 Haiti is a small country in the Caribbean with just 11.5 million people and a glorious struggle of fighting against imperialism and oppression. At the same time, it also is the misfortune of having as its neighbour the United States of America and because of that and many other factors, Haiti has become a site for relentless foreign intervention. Once again, we are hearing calls for such intervention. Why and what are the problems with such calls? We will be discussing all this in this episode of Mapping Fault Likes. We are joined by Prabir Prakash. So, Haiti has had a very chaotic year to say the least. You've seen the assassination of President Joanal Moise, protests taking place over deteriorating standards of living and now we have the acting Prime Minister and President Oriol Henry making a plea for an international force which will stabilize the situation in the country against gang warfare, which is now portrayed as a big enemy. And during all this time, we have people coming out on the street saying that we don't want foreign intervention and the protests have been quite remarkable, they've been substantial despite all the problems Haitians are facing. So, could you maybe first take us and give us an idea of what really is the reason that you have the government on one hand which is saying bring foreign troops and people coming out on the street saying no. See, the issue here is also that the current president, Oriol Henry, was also implicated at least to the eyes of the people in the assassination of the earlier president. So, having come already with a reputation for being complicit in this crime, therefore now to ask for foreign aid and military help to stabilize his rule seems to be to sanctify the coup that he did and the violence which was accompanied by the, during the assassination. Now, this was completely a foreign hit. People came in, apparently mercenaries killed the president and then we still haven't fathomed who were the perpetrators meaning that who are behind the mercenaries. But the argument is that this is really connected to drug trade and to corrupt businesses which are running Haiti today and the complicit that the current president Henry is complicit with these groups. So, given that any military intervention will be seen as something which will support Henry and therefore, in fact, stabilize a government which the people don't want. Now, this is the context in which people are coming out even if the streets have been taken over by the gangs, even the petrol is now in the hands of the gangs so people don't have fuel. A whole lot of government functions seem to have collapsed. The civic facilities don't seem to be running anymore. So, you have anarchy in Haiti that everybody accepts but the solution as external intervention, the problem that people of Haiti has is that they faced it in the beginning of the 20th century. The US was there for about 30 years and they put the most brutal dictators you can think of in power. So, then we had the United Nations also intervened and though people are blaming the UN soldiers for having got cholera into Haiti, the question is that the civic systems had collapsed even then drinking water, other water for what you need for sanitary purposes were not there. Then you have the cholera epidemic which is a waterborne disease. So, having these two examples of foreign soldiers coming and stabilizing Haiti, therefore the Haitian people said whatever it is, let's do it ourselves because every time we have a foreign intervention, things actually appear to stabilize but becomes much worse in the long run. We don't want that. So, this seems to be the contradiction but yet on the ground we have gangs which seem to have taken over the urban areas and there is no sense as of now whether you can have a countervailing force which could actually restore a certain normalcy in the island given the fact that you have a president who is backed by the United States and effectively what you see is a possible human intervention which will supposedly stabilize his regime. So, probably of course Haiti also has a history of being oppressed in various ways by the colonial powers. We know that its independence was achieved at a very steep cost. It had to pay a huge amount of money as indemnity for to the colonizers which is a very unique instance and like you said the US itself having almost a century of intervention. So, in that sense why what is also Haiti's history been or why has it been so significant for the region that's it? It's an interesting issue because Haiti was the first major colonial property so to say in that of the Western European colonizers which revolted throughout the colonizers and abolished slavery. Now those things is what earned its enmity from both the United States which had at the time the slavery very much central to what the United States was all about and of course the other colonial powers which are also based on slave labor in that period and slave labor essentially in sugar plantations in the Caribbean. So, this was the price that Haiti paid all of them ganged up that they were fighting wars against each other ganged up and told Haiti you have to pay penalty for having freed the slaves because they are private property and as per laws you know international laws which only operate when it is in favor of the shall we say the colonizers in this case that you will have to pay penalty for having taken over private property and therefore you have to indemnify pay France the costs of the slaves