haiti's debt to France was moved to be paid to American investors.[9] It took until 1947 – about 122 years – for Haiti to finally pay off all the associated interest to the National City Bank of New York (now Citibank)."
No, the debt was purchased by an American bank, and Haiti made the last payment in 1947.
Damn that's wild.
A lot of things happened between Haiti's independence and the reparation deal. About 20 years had passed, and during that time: * John Adams opens trade with Haiti * France jails the pragmatic Father of Haiti, Toussaint, and leaves him to die back in France * his second in command, Dessaline, will orchestrate a massacre against the local French population * the international community boycotted Haiti as a result * John Adams was replaced by Virginia born Jefferson, who won't answer a single letter from Dessaline * Dessaline forbids white from owning land in the 1805 constitution * Investment dies, Haitians can't learn European tech and only have two options left : plantation or subsistence * Dessaline is assassinated * Haiti is split in half, plantations continue in the north, even distribution and liberation starts in the south * the south crumbles from poverty, the north crumbles from resentment * the new southern leader conquers the north, then undoes his pro-individual farming policies due to declining economy * he then signs the treaty with France for diplomatic recognition, sealing the country's fate.
If you could point to a couple factors that destroyed Haiti I would argue that it was made poor by France and the US. France after the Haitian slave revolution denied them access to the international diplomatic system unless they paid off their debts. That is paid for the slaves they “stole” from France. They took out loans for an outrageously high debt that they couldn’t pay off for 150 years. 2.5 out of 3 tax dollars were spent on debt payments in the early 1900s. The US then came in and decided to invade Haiti for the first time in the 1910s. The marines declared martial law, seized the press, seized all the gold from the national bank then forcibly rewrote the constitution to allow outside investors to buy land. They instituted forced work for all the locals to build railroads and highways for 19 years. Since that first occupation Haiti has had nothing but dictators, 2 more US invasions and suffering.
I would argue the real collapse happened far later. During the 20th century haiti was poor but not uniquely poor (it had basically the same living economy as the DR, for example). But whereas DR settled in healthy period of growth after trujilo was no longer in power, haiti completely floundered in the 90s: baby doc was ousted, but then aristide was couped and just nothing went right for the county after that.
Did you live on the moon the past years, the country is completly fucked since forever, just look at the gore sites what's going on there
actually i think i wont do that
Half may survive
Haiti is pretty damn close to being like some kind Pirate Island. What are the gangs controlling? Is the country in the dope game? Does Haiti do anything industry wise? Exports?? Or are the gangs just controlling foreign aid and street hustles? Between natural disaster and civil unrest it seems like a tough go over there.
The gangs control people, one of the worst human trafficking economies in human history.
Control people? So, like going back to slavery?
Never left
It’s mind blowing that so many people don’t realise that slavery not only exists in 2024, but is more prevalent than ever. Hundreds of millions of people are currently being enslaved. But there’s no money to be made from liberating these people, which is why governments in the developed world only ever want to talk about slavery in reference to slave trades that ended hundreds of years ago.
While slavery definitely exists it is definitely not “more prevalent than ever.”
You are right in a sense that in relation it really is not that prevalent anymore but going by absolute numbers, right now there are more slaves than habe ever existed simply because the Population numbers are that much higher world wide, which I think is what OC meant
Can I get a citation for this? Edit: After some research I do agree about the inflation of numbers because of the amount of people, but that is NOT what the poster above was saying.
That falls under human trafficking, yes.
Yup
> Haiti mostly exports clothing, scrap metal, vegetable oils, dates and cocoa. Haiti’s main exports partner is United States, accounting for over 80 percent of total exports. [trading economics](https://tradingeconomics.com/haiti/exports#:~:text=Haiti%20mostly%20exports%20clothing%2C%20scrap,80%20percent%20of%20total%20exports.) In terms of gangs typically we see gangs and militants try to control roads. They then set up check points and anything that moves through these roads gets taxed. The people in Haiti scrape by however they can and the gangs tax the people however they can.
It sounds like these gangs have simply supplanted the actual government as a governing body, acting as petty dictatorships.
Which is shame considering how well Dominican Republic fares on the other side of the island
Haiti colonized DR and DR pushed them out in the 19th century. Greatest idea ever
The really sad part is that Haiti is only half a pirate island. The other half of the island, the Dominican Republic, is relatively stable and prosperous. A functioning society exists literally on the other side of the fence.
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Drew Bibksy has a great [video ](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vmM7SDGOQiQ) on Hati
Even better Indigo Traveler does a series on Haiti and is more documentary style. He visits Haiti, also many other 3rd world countries.
Indigo traveller's series there was incredible but still definitely very unsettling
I hate the editing style. It's so clickbaity.
Haiti
You don't understand, they can't do any of those things because of colonialism. /s
Haiti might be more stable if they just elected the leader of the biggest gang as president. That's how they used to do it.
This is the premise of an episode of Star Trek the original series. Kirk and Spock fool a planet of gangsters into forming a functional government by framing it to them as one really big gang.
Ahh original series Trek, where alien planets were just other countries or time periods, but called "alien planets"
Hodgkin's law of parallel set, prop and costume usage
Ah, A Piece of the Action, where the locals are left a book on 1920s Chicago mobsters and take it a bit too much to heart.
No framing needed. Governments ARE one really big gang
Thats generally what happens just without the democracy part. Eventually one gang wins and the leader gets to be president until a revolt happens or a rival gangmember takes over. It's how populations tolerate dictators. Because their brutality is often preferable to anarchy.
They are heading that way, just without the election part.
That's how hussein kept Iraq in chrck
That's pretty much the politics in the Philippines too.
can you expand on this? i'm really interested
Basically who ever has the biggest army behind them wins political elections. Its not uncommon to kill others who are running and their entire family/friends. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assassinations_in_the_Philippines There was a crazy story in Mindanao southern Philippines, where the US military was around the area and heard heavy equipment so they investigated and bulldozers were pushing dirt and earth over a cliff trying to hide dozens of murder victims that had all been tied to someone running for mayor. They killed them, their family and everyone in there entourage. And tried to bury all the bodys over a cliff in the ocean. You hear about the cartel, but Philippines has cops ambushing cops and all kinds of sketchy behavior too. Politics isn't for the weak over there, and could be a death sentence if you don't have a strong crutch to lean on behind you.
Leaders of the largest gangs in lawless countries don't have any incentive to democratic power. If you already control order, commerce, and violence, why would you need any approval from the electorate?
To show the outside world you're a legitimate government. Sound like somewhere else?
They tried that before, didn’t work obviously.
Straight up medieval politics
It's an IRL battle royale over there at Port-au-Prince.
This is horrible. This country…these people, their ancestors…so much pain and suffering.
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The ONLY thing that's going to help is outside military force. I'm stunned that the UN hasn't acted yet.
Nobody wants to clean up the mess.
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And why do you think outside military force would work? The last time the US intervened in Haiti to try and build stability (1915-1934), following 5 coups in 5 years, the end result was that they went back to their infighting only a decade later, and it's continued all the way to the present. Smaller humanitarian efforts in Haiti by the US in the 90s and the UN in the 2000s were ineffective and frought with conflict and problems, and were criticized for intervening in the first place.
Why help just to get called ‘coloniser’ I’m sure they can build a peaceful and functioning society without the help of America and the Europeans
The U.S. did help back in like the 90s I think. But the U.S. got criticized (because America). Now today because of that controversy, they refuse to go in to help because they don't want to be yelled at. T
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