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Haiti: enslaved by its dark history
The Telegraph ^ | 1/14/2008 | Ian Thomson

Posted on 01/14/2010 4:45:31 PM PST by bruinbirdman

For 200 years the Caribbean nation has suffered from natural disasters and violent rulers

By any standards, Haiti represents a very great concentration of misery and dashed hopes. In January 1804 – a key date in the history of a bedevilled country – the African slaves overthrew their French masters and declared the world’s first black republic. Haiti became an emblem of slavery’s longed-for abolition. And the slave leader, Toussaint L’Ouverture, was hailed by William Wordsworth, among other Romantics, as a “morning star” of the Americas.

Since independence, however, emperors, kings and presidents-for-life have misruled the Caribbean nation through violence and theft of public funds. The constitution is made of paper, they say, but the bayonet is made of steel.

In January 2004, I returned to Haiti for the first time in 13 years. Preparations were under way for the independence bicentenary, but no one felt much like celebrating. The capital, Port-au-Prince, looked even more dilapidated and the streets round Toussaint L’Ouverture airport appeared to have degenerated into a slum.

Familiar smells of drainage and burning rubbish hit me as I made my way to the Hotel Oloffson, a gingerbread mansion disguised as the “Hotel Trianon” in Graham Greene’s novel The Comedians. Laughably, a room had been named after me as the author of a book on Haiti, but I was unable to stay in it as the ceiling had warped dangerously.

By some fluke, the Hotel Oloffson survived Tuesday’s earthquake, but the National Palace nearby collapsed. A more graphic image of municipal chaos would be hard to imagine: the heart of Haiti’s national and civic life has been reduced to rubble.

Now more than ever, the motto of the Haitian republic, “L’Union Fait la Force” (Strength Through Union) seems a grim joke. For two centuries since

(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: caribbean; earthquake; haiti; haitianearthquake; haitiearthquake; haitiquake; haitiquake2010; portauprince; voodoo
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To: PowderMonkey
"I've spent time in both places. The Domincans were smart enough to wall themselves off from the Haitians early on."

How do the Dominicans keep the Haitians out? Is there a mountain range or what? Seems like they would all come flooding over.

41 posted on 01/14/2010 7:12:25 PM PST by UnwashedPeasant (Don't nuke me, bro)
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To: bruinbirdman
Haiti has indulged itself in one superstitious enthusiasm after another throughout its history, its recent dip into the waters of Aristide's socialist hokum being quite as ignorant and bloodthirsty as anything that ever came from Voudon. Put a bowler hat on a bust of Karl Marx and they'd be leaving rum and cigars at its foot; in short, behaving not one whit differently from their brethren on any Western campus.

But this is, after all, a 7.0 earthquake, and there isn't a city anywhere on the planet that wouldn't have been crushed. Turning Port-au-Prince into Copenhagen isn't what we're there for. Anyone expecting that outcome has been nipping at Baron Samedi's rum. We can dig them out of the rubble but they're going to have to dig themselves out of the enervating muck that hatred has made of their country over the past two centuries - hatred of the white, hatred of their neighbors, hatred of one another. It can't be given to them, not even under the auspices of disaster relief. They have to build it for themselves.

42 posted on 01/14/2010 7:39:49 PM PST by Billthedrill
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To: aSeattleConservative
Could Pat Robertson be right?

Nope. Look at which demographic group has the highest rate of church attendence and which professions have the highest percentage of non-believers. I'm sure the scientists are being smited all over the place, while the churchgoing ghetto dwellers are being rewarded...

43 posted on 01/14/2010 7:43:02 PM PST by Clemenza (Remember our Korean War Veterans)
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To: MissEdie

DR is also populated predominantly by folks of African descent, but because they have some white blood, they don’t consider themselves black. A Dominican may look like Will Smith, but “black” to him is the illegal Haitian begging in the streets.


44 posted on 01/14/2010 7:44:19 PM PST by Clemenza (Remember our Korean War Veterans)
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To: UnwashedPeasant

DR has had a large problem with illegal Haitians for years. This is why so many “Dominicans” these days have French last names. Trujillo (a child-molesting letch and self-hating Halfrican) tried to rectify the situation by well, machine gunning the Haitian squatters (something I don’t support by any means), which led to him getting toppled with the help of the Kennedy Administration.


45 posted on 01/14/2010 7:46:49 PM PST by Clemenza (Remember our Korean War Veterans)
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To: UnwashedPeasant; PowderMonkey

DR has had a large problem with illegal Haitians for years. This is why so many “Dominicans” these days have French last names. Trujillo (a child-molesting letch and self-hating Halfrican) tried to rectify the situation by well, machine gunning the Haitian squatters (something I don’t support by any means), which led to him getting toppled with the help of the Kennedy Administration.


