Good afternoon everybody. I'm John Sorciari, a faculty member here at the Ford School and welcome to today's event on how race has affected U.S. foreign policy and governance interventions in Haiti. This is the fourth of five events that we are hosting this semester on race and international relations. It's part of a broader initiative here at the Ford School on the Racial Foundations for Public Policy. This term series is led by our Center for Racial Justice, its director of Celeste Watkins Hayes as well as Dominique Adam Santos. It's also co-sponsored by the Ford School's International Policy Center and Wiser Diplomacy Center, as well as our friends at the African Studies Center at UM's International Institute. Alas, I want to thank Ambassador and Professor Susan Page, my colleague here at the Ford School for her role in co-leading the series. In previous sessions this term we've discussed America's role in the colonial project. We've talked about how race has impacted the development of international relations as a discipline, academically, and as a profession. And today we're going to talk about how race has affected foreign policy and development in one very important case, that of Haiti. We're very pleased to welcome two noted experts, Robert Fatton and Millarie Pauline. Robert Fatton is the ambassador, Henry J. Taylor and Miss Marion R. Taylor, Professor of Politics in the Department of Politics at the University of Virginia, where he's also served as the Chair of the Politics Department and Associate Dean of the Graduate School. He's the author of several books and many scholarly articles. Some of the books most relevant to today's conversation include Haiti's predatory republic, The Unending Transition to Democracy, published in 2002, The Roots of Haitian Despotism, published five years later in 2007, and Haiti Trapped in the Outer Periphery, published in 2014. His most recent book is entitled The Guys of Exceptionalism, Unmasking the National Narratives of Haiti and the United States, published last year. So we're welcome to the Ford School, Professor Fatton. Thank you so much for inviting me. Thank you. And we're also delighted to welcome Millarie Pauline, who is an associate professor and former associate dean for faculty at the New York University's Gallatin School. His interests include the history of US African-American and Afro-Caribbean intellectual thought, coloniality in the Americas, human rights and dictatorship, as well as race and sports. He has also published numerous scholarly articles, a book and a few edited volumes. And among his most relevant works for today's purposes are his book in 2010, entitled From Douglas to Duvalier, US African-Americans, Haiti and Pan-Americanism. 1870 to 1964, as well as a pair of edited volumes, one entitled The Idea of Haiti, Rethinking Crisis and Development, published in 2013. And The Haiti Reader, a volume he co-edited, published with Duke University Press in 2020. So welcome to you as well, Professor Pauline. It's great being here. Thank you for having me. Thank you. I'll start with some questions in armchair style and we'll then turn to some questions from the audience. You who are watching can enter your questions in the chat function on your screens. And we look forward to your comments and your inquiries as well. But I'd like to start, and if I may, starting with Professor Fatton, I want to go back to the beginning historically to set the framework for understanding for our audience about how Haiti came to be as a country. If you could walk us through briefly the period of the slave raids that brought Africans to what was then Hispaniola, the fight for freedom from French colonial rule, the reparations that Haiti had to pay to France, and how that early history established the foundations for governance in Haiti in contemporary times. Well, immediately after the so-called discovery of Haiti, the indigenous population was decimated and the question became who would replace them in terms of labor. So the first enslaved Africans arrived in 1517. And there was some 15,000 of them were arrived in the first instance. But to move very quickly to the period of the pre-independence and the revolutionary moment, at that point, it's estimated about half a million enslaved Africans. The enslaved Africans were divided. They were divided between the so-called Creole and the so-called Bossalle. And the Creole were those who had been born in Haiti. And the Bossalle were the ones who had just arrived in the country. So there you already had a division because the Creole had some sort of superiority complex vis-à-vis the Bossalle. Now there was a contingent of French colonialists. And they represented about 30,000 white French people, French colonizers. And there you also had a division between what was called the Grand Blanc, the big whites as it were, and the T-blanc, the small whites. The Grand Blanc were really the ones who had the economic power, the political power. They were in charge of a very profitable economy based on the plantation. And the plantation itself was rooted in slave labor, was basically sugar. And at that point, just before the revolution started, Haiti or Hispaniola or Saint-Domingue, however you want to call it at that point, was extremely profitable. It was, as it were, the core of the French Empire. And it really was extremely wealthy in terms of the French colonizers and obviously France. Now the population which was subjugated, obviously that was the enslaved population. But you also had what has been called the Afranchi, the so-called free colored people. And there, most of those people tended to be of my color, the so-called muletos. But there were also obviously black Africans. And the paradigmatic example of that is none other than Toussaint Louverture, who was a slave, then he became a slave owner, then he became the emancipator. And then you had the slaves and Jean-Jacques de Saint-Lin, the other obviously critical leader of the African Revolution, was a slave. But when this revolution started, he obviously was part of it around the late 1780s, 1791. So you have at that moment, therefore, a deeply divided colonial society. On the other hand, the main division was clearly between whites and blacks and between slave owners and enslaved people. There was no doubt about it. And when the revolution started, you had all kinds of strange alliances between the colonizers, the different major powers, the French, the Spaniards, the British, but eventually what happened is that up till 1799, 1800, you had a coalition, as it were, of different leaders of the enslaved population who were part of the French army, establishing a certain degree of autonomy by the time of the 1801 Constitution of Toussaint Louverture. And what Toussaint Louverture wanted was to have full autonomy in Haiti while remaining, to some extent, part of the French Empire, and to send several letters to Napoleon saying, you know, du premier des Noirs, au premier des Blancs, from the first of the blacks to the first of the whites. And Toussaint Louverture thought that that would work. Napoleon had very different ideas that Napoleon was bent on re-establishing the colony. He was bent on re-establishing slavery, actually. And not surprisingly, when he sent his troops back to Haiti, the idea was to just go by Haiti, re-colonize, and it would be an easy affair because you had 50,000 French military. And he had assumed that it was not going to be a very long mission. And obviously that didn't work that way. One of the first things he did, which actually led to really the solidification of the Haitian revolutionaries, was that he tricked Toussaint Louverture and ultimately captured him and brought him back to France. And Toussaint