Capitalism in the Caribbean - Part 3 (1962)

From the August 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 2.

The First World War gave the West Indies sugar industry a real fillip, but the slumps which followed caused the sugar owners to amalgamate and look for ways of cutting costs—as always, their first thought was to lower wages. Sugar workers were forced to form trade unions to resist the attempts of the sugar owners to depress their already very low standard of living and in 1935 the sugar workers of Antigua went on strike.

Trade unions had already been formed in other industries, notably the oil industry in Trinidad. Blood was shed during riots in the oilfields in 1937. The Trinidad oilworkers’ union is strong and well-disciplined: a well-planned strike in 1960 forced some notable concessions from the oil companies in the face of a recession in the oil industry.

There were disorders in other islands, and governments soon realised that it was wise to encourage rather than to hinder the formation of trade unions. To meet the challenge, both from their workers and from rival capitalist groups in other parts of the world, West Indian capitalists joined together in strong amalgamations. Thus were formed the various cane-growers associations, the Banana Producers’ Association of Jamaica, the Trinidad and Tobago Co-operative Citrus Growers’ Association, etc.

West Indian leaders on the economic field eventually became political leaders: men like Bradshaw in St. Kitts, Bird in Antigua, Grantley Adams in Barbados, Bustamante and Manley in Jamaica, and Tubal Uriah “Buzz” Butler (who was behind the 1937 oilfield riots) in Trinidad. Economic struggles, therefore, formed the basis for political struggles, fought mainly on a racial platform with special emphasis on anti-colonialism. These political movements were supported by the utterances of men like Marcus Garvey (a Negro from Jamaica who served his apprenticeship with Booker T. Washington) who eloquently and powerfully advocated during the thirties a Negro “Back to Africa” movement.

Through the energetic action of politicians such as Bustamante, Manley, and Marryshow of Grenada the British Government conceded constitutional reforms, culminating in the formation of the West Indies Federation in 1958. This meant full internal self-government based on universal suffrage in certain islands, the British Government retaining control of defence.

The identification of trade unions with newly emerged governments is fraught with danger for the West Indian working class. During the recent Trinidad elections, for example, one or two quite large trade-unions held demonstration marches in support of Dr. Williams’ Peoples’ National Movement party. It may be. however that West Indian workers are too politically sophisticated to be completely taken in by demagogic politicians to the point of surrendering trade union and political advantages won after so many years of struggle.

The wind of change has blown through the West Indies as it has through the African continent; the eagerness with which the Colonial Office has fanned this wind in the British Caribbean towards the formation of the West Indies Federation indicates that the British ruling class would rather deal with a single West Indian Government than with several. But West Indians have apparently proved to be too nationalistic. In a referendum held towards the end of 1961, Jamaica seceded from the Federation, and thus set off the collapse which quickly followed. Now, a looser federation of eight of the islands, including Barbados and the Leeward and Windward Islands, is in prospect. The present tendency is for unit governments (at least in the British islands and British Guiana) to try to go it alone. Political leaders in the larger islands such as Jamaica and Trinidad, the only really economically viable island in the Federation, are reluctant for sizeable proportions of taxes realised in their islands to be utilised by a Federal Government to assist the poorer, smaller, islands’ economy, when the money could be used in development projects in their own countries.

Whatever the ultimate outcome, whether it be in terms of a host of small units trying to go it alone or of varying degrees of federation, the problems of the West Indian worker wherever he is will be basically the same as those of his fellows in other parts of the world. He is, unfortunately, no more seized with the ideas of Socialism than his counterparts elsewhere, but sooner or later he will find that these ideas are the only ones worth considering in his search for an end to his present poverty and insecurity and for a better and happier future.

Michael La Touche

                                                                               (Concluded)

Capitalism in the Caribbean - Part 2 (1962)

From the July 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1.

The economy of the West Indies underwent a transformation following the abolition of slavery—from a primitive form of capitalism with many feudal features to full capitalism based on wage labour.

With the loss of its tied labour force, the plantation system of agriculture broke down, and the sugar owners faced quick ruin. It was to prevent this sudden loss of their labourers that the sugar plantocracy in many islands introduced a transitory state between slavery and wage-labour—“apprenticeship”. Under slavery, of course, no wages were paid, the slave being kept by his owner and encouraged to grow his own food. Until the sugar owners could buy the labour-power of the “free'’ workers the ex-slaves were “apprenticed” to the estates. They had to work for their former owners for about three-quarters of the week without pay, and from their earnings for the remaining quarter they were able to buy their “freedom" when their apprenticeship ended.

In their efforts to reduce the cost of producing the sugar the owners were forced to introduce labour-saving machines; this became even more necessary in face of competition from sugar planters in other parts of the world, notably the East Indies and the U.S.A., and the introduction of beet-sugar farming in Europe and the U.S.A. To make matters worse for the West Indian sugar owners the British Government drastically cut the subsidy which it had long paid for West Indian sugar when it became apparent that cheaper sources of sugar were available elsewhere. In addition, West Indian cotton and tobacco were virtually eliminated from the world's markets during the middle of the nineteenth century by improved farming in the southern states of America and Eli Whitney's cotton saw-gin.

To combat the twin capitalist problems of the rising cost of labour-power and the falling price of sugar, the West Indian sugar owners were forced to re-organise their industry; apart from introducing mechanisation, absentee ownership was discouraged, immigration (especially of European skilled artisans) encouraged, and serious attempts were made to build up an adequate, dependable, labour force.

In the islands with a long history of slavery, like Barbados, Antigua, and St. Kitts, there was an adequate supply of labour-power but in fast developing countries with little history of slavery (especially Trinidad and British Guiana) the shortage of labourers was acute. To these two countries, therefore, came regular shiploads of peasants from Madeira and India—indentured labourers who signed contracts or bonds to work on the estates as “free" workers. The workers from Madeira did not measure up to the exacting working conditions on the sugar estates in the tropics, but the Indians were quite at home. These “East Indians" were largely responsible for the agricultural wealth of Trinidad and British Guiana, and now number about half the population of Trinidad.

Although sugar-cane farming is the “monoculture" of the West Indies, other agricultural crops in different islands are important sources of profit for sections of the owning class. The (American) United Fruit Co., of which Elders and Fyffes are a subsidiary company, usually lakes about half of Jamaica's large banana crop. Citrus fruit, coffee, and cocoa are also grown on a considerable scale in certain islands. Grenadian planters enjoy a virtual monopoly of the spice trade in the West Indies.

Timber was, and is, the main industry in British Honduras. Timber, including hard woods, is also grown in Jamaica. Trinidad and British Guiana. The tourist industry, catering mainly for vacationing Americans, has developed considerably especially in Jamaica and is now a major source of profit for hotel and shop keepers; on the Jamaican north coast prices are quoted first in U.S. dollars. Trinidad is unique among the West Indian territories in having two important mineral deposits. The famous Pitch Lake, discovered in Raleigh's day, is the only source of natural asphalt in the world; despite competition from synthetic pitches produced during the refinery of oil. profits of the Trinidad Lake Asphalt Co. still assure a comfortable income for its shareholders.

In addition, oil was found in Trinidad towards the end of the nineteenth century. Although production has increased phenomenally since then, Trinidad's contribution towards the world's total oil production is less than half of one per cent; and because of the unsatisfactory geological formation of the oil-bearing layers, the cost of producing oil in Trinidad is among the highest in the world. However, its geographical position plus its stable government gives its oil industry a special importance in the eyes of British and American capitalists. After the second world war, American capitalism entered the Trinidad oil industry by acquiring a large field and the largest refinery. To prevent further American economic invasion, British Petroleum (half-owned by the British Government on behalf of the British capitalist class) recently took over three “independent" oilfields.

