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Volume 14, No. 19, 15 May 2015 |
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Red Alert Lessons of horror: Two and more other superpowers are guilty of untold stories of human atrocities and suffering |
By Justice Piitso
The history of the struggle of the people of Cuba and Haiti is the history of the struggle of the people of the world. We must never underestimate the role of the enemy against our revolution.
More than ever before one is much confident that during our lifetime humanity shall witness the total destruction of imperialism and neo-colonialism. One is confident that through our struggle of solidarity and internationalism humanity shall triumph over adversity.
Throughout the history of our struggle, humanity has always found itself having to confront the most difficult circumstances in the mist of the hostile world economic and social power relations. Our task therefore is not only to interpret the world - but to change it.
We therefore need from time to time give a deeper analysis of the unfolding world events and how they impact on our present day society and we can change them. The history of the struggles of the people of Cuba and Haiti is the history of the struggle of the people of the world to achieve change.
On Monday the President of the Republic of France, Francois Hollande, led an entourage during a rare historic visit to the Republic of Cuba. This was the first ever official visit by a French head of state to Havana in history since the year 1898.
In an unprecedented move, the following day, as part of its tour to the Caribbean Islands, he also visited the Republic of Haiti. This was the first historic official visit by a French head of state - since the declaration of the independence of the Slave Republic in 1804.
Surely the remains of the revolutionary leader Jose Marti, the father of the Cuban nation, will reverberate from the grave upon hearing that after a century and seventeen years, President Francois Hollande has paid an official visit to our Commander-in-Chief of the Cuban revolution, Comrade Fidel Castro.
The bones of the revolutionary leader, Comrade Toussaint L' Ouvereture, will reverberate from the grave upon hearing that after two centuries - that is since the declaration of the independence of the Republic of Haiti, French President Francois Hollande is walking on the dusty pavements in his homeland after French colonialism was dislodged in that land.
After meeting the Commander-in-Chief of the revolution in Havana, the visiting head of state, President Hollande, proudly confessed to the world that: "I had in front of me a man who had made history". At Port au Prince, Republic of Haiti, he unashamedly whispered to President Martelly: "We can't change history, but we can change the future".
These are the hypocritical words of the head of state of one of the most powerful world imperialist superpowers. A head of state of a colonial power which has over the years inflicted much pain to the lives of the millions of our suffering people in the former colonies and semi-colonies.
The historic visit by the French President to the Republic of Cuba and Haiti is a sequence that follow the announcement by the President of the USA, Barrack Obama, to resume diplomatic relations with the Republic of Cuba. Over the years the hostile diplomatic relations between the two nation states have been at the centre stage of the international political arena.
Cold diplomatic relations between the two countries escalated immediately after the triumph of the Cuban revolution in 1959. The state to state diplomatic relations ceased to exist immediately after the declaration of the socialist character of the Cuban revolution in 1961.
This was after the heroic people of Cuba defeated the US sponsored mercenaries who wanted to invade the revolution during the battle of Playa Giron. This was the first ever military defeat of the US super-power in Latin America.
The humiliation of US imperialism during the battle of Playa Giron led to the US administration imposing unilateral economic blockade against the human people of Cuba. It was an attempt to undermine the unity of the revolution of the first socialist state in the American hemisphere.
During the eighteenth century, a heroic revolutionary slave leader, Toussaint L'Ouverture, led an insurrection that saw the liberation of St Dominique, now Haiti, from French colonial oppression and exploitation. The victory saw the declaration of the first ever independent slave Republic in history of humanity in 1804.
The declaration of the first slave Republic prompted the French colonial empire to impose an international trade embargo against the newly independent state of Haiti. For over twenty years French warships surrounded the Island virtually making it impossible to make trade with other countries.
As a result of the mounting economic pressure, Haiti was forced to pay an "independence debt" as a compensation to the French colonial masters, for the loss of land and slaves during the revolution. Haiti is the only country in the world which was forced to pay excessive amounts of reparations to its former colonial master.
This shameful arrangement took Haiti one hundred and twenty two years to pay the ransom to France and over ten of millions more in interests to French banks. The people of Haiti had to pay ransom to France for their own freedom and dignity.
The payment of the debt had a devastating effect to the economy and the living conditions of the people of Haiti. Over the years the French colonial power harvested the revenue of the poor Island (i.e. made poor mainly by France) at the expense of its education, healthcare, social development and general economic infrastructure.
The hardships and sufferings by the people of Cuba and Haiti in the hands of imperialism and neo-colonial powers is a lesson to the world revolutionary movement. The history of the suffering people of the world is the history of struggle against imperialism and colonial domination.
These lessons of horror by imperialist forces remind us of the revolutionary words of wisdom from Vladimir Lenin when he says: "the advanced, most civilized and 'democratic' countries armed to the teeth and enjoying undivided military sway over the whole world, are mortally afraid of the ideological infection coming from a ruined, starving, backward, and even, as they assert, semi-savage country".
Historical materialism points out that capitalism is unable to resolve its own contradictions. It always produces its own grave diggers which are the suffering people of the world.
Imperialism exacerbates ethnic chauvinism, narrow nationalism and religious antagonism. It breeds extreme reactionary and obscurantist forces and in many instances support repressive and fascist regimes.
By its very nature, capitalism generates and intensifies mass unemployment and poverty and wars.
The ongoing conflicts across the world are a living testimony.
Two superpowers are guilty of untold stories of human atrocities and sufferings which they have to take responsibility of. The only truth is that both the US and the French administrations must take responsibility for the subjugation of the Cuban and the Haitian people respectively.
The question we need to ask ourselves is what is it that the imperialist powers seek to achieve with the Cuban and the Haitian revolution. What we know is that over the years they have proven themselves to be the most unreliable in the cause of the struggles of the people of the world.
If we dare to underestimate the strength of the enemy, the Cuban revolution will forever pay the debt for having declared the first socialist revolution at the doorstep of the American empire. The Haitian revolution will forever pay the debt for having declared the first ever independent slave Republic in the history of humanity.
We can think about the future but not forget about the past. Human solidarity and internationalism is the only weapon to salvage the poor of the world from the bondage of imperialism and neo-colonialism.
" Cde Justice Piitso is former Provincial Secretary of the SACP in Limpopo, former Ambassador to Cuba, and writes in personal capacity.
Umsebenzi Online is an online voice of the South African Working class
