Comment
Playing The Game
But then the world probably would have been a much more boring place and the charlatans of this world would have been exposed much more quickly and regularly than happens now. It might very well be that those who ultimately step in to proclaim the Emperor truly and completely naked would not then feel as powerful.
After almost three decades of suffering and intolerable conditions, the United States of America and France have decided that the Duvalier dynasty is bad for Haiti and the world must be rid of embarrassment. For years the Haitian people had to endure the yoke, first of Papa Doc and in the past 15 years of Baby Doc; those of them who dared to raise their voices against the tyranny were mercilessly suppressed. Many went into exile, many more died in the jails of the Duvaliers and the majority simply learnt to keep quiet and to endure.
Successive United States governments and those of France which considered Haiti as in their sphere of influence looked on at best with one eye closed and at worst with an attitude of "oh dear, what are the natives up to again?" Once in a while, 'investigative reporters' and eminent commentators from the West would go to Haiti and make documentaries about Haiti, the voodoo practices, the eccentricities of the Duvaliers, the poverty of the people, the eerie drumming and the fact that the West could count on Duvalier and the fact that repressive though the Duvalier regime might be, it had given stability to Haiti.
Liberal Westerners shook their heads when they read such stories and anyway, Haiti provided a picturesque backdrop for films to entertain the Western public. When they put their minds to it, it has been educative to see how painlessly it was for the US and France to rid Haiti of Baby Doc. One cannot help but wonder and ask how the powers that be come to such decisions. At what point do they decide that a ruler like Duvalier is an embarrassment and has such a decision got anything to do with the people under the yoke of the rulers? If it is so easy for them to remove a Duvalier, why did the Haitians have to endure almost 30 years of the tyranny?
It is worth noting that they considered the lives of Duvalier and his immediate family so important that they had to be evacuated. The minions who kept the Duvaliers in power, the Tonton Macoute, who have been left to face the wrath of the people, were obviously not considered important enough to have been evacuated with their master. And yet, without them, Duvalier and others like him would not have managed to stay in power to have been of use to the big powers. One wonders whether the scenes of those wretched 'tonton macoute' being stoned to death in any way move the powers that be in the State Department in Washington, or at the Quai d'Orsay in Paris. Do the collaborators who help keep a dictator in power deserve help from the dictator's big pay masters?
It is perhaps a lesson for collaborators all around the world who keep tyrants and petty dictators in power. It is perhaps not surprising that having provided a plane to take out Duvalier from Haiti, the United States did not find a haven for him in the US. After all, having been loyal and helpful to the US all his life, America could not provide a sanctuary for the Shah to die. Why the US and other world powers should consider it in their interest to side with the Duvaliers of this world, against the people of a country will remain one of the great mysteries of this world. The tragedy is that there are always petty tyrants in Third World countries who never learn. It will be interesting to note, for example, how much longer the US will help to keep Ferdinand Marcos in power in the Philippines and at which point they will decide that he ought to be evacuated from his country and if they will allow him to live in any of the properties he is reported to own in the US.
Over in West Africa many people would see the regime of General Doe in Liberia as not very different from the Duvalier regimes in Haiti and many friends of the US are equally dismayed and puzzled about the continued sup- port the US gives to Gen Doe. It will confirm such misgivings even more strongly with the announcement that Gen Doe has agreed to give sanctuary to Baby Doc
It is only human that in such times, there would be some feeling of pity for somebody like Duvalier, and it surely would have been the decent thing for the US which had all these years accorded him the status of 'head of state' and pretended that his words and actions ranked on the status of an American president, and where he is reported to own property, to have offered him sanctuary. However if one considered the many thousands of Haitians who have died and who have suffered these past three decades because the US, France and other countries were willing to pretend that Duvalier was "good" for Haiti, then it makes it difficult to find any sympathy for his minions left to face the wrath of the people.
It is equally difficult to discount the feeling that people like Gen Samuel Doe are kept in power through the largesse of the US just so that when the need should arise a sanctuary can always be found for a Duvalier; or that a Duvalier is kept in power so that a sanctuary can be found for a Samuel Doe. The Eastern powers also of course keep up their own Duvaliers and Marcoses and are in no way any better than their Western counterparts. The tragedy is that Third world countries always produce so many willing Duvaliers and make themselves such willing tools.
If it is not clear yet, it ought to be, to all that in 28 years of American foreign policy and French foreign policy in Haiti the interests of the Haitians played no part in deciding the policy.
It would be helpful if everybody dispensed with the charade and we accepted, for example, that when the British Foreign Minister visits Ghana and talks about being impressed with the Rawlings regime and the effects of the regime's economic policies, it has nothing to do with the state of the people.