The bauxite industry (in Jamaica and British Guiana) is an important recent addition to West Indian capitalism.

As capitalism improved its methods of production in the Caribbean, so also it improved its methods of administration, to control the growing working class and to assure profits for the owners. In British territories, Crown Colony government superseded the inefficient and self-interested rule of the sugar plantocracy. Crown Colony government which has lasted, with few modifications, until the present time of the “wind of change", was largely responsible for the introduction of organised health services, thereby virtually eliminating the two killing diseases cholera and yellow fever and providing a reasonably fit working class. It also built a greatly improved transport system, the British mode of law-making and enforcement and a rudimentary educational system.

The French islands had always been closely tied to France, the colonial assemblies (which were instituted in 1787) being only advisory in character. Following emancipation, attempts to decentralise the islands' administration were abandoned, and Martinique and Guadeloupe became departments of metropolitan France, which they are today.

The development of capitalism in the larger islands of Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico is inextricably bound up with the interests of United States capitalism: capital investment, trading rights, and military bases for the defence of the Panama Canal.

After abolition in the British islands, the British Government pressed for the end of slavery in Cuba, whose sugar was underselling Jamaican sugar. The United States opposed British intervention, and later took the opportunity to gain firm control of Cuban affairs by a decisive and speedy military victory. The excuse for this was the loss of American property in the Cuban civil war of 1895 and the sinking of the American warship Maine in Havana harbour. Although American forces withdrew in 1902, American governors had effectively made Cuba a "friendly" country, and the establishment of the naval base at Guantanamo left no doubts about United States interest in the island.

Despite the oft-stated “principle" of the American State Department in the "self-determination and self-government of small nations”, Cuba has never been free of the intervention of American capitalism, political and military. U.S. naval forces were sent to Cuba in 1912 to protect American property during a Negro revolt, and the U.S. marines were sent in 1917 by President Wilson, also “to protect American lives and property". This touching concern for Cuban affairs apparently paid off. because as a result of the boom in sugar after the first world war a greatly increased concentration of wealth fell into the hands of American capitalists.

The growth of Cuban nationalism brought, first, the dictatorial regime of Machado, then in 1933-4 the left-wing government of Batista. With a history of strong left-wing parties (Cuba is the only country in the Caribbean with a Communist Party of any influence, thought to be a result of Spanish immigration during the 1920's), Cuba was the natural birthplace of Fidel Castro and his followers who seized power in 1958 and have ruled the island since then with all the trappings of a police state.

The Dominican Republic and Haiti have been of minor importance to the United States, both as markets and sources of capital, and any American interference there has been largely because of the islands strategic value. Both states of the island of Hispaniola have developed with dictatorial governments, and are at an uneasy peace with each other. Haiti is economically poor: the country is governed by a mulatto élite and the rest of the population are illiterate Negro peasants. The Dominican Republic, which is largely populated by descendants of Spanish settlers, is richer by virtue of sugar farming and the modest influx of American capital. The dictatorial regime of General Trujillo, which had ruled the country with no pretences of democracy for almost thirty years recently lost its iron control and the Trujillos were deposed. It is still loo early to say whether more democratic institutions for ruling the working-class will emerge; in the meantime the country has been "de-Trujillo-ised ” to the extent of the capital of Ciudad Trujillo being renamed Santo Domingo, the name given it by Columbus.

After centuries of Spanish rule, Puerto Rico was ceded to the United States in 1898 by the Treaty of Paris. America wished to gain control of the island (especially the fort of San Juan), not so much for her own use, but to prevent this strategic outpost failing into the hands of rival imperialist gangs. The sugar industry in Puerto Rico attracted American capital, and within a few years three or four American Corporations gained control of the industry and acquired more than half of the land suitable for cane growing. Although nominally American citizens. Puerto Rican workers soon discovered that, despite housing schemes, improved medical services, etc., they extracted little benefit from possessing American passports. It has been estimated that the average per capita income in Puerto Rico is less than one-fourth of that in the United States. In an attempt to relieve unemployment, the Puerto Rican government has encouraged emigration to the U.S.A., where, especially in New York, Puerto Rican immigrants meet similar problems that West Indian immigrants encounter in Great Britain.

No account of American capitalism's interference in the Caribbean would be complete without reference to the military bases in various West Indian islands granted to the United States during the early stages of World War Two by the British Government in return for fifty-odd old destroyers. The destroyers have all gone (some were reported to have sunk on their first Atlantic crossing), but the bases remain. They are a constant source of annoyance to West Indian politicians. especially Dr. Eric Williams. Premier of Trinidad and Tobago, who has apparently dedicated himself to the task of wresting the naval base of Chaguaramas in north-west Trinidad from the American Government.

Michael La Touche

(To be concluded)

World View: We have been here before (2001)

From the September 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

A look at what lies behind the recent protest and police killings in Jamaica

Jamaica, with a population of just over 2.5 million, has witnessed 550 murders and 75 killings by the police between January and the end of June this year. At least 40 people have died in the last three months.

The recent spate of killings began on Saturday evening, 7 July, after police searched homes for guns in the Tivoli Gardens district of Kingston. The police said that their officers came under attack from snipers and people throwing homemade bombs. Initially, two policemen were said to have been killed. On Monday, the Prime Minister, PJ Patterson, the leader of the People’s National Party, announced that he was calling out the whole of the island’s army, adding that he might seek reinforcements from neighbouring countries.

Troops in trucks and armoured cars, backed by helicopter gunships overhead, patrolled the streets of mainly the Tivoli Gardens and Denham Town, impoverished areas of west Kingston, strongholds of the opposition Labour Party, led by Edward Seaga, the local MP for almost 40 years. Within three days at least 20 people had been killed and 30 injured. Protesters blocked the roads with burned-out cars, while gunmen strafed some streets with automatic weapons. The violence, however, also spread to other areas.

Politics of violence

Patterson said that “the government cannot stand by and allow criminal elements to hold the country to ransom”. He denied that the confrontations were politically motivated. But Seaga, the leader of the Labour Party, said that the trouble had been deliberately instigated by Patterson and the People’s National Party in advance of next year’s planned elections. “This is a ploy to turn popular opinion against us,” he said. The Labour Party currently has a large lead in the opinion polls.

The police commissioner, Francis Forbes, denied any political motivation for the raids in west Kingston. And he hinted that the attacks on the police has been centrally organised. “There’s someone there who can turn it off,” he said. That there are criminal gangs, and that drugs are involved, no one denies. But, as Julian Borger observed in the Guardian (11 July), “Jamaica’s political parties have fought a proxy civil war through street gangs” over the past 30 years, adding that “gang violence is epidemic in Kingston, now one of the most violent cities in the world”. The Times (11 July) commented that “Jamaica’s two main political parties are blamed for helping to set up and arm rival gangs 30 years ago in poor neighbourhoods of Kingston”. Indeed, Patterson’s predecessor, Michael Manley, turned the Jamaican political system during the 1980 election into a low-level civil war, in which more than 700 people were killed. But the People’s National Party and the Jamaica Labour Party have not been the only villains of the piece.

American involvement

During the 1972 election campaign the United States ambassador, Vincent de Roulet, warned Manley not to make the US-owned bauxite industry a nationalisation issue, otherwise he would “oblige” the opposition Labour Party to take up the issue. Manley kept quiet. He had, however, upset the American government by supporting the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), which the United States government was attempting to destroy, and had established diplomatic relations with Cuba and the Soviet Union.