Louverture was sent to the Fort de Jours near Besançon in France, and Toussaint Louverture died there. But that event led to the crystallization of the leadership under Jean-Jacques de Salin. And Jean-Jacques de Salin was a major figure in terms of that coalition and in terms of his military capacity. And by 1804, Haiti became independent after defeating the French army. So that is the fight for emancipation. It was an extremely costly fight in terms of number of dead and obviously in terms of the economy. The economy was essentially destroyed as a result of the revolution because the slaves looked at the plantation as the embodiment of evil. In other words, it was the structure that really oppressed them, violated them, brutalized them. And during the revolution, the idea was that in order to win, you needed to burn the plantation. So that meant, on the other hand, that once Haiti became independent, the fundamental basis of the economy had to a large degree collapse. And you had also something like 150,000 people dying in the process. So you're talking about a major catastrophe at the economic level and at the population level. So the cost of emancipation was quite high. And it left significant elements that have contributed to the underdevelopment of Haiti, to the kind of authoritarian tradition that we've had in the country. And what I mean by that is, in order to win the revolution, you needed to have a significant military. And the military was the machine of command and obedience. And that was translated to the Haitian leadership in the period of independence. So you have that element, the authoritarian command and control ethos, if you wish, of the key figures of the Haitian revolution. The other fundamental element is that they wanted to revive the Haitian economy. In order to revive the Haitian economy, at that time, the only game in town was the plantation. And the plantation operated in a white supremacist world order. In other words, if you wanted the plantation to work, you needed to have slaves or you needed core slavery. And that became one of the major contradictions of the post-independence period, because all of the leaders, the founding fathers had to deal with that problem. They literally had all kinds of so-called cod rural, in other words, rural codes, which were basically the idea that you had to force the peasantry, the newly freed slaves, to work again on the plantation. And that is obviously something that the newly emancipated Haitians were not going to put up with. So there was kind of an exit from the state. So you had that kind of what we call in Haiti, the country outside of, if you wish, the state, because the state was perceived as really very authoritarian. So this is one of the major contradictions, an amazing revolution that is really a worldwide revolution that leads to the abolition of slavery and to the rupture, if you wish, with the white supremacist world order. And one of the interesting things about the Haitian constitution of the Saline is that it declared that all Haitians were black. Now, that clearly indicated to a large degree the fact that the Haitian population was black, but black in the mind of the Saline was much more than color because you had some troops from Poland, which were part of Napoleon's army, which defected and they joined the Haitian revolution. And those were in fact called blacks too. So blacks are the kind of a universal category. It was a reversal of the white supremacist idea. And that is a very significant element in the Haitian revolution that blackness became something that meant that you would fight against oppression irrespective, ultimately, of your race, whether you were a light-skinned, dark-skinned, whatever, or even, you know, a Polish guy could become that. So that's a very interesting phenomenon. I may have been talking too much. I don't know if I should stop or let you ask other questions because there are plenty of stuff to talk about like the indemnity of France. So I don't want to monopolize the discussion. Well, thank you. That's very helpful grounding for the for the conversation historically. And I'd like to pick up on that with a question for Millery, whom I should welcome back virtually to the University of Michigan, where you did your doctoral work. And I'd like to talk about the connections between Haiti and what was happening in the United States, where, of course, slavery still existed. And I wonder if you could walk us through the early period of Haiti's independence and how African-Americans related to Haiti or to how the Haitian Revolution reverberated within the United States at a time of continuing slavery. No, it's a great question. I think it's it's important to remember what Haiti symbolized when Desaline and as people, the Haitian people gained their independence in 1804, Haiti became this this symbol, the symbol to to all the people of African descent within the Americans, not just the United States, but also within the Caribbean and other parts of the Caribbean and Latin America, South America. And so this this symbol of strength, the symbol of independence, of sovereignty, of power, potential power, this idea of governing oneself became quite important in the minds of particularly African-Americans and people of African descent throughout the throughout the Americas. So obviously, during this time of an era of slavery, then you have a white backlash. It's been documented that a number of places within the US South, they've been there, arrived a tremendous sort of backlash against any type of organization or assembly of black folks in fear of another revolution or resistance happening within the US South.  So African-Americans, you know, in the 19th century, were withdrawn to it. They they began to those who were free, whether it be in the late 1820s or in the 1840s and 1850s began to respond to Haitian calls for migration, specifically from President Abouayé and Geffra. You had US blacks were inclined to leave the United States because of US state violence and discrimination, obviously, in addition to being encouraged to leave by organizations like the American Colonization Society and the president, President Lincoln himself, right, who were saying, you know, who trying to figure out what what can we do with these with blacks who are already here? And it's clear that this is a place in which whether it be within the US South or, you know, problematic liberal north, you know, liberal quotes, are they welcome here? And so you definitely had, you know, between five to eight thousand black folks who are free, who are considering and move to to to Haiti during this time period, who were welcomed in, given land, there were some initial without a doubt issues and problems on the island once they arrived, whether it be sickness from smallpox or issues with gaining property, but there was a significant sort of migration during this time period. And so that's one sort of early sort of movement that's happening within within the United States, in addition, you have sort of a black Protestant influence with reverence, a possible priest and reverence like James Holly, who established the Holy Trinity Church and some schools in Haiti. Obviously, you have Frederick Douglass and who's serving as a US minister to Haiti. So Douglass is doing sort of this delicate balance of trying to maintain Haitian sovereignty, but also wanting a very much a US style sort of modernization development politically and economically to take shape at the same time. So that gives you a little bit of sense like in the 19th century, what's happening during this era of slavery, what's happening with African Americans in the United States and their relationship to Haiti. Thank you. And of course, back