that you have freed. So, for freeing the slaves mind you this is after the revolution in France where the feudal empire is dissolved and you have no you know essentially declaration of brotherhood of men and so on and so forth women are a little outside that and even at that time but they said that does not apply to slaves in the colonies it is only for France. So, even though you have the so called bourgeois revolution that takes place I will not call it so called it is a bourgeois revolution that takes place and the monarchies are also but yet you have this the combination of all this feudal powers the colonial powers all of them intervening in Haiti to back France for penalty they have to pay for freeing the slaves and that indemnity which they had to pay France for continues till about 1950 and it is worth something like over 20 billion dollars if you can count it as today's today's price and this is also why Haiti is the poorest country among the poorest countries in the world because they have been paying France for the last 150 years. So, this is the condition under which we are talking about Haiti and let us not forget the last coup that took place against Aristides was also when he raised the issue about indemnity from France that France should actually pay for reparations that what Haiti has paid and he did this calculation of 20 billion dollars in fact the calculation could be much more if you really go into other calm that has been caused to Haiti but even taking this factor into account and one of the reasons France collaborated with the United States and Canada to overthrow Aristides was the issue of indemnity pay that reparations because Haiti he was Aristides was asking for paying back the reparations for having taken all this money out of Haiti. So, this has been also the background in which Haiti has actually subsidized French the colonizers and subsidized the loss that the slave owners had incurred you know this is also the same thing when the British gave indemnity when they freed the slaves and they paid the slave owners but not the slaves this is what happens in Jamaica as well. So, it's not surprising because you see private property even of human beings trumps every other international or what would be called human rights today. So, maybe in this context of course the final and most important question is right now it looks like a bit of an impasse you have the UN debating whether to send the force you know internationally that the international force so to speak to sort of stabilize the situation the people on the streets and of course austerity policies also being imposed which have completely wrecked Haiti's economy. So, in a larger sense for smaller countries like Haiti does a more regional perspective also work in terms of mounting resistance because we do know that one of the issues that Haiti faced was also because of Venezuelan oil not you know once that stopped that also caused a huge problem. So, there was a time when the oil from Venezuela played a key part in an attempt to stabilize Haiti. Yes, I think that's a very important point that you raised that one of the things of course was almost free fuel that Venezuela is giving to Haiti and at that time it was also what Venezuela said that we are paying back our debt to Haiti because it was Haiti's military support training the gift to our soldiers which is what led to the victory over the ruling power which was paid at that time in America. So, the Latin America so this this is the debt Hugo Chavez said we as Venezuela have to pay back to Haiti and that's why the oil that they were giving virtually free to Haiti and of course once the US imposes sanctions in Venezuela then it's very difficult for Haiti to get that oil either. The question is can the US allow Latin American countries to actually look at supporting Haiti and see how this problem can be overcome can it is it possible to get a regional solution outside the purview of the United Nations today and outside of course US intervention as we know it's possible to do the UN part because yes it's possible to see UN doesn't intervene but is it possible to see US will not intervene that's the that's the difficult part and as you know Canada and the US are partners in Caribbean and in this particular case Mexico has also supported the UN intervention in the belief that perhaps that Haiti cannot continue with the sanarchy but the Haiti and the civil society or whatever is there seems to be saying that we have a draft experience with this outside interventions let us sort it out ourselves how much that is the relevance how much that will work we do not know because as you have also said the gangs today control at least the urban areas and there is really no understanding how their grip on the island can be weakened the problem is these are the gangs which have also been a part of the business empire supporting them or they're supporting the business empires and also the government in different ways and this nexus between gangs the big business and the Haitian elite who run the government how this access can be broken is the really key to the success of the Haitian revolution which has paid a huge price from the time they got freed from Napoleon's grip shall be said because actually it was Napoleon's brother brother or brother in law who lost the war in Haiti thank you so much for being so that's all your time for today we'll be discussing many such issues in future episodes of mapping portlines until then keep watching news click