In December 1975 US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, arrived in Jamaica to “suggest” that unless Manley change his policies Jamaica’s request for a $100 million trade credit “would be reviewed”. The Jamaican Prime Minister chose not to toe the Kissinger line, and continued to support the Cuban army presence in Angola. The Americans moved into action. By 1976, prior to the election in Jamaica, the CIA station chief in Kingston, Norman Descoteaux, drew up a destabilisation programme. Covert shipments of arms were sent to the Jamaica Labour Party. In one shipment alone, which was aborted by the Manley government, there were 500 submachine guns. Pro-Labour gangs began to use such tactics as arson, bombing and assassinations. And a wave of strikes in the transport, electrical and telephone industries hit the island, provoked largely by the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD), the CIA’s principle labour “front” in Latin America and the Caribbean. The AIFLD also provided covert financial support the Labour Party, as well as infiltrating the Jamaican government’s security service.

Propagandists also arrived from the United States, including evangelists and faith healers, preaching against the “evils of communism”. Locally, the Daily Gleaner poured out a stream of anti-Manley propaganda, who, in the October 1980 elections, was defeated mainly due to the continuing deterioration in the standard of living of the workers, but, in no short measure, due to the intervention by the United States.

Problems for the Jamaican working class did not, however, begin in 1980 or 1975. Writing in 1969 (World Socialism 69), George Dolphy, a member of the then Kingston socialist group, stated that while 20,000 kids leave school every year, it was estimated that there were 150,000 unemployed on the island. Factories were closing, and the sugar industry, one of the chief users of labour, was in decline. Moreover, an emerging Black Power movement was preaching violence, particularly against “Chinese and people of a fair complexion”. He concluded: “The situation in undeveloped countries like Jamaica is tense, changing, and difficult to forecast. One thing is certain: their development need not be a transition period as often believed, but can be a permanent state. Looking around, the task that faces a socialist seems overwhelming. With communication so advanced, however, who can tell how people will react to events throughout the developed world? The restriction and waste of capitalism will become obvious to them. Spreading socialist knowledge may not be so difficult after this.”

In Jamaica, as elsewhere? We hope so.

Peter E. Newell

The Plundering of Haiti (1945)

From the October 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Haiti was, on the eve of the French Revolution, the richest of all European colonies, for it accounted for no less than two-thirds of the overseas trade of France. Its wealth, drawn from its plantations of sugar, cotton and coffee, was derived from the merciless exploitation of half a million slaves. This island has always reeked of cruelty. The Spaniards exterminated a million natives before they had recourse to the African slave trade. The French were able organisers, but they, too, relied on the lash and reckoned that it paid them to work a negro to death in seven years." 

—H. N. Brailsford, Observer, June 17th, 1945.

Material World: A forlorn and forgotten nation (2022)

The Material World Column from the September 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

Once described as the ‘Pearl of the Caribbean’ and known as being the world’s first black ex-slave republic, Haiti is now the poorest country in the western hemisphere. According to the World Bank , in 2020 Haiti had a GDP per capita of US$2,925, the lowest in the Latin American and Caribbean region, less than a fifth of the average of US$15,092.

Nearly half of the 11.4m population is food insecure including 1.3 million who are facing the UN’s level 4 classification. Level 5 is the worst level of hunger classification – famine. Resources for humanitarian aid are running out in Haiti and the World Food Program is already facing a shortage of at least US$39 million in funding for Haiti operations.

The country is also enduring political instability following the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse compounded by a devastating earthquake that followed in August.

News media in 2021 showed US Border Patrol guards on horseback whipping Haitians desperate to enter the United States via Mexico and many migrants and asylum seekers have been flown back to Haiti despite having nothing to return to. At the time, it led to the resignation of a senior career diplomat, Daniel Foote, who was the US special envoy for Haiti, in protest over the deportations which he described as ‘inhumane’.

It is a policy that has persisted. The USA in the first seven months of this year forcefully repatriated more than 20,000 Haitians compared to 19,629 for all of 2021, according to statistics from the United Nations’ International Office for Migration.

The numbers of people desperate to flee by attempting the dangerous sea journey to the United States have increased significantly and many have drowned. The US Coast Guard’s website notes that migrants intercepted at sea can be returned to their country of origin ‘without the costly processes required if they had successfully entered the United States.’

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, herself of Haitian origin, said recently, ’I’ve known this president for a very long time. This is very personal to him. He cares about the people…’ (aol.it/3Qru4lW).

One as young as she may not be blamed for not knowing that back in 1994 when Biden was a senator, he said, ‘If Haiti just quietly sunk into the Caribbean or rose up 300 feet, it wouldn’t matter a whole lot in terms of our interest.’

Gang warfare between rival factions, mainly the G9, G-Pèp and the 400 Mawozo in Cité Soleil, an impoverished and densely crowded shanty-town of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, has left many people dead. Outside the urban areas Kokorat San Ras control the highways, extorting and ransoming trucks and buses with impunity, forcing aid agencies to rely on expensive air transport for their supplies.

At least 155 kidnappings took place in the month of June, compared to 118 in May, according to a report released by the Center for Analysis and Research in Human Rights. Families have no alternative but to remain trapped inside their homes, unable to go and fetch food or water.

According to the UN, between 8 and 17 July 2022, over 471 people were killed, injured or unaccounted for. Around 3,000 people have also fled their homes, including hundreds of unaccompanied children, while at least 140 houses have been destroyed or burnt down.

Mumuza Muhindo, head of the local Doctors Without Borders, said, ‘It’s a real battlefield. It’s impossible to estimate how many people have been killed’ (bit.ly/3zJRo7M).

Restricted access to basic health, nutrition and water and sanitation services as a result of escalating violence, coupled with soaring food prices, inflation and food insecurity in Cité Soleil, leave one in five children suffering from acute malnutrition, and one in 20 children living in Cité Soleil at risk of dying.

‘We cannot sit idly by and watch children suffer from malnutrition and its complications,’ said Bruno Maes, UNICEF Haiti Representative (uni.cf/3Jz6OzW).

But that is exactly what is happening.

Haiti’s ruling class are indifferent and do not have a sense of belonging to Haiti, says Leslie Voltaire, a prominent Haitian. ‘They don’t care, because it’s not their country, they have houses in Santo Domingo, Miami, every weekend they go to Miami to buy their things and come back’ (Link).

Some small good news is that the UN Security Council belatedly voted to ban the sale of small arms and ammunition to what it calls ‘non-state actors’ in Haiti.

ALJO

The Haitian Tragedy (2010)

From the April 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Haiti spent more, in 2008 servicing the country’s debts than it did on health, education and the environment.

In our February issue (Haiti—an un-natural disaster) we noted that the earthquake in Haiti, and similar disasters, are presented as unavoidable disasters; and that, to some extent, this is true. But we stated that it is not a coincidence that the number of victims is clearly related to the degree of their poverty. This was true regarding the Asian tsunami and the Katrina hurricane in New Orleans.

Seumas Milne also says (Guardian, 21 January) that “It is uncontested that poverty is the main cause of the horrific death toll: the product of teeming shacks, and the absence of health and public infrastructure.” In his view, this is the direct consequence of an uniquely brutal relationship with the outside world—notably the US, France and Britain, stretching back centuries. There is some truth in this, although not all Haitians were, or are, poor.

Says Milne:

  Punished for the success of its uprising against slavery and self-proclaimed first black republic of 1804 with invasion, blockade and a crushing burden of debt reparations, only finally paid off in 1947, Haiti was occupied by the US between the wars and squeezed mercilessly by multiple creditors.