46 posted on 01/14/2010 7:47:11 PM PST by Clemenza (Remember our Korean War Veterans)
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To: aSeattleConservative

In his own inartful way—yes.


47 posted on 01/14/2010 7:47:52 PM PST by rabidralph ("Precedenting" is a lot tougher than community organizing.)
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To: Clemenza
"Look at which demographic group has the highest rate of church attendence..."

Ummmm...people of decency?

"...which professions have the highest percentage of non-believers."

Don't tell me...it's coming to me (aSeattleConservative raises his hand with an answer)

Abortionists, drag queens, pornographers, drug addicts, alcoholics.

48 posted on 01/14/2010 8:02:17 PM PST by aSeattleConservative
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To: rabidralph

Art is in the eye of the beholder. Anyone that can make the libs clench their jaws so much that they have permanent TMJ, is ok in my book.


49 posted on 01/14/2010 8:04:50 PM PST by aSeattleConservative
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar
Anyone remember that under the Clinton administration, in order for Clinton to get American black political support for his assault rifle ban he had to promise $$$ to Haiti.

I do. Thanks for bringing that up.

I sat alert for a massive air armada invasion fleet that was literally turned around in mid-air when Jimmy Carter (working as a stooge for Clinton) convinced the Haitians to change leadership. Then, we all flew in there anyway, and spent billions upon billions.

I was appalled at the corruption, dirt, and violence there, but then again - it was better than Somalia (Somalia was the worst).

I flew many more missions in the C-141 back into there. I vividly remember one where we were preparing for a visit by VP Al Gore.

The taxiways at the airport literally had pineapples lining them, everything had been rebuilt and painted, and the airport looked almost brand new - a sharp contrast from a few months earlier.

Soon after wards, the country fell back into crap.

50 posted on 01/15/2010 3:00:10 AM PST by SkyPilot
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To: dglang
I believe that the Dominican Republic is largely Catholic and therefore somewhat if not mostly Christian. There is some occult influence there, but haiti is mostly Occultic or Santanna in religion. Any nation where God is honored will be honored and protected by God. Where God is rejected, God has NO obligation to protect that nation or it’s peoples. God would have spared Sodom and Gommorah if there weer ten righteous people there. If there were enough righteous Godly people in Haiti, He would have protected and spared it as well.

I believe in a literal devil, God, and demons as well. I won't go into it, but let's just say "personal experience" with a family member gives me special insight into demonic terror.

You're right - God not only brings judgment down on individuals, but on Nations. This fact is repeated in scripture, time and time and time again.

It is a terrible thing what has happened, and I am praying for these people. But those who so easily discount what Robertson said have no idea what they are talking about. Evil is real, and it is manifest.

The nation of Haiti has indulged in the worst kind of occult and satantic practices for hundreds of years.

If you invite evil in and open the door, it comes rushing in. Play a Ouija board, fool around with tarot cards, conduct a seance - and you are asking for trouble.

Voodoo is satanic, and overtly so.

51 posted on 01/15/2010 3:08:58 AM PST by SkyPilot
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To: SkyPilot
I could tell you stories about "personal experience" while assigned to Haiti that would make your hair stand on end. Suffice it to say, I too came to believe in a literal Devil after seeing his handiwork and shaking his hand in places like Rwanda, Liberia, Kosovo, the Congo, Angola, Sri Lanka...all the while, Mick Jagger's song "Sympathy for the Devil" played in my head:

Please allow me to introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste
I've been around for a long, long year
Stole many a man's soul and faith
And I was 'round when Jesus Christ
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Pilate
Washed his hands and sealed his fate
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game
I stuck around St. Petersburg
When I saw it was a time for a change
Killed the Czar and his ministers
Anastasia screamed in vain
I rode a tank
Held a general's rank
When the Blitzkrieg raged
And the bodies stank
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name, oh yeah
Ah, what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, oh yeah


Now I understand...
52 posted on 01/15/2010 4:19:50 AM PST by PowderMonkey (Will work for ammo.)
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To: SkyPilot
You're right - God not only brings judgment down on individuals, but on Nations. This fact is repeated in scripture, time and time and time again.

True, but... how would Pat know if Haiti is cursed? How could anyone know?

And what about this?

What about those eighteen people who were killed when the tower at Siloam fell on them? Do you think they were worse offenders than all the other people living in Jerusalem?
-Jesus

53 posted on 01/15/2010 4:34:03 AM PST by St_Thomas_Aquinas
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To: dglang
Santeria's NOT Voodoo.

They have similar roots, but very different practice, and practitioners of the two cults simply LOATHE each other.

( I lived in Haiti for a summer back in the mid 60s, during the reign of Papa Doc Duvalier )

54 posted on 01/15/2010 4:42:06 AM PST by AnAmericanMother (Ministrix of ye Chasse, TTGC Ladies' Auxiliary (recess appointment))
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