• by Eduardo Galeano
• Friday, October 07, 2011
• Inter Press Service

At present, the armies of many countries, including my own, continue to occupy Haiti. How was this military invasion justified? By claiming that Haiti was a danger to international security. Nothing new there, writes Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan writer and journalist and author of ''The Open Veins of Latin America'', 'Memories of Fire'' and "Mirrors/An Almost Universal History".

At present, the armies of many countries, including my own, continue to occupy Haiti. How was this military invasion justified? By claiming that Haiti was a danger to international security. Nothing new there, writes Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan writer and journalist and author of ''The Open Veins of Latin America'', 'Memories of Fire'' and "Mirrors/An Almost Universal History".

In this column, Galeano writes that throughout the 19th century, the example of Haiti was seen as a threat to the security of all countries that continued to practice slavery. In South Carolina, for example, it was legal to imprison any black sailor while his boat was in port because of the risk that he might infect others with the anti-slavery contagion. In the 20th century, Haiti was invaded by the Marines for being an unsafe country for its foreign creditors. The invaders took over customs operations, seized the National Bank of Haiti and turning it over to City Bank of New York. And since they were there already, they decided to stay another 19 years.

How many years will foreign soldiers stay in Haiti? They came to stabilise the situation and provide assistance but they have spent seven years destabilising and hampering aid efforts in a country that doesn't want them there. The occupation is costing the UN more than 800 million dollars a year. The last thing Haiti needs is people to multiply its disasters. Nor does it need anyone's charity. As an old African proverb put it, the hand that gives is always above the hand that receives. But Haiti does need solidarity, doctors, schools, hospitals, and real collaboration that will make it possible to regain its ability to feed itself, which was destroyed by the IMF, the World Bank, and other philanthropic organisations.

(*) This article is dedicated to Guillermo Chifflet, who was forced to leave the Chamber of Deputies for having voted against sending Uruguayan soldiers to Haiti.

(*) Eduardo Galeano is a Uruguayan writer and journalist and author of ''The Open Veins of Latin America'', 'Memories of Fire'' and "Mirrors/An Almost Universal History".

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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