For decades, the US backed the dictatorships of the Duvaliers. Just 30 years ago Haiti was self-sufficient in its staple of rice. In the mid-1990s, however, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forced it to slash tariffs, and the US dumped its subsidised surpluses on Haiti. Most of the peasant farmers were forced out of business, squatted in Port-au-Prince, and many will have died in the earthquake. The United States also imposed lending conditions on the country, forcing the government to privatise the already minimal health, education and public services, and cut back the minimum wage.

The Duvalier Dictatorships and the CIA

From 1957 to 1971 Haiti was ruled by François “Papa Doc” Duvalier and, following his death, by his son, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc”, both “anointed” “President for Life”. The US trained and armed Haiti’s counter-insurgency force, although much American military aid was covertly channelled through Israel.

After “Baby Doc” was forced into exile to France in February 1986 (in a US Air Force jet), the United States continued, now quite openly, military aid, supplying the Haitian Army with trucks, communications gear etc. in order “to maintain order”. Between the departure of “Baby Doc” and the date scheduled for elections in November 1987, the administrations were responsible for the deaths of more civilians than “Baby Doc” managed in 15 years of dictatorship. Meanwhile, the CIA managed to “spring” from prison two of Duvalier’s notorious police chiefs, and send them into exile, saving them from certain execution.

Haiti has never had a mass, reformist working-class party. In 1930 two “intellectuals”, Max Hudicourt and Jacques Roumain, attempted to form a communist party, but it was largely stillborn. In 1946 a clergyman by the name of Félix d’Orléans Juste Constant, founded the Parti Communiste d’Haiti (PCH). It too disbanded the following year. Shortly after a rival quasi-communist party, the Parti Socialiste Populaire (PSP), was founded. It disintegrated rapidly by 1949. But in 1959 Roger Gaillard, a former member of the PSP, founded the Parti Populaire de Libération Nationale (PPLN), which claimed to be a mass, nationwide organisation; it was badly weakened by police harassment and repression by 1965. It was basically reformist, with much in common with Fidel Castro’s 26 July movement.

Aristide the Priest

At the time of “Baby Doc”’s flight to France, there was one man who did have a mass following, particularly in Port-au-Prince. He was Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a Catholic priest and advocate of “liberation theology”; but looked upon by opponents, both in Haiti and in America, as a revolutionary, but in fact a populist reformer. He denounced the upcoming military-dominated elections, and urged his followers to boycott the elections, saying “The army is our first enemy.” He was condemned by the Vatican.

The elections were scheduled for the 29 November 1987—the CIA funded a number of candidates. In the event, the elections were postponed ostensibly because of unrest and violence in the country. According to William Blum in Killing Hope, “…the candidate favored by the military government was declared the winner in balloting widely perceived as rigged”. Writing in 1994, Blum continued:

  There followed more than two years of regular political violence, coup attempts and repression, casting off the vestiges of the Duvalier dictatorship, and establishing a new one, until, in March 1990, the current military dictator, General Prosper April, was forced by widespread protests to abdicate, and was forced by a civilian government of sorts, but with the military still calling the shots. (p. 371)

Pressured by the United States, the Haitian government called an election later in the year. Reluctantly, Aristide became a candidate of a coalition of reformist organisations. Despite intimidation, Aristide was victorious with 67.5 percent of the vote. He took office in February 1991, after a coup attempt against him failed in January.

And so Jean-Bertrand Aristide became President of Haiti.

But he did not even get any reformist legislation enacted by Parliament. Nevertheless, the military was much concerned by the arrest of a number of para-military thugs, his policies against drug smuggling, and his attempts to depoliticise the army. Aristide was, however, not anti-business. He encouraged American capitalists, and to please the IMF, he fired 2,000 government workers.

It was all to no avail. In less than 8 months, on 29 September 1991, Aristide was successfully deposed by a military coup, in which hundreds of his supporters were massacred and thousands fled to the Dominican Republic. He was saved from being murdered by the French ambassador. The new military dictatorship was largely supported by the local bourgeoisie. And the Vatican immediately recognised the government. The Bush Sr administration unofficially gave its blessing. Haiti was back to “normal”.

Aristide’s Return

In the summer of 1993 the United Nations mediated talks between Aristide, living in exile in Washington, and the Haitian military government; the leader of the junta, General Cédras, would step down by October, and Aristide would return as president. But October came and went without the military permitting Aristide to return. Indeed, they stepped up their repression of his supporters, including the assassination of his justice minister, Guy Malary. Meanwhile, the CIA spread rumours in Haiti that Aristide was mentally ill. It was not true.

An organisation of American States (OAS) human rights team accused the Haitian military regime of “murder, rape, kidnapping, detention and torture in a systematic campaign” to terrorise all those Haitians wanting a return to democracy. Amnesty International reported the same. The Clinton administration in Washington wanted the military out of power, but without actually having to do anything, including invading the country. Nevertheless, changing tactics, the CIA, with numerous agents in Haiti, launched a major covert operation to topple the military regime. It was not a success. But change was a’coming.

In September 1994, the Clinton administration told the Haitian military leaders they had just four weeks to resign. The US would have to take control. Yet again. So, on 19 September US forces began to arrive in Haiti. Initially, they were welcomed by the majority of the population; they first arrested, disarmed and also shot many of the former Haitian military; and permitted some of the leaders to escape into exile. And they sealed off, and protected the homes of many of the local capitalist élite, “Washington’s natural allies” (Los Angeles Times, 1 October 1994).

Jean-Bertrand Aristide returned to Haiti in mid-October, courtesy of the US army. He received, in the words of William Blum, a reception of “joyous celebration”. But, unbeknown to a majority of his supporters, he was somewhat different Aristide who had, three years previously, been disposed and exiled to Washington. In the words of the Los Angeles Times (1 October 1994):

Almost every aspect of Aristide’s plans for resuming power—from taxing the rich to disarming the military—has been examined by the US officials with whom the Haitian President meets daily, and by officials of World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other aid organisations. The finished package clearly reflects their priorities. Aristide has obviously toned down the liberation theology and class-struggle rhetoric that was his signature before he was exiled to Washington.

Indeed, Aristide embraced market economics with zeal and enthusiasm. He also agreed to publicly announce that he would not attempt to stay in office to make up the time he had lost in exile. So much for the firebrand priest—even as a reformer.

Haiti—a Client State

In Killing Hope William Blum claimed that Haiti’s international function will be to serve “transnational corporations” by opening the country up to further investment and commerce, with minimum tariffs and other restrictions; and offering itself, primarily in assembly industries, and as a source of export labour. He added: “What appears to be certain is that the rich will grow richer, and the poor will remain at the very bottom of Latin America’s heap.” Under Aristide’s successor, it can only get worse. As Seumas Milne observed, new IMF loans require Haiti to raise electricity prices, and to freeze all public sector pay, where the majority exist on less than two dollars a day.

Infant mortality rate is about 80 per 1,000 (neighbouring Cuba’s rate is 5.8). Around 50 percent of Haiti’s adults remain illiterate. Former president Bill Clinton wants to build up Haiti’s export-processing zones,. But, as Milne comments, “… more sweatshop assembly of products neither made nor sold in Haiti won’t develop its economy nor provide a regular income for the majority”. Haiti currently owes the IMF around a billion dollars. Gary Young, writing in the Guardian (1 February), reported that Haiti spent more, in 2008, servicing the country’s debts than it did on health, education and the environment.

Meanwhile, the United States pours thousand of heavily-armed troops into the country (yet again). and “The Street”, a US investment website, says that the earthquake provides such American corporations as General Electric, Jacobs Engineering and Flour, with the opportunity and potential to benefit. Of course.