in Haiti, as as as Robert mentioned, there's a government trying to lead within structures established during the French colonial period that were authoritarian and exploitative. Some unrest eventually in 1915, you have a president killed the United States intervenes and stays for almost two decades to occupy Haiti. I think that this is particularly relevant to think about today in light of the recent assassination of Moise and Haiti and the and the instability that has followed. If I go back to Robert for this one, could you tell us a little bit about the motivations for the US intervention in Haiti in 1915 about the conduct of US occupiers during that period, particularly with regard to our theme of of of race and its role in in foreign interventions and what what lasting imprints that occupation has has left in Haiti. Well, the American occupation is has to be you have to put it in the context of the emerging superpower of the United States and the capitalist industrialization of the country. You also have to put it in the context of what was happening as a result of the so-called indemnity debt from Haiti to France. Because what happened is that eventually you see the Haitians paid that enormous debt, but in order to pay it, they had to incur more debts and some of those debts were actually to American banks. And before the US officially could unquote occupied Haiti on July 28, 1915, there was a significant event in December of 1914. The US sent Marines to Haiti and they literally went into the central bank of Haiti. They seized the reserves of the government of Haiti, put it on a military boat and transported it to New York, where it went to National City Bank. You're talking about all the reserves of Haiti. At that point, it was about half a million. So you have really the notion of the connection between economics, finance, imperial rule, the fact that the Monroe doctrine now can be fully implemented. The US was worried about the influence of the Germans and the French in the area. So they decided that Haiti was going to be occupied. And the other areas of the Caribbean were occupied. The Dominican Republic was also occupied. So it was not the only one. But there was a very, very strong racism at the time. I mean, not surprisingly so, because ultimately the president of the United States at the time was Woodrow Wilson, who has a very deep racist background. You can't avoid that reality. So the occupation was started and the pretext for it was the killing of one of the former presidents of Haiti, a fellow by the name of Jean-Ville Bruin, Guillaume Sam. And he was dismembered in an attempted revolution. And at that time, Haiti was not centralized in Popes. You have all kinds of provincial areas where you had leaders and they are literally their own military apparatus. And that led to the collapse of the regime and the United States intervene and occupied the country till 1934. Now, as I've said, it was a very racist occupation. Many of the generals, colonels who were part of that operation had been to other areas in the Philippines, etc. And they tended to be southerners, so you had that feeling that Haitians were incapable that they were all essentially uneducated and that they needed to be civilized. So that was part of the occupation. The other part was that there was some significant resistance in the first few years of the American occupation on the part of some Haitian, in particular, Paises. And eventually, the insurgency in Haiti was put down. One of the iconic figures of Haiti is a fellow by the name of Charles Mein Peralte, who was taken and killed. And there is a statue of him like Christ, actually, that is very famous in the Haitian psyche. But it was a symbol of resistance. On the other side, you had members of the elite which tended to be also quite racist vis-à-vis the rest of the population. The light-skinned Haitians had a complex of superiority vis-à-vis the vast majority of Haitians. And in particular, vis-à-vis the Paisentry, which they considered really incapable, almost subhuman. So you had that cooperation between the occupiers and the elite. It was an easy cooperation, because in the minds of the Americans, even the light-skinned elite was black, so therefore, they were not really quite educated either. So there was tension. Now, the major impact of the American occupation was the centralization of power in poor points. And what I mean by that is that it led to control, bureaucratic control from the center and the creation of the Haitian military. And that institution became quite critical in the future of Haiti and in terms of the politics of Haiti.  The occupation ended eventually in 1934 under President Roosevelt and the so-called good neighbors policy. The other bad Jewish element of that occupation was the so-called Corvée, which was an institution that was used by the Americans, whereby they would use the Paisentry to build roads, but it was essentially forced labor. And that led to a significant amount of resentment on resistance on the part of the Haitians. So I'll let Milory, if he wants to add to that, I probably forgot a lot of things too. Sure, Milory, maybe I can follow up with a question. As Robert mentioned, the occupation occurred at a time of waxing American strength of explicit imperialism in the Philippines and elsewhere and part of an idea of a kind of Pan-Americanism that was founded on American leadership or hegemony. And you've also written about another strand of Pan-Americanism that continued to develop during this period across North, Central, South America and the Caribbean. I wonder if you could tell us how the occupation of Haiti between 1915 and 1934 contributed to that intellectual development and how this sort of Black Pan-Americanism rose during the 20th century. Yeah, I think it's important to start a little bit in the 19th century too, but we can get through the occupation is that sort of Pan-Americanism is really an idea that starts in the 19th century. And it's sort of a U.S. style of Pan-Americanism. There's sort of multiple sort of strains or ways to interpret it, but a U.S. style of Pan-Americanism really centered on these ideas of mutual cooperation, non-intervention, egalitarianism between nation states. But as I was saying in terms of the 19th century, it's built upon this idea of the premise of the mineral doctrine. So that inevitably sort of states that the nation states in the hemisphere are part of Washington's backyard, right? So this sort of U.S. style Pan-Americanism centers whiteness in the U.S. and among Latin American elites. At the same time you have Latin American elites, Latin American states, excuse me, they also have a rich tradition of thinking on and the formation of their own sort of style of Pan-Americanism as they become independent from Spain or Portugal. They are thinking about ways in which to foster international solidarity, economic and cultural strength, things of that nature.  