Haiti Assassination Raises Red Flags Among Observers Fluent in History of US Intervention

[Judi Lynn]

"It's quite striking that the arguments being made for a U.S. intervention in Haiti are so alike the ones that were used to justify the 1915-34 occupation."

BRETT WILKINS
July 8, 2021

"It's quite striking that the arguments being made for a U.S. intervention in Haiti are so alike the ones that were used to justify the 1915-34 occupation."

BRETT WILKINS

July 8, 2021
In the wake of Wednesday's assassination of Jovenel Moïse, the unpopular, corrupt, and increasingly authoritarian U.S.-backed Haitian president, observers fluent in the history of foreign interference in the hemisphere's first truly free republic sounded the alarm over the same sort of calls for intervention in the name of "stability" that preceded so many previous American invasions of Haiti.

On Wednesday, the editors of the Miami Herald responded to Moïse's murder by asserting that the "U.S. must get off the sidelines and act."

They wrote:

The U.S., as Haiti's biggest donor, has no choice but to take the lead... to stabilize Haiti. An international coalition could do immense good very quickly by picking five critical things to focus on so that basic life in Haiti can continue: good roads, reliable electricity, clean water, policing that works, and Covid vaccines.

The Miami Herald editors were not alone. Robert Fatton, a professor of government affairs at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, told France 24 that "in previous decades the U.N., U.S., and France have sent troops [to Haiti] due to political insurgency. If things worsen I assume we'd have an intervention."

Echoing this sentiment, the editors of the Washington Post called for "a swift and muscular intervention" in Haiti.

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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/07/08/haiti-assassination-raises-red-flags-among-observers-fluent-history-us-intervention