Following the earthquake, a commentator on French television advised his viewers and listeners that “Haiti is not a suitable place to take a vacation.” He can say that again.

Peter E. Newell

Islands in the Doldrums (1962)

From the June 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Oil and sunshine 

Keeps the Yankees looking fine: 

Oil and sunshine, 

With a glass of local wine

Oil, sunshine, and Yankees. Perhaps the composer of this recently popular calypso was more interested in the local wine, but he summed up the importance of the West Indies in the modern world neatly enough.

Trinidad’s oil is the most important mineral product of the West Indies. Sunshine and a satisfactory rainfall allow crops (the most important being sugarcane) which form the basis of most of the islands’ economy. Lastly, the American Government keeps a stern, albeit paternal eye on the Caribbean as an important “outpost of democracy” and guardian of the eastern approaches to the Panama Canal.

But what are the West Indies? The term is in fact little more than an abstraction. To British people they mean those collections of islands forming the West Indies Federation. The French refer to les Antilles and mean particularly the islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique and French Guiana. Then there are the islands of the Dutch West Indies, the ’‘independent” island of Cuba, the American Virgin Islands, the twin “independent” states of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and the American satellite state of Puerto Rico. And what about the neighbouring mainland countries: British Guiana and British Honduras, Dutch Guiana (Surinam), and the Central American states bordering on the Caribbean? Do not their strategic positions and trading potentials label them as parts of the West Indies?

The truth is that the West Indies are a widespread collection of islands (Jamaica and Trinidad are 1,000 miles apart), possibly associated with countries on the South American mainland, with different cultural backgrounds, with people speaking many different languages, and having different economic affiliations to European and American colonial powers.

Little wonder that a succession of fact-finding committees and international committees of experts, have been sorely tried to propound a solution, within the framework of capitalism, for the ills of this economic, cultural, and political hodge-podge. And, as we shall see, problems there certainly are, especially for that section of the West Indian population which must seek an employer in order to live—the working class.

If the West Indies’ future is uncertain and unpromising, at least their past may be described with some accuracy: a past that exemplifies colonial expansion, capitalist accumulation of wealth, and the subjugation of a working class, with all the romance and colour of a Hollywood movie.

Search for Gold

The recorded history of the West Indies starts with their discovery by Columbus at the end of the fifteenth century. Columbus believed, and claimed, that he had found islands off the coast of Eastern Asia—hence the name West “Indies.”

The islands were already inhabited by tribes of aboriginal Indians, the Arawaks and the Caribs. These unfortunate Indians (the only "original” West Indians, despite Negro nationalist propaganda) were either destroyed or subjugated by the European settlers.

Following Columbus' various expeditions, the then strong Spanish crown founded a Spanish empire in the Caribbean and South America. Cuba and Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic) were the bases from which forces sailed for the conquest of Mexico, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and the lands in South America.

The driving force was the search for gold. More and more Spanish settlers arrived in quest of this, bringing with them the Spanish form, of municipal government (the cabildo), vestiges of which later continued under British rule. They also brought agricultural stock—rice, citrus fruit trees, bananas, and, most important of all, sugar-cane. Local crops were limited, the most important being maize, cassava (bread-stuff), and tobacco.

The search for gold proved fruitless on the whole but in the words of Parry and Sherlock, “The story of sugar is a continuous thread running through the whole history of the West Indies.” Because most of the West Indian islands are hilly and therefore have limited areas of arable land, the only economical crop was found to be one which gave a high yield per acre and a high price; it was mainly

because of these factors that sugar and not cotton became the staple crop. Furthermore, sugar can be grown by unskilled labour and does not exhaust the ground.

The shortage of labour (both skilled and unskilled) to grow, harvest, mill, and process the crop (sugar-cane must be milled and processed soon after harvesting) became a pressing problem for the Spanish land-owners: there were virtually no “free” labourers, very few “forced” labourers, and the Arawaks and Caribs were either extinct or unfitted for life as agricultural labourers. The first batch of Negro slaves from the West Coast of Africa to supply these labour needs were shipped by the Spanish to the West Indies early in the sixteenth century.

The forty-year period of economic and territorial domination of the West Indies by Spain was broken by the outbreak of war with France in 1536, and from that date France, Spain, Holland, and England were in more or less constant conflict over possession of the islands, trade routes, and trading rights. Admirals Drake and Hawkins were the most illustrious of England’s band of official pirates. Unofficial pirates, or buccaneers (the most famous being Captain Morgan), operated with the approval of colonial governors against Spanish settlements and shipping, and were paid by booty.

Islands were captured and re-captured. Barbados was the only island taken by England which never changed hands. Jamaica was taken by the British in the middle of the seventeenth century; this was a great prize, for a contemporary described Jamaica as “lying in the very belly of all commerce.” Trinidad was captured from the Spanish by the French, and by the British from the French in 1797, during the Napoleonic wars. Eventually, mainly because of superior sea power and possession of the only two naval dockyards (Port Royal in Jamaica and English Harbour in Antigua), Britain became the dominant imperialist power in the Caribbean.

The growth of the trade in sugar and the trade in men went hand in hand.

French and English settlers soon discovered that, along with cotton, West Indian tobacco (which was found to be inferior to the Virginian type) were not profitable crops; for reasons already given, and because the demand for it in Europe was growing steadily, sugar became the main crop.

Considerable capital was needed to establish a sugar factory, and a plantation had to be large enough to keep the factory supplied with sugar-cane; it is thus easy to see why the small sugar-cane holdings were soon swallowed up by large estates and why eventually the industry fell into the hands of a few capitalists. Today, for example, all the large estates and ail the factories in Trinidad are owned by Tate and Lyle.

Indentured Labour

There was soon a cry for labour to work the estates and the factories. First of all, indentured (“free") labourers were brought from Europe, with the promise of smallholdings at the end of their contracts (if they lived that long). When virtually all the arable land had been swallowed up by the large estates, the supply of indentured labourers rapidly dwindled. Political prisoners (“Royalists" and Irish) and convicted felons were shipped: these were dubbed “white slaves” by the Negroes and were treated as badly as, if not worse than, the Negro slaves. But these were not enough to satisfy the needs of the profit-hungry sugar owners and so, like the Spanish and Portuguese before them, the French and English planters had to buy slaves, mostly Negroes from the West Coast of Africa.

The slave traders were as anxious to sell their human commodities as the plantation owners were to buy them. By the middle of the seventeenth century a steady stream of slaves was leaving Sierra Leone, the Niger Delta, and the Slave and Ivory Coasts to face disease and death in the overcrowded slave ships, and an uncertain future of back-breaking toil at the hands of the rapacious sugar planters. Barbados had a few hundred Negroes in 1640, but by 1645 there were over 6,000, and in 1685 no less than 46,000.

There were few white sugar owners and overseers to control this rising black tide of resentful, sullen and undisciplined slaves, many of whom came from warlike tribes. Soon isolated uprisings caused severe penalties to be imposed; typical of such repressive acts of legislation was the French Code Noir.

The slave trade was one of the most profitable enterprises of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—for the owners of the slave ships. The death-rate among the crews of the “slavers” was usually about the same as among the slaves they carried. Although the Spanish started the slave trade, eventually four countries (Portugal, Holland, England, and France) gained control. There was much competition between the various powers over the monopoly of such a lucrative business and to put a stop to keen Dutch competition Charles II of England granted a charter to the “Company of Royal Adventurers of England Trading into Africa” in 1663. This slave-trading organisation later became the Royal Africa Company, about which Parry and Sherlock say: “Several members of the royal family were shareholders in this enterprise, which was to supply the English sugar colonies with 3,000 slaves a year at an average price of £17, or one ton of sugar, per slave. The purchase price in Africa at that time was about £3.”