You have people like Jose Martí who's the Cuban revolutionary thinker who's talking about these ideas of solidarity. At the same time, he is also thinking about ways in which to dissolve or eradicate any sort of racial or color divisions in order to sort of crystallize international solidarity. But you also have, as you mentioned earlier in terms of what I was, my research, my first book was really about ways in which African-descendant peoples in the Americas were very much in support of the core tenets of Pan-Americanism, the mutual cooperation and galitarianism, non-intervention, right? But they also sort of decided not to de-center or eradicate Blackness. They wanted to embrace sort of these sort of histories of migration, of diplomatic relations, of missionary and cooperative entrepreneurial ventures and anti-imperial campaigns that were central components to them to this idea of Pan-Americanism. So, and so when you have U.S. intervention and Haiti, you have a moment in which very interesting, you have some Black folks in the U.S. who are very much in support of U.S. intervention, who are part of and thinking about this sort of civilizing mission that Robert was talking about. Even folks like James Weldon Johnson, who was a writer and a thinker, and then also was a diplomatic consul, he was consul to Venezuela. Early on, he was in support of U.S. intervention, very much sort of elitists in his own U.S. style way of thinking about modernization and development. But then his ideas radically changed once he began to investigate what was happening with regards to these racist soldiers who were in Haiti and Woodrow Wilson's policy, sort of the use of state violence, meaning he did his own sort of investigative, important reporting for the nation at the time that really showed many Black folks what was happening on the ground. And so, you see a shift in many Black folks' reactions to U.S. involvement. And not only Haiti, but also in other parts, as Robert mentioned, in the Caribbean, Dominican Republic, they were in Nicaragua earlier in Cuba. And so, you basically see this sort of shift at the top. Great. And obviously, that involvement continued throughout the Cold War and the era of the Duvaliers. But I want to fast forward a little bit to talk about the more recent string of interventions in Haiti's governance since the early to mid-1990s. And in particular, since 1994, when the United States Multinational Force went to Haiti and then soon after it, the UN Mission in Haiti and a series of other U.S. or UN-led missions. And maybe I'll go back to you, Robert, to ask. It's a broad question, but in what ways have those, particularly the multinational missions, the UN authorized or UN-led missions, in what ways have they helped, if at all, to mitigate Haiti's sort of structural subordination in the international system? In what ways do you see them as having simply reinforced it, reinforcing dependency, reinforcing a subordination on racial as well as other grounds? Well, in my mind, those multinational interventions were to a large extent interventions that were led by the United States. Whether you talk about the 90s or the more recent period after the second departure of Aristide in 2004, or after the earthquake, those interventions really are interventions that are to a large extent funded and led by the United States. They give to some degree some cover, some multilateral cover. And there were tensions at different times within that coalition. But basically, the United States was driving the situation. Whether you talk about the first coup of 1991, when Aristide was overthrown and the long period of negotiations, which were essentially negotiations between the United States and the military junta and the government of Aristide in exile, the United States was really the power, and this is not surprising. On the other hand, there were tensions, as I've said, between, for instance, Brazil, Chile at different times in the United States. How do you deal, for instance, in the second, in particular in the second period, with the slums in Haiti, where you had a lot of gangs, and the Brazilians didn't know exactly how to deal with it. There was an attempt, ultimately, to use significant force to, quote, unquote, pacify the area. And it was a very uneasy relationship. But we can understand, ultimately, those multilateral interventions without looking at the period of the Cold War and the immediate departure of Duvalier. Duvalier was clearly not liked by the US, but as we like to say, he was from the American perspective, our son of a bitch, to put it crudely. And this was the Cold War, you had Cuba, so you needed to put up with him. And Duvalier knew that. When Jean-Claude arrived, there was a period of liberalization, if you wish, but it led to eventually the self-destruction of the regime, corruption was rampant, and the regime fell on its own face. Then you had the period of the military. And here again, the US was critical. The military were trained by the United States. So you have a heavy involvement of the United States during that whole period. We cannot look at the contemporary actually, the history of Haiti, without looking at the significant power of the United States in the internal affairs of Haiti. It's impossible to understand Haiti without looking at that. Sometimes it helped. Sometimes it really was very destructive. And some of the programs in particular in the 1990s and after the earthquake were not helpful. They led to the destruction of the Haitian state. They didn't improve the political system, and they didn't solve the issues of corruption. And eventually they fed a very unhealthy dependence on the part of the Haitian political class vis-à-vis the United States. And we see it now. I mean, everything that is decided in Haiti now has to be decided in conjunction with the US and the different US missions to Haiti. I mean, since the assassination of Rodelmoise, we've had seven missions of the United States to try to reach a compromise. There was one, two days ago, but it's not resolving anything. And so multilateralism in the context of Haiti is really American power in my mind. Thank you. And of course, a part of this series of interventions has been a legitimating narrative, one that paints Haiti as a failed or failing state, as a place of chaos and violence and disruption. And, Millery, you've written about these narratives, how international media and other portrayals of Haiti feed into these types of policy responses. I wonder if you could tell us a little bit more about that, as well as telling us how Haitians have tried to counteract that and where they may have been successful in presenting a more holistic or accurate picture of the country. Yeah, I think in terms of starting with the Haitians, I mean, there's sort of several ways to examine these portrayals that you're talking about. You have, from a Haitian perspective, you have, in terms of looking at complicated Haitian life, they often do that within a very much a three-dimensional lens, you know, from the comedic, the historic, sexual, religious, economic and political dimensions, although Haiti could do a lot more with regards to the LGBTQ plus community in terms of portrayals there. But I think about the important films of Raoul Peck that has brought about important examinations of not only Haitian life, but also U.S. Haiti relations, the films of Arnold Antonin, and even just recently important film about sort of Haitian migration or potential migration by Jessica Jean-Euse, this new film that was premiered at a con called Frida. So definitely important films that have been coming out, particularly films that have been coming out that speak to sort of a complicated three-dimensional Haitian life that looks at Haitian life through a very particular historical context too. But as you said, there's this history of Haitian representation, particularly in the U.S., by the wide American press, media, for the most part, from filmmakers to evangelicals, to continue to show sort of this bare life of one side display of violence and chaos, and you cannot despair, filled with poor migrants, cinematic zombies, the rational sort of religious fervor, a historical sort of desperatism, and there are ways in which that's sort of the white angle American media for the most part. Then you have on the other side, African-Americans who oftentimes tend to still live in sort of this 1804 moment of sort of radical abolitionism, and that's often their first go-to when thinking about or referencing the