Cuban Women
I’ve held off writing in the hopes
that you would publish a second
issue about women in Latin Amer-
ica. You left out so much in your
first issue [July/August, 1993]. For instance, why did you not talk about Cuban women? Is it part of your new editorial direction to
leave out political pariahs in order
to be more acceptable to the main-
stream?
Conservative ideologies relegate women to “sainted motherhood,” whereas leftist ideology has always attempted to address women’s issues. Cuba is the first
and only place in Latin America
where abortion is legal, free, and available to all who want it. The
Cuban Constitution also requires
equal pay for equal work, and stip- ulates that household duties must
be shared evenly by husband and wife. While equal rights in the
home might only exist on paper, the fact that they were ever even
discussed or put down in writing is
miraculous to me.
Regrettably, the current embargo on Cuba has ricocheted back on
Cuban women in particularly nasty
ways. Many have been forced to
revert to old ways. If the Cubans in Miami come back to Cuba in force, what will happen to the
rights of Cuban women?
Louisa Rocha
Norfolk, England
Haiti
im Ives’ “The Unmaking of a
resident” [January/February, 1994] is an insightful overview of the post-coup era in Haiti. I dis-
agree, however, with his views on
two closely related aspects of the
crisis: I) the question of U.S./U.N.
military intervention, which he
characterizes as a goal of U.S. poli-
cy; and b) the purported “surren-
der” of President Aristide to “bour-
geois” forces in Haiti and the U.S. government, both of which, he
claims, support military interven- tion and deal-making with coup
leaders instead of revolution by the
popular sector. Ives portrays Aristide as unwill-
ing to commit to either of his two
supposed alternatives”U.S. mili-
tary intervention or popular revo-
lution.” He makes Aristide out to
be naive, easily manipulated and even a dissembler. “On November
9 [1993], Aristide himself seems to have finally cast aside all pre-
tense as to the option he favors,”
Ives writes. “When asked.. .if he
was finally ready to call openly for
foreign military intervention, he responded ‘I am sure that the Hait-
ian people would be happy to be
rid of the criminals, but if I ask for an intervention, I will be con-
demned by the Constitution.”
That is hardly a powerful call to
arms. Only recently, with the col- lapse of the Governors Island
accord and in the face of ongoing
killing and repression, has Aristide
for the first time seemed inclined
to consider military options. What
alternative action would Ives urge upon Aristide? Ives speaks of
“popular revolution” and “calling on the Haitian masses to defend their nascent revolution after the coup,” and he criticizes Aristide
for “never taking the offensive in
the streets and mountains.” These
are rousing sentiments. Aristide’ s
religious background might, how- ever, incline him to try peaceful
options before sacrificing the lives
of his countrymen. Moreover, Ives should consider that Aristide, no
stranger to the clout of the Haitian
military, might believe that a “pop- ular revolution” by unarmed Hait- ian civilians could leave untold thousands dead, quite in vain.
Then, to be sure, we could count on U.S. military intervention to take over affairs on the grounds
that Aristide was, as the CIA has
told us all along, “violence-prone”
and attached to “mob rule.”
Ives’ other pointthat the Unit-
ed States was looking around for an excuse to intervene militarily conforms to no reality that I’m aware of, When our government
wants to intervene militarily, it is
not constrained by considerations
of humanity, public opinion, or intemational law, much less by lack of provocation. Given such past
adventures in Grenada and Panama,
or Clinton’s attacks on civilians in
Somalia and Iraq, can we seriously
conclude that the lack of U.S. mili- tary intervention in Haiti is any-
thing but an indication that the gov-
ernment has no desire to intervene?
The introduction to the NACLA
report states that the issue of inter- vention has “divided the U.S. Left,” but none of the articles
defends the interventionist stance. Of course, people in the Third World have good reason to view
military intervention by the First
World with suspicion. And in light of the fact that embargoes and negotiations to date have been
inadequate, direct intervention at
this moment would be misguided.
But given U.S. culpability in creat-
ing, financing and arming the
forces currently decimating Haiti, nonintervention should not be an
absolutist position. If the gradual extermination of an unarmed opposition in Haiti continues, those on the Left should not be afraid to demand an appropriate
application of international force.
John Watson
Carlsbad, CA
Kim Ives responds:
John Watson’s letter is quite
contradictory. First, he dismisses
the strategy of mobilizing the Hait- ian masses as likely to provoke a U.S. military intervention and
denounces the U.S. government for
making bloody forays into other countries “barely constrained by elementary considerations of
humanity, public opinion, or inter- national law.” In the next breath,
he calls for, if need be, an “appro-
priate application of international force” to restore democracy in
Haiti. While noting “U.S. culpabil-
ity in creating, financing, and arm-
ing the forces currently decimating Haiti,” he would call on the United States to intervene to oust those
forces.
Watson justifies military inter- vention because the Haitian people are “unarmed.” Come on. How
many revolutions begin well armed? The uprising gets its weapons from the enemy. In the Haitian revolution of 1804, the
slaves not only had to find arms;
they had to cast off chains as well.
Watson has no faith in the people,
saying they would be sacrificed “in
vain.” He would have them defeat-
ed before they have begun.
It is illogical to think that the U.S. government, which has worked
hard to get and keep Aristide out of
power, would use military interven-
tion to restore him as anything more
than a figurehead to preempt a pop-
ular uprising. Such a restoration,
which was the goal of “internation-
alists” in the State Department who
championed the project of a dis-
guised U.N. peacekeeping force, would be the worst of all possible
scenarios. Should he go along with
it, Aristide, the symbol of Haiti’s
“Second Independence,” would jus- tify and collaborate in Haiti’s sec-
ond occupation. Let’s be clear. Since the Soviet
Union imploded, the United States
has been on an unfettered rampage
to co-opt or crush all resistance and independence movements in the
Third World. Certain “internation- alist” sectors of the U.S. bour-
geoisie would like to make the Un- ited Nations the New World
Order’s policeman. If Watson and others allow themselves to be
duped by the new “intervention-
ism,” they are simply making the struggle of the Haitian people, and people the world over, that much
more difficult.
The autonomous, organic organi- zation and mobilization of the
Haitian people through their bud-
ding popular organizations is the only solution to the crisis in
Haiti today. Let us argue how best to achieve and support this, not
about the possible merits of foreign
military intervention. Let us learn
from Mogadishu and Chiapas. Let
the Haitian people forge their own
history.
Menu