The first European war to be fought over the West Indies began in 1739 between England, Spain, and France. It was frankly called a “war of trade,” and was dubbed “the war of Jenkin’s ear” after an English sea captain who complained to parliament of Spanish hindrance to his trading activities in the Caribbean. From this time the three powers fought intermittently until the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815, and many islands changed hands. For the English ruling class, this was a golden opportunity to cripple French sugar production by destroying both crops and machines and by capturing slaves. This period of imperialist skirmishing (which included the Seven Years’ War) was influenced, to the disadvantage of the English ruling class, by the American war of Independence, which drew English military and naval reserves from the Caribbean.

Plantation System

Despite wars and rumours of wars, however, for the sugar owners in the West Indian islands, the eighteenth century was probably the period of greatest prosperity. But it was also during this peak period of “plantation economy" that the seeds of future economic problems were sown, problems which teams of economic “experts,” government committees, etc., are attempting to solve to this day. The most important defect in the plantation system was monoculture, the growing of one crop. Other features were slavery, absentee ownership (most plantation owners lived in England and left the running of their estates to bailiffs), and the dependence of the traders on markets in the outside world.

To make matters worse, economic problems in the Caribbean have periodically been accentuated by natural disasters (hurricanes, droughts, and epidemic disease, such as cholera and yellow fever), from which some islands have taken years to recover.

However hard the planters tried, they were powerless to prevent their slaves learning about the world outside the slave compounds. It was thus inevitable that at the turn of the nineteenth century “leaders” emerged from, the ranks of the slaves: men who had heard the rallying cry of the French Revolution. “liberty, .equality, and fraternity,” and preached that this slogan should apply to slaves as well as to the plantation owners.

Slave Labour

Unrest and rebellion spread among the slaves and in 1791 the slave population of the northern plain of Saint-Domingue (later to be renamed Haiti) revolted, systematically firing some fields and houses and murdering the white inhabitants. Out of this bloody rising, during which both sides acted with the utmost savagery, arose the first Negro slave leader to prove himself competent both as a military commander and as a politician—Toussaint "L'ouverture.”

Movements for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade had for some years before the uprisings also been gaining strength in liberal circles in Britain. Various governments declared the slave trade illegal between the years 1808-1820 and slavery was abolished in all the West Indian colonies, except the Spanish, by the middle of the nineteenth century.

The erstwhile slaves soon found that they had exchanged one form of slavery for another. As one historian points out, “the Act which abolished slavery did not emancipate the slaves . . . As a social institution slavery disappeared . . . and it came back as a system of industry, the negroes . . . having to work as slaves for so many hours a week.”

Slavery was also a very mixed blessing for the plantation owners. It is true that the owners were reasonably assured of a constant supply of labourers who could not leave the plantations: following “emancipation” many ex-slaves left for more congenial work or to run smallholdings. But slave-labour was not very productive and the slave owners were bound to feed, clothe, and shelter their slaves. Sugar farming is largely seasonal. but the owners could not dispense with their slaves after the crop was harvested and processed as they now can with their wage-workers.

Michael La Touche

[To be concluded]

Branch News (1962)

Party News from the April 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

This month is going to be an exceptionally busy one for the Party. The Annual Conference, Rally and Social (April 20th, 21st and 22nd); planning for May Day Meetings; and in Glasgow, our comrades are preparing for the hustings in May, when they are contesting Kelvin Ward in the Municipal Elections. Their Election Address is re-printed on page 64.

The Party in London is departing from its recent practice of holding an evening meeting following the Sunday afternoon May Day Rally, instead an indoor meeting is being held at Caxton Hall, on Tuesday May 1st. Details are given elsewhere in this issue. Sunday, May 6th in Hyde Park from 3 pm will be the Outdoor Rally. Our speakers will be putting the Socialist case from a decorated stand. There should be a good audience in the Park, but we will need every available member there to assist and especially to help sell Party Literature.

Camberwell Branch continues to maintain a high level of activity. In addition to the regular work of running two outdoor meetings and canvassing the Socialist Standard, the Branch has been well represented on the propaganda trips to Coventry as well as other London indoor meetings and literature drives. The Branch is now holding a series of discussion meetings. One on ‘Trade Unions' proved very interesting as did the following discussions on the 'Hidden Persuaders' and ‘Workers and Politics ’. Branch members also had the pleasure of hearing Comrade Gilmac talk on his tour of America and Canada.

In spite of the severe weather at the beginning of the year, Wembley Branch persisted with its canvassing efforts. The small band of comrades turned out in biting winds and flurries of snow, to play their part in expanding sales of the “S.S. At the end of April, it is hoped to go further afield and try a canvass in the Maidstone area. The branch lectures were continued throughout the winter months. At the time of writing, a talk on Trade Unions was scheduled for March 19th. Wembley has been particularly active with two indoor public meetings and a film show on the programme. With the approach of Spring and Summer, we look forward to a successful outdoor propaganda season.

It seems to be more than a coincidence that political and religious bigotry are so often found in the same place. However, it is encouraging to hear how some of our friends manage to overcome these difficulties. In Grenada, in spite of the very strong influence of the Church, we have one isolated Socialist (whose nearest fellow Socialist is in Trinidad). In spite of the fact that he has been visited by the local Priests and threatened (not only with hell fire!), he holds regular discussions at his home and distributes our literature.

Much nearer home, in Dublin in fact, another lone Socialist has found a novel way of making our case known. As well as distributing literature in more usual ways, she has been cutting out selected articles from the Socialist Standard, pasted them on large sheets of paper, and then bill-posted them on hoardings and other advertising sites. She tells us that some of these homemade posters have been up for several weeks and. as they carry the Party address, she hopes we may make some new contacts. Her only complaint is that, for her purposes, she would prefer the size of the print to be larger!

Phyllis Howard

Animal Farms: Wildlife Trafficking (2019)

From the October 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

In July this year, police forces in over a hundred countries detained nearly six hundred people in an operation aimed at wildlife smuggling, and seized over fifteen thousand animals in the process. ‘It is vital that we stop criminals from putting livelihoods, security, economies and the sustainability of our planet at risk by illegally exploiting wild flora and fauna,’ said the secretary general of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species).

After drugs and weapons, the trafficking of animals and their ‘derivatives’ is the third most valuable illegal trade in the world. It may be worth up to $10bn a year, though its illicit nature means that estimates are only approximate. Its prime motivation, of course, is profit, supported mainly by conspicuous consumption or display of trafficked goods.

The Caribbean, with its rich biodiversity, is one of many places from which animals are smuggled. Many smuggled animals are taken to China, where animal products are used in traditional medicine. Despite claims about turning the country into an ‘ecological civilisation’, and banning the domestic trade in ivory, the trade in rhino horn and tiger bone was recently reopened, though supposedly under strict controls. This relaxation was postponed after protests, but the situation remains uncertain. Tiger farms in China hold over six thousand animals, but there are very few rhinos, and the demand for rhino horn in China is mainly met from South Africa, where private ranches hold at least seven thousand rhinos. Demand and profits were also increased massively when a myth began to circulate in Vietnam that rhino horn could cure cancer.

To emphasise the link between trafficking humans and trafficking animals, it is often the same cartels who control both kinds of smuggling from Latin America into the US. But as clamping down on security at the US–Mexico border has increased, smugglers turn elsewhere. In 2017 over one-third of illegal animals seized in the US had come from Indonesia.