country and sort of in the black media. And so even there you have, even within the black church, black Protestants still don't have very much an educated grasp, in my opinion, on Haitian religion and voodoo and still mock and discourage it and many times in church services. So you have these portrayals and ways in which Haitians have tried to counteract it has been, you find a lot within the Haitian diaspora within the U.S., who are doing their part, whether it be through the sort of the cultural realm, whether it be through song and through film, through art, and Haitians within Haiti, something quite similar through film, through the cultural realm. And so those actions are very important in this sort of movement to paint Haiti anew so that, because oftentimes you can see the ways in which these disparaging images or narratives that continue to repeat those same old lines about what Haiti is within the hemisphere has this larger impact upon within the world of aid and assistance and U.S. foreign policies. And that's actually a very nice segue to our audience questions which are beginning to come in. And so I'll shift to some of those. The very first of which is about the assassination of President Moise last July and asking for each of you to comment on the U.S. government's position on the crisis, as well as how Haitians are processing the assassination, the ensuing investigation and the political uncertainty that stems from it. Perhaps we'll keep going in the same order and start with Robert and go to Miller. Yeah, well, the assassination of President Moise was a shock to all Haitians. On the other hand, Moise was not a popular president. At the time of the assassination, he was quite unpopular. He was perceived as very corrupt. He was perceived as becoming increasingly authoritarian. There was the issue of the length of his term as president. He extended it by a year against the constitutional order. So there was a lot that was really extremely negative about Moise. But the assassination, on the other hand, was absolutely shocking to Haiti. The last president who had been assassinated was the fellow that I mentioned before, Ion Sam, and that was more than 100 years ago. He was killed in his own house, in his own bedroom. So far, it's not at all clear who were the intellectual architect of the assassination. We have a very peculiar combination of Colombian military, Haitian Americans, people who work with the drug administration in the United States, and then we have clearly Haitians themselves in the security apparatus of Jovenel Moise. So far, we can't establish really the clear path in terms of who are the individual responsible for engineering that assassination. We know a few things that supposedly the Colombians were going to initially try to capture Moise and then use some kind of order from a Supreme Court just saying that he was no longer president.  And we don't know exactly why and how. Some people talk about drug money, others talk about the very wealthy Haitians who might have been angered by Moise's decisions about electricity and who was going to control it about gas and oil. So we don't really know. Now, in the aftermath of his assassination, and again, here you can see the influence of the international community because the prime minister who was at that time, the prime minister, was supposed to exit the position because Jovenel Moise had just announced, nominated, that Ariel Arie was going to be the next prime minister. But immediately after the death of Jovenel, the international community said, no, no, no, no, the prime minister is going to be Claude Joseph. And that created a lot of problems for Joseph himself. And eventually two days afterwards, they said, no, no, no, you have to quit. And Ariel Arie became prime minister. The whole thing lack any type of legitimacy. And this is one of the fundamental problems that Haitians are facing now. The current government is not legitimate. The opposition is deeply divided but has no legitimate power either. And we have significant interventions from the foreign community, from the Canadians, the French, and obviously from the U.S. And the problem is that we can't get a compromise between the different factions. And at the same time, the U.S. wants to be neutral, but it is really giving legitimacy to Ariel Arie as prime minister. So we have that tension. So the situation is really reaching a point of an impasse. And the security situation in Haiti is now a disaster. You've had the proliferation of gangs. The country is, to some extent, cut from power points. If you want to go from power points to the south of the country, you have to literally drive through the gang areas. And that is extremely difficult. Kidnappings have become extremely significant in the situation in the country now. And the economy is obviously falling apart. And we've had those natural disasters that exacerbated the economic and political situation. And we are facing food insecurity for probably something like 40 percent of the population. So we are at a moment of extreme crisis. Probably the most acute crisis since the departure of Jean-Claude Duvalier in 1986, or the earthquake of 2010. Millery, would you share some thoughts? I mean, Robert has said a lot that it's really important and really has outlined some of the major issues that are going on right now. I doubt that we will actually find out who has murdered President Jovenel Moïse. And so that is just so disconcerting and problematic. In terms of that investigation, the sort of dilemma, this conundrum that the state is in with regards to and its relationship to the United States is whether or not how much can the U.S. actually say or do within at this particular moment becomes a really interesting and important sort of issue right now. Because in some ways it's about, you know, we need to find a sort of this sustainable path that can emerge to address insecurity, whether it be, you know, physical insecurity or, you know, food insecurities in the country. Thinking about, okay, what's an appropriate sort of timetable, electoral timetable that that could happen? And in what ways should the U.S., how much should they say? And when they do say something, oftentimes the Haitian state officials will go along with that. And then it just becomes sort of that the Haitian state is sort of seen as in the back pocket of the United States. And, you know, thinking about constitutional reform and ways, what are the ways in which the United States can play a role in providing what maybe another way to look at is what are the ways in which the Haitian state can adequately provide for its people. But we felt we know at this moment that it is very, very, very difficult for them to do so. And so what are the ways in which they can reach out to the international community to help with that? And so these are some of the major issues that have sort of risen, happened before Moise's death, but it will continue as we try to find a resolution to that investigation, but also to who will become the next president, because that election cycle, that electoral timetable needs to happen. And there's a sort of vicious cycle that both of you are describing in which Haiti is incompletely sovereign, therefore its government lacks legitimacy. As a result of its lack of legitimacy, the international community gives assistance through NGOs rather than through the government leading to the so-called NGO Republic. I wonder if you have thoughts on strategies that, and this relates to one of the audience questions, strategies that the international community can use to strengthen local governance capacity in Haiti, be that through the formal sector or be that through non-governmental organizations. What went