US soldiers stand guard at a Port-au-Prince hospital (Picture: AFP/GETTY)

The temporary yet indefinite re-colonization of Haiti began last Wednesday morning when the first CNN crews landed in Port-au-Prince, led by their ‘general’ Anderson Cooper and the ubiquitous medical reporter Sanjay Gupta.

After only a few hours, the network that made the 24-hour news cycle possible began beaming a stream of pain and misery back to the United States. An infinite series of images, painful and shocking, left CNN’s viewers with the urge to express their solidarity… at all costs.

From that moment on, Haiti became a ‘real’ event within the American imaginary. It had metamorphosed into a ‘cause celebre,’ persuading Barack Obama, a president already consumed with healthcare reform, the war in Afghanistan, terrorism in Yemen, etc., to publicly address the Haiti disaster three times in one day, promising $100 million in aid and the arrival of the US Army to coordinate the relief efforts.

US Ambassador to Haiti Ken Marten began coordinating the logistics for the US military’s arrival. Meanwhile, Google’s detailed satellite images were updated, showing the access routes from Port-au-Prince’s port and airport to the most afflicted disaster areas completely obstructed by rubble.

In Washington, D.C., Obama assembled a task force 250-strong of men and women representing all facets of the relief effort, from the Marines to the Red Cross.

Yet, the relief and rescue operations were delayed a half-day while Obama sought to reach Haitian President Rene Preval, whose residence and office were also ‘pancaked’ by the 7.0 tremors. Then, on Friday, upon finally reaching President Preval, Obama asked him to sign a document which conferred total control of Port-au-Prince’s airport to the US military and conceded permission for America’s relief efforts to get underway.

This, at least, is what the public was told. But the document exchanged between Presidents Obama and Preval must have contained several more details that have been withheld from public view; clauses regarding the rules of engagement of the Marines, sent in by the hundreds, to protect the engineers who are, to this moment, busy clearing roads and digging through the rubble.

The Marines, once called upon, shoot. This is their only task. During their 2004 intervention in Haiti, after the fall of the populist priest President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the Marines set up and manned roadblocks throughout the country. Upon approaching the checkpoints, the Haitians attempted to back up and search for another, less obtrusive access point to their destination. And the Marines, unused to the local predilection for anarchy, duly shot at them. After the first 4 casualties, the Haitians learned their lesson and waited patiently in line at each checkpoint.

A few days ago, the first US Coast Guard ship reached Haiti from the US base in Guantanamo, Cuba. An aircraft carrier is also expected, along with 6,000 Navy personnel, and 50 helicopters, and, of course, a hospital ship. Everything that we are used to seeing since D-Day and beyond is expected from the formidable logistical machine that is the US military.

The history of relations between the US and Haiti dates back to the American Revolution, when Haiti was a French colony and was thus an ally of the American revolutionaries. But when Haiti eventually declared its independence on January 1^st, 1804, Thomas Jefferson, fearing that the Haitian uprising would inspire American slaves, issued an embargo on the country that lasted until 1867.

In 1915, during the throes of the Great War, in which the European powers slaughtered each other while racking up enormous debts with the USA, Washington, D.C. took advantage of its role as nascent power and expanded its sphere of influence in the Caribbean by occupying Haiti. With the excuse that German submarines would find refuge in Haiti’s ports and would be assisted by Haiti’s merchant class (which was largely of German origin), the American government established a military government ruled by the US Marines that lasted 17 years.

But the United States militaristic obsession with Haiti did not stop there. In 1994, a second US ‘invasion’ of the island took place under then-President Bill Clinton’s watch. Clinton’s intervention was to ostensibly return the democratically elected President Aristide back to power after he was ousted in a coup.

Now, the United States is once again brought into the Haitian ‘theater of tragedy’ whereby it can directly appeal to the Haitian people without involving the impotent, corrupt, and disarrayed Preval government.  In the past 10 years we have seen over $3 billion in international aid reach Haiti without one job being created, without the country’s infrastructure being reinforced, without any coherent development plan being established. Everything remained as it was before and the earthquake served only to expose the failure of Haiti’s 206 years of independence. Following the Haiti’s impressive revolt, its liberation from the chains of European domination, its newfound leaders cast the population into a system of income inequality that pervades up until today. While Europe fumes at America’s logistical ‘invasion’ of the island, declares America’s relief effort an attack on Haiti’s sovereignty, the European’s have ultimately demonstrated the total inefficiency of their political correctness. With its institutional infrastructure in tatters and the Presidential Palace in ruins, Haiti finally has a chance to change course. And it can only be with America’s help.

Piero Longo is a former journalist and editor of AmericaOggi. He lives in Haiti.

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