Exotic pets can be smuggled to wealthy owners who want a kind of status symbol. They may be transported in appalling conditions in order to get past customs checks, such as infant snakes being shipped in CD cases. Many die on the journey, or are vary badly treated by dealers in the destination country, or even by their eventual owners, who often abandon them after a few months.

Apart from the suffering of the animals concerned, what other kind of impact does all this have? For one thing, many people in the poorest countries depend on wild animals for food, and poaching and smuggling can reduce their food supply. Invasive species sometimes have a devastating effect on local ecology, such as Burmese pythons let loose by their owners in the Florida Everglades. Trapping and poaching can incidentally kill other species as well, for example in traps. Some non-traditional pets can have diseases that spread to humans, such as the herpes B virus and salmonellosis.

CITES is an international agreement that came into force in 1975, but countries only enter into it voluntarily, though it becomes legally binding once they do so. Yet that does not mean that it has much effect in practice. In some US states, for instance, the Fish and Wildlife Service has no officers to inspect wildlife shipments. Many smugglers who are caught just pay the fines and carry on smuggling, seeing the fines as part of the cost of doing business. Animals probably come near the bottom of capitalism’s priorities in terms of protecting the victims of crime.

And people who want ‘exotic pets’ or furs as some kind of status symbol could well look at themselves and ask if they really need such items.

Paul Bennett

From Trinidad (1965)

From the December 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Things in Trinidad are warming up. Elections are next year and so far we have four political parties in the fray. The P.N.M. (Peoples National Movement) under the leadership of Dr. Eric Williams, is still the hot favourite to continue, while the D.L.P. (Democratic Labour Party) is losing ground. Although still officially the Opposition, it is led by London-based Dr. Capildeo. A comparatively new party, the Liberals, led by Mr. Farquhar, is gaining what the D.L.P. is losing, and the last-formed party, the

Farmers and Workers Party, is led by Mr. C. L. R. James.

Earlier this year the Government passed a Bill aimed at curbing strikes. The Bill is known as the Industrial Stabilisation Act (I.S.A). The Prime Minister announced there were too many strikes in the country, which interfered with the economy and frightened away foreign or would-be investors, so therefore the Bill is justified. This Act has curtailed the functions of the Trade Unions, as all disputes must go to the Industrial Court for its ruling. There is no appeal against judgment and since all those taking part in strike action in any way can be jailed for long periods, five Trade Unions have got their tails between their legs. As a result the various Unions are divided on the issue, some for the Act, others against it. The trick of the capitalists to divide the working class is self-evident. On the scene at this time is Mr. C. L. R. James, who contends that the I.S.A. is a violation not only of the Constitution, but of the rights of the workers, who are reduced to nothing but slaves. He is joined by Mr. G. Weekes, President-General of the powerful oil workers’ Union, and slowly other Union leaders are following. The Unions have now obtained the services of Mr. Platt-Mills, Q.C., to challenge the validity of the I.S.A. in the light of the Constitution.

To a Socialist one thing is clear. Whatever the outcome—the workers will have nothing to gain.

Corbie, 

Trinidad.

Material World: Pirate Nations – The Jolly Roger (2016)

The Material World Column from the December 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘We’ve had enough!’ The Pirate Party have captured the imagination of many in Iceland, especially the young. Iceland’s political landscape has been transformed by its general election result and the success of the Pirate Party which won 10 seats in the 63-seat parliament – up from the three it won in the 2013 general election, in a voter turn-out of 79.2 percent.  For the Icelandic establishment, they may still retain control of the helm but their ship of state is beginning to flounder.

The Pirate Party does not have a leader, although former Wikileaks activist and founding MP Birgitta Jonsdóttir tends to speak for it in public (perhaps, as a poet, she has a better way with words). She said her party subscribes to its agenda of ‘fundamental system change’.

They are challenging the assumption that political leaders are necessary and politics could not operate without them.

Ásta Guthrún Helgadóttir, another of their parliamentary members explained, ‘We are not here to gain power. We are here to distribute power.’

The Pirates’ core issues appeal to the popular sentiment in Iceland; direct democracy; freedom of expression; civil rights; and government transparency as set out in a crowd-sourced constitution which creates new rules for civic governance.

Political parties under the Pirate flag are now active in many countries. But we should remember that their libertarian attitudes were based on the history of real and sometimes not so real pirate ‘nations’. In the modern era, we have had Somalia which was notorious for its piracy, while one of the earliest foreign interventions of the newly-independent United States was the suppression of the Barbary pirates operating from North Africa. Our conception of piracy stems from the adventurers of those state-sponsored buccaneers and privateers from the time of Raleigh and Drake when the Caribbean was a melting pot of poor immigrants, political exiles and escaped plantation slaves.

Christopher Hill in Radical Pirates? described life at sea as based upon mutual aid, a much necessary survival tactic in which piracy was no exception in fostering a natural solidarity. Many pirates had crewed on merchant ships and grown to dislike the hierarchal authoritarianism.

Booty was divided up by a fairly egalitarian share system and those maimed received extra compensation. The Dutch Governor of Mauritius met a pirate crew and commented: ‘Every man had as much say as the captain’. The captain enjoyed no special privileges. Pirate captains were elected and could be deposed at any time for abuse of their authority; for cowardice or cruelty towards the crew and revealingly, for refusing ‘to take and plunder English Vessels’ for the pirates had turned their backs on the state and its laws and no lingering feelings of patriotism were to be allowed. The captain only had right of command in battle, otherwise, all decisions were made by the whole ship’s company.

Libertalia (or Libertatia) was a more-than-likely fictionalised colony founded in the late 17th century in Madagascar by pirates. Marcus Rediker, in Villains of All Nations, writes of Libertalia, ‘ [The] pirates were anti-capitalist, opposed to the dispossession that necessarily accompanied the historic ascent of wage labor and capitalism. They insisted that ‘every Man was born free, and had as much Right to what would support him, as to the Air he respired.’ They resented the ‘encroachments’ by which ‘Villains’ and ‘unmerciful Creditors’ grew ‘immensely rich’ as others became ‘wretchedly miserable.” They spoke of the ‘Natural right’ to ‘a Share of the Earth as is necessary for our Support.’ They saw piracy as a war of self-preservation. [They redefined the] fundamental relations of property and power. They had no need for money ‘where every Thing was in common, and no Hedge bounded any particular Man’s Property,’ and they decreed that ‘the Treasure and Cattle they were Masters of should be equally divided.’

Of course, the Pirate Party of Iceland will be unable to manage things much better than the conventional parties since it is capitalism, not the politicians, which runs its government and which is to blame for all our problems. They will have the doomed future of the original anarchistic pirates they wish to emulate, which they will soon discover if they ever do form a government.

ALJO

News in Review: Bomb Tests (1961)

The News in Review column from the October 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

Bomb Tests

Have we grown accustomed to humbug? There was enough of it to be had, when Moscow announced the resumption of nuclear tests. The Russians said that it was all America's fault they had to let off their bombs to show that they were ready to defend themselves against Western imperialism.

Washington and London professed shocked dismay, and anxiety for the future of the human race. To hear them, a simple soul could have been excused for assuming that neither Britain nor America had ever tested a bomb, and that the Americans were not all ready to go on their own tests as soon as they got the excuse.

In fact, there was a lot of military pressure in both Russia and the United States to resume the tests. It was certain that the first power to break the ban would come in for a propaganda lambasting. We could, therefore, expect the Americans to derive maximum political value from Khrushchev’s bangs, and the Russians to do their best to play the thing down. For that is typical of the cynicism with which capitalisms propagandists regard such matters of life and death.