wrong, especially in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake and what ways of providing international assistance might be more conducive to eventual full exercise of sovereignty in Haiti? Maybe we'll start with you, Ronald. Go ahead. Just to switch it up a little bit is that this is going to be a very long process in terms of this thinking about strategies and thinking about what needs to happen next for helping Haitian people in addition to sort of building, say, stronger transnational networks. One thing that needs to happen is sort of this consistent and transparent diplomatic relations and what's happening with regards to US-H Haiti relations, whether it be our US ministers and consuls to Haiti and who represents American interests and making sure that that is transparent and making sure that is consistent. It's very important to produce educated travelers and students and state officials, people who are reading important academic literature to discuss the relevance of Haiti and Caribbean and Latin American history in our own US history in schools. It's important to not underestimate the power of sort of buttressing local, as you mentioned, sort of the local and national aims and projects in order for us to be open to extend oneself to sort of on egalitarian terms. If asymmetrical sort of power relations already exist, then an effective US Haiti relations or projects seem to be sort of doomed to fail or not live up to its potential because it's not sustainable if it lives on that sort of asymmetrical sort of foundation that exists. And so as I mentioned, so this is going to be a very, very long process. So many things need to happen. And as I mentioned, you know, this electoral timetable is one important piece and, you know, if something similar to maybe an El Salvador which you have, sort of this young charismatic leader that doesn't scare the business elite, can please the United States, someone who can do many different things, not scaring the business elite in Haiti, you know, it's palatable to the United States, but also has a focus on the Haitian people and their services, that's going to be important. I mean, there's so many different things could be from the decentralization of power in Port-au-Prince as Robert sort of alluded to earlier to the emphasis on agricultural production. So all these things sort of need to happen, but it's going to take, it's a decades long project. Thank you. Yeah, I think that Maria has pointed out several really important issues. One that I would emphasize is the rural sector, agriculture. The country used to be essentially autonomous in terms, for instance, of rice production, of sugar, and that disappeared. And it disappeared not because there were crisis in those sectors, although there were, but they were not the main reasons why those sectors collapsed. Those were the result of policies of the World Bank of USAID. In other words, they were telling the Haitian government, why don't you open up your economy completely, and you'll import rice which is cheaper, and that will be much better. The problem is that once you did that, the rice sector collapsed. And with the collapse of the rice sector, people in the rural areas had no means of livelihood. So what did they do? They moved to the different towns and eventually to either K-patient or to Port-au-Prince. And what we have now are mega slums in Port-au-Prince. If you go to Port-au-Prince, you have slums downtown, even in the areas that used to be considered the privileged areas in Pétionville. If you look at the hills, it's really essentially a slum that was repainted in very colorful ways by the government of Maltélie to hide the fact that those were actually slums. There is no electricity, no running water, no clinics, very poorly equipped schools. So this is a real problem. One has to really rethink those issues. And this is a very, this is something that is beyond really the control, to put it broadly, of Haiti. Because this is under the control of the World Bank, the IMF and the major Western powers, who have its path, the neoliberal idea. On the other hand, they don't do what they preach, because Haitian, I mean, U.S. rise is subsidizing the United States. The agricultural sector is really subsidizing the European community, but they tell other countries like Haiti, don't do that, it's bad. Well, you can't. If you do that, you're exposing yourself to the destruction of your local production. And with all of the negative consequences that this entails, slums and growing poverty, and obviously that causes the pattern of migration towards the United States or towards Canada, or even towards some better off Caribbean countries. And that is unsustainable in the short, medium and long term. So some really very hard decisions are to be made. Otherwise, I don't see how we can extricate ourselves from the current crisis. And that's the same thing with the political system. What we are seeing now is really a repeat of the last 40 years, elections that are not legitimate, then the opposition is in the streets, the government in power starts to collapse, and we have massive disorder. So it's like a catch-22. The policies have been bad, and they've led to bad results. But in a weird way, we are continuing the same policies, expecting a different result. And that is very unlikely. Right. And there's been a rising sense of criticism within the diplomatic ranks recently of these policies that haven't yielded strong results. The most public was the resignation of Ambassador Daniel Ford. And my colleague, Ambassador Susan Page, has a question, which is, maybe we can start with Millery. What should we read into the apparent dismissal or disregard within the Biden administration for the advice of some people like Ambassador Ford, who have extended experience with Haiti? If the administration isn't taking advice of people who have spent a lot of time around the country, in what way should that trouble us? What might be really driving U.S. policy in that case? No, it's a great question. Many ways. I mean, this shows the difficulties. I always go back to think about Trader Douglas. It's sort of the difficult position that Douglas was in and trying to talk to those in power in Washington about Haiti dealing with his own feelings about the country and where he wanted, where he believed it should be what it represented to Haitian people. But in terms of the Biden administration, I think it's problematic and obviously problematic, but it reaches down to a sort of fundamental understanding about policy or U.S. foreign policy that is built upon this notion of extractivism. And that policy, maybe there are ways to get around it, but we see ways in which, as Robert just mentioned with regards to Clinton's policy on rice and whether it be to democratically elected officials, if we think about the private sector in terms of the current situation with gold mining in Haiti and many sort of mining companies who are in Haiti and we know that the leadership, for the most part, they're not creating a new generation of engineers and thought leaders who are working on this issue in which there's a possibility where the billions of dollars of resources beyond gold will be extracted out of the country. And this goes on to think about sugar and to labor, labor situations which labor is being extracted or brain drain. And so that's the hill, the obstacle that we're fighting against is a policy, a relationship that's been rooted in this notion of we must take and we must extract from a nation so that that regenerates or that builds, not using the right attitude, but that impacts, that just replicates many different problems and traumas within the nation. Robert, maybe if I could ask you another question