France Accepts Haitian Refugees

Eric Besson, Minister of Immigration, Integration and National Identity has decided to implement an exceptional set of temporary measures to bring victims of the earthquake into France. The article from François Desouche uses information from OFII (Bureau of Immigration and Integration) as the source:

These measures include:

- An easing of the terms for family reunification. Nearly 80,000 Haitian nationals reside in France and have family members affected by the catastrophe in Haiti.

- Facilities coordinated for the issuing of visas for visits to the families.

- Visas and residence authorizations issued on humanitarian grounds to victims whose health requires specialized treatment in France.

"France's response must rise to the level of her republican traditions of welcome, solidarity and humanity, and to the profound historic and cultural ties she maintains with the Haitian people. In such terrifying and painful circumstances, all of our efforts must be focused on helping the Haitians," Eric Besson concluded.

Without in any way denying that the people must be helped, one cannot but wonder if these "temporary" measures will really be temporary after all. Here are a few comments from FDS readers:

- "Profound historic and cultural ties", well, let's see. Eric Besson should review his French history. Haiti, the pearl of the Antilles, was the first black republic in History, following the independence gained after a major struggle with France. But this independence was obtained in bloody battle, and we must not forget that the former slaves massacred all the white colonists who were not able to flee in time - men, women, old people and children. So much for strong historic ties...

- It's completely logical. Every international event is a pretext for more immigration. Besson, with the consent of the Sarkozy government, has been told to implement Attali's plan, the goal of which is to increase immigration to 2 million newcomers per year in France. If we combine legal immigration, illegal immigration, refugees and asylum seekers, plus the new births, by the end of 2010, we should come close to one million new arrivals.

Note: Whatever one may think of the egregious Jacques Attali, he is not responsible for this situation. Blaming him is like blaming the waitress for bad food. The buck stops with Sarkozy. He needs to justify his actions with the name of some Socialist crony of Mitterand, in order not to be held completely accountable for actions that emanate from his will alone.

- Half of the island has a cousin, an aunt, a brother... living in France. Impossible to prove, but we are not far from that. We'll have 5 million more parasites ("crevards"). A few Cubans will journey here as well, I guess. The shops that sell machetes will be sold out.

- Two Haitian women that I met a few months ago told me how opinions have changed there: France has become the scapegoat for all the miseries of the world. These two persons were pregnant, on French soil, and already had a young child being raised in awful conditions that were contrary to all the advice given them by pediatricians. I remember also the last flood there (I think it was 2003). The Blue Berets were impeded in their work by street gangs and guerilla movements hostile to the development of the island. This morning on the news we saw aggressive women and professional wailers: "What is the international community doing, etc...". And again it's our fault! Sometimes it would be better to just let them cope for themselves...

Note: For some readers it's OUR fault:

- The only thing that can save Haiti is to put an end to the rampant corruption caused by the United States. What a bunch of two-faced s.o.b's.

The reader then links to an article by one Louis Prefontaine that enumerates the evils we have committed in Haiti. Among them:

- We occupied the island for 20 years and abolished the article in the Constitution that forbade foreigners from having businesses on the island.

- We (along with France) supported Duvalier.

- We (along with France and Canada) overthrew Aristide in 2004 and replaced him with a neo-liberal economist Gérard Latortue.

It was not God who destroyed Haiti. It was men. (...) Sending a few dollars to Haiti is fine, but it won't change the way the system functions. Nobody opposes charity, but you don't build a society with it. You could bury Haiti beneath a thousand billion trillion dollars and the problem would not be resolved. Haiti is the failure of a country without a strong centralized State, corrupt to the core, and dispossessed of itself by ideological choices made by foreign countries. (...) You can add these tens of thousands of dead to the tragic record of unbridled capitalism; they are less visible than the victims of "communism" but just as dead! Maybe this is what it means to have God on your side.

Note: I will not take the time to argue with his ideas, but when he says that all the money in the world won't help, he has said a mouthful, though he cannot acknowledge all the implications of his words.

One FDS reader actually believes the island IS cursed:

- I know that some readers will laugh, but when you play around with the forces of evil you never know what you will reap. It's very dangerous - I would not laugh at the televangelist's words. I have been convinced for quite some time that Haiti was a cursed land.

She posts a link to a French-language article about Pat Robertson's "stupid" remark that Haiti was being punished for its pact with the devil that rid the island of the French presence.

Over at the website Herodote (registration required), devoted to the history of all countries, the comments are much more toned down and nearly all reject the notion of a curse. They do blame outside powers. Here is one example:

- The "curses" of Haiti are those of a very bad example of a successful slave revolt that immediately attracted the "punishments" of France, the colonial power of the island. An ultra-Protestant preacher (I assume he means Pat Robertson) even mentioned a pact with the devil. The United States saw in this revolt a dangerous example for the abolitionists of the Civil War and later around 1917-1920 a disturbance for Latin America. Canada saw a profitable source of qualified French-speaking intellectuals.

A very cursory look at the history of the island seems to indicate that the only moments of relative stability were when some outside power, including the United States, was in charge. As soon as the outside power departed, Haiti returned to its "demons". Nonetheless, it is a given in today's climate that social and economic problems among American blacks, Africans and Maghrebins are blamed on colonialism, slavery long abolished or foreign intervention of years past.

Illustration at top shows Columbus and the original Amerindian population, known as Tainos. The illustration below shows Jean-Jacques Dessalines being crowned "Emperor" Jacques the First in 1804, after the death of Toussaint Louverture. According to Herodote, this coronation was a "pitiful" imitation of Napoleon. Jacques' excesses resulted in an insurrection and he was killed in an ambush in 1806. It was the "beginning of a battle for influence between the mulatto minority and the black majority".