At the end of it all, when the bombs have exploded and the propaganda points made, we are back where we started. Only perhaps a little more radioactive than before.

British Guiana

It is not yet ten years ago that Dr. Cheddi Jagan came out on top in the elections in British Guiana, to set the old ladies in the Colonial Office looking under their desks for Red bogymen.

Now restored to respectability and back in power with an absolute majority. Dr. Jagan is doing his best to show that they had nothing to fear. One of his big worries is to attract capital to British Guiana. His government will accept this from anywhere—Britain, the United States, Russia; even Cuba is lined up as a potential source of investment.

But Dr. Jagan knows that some capital would be scared off if he went ahead with what he once professed as his principles of wholesale nationalisation. So he is soft-pedalling on the issue although, like most newly independent states, British Guiana has its eyes upon the foreign interests in her mineral wealth.

This sets the Doctor a pretty dilemma. A false step one way and he could become a second Castro. A false step the other and he will be dubbed a lackey of Western imperialism. When the moment of decision comes for British Guiana, we may depend that there will be no lack of wordy journalists to spill their particular brand of beans.

But there will be a shortage of people to point out that all the time the Guianese workers are cutting the sugar and mining the bauxite and the rest and still, as ever, getting precious little out of it.

Labour Conference

This month, barring landslide, earthquake and the end of the world, Mr. Gaitskell will climb into the ring at Blackpool to disprove the already disproven theory that they never come back.

Last year, it was the pre-conference decisions from the unions which foretold that the Labour Party would go unilateralist. Now, enough unions have changed their minds to make it seem certain that Mr. Cousins will be left alone to uphold the cause of C.N.D. and that Mr. Gaitskell will be champion once more.

Underlying the Labour Party debate on unilateralism is one of the facts of capitalist life, which will persist however much the bomb-banners try to ignore it. In past debates on the issue the platform has made it quite plain that, whatever decision the delegates might take, a future Labour government would be guided in its actions by the necessities of British capitalism.

This means that the Conference might decide against the bomb—but a Labour government would keep it, perhaps use it. This was the theme of one of Bevan’s last important speeches, to the Conference in 1958. And quite logical too. There has never been a government which acted otherwise, and never will be as long as the working class support capitalism.

So the unilateralists are wasting their time on the Labour Party. Come to think of it they are wasting their time anyway, trying to settle one of capitalism’s grisly problems without trying to get rid of the system itself.

Fair Play for Teachers

How many schoolteachers have spent how much time telling how many classes that an Englishman’s word is his bond, and that the road to happiness is paved with honesty and truthfulness?

Anybody who took this seriously must have been shocked by the recent government decisions to ignore the recommendations of the Civil Service Arbitration Tribunal, to restrict the statutory Wages Councils and virtually to destroy the Burnham Committee. And all this from an upstanding Englishman like Mr. Selwyn Lloyd!

In fact, the teachers are wasting their time if they are pining for fair play, for there is no such thing in the class war. The Ministry of Education, for example, took over the Burnham Committee’s functions because the government decided that the committee was being too generous to the teachers.

This makes no sense if we are looking for fair play. But in terms of the conflict of interest between any employer and his employees, it makes very good sense indeed. Teachers as a whole, like many civil servants and other white collar workers have always denied the existence of the class struggle. But it exists for them just as much as for the miner and the docker.

That is one of the things Mr. Selwyn Lloyd seems to be doing his best to teach them. Let us hope they turn out to be bright, receptive pupils.

News in Review: Nuclear Shelters (1962)

The News in Review column from the September 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Nuclear Shelters

This bit in the Observer it slays us all, it's so funny. Listen, it's about a retired army general and he's living in East Devon, so you know that something real humorous is coming up.

This general, he's got the bug about nuclear war. He’s even written a book about survival after they've dropped the H-bomb. Written it for the people of East Devon. Doesn't that make you laugh?

Listen, there’s more. He wants us to keep water in vinegar bottles. Non-returnable ones, of course—there's nothing dishonest about the general. Then he says we should fill up bits of furniture with earth. Yes, furniture. Fill them up and make a dug-out from them.

By now we're rolling on the floor.

Then we stop rolling because we've suddenly asked ourselves why. And this bit in the Observer it says the general's written this book because he knows that most people can't afford an expensive shelter against nuclear bombs.

So we stop laughing. And we wonder.

We wonder at a world which has built itself bombs which are powerful enough to wipe out whole cities—even whole countries. A world where most people can't even afford to get themselves a decent shelter against fall-out.

So maybe that general guy's nuts, filling his sideboard with earth. So maybe he’s only a little bit of a world that’s so crazy it's got its priorities and its motives right upside down.

So maybe the people of the world are crazy. They accept all this and they keep the whole show running, don’t they? And aren't they the ones to stop it all?

Hey there, Napoleon. Shake hands with the general.

Independent Jamaica

The short-lived West Indies Federation was regarded by some people as a great advance for the West Indian worker. They ignored the fact that capitalism would work on the Federation just as it works on the world outside.

Sure enough, it was a dispute over which territory should hold the economic and political reins which broke the Federation. When that happened it seemed fairly obvious that the richer and more powerful islands would go for their independence alone.

Now Jamaica is an independent state, born with all the barney of bands and festivals and speeches. Inevitably, God has been recruited to the side of capitalist independence. There was a thanksgiving service to mark the occasion in Westminster Abbey.

So Jamaica is free now to make her own way in capitalism's dangerous seas. All the familiar problems of property society will harass her government. They must struggle to safeguard her markets for bauxite, tobacco, rum, sugar and bananas. They must build up the island's armed forces, in case some other power threatens Jamaica's economic interests.

And they must sell all this to the Jamaican worker, who will vote them in and out of power under their new constitution. The island is notorious for its poverty, its slums and its diseases of malnutrition. That is why so many of its people come to seek what they hope will be a better life as a wage-slave in Britain —although this did not prevent them celebrating the independence of the island which gave them so miserable an existence.

Up to now the nationalists could easily blame the troubles of the Jamaican workers upon the shortcomings of British rule. It should soon become obvious that this was worth no more than any other vote-catching nonsense and that the problems cannot be cured by replacing British masters with Jamaican.

This will be a moment of truth for Jamaica.

If the new government is anything like the other capitalist administrations all over the world they will face it with lies, evasion and sometimes suppression.

Thalidomide Babies

It is not enough merely to say that the thalidomide babies are an awful tragedy. It is not enough, even, to help these tragic mites with artificial limbs and patient training.

We should be asking ourselves why so harmful a drug was so freely administered; why so many sedatives, stimulates, tranquilisers and the like are dished out in such quantities.

Pregnant women, like many sick people, often have trouble with their sleep. Sometimes this is a straightforward inability to drop off and in such cases there is a case for using a sedative. But in many cases it is only a difficulty in sleeping at the same time as the rest of us, whose sleeping and waking times are geared to the requirements of working class existence.

This difficulty need not be serious enough to need a sedative. The expectant mother can simply sleep during the day, or whenever else she feels the need.

But what if she, too, is tied to the regularity of working class life? What if she has to go out to work to help keep up the payments on a mortgage or on a hire-purchase buy? What if she has other children and, like all working class wives, cannot afford a nurse to look after them?

This is where the sedatives come in.

It is easier to give the patient a dose of something than to get to the root of her trouble. The handier to use, the easier to administer, the briefer its side-effects, the more popular the sedative becomes and the more freely it is given.

And that is where thalidomide came in.

Is there a lesson in this for us?

Whatever the truth of the controversy over drugs and medicines, of one thing we can be sure. The question should be settled in terms of human interests. But as long as capitalism lasts this will never happen.