from the audience. One of our listeners asked, can you speak about the relationship between the Dominican Republic and Hades in what way is that a relationship of interdependence, in what ways it is a conflictual or antagonistic relationship? It's a very complicated relationship. I mean, if you read the news in the last few weeks, you'll have found out that the Dominican Republic is actually building a wall between the Dominican Republic and Hades. And that is essentially the result of the pattern of migration of Haitians going to the Dominican Republic. And then you had also the Supreme Court of the Dominican Republic saying that Asians who had migrated some 50, 60 years ago who were born in the Dominican Republic were not actually part of the Dominican Republic and they had to be expelled from the Dominican Republic. So we've had seen that too. So you have a conflictual relationship. On the other hand, whether the Dominican Republic likes it or not, they need cheap labor. And the Haitians, unfortunately, provide that cheap labor because the Dominican Republic has a booming tourist industry. It's a much more advanced economy than the one in Haiti. So Haitians migrate where they can to find a better life. So you have that conflict. And you also have an issue of race. Many of the Dominican people have an idea that they are not black, that they are closer to the Hispanic world. And that dates back from Trujillo, the former dictator. And at that time, there was what was called la Matenza. La Matenza was when Trujillo essentially killed thousands of Haitians who were working on the plantations in the Dominican Republic. But that form of racism persists. Now there have been, on the other hand, movements between civil society organizations of women, of workers, trying to bridge the gap. And there was some of that during the earthquake, immediately after the earthquake. A lot of Dominicans went to Haiti in order to help. On the other hand, the Dominican Republic really, to put it crudely, benefited economically from the earthquake because a lot of the imports that went to Haiti came from the Dominican Republic. So we have tensions between those two nations. And they date back even further when Haiti had the Dominican Republic under its control. And eventually the Dominicans got their independence. So there is a historic reason for that tension. And the unequal economic development has also aggravated that tension. On the other hand, a lot of fairly wealthy Haitians have moved to the Dominican Republic, in other words, and they are accepted because they tend to be light-skinned. They have money and they're investing in the Dominican economy. So it's not all Haitians who are not welcome. Some Haitians are quite welcome and they have businesses there. So there is inevitably some form of economic interdependence at the top and at the bottom. And not surprising me, those at the bottom are usually those who suffer the consequences, unfortunately. Thank you. The next audience question also connects history to the present. And I'll ask this one of Millery. Given Haiti's status as the first free black republic, in what ways does its revolutionary history and spirit influence culture and society today? Influence culture and society today? Well, I'm going to have to work through this. I mean, I think when I think about today, I think about education. But what I found and what I guess what I said earlier was that because of the strong academic research that has been going on for the past, I don't know, 30 or so years, 20 to 30 years that's been building on Haitian revolutionary studies, people have become much more educated about that history and how important it was from my son learning in his class, but I didn't believe that he would. But thankfully, he has a great, really good teacher who talks about the ways in which Haiti resonates within US history during the colonial era and beyond, from Haitians fighting in the Battle of Savannah to the role of Haiti and its independence in the Louisiana Purchase. And so you see ways in which people, once the earthquake happened in 2010, the various different groups of people from entrepreneurs to politicians to church going church going folks, everyone was referencing the revolution as a reason to participate in assistance in aid. And oftentimes I'm saying that this was, you know, we need to help because Haiti helped us at one moment in time. So what's fascinating is the ways in which people are reflecting back on this importance or 13-year war that resonates in terms of these ideas of liberty and freedom and freedom to govern, but also a sense of pride and blackness. It's gotten to a point where I've been I've been hearing a bit more about people wanting to learn Haitian Creole because it's seen as a revolutionary language. So you may have heard about Duolingo just recently having Haitian Creole as part of its list of languages. And so more and more people are wanting to participate in that. So it really goes from to art and music of the say of the 50s and 60s within jazz in which people have referenced Haiti from Charles Megas and others to Max Roach to Jacob Lawrence of the 30s and his revolutionary Haitian paintings all the way up to today in which people are advocating to remember these importance of cultural symbols, whether it be from Souk Jumu, the Haitian soup of January 1st, that has been a topic of conversation in different parts of the country and people don't want to mess with that in terms of how it's prepared and how it's talked about and so films have been made, documentary films have been made that all sort of link and reflect upon this particular moment of Haitian revolutionary history and you see ways in which it still sort of lingers today. Thank you. We've got time for about two more questions and we've got two more good ones from the audience that I hope you'll each be willing to comment on maybe starting again with you, Millery. The next question is what's the biggest misconception that you see here in the United States about Haiti that you try to address through your teaching and research? The biggest misconception. I mean there's so many. I would probably say the biggest misconception about Haiti and I'm curious to hear what Robert has to say but it has to be for me has to be the ways in which people understand the religion Haitian will do and the way that's been portrayed within the media and so that's an important piece to my teaching and we see the the early sort of representations of of of Haiti of Haiti of Haiti and link to religion and religious fervor and the proliferation depiction of Haitians within zombie films and horror films and that what that does on the psyche of those people who care for those those types of films I think is is is is incredible and how people have taken this trope of the zombie or this trope of or this this idea of of worship and being a practitioner of this religion as something inherently negative or as something as othered or uncivilized and for me working through that through the important work of Haitian scholars who don't work on voodoo and anthropologists anthropologists and literary figures to open up a space in which we talk about these connections between West Africa and the Caribbean elements and retentions within the U.S. South to open up the space in which we can talk about the the evolution and development of this religion and its relationship to Catholicism is is really important so for me working through that is really important great thank you Robert well to put it bluntly I think it's ignorance in other words they don't know much about Haiti they have opinions that are derived from fantasy to a large degree so I think ignorance is a very significant problem it's not just Haiti frankly it's a lot of countries unfortunately I like to to tell today to Americans and they probably don't know that but I always repeat it if you look at the expansion of the United States you know the Louisiana purchase which doubled the territorial area of Haiti to a large extent it's a result of 1804 because 1804 destroyed Napoleon's army which was supposed to go just there to control those territories and they rather the great irony is that the person who benefited from that was none other than Thomas Jefferson you know and I'm at the university it's a very paradoxical thing but Jefferson you know used Haiti and called it the Republic of cannibals on the other hand what might have been his greatest diplomatic accomplishment was exactly that the Louisiana purchase and it's very much connected to the Haitian revolution so there is that kind of ignorance and when I say that the people usually look at me what the heck is going on here and it is a very real phenomenon the other issues are obviously that Haiti is a completely failed state which to a large degree it's true one should not have fantasies about the nature of the political system in Haiti or about the really pervasive nature of poverty in the country but when you transform that as the only thing that the country is it's really problematic and then it it engenders those kinds of missionary conceptions that well we need to help them but they don't know how to help themselves so that precipitates all kinds of unhealthy policies and unhealthy relationships you know I was reading actually a fairly recently a report by what you call it the government one of the government authorities that that look at the expenses of the US in foreign assistance and it was published last April from 2010 to 2021 the US spent 3.7 percent of its foreign assistance on organizations that were controlled by Haitians and that's in Haiti when you have that disconnect between you know foreign assistance and the realities of the country it's not surprising that we have ultimately failed policies so one need to really know a little bit more before dispensing judgment on certain issues and on many countries and I think that this is a real problem even the way we talk about Haiti in the press or our public officials you know Haiti is the backyard and actually President Biden upgraded us he called it the front yard I don't know if that is really of great significance but it gives you to some extent an idea of the mentality informing public policies thank you one more question and this comes from Dominique Adam Santos to whom I'm grateful for for organizing the series she like others in the audience are very interested in learning more from your work and she'd just like to hear a little bit more about what you're working on currently and what we can look forward to in your latest research maybe millery you could start by telling us a few of the themes you're examining at the present and then we'll close out with Dr. Patton well I am working on a lot of different things right now I guess one that is connected to to Haiti I'm very much interested in an aviation and and airports and the establishment development of airports within the Caribbean and West Africa and trying to look at this this this idea notion of infrastructure and the politics of infrastructure and when how airports get named and what ways have they been used the roads that that lead to these airports and what are the the sort of the social political life of economic life of businesses that um are have sort of have sort of lined the streets that leads the airport if anyone's been to whether it be to um to put a plan or to other parts like Caribbean or West Africa um you know there's this it's it's this fascinating world of once you step out of the airport and you go down these roads and you and you see sort of the life that um that exists there the informal economy what have you uh that that look that that that exists it it says a lot about this sort of central piece of infrastructure that um has for for some people has has aided the nation and other at other times it's been sort of quite problematic in terms of how the airport's been used but this world of aviation is fascinating to me and and I find that for West Africans and Caribbean people um you know once once the um the invention of the airplane and aviation came to many of these places it it became an event in which people you know like to take their pictures in front of airplanes and so it's this conversation about modernity and aviation and black life that uh hopefully I can get off the ground at some point great and Robert what do we have to look forward to from your research well I just published a book on exceptionalism in an attempt to compare ancient and American except well you have to and it and it is kind I think it is kind of controversial because what I seek to do is to demystify both American exceptionalism and Haitian exceptionalism and my argument is that ultimately exceptionalisms are narratives that are used by those who run the show the rulers to hide all kinds of really pretty nasty things so I've just done that and I'm now working on the COVID pandemic because I was struck by the fact that if you look at sub-Saharan Africa you look at Haiti some of the poorest quote-unquote nations in the world well the death rate is significantly I mean significantly lower than in the United States or in Western Europe and they don't have the infrastructure they don't have the health system and they were unable because of their own economic situation to have any significant lockdown and this is a fascinating thing and they haven't been vaccinated either I mean in Haiti I think it's less than 1% in sub-Saharan Africa it's less than 2% and yet very few people have died compared to what has happened in the industrialized countries and the question is why because when COVID started the assumption was that we would have a completely catastrophic death rate in the third world that has not happened and there are certain things that explain that one is the use of the population in sub-Saharan Africa and in Africa this is one of the key elements the other is obesity and obesity accounts with age for something like 60% of death and the population in sub-Saharan Africa is extremely young and in Haiti is extremely young and then you've had all kinds of other diseases tropical diseases that have that might have contributed in one way or another and we don't really know to tame you know the that beast of COVID so I'm just really looking at this and it's a fascinating thing because my expectation when it started is that the calamity was going the calamity was going to happen in Haiti I had visions of literally hundreds of thousands of people dead in the streets because we don't have the hospitals and that has not happened we don't wear masks I mean in the middle of COVID last year patients were dancing in carnival and they are dancing and nobody's dying what the heck is it's a very paradoxical situation and maybe we can learn something from you know what what happens in those countries as compared to what what has happened in the industrialized countries and perhaps there were policies that that we are not aware of that might have helped significantly to that to that fact sounds like a fascinating bundle of studies that you're both working on we thank you very much millery Pauline Robert Fatton for sharing your insights with us today for the audience next week at the same time on March 17th at 4 p.m. we will close out this series with a conversation about transnational advocacy and the global BLM movement for now thanks for joining us thanks again to our speakers and we hope you have a good night thank you so much thank you