General strike escalates in Guadeloupe and Martinique

A four week old general strike has escalated into riots on the French-controlled islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique. Today a union representative was shot dead as he drove up to a barricade in Guadeloupe's largest city Pointe-à-Pitre, though it is not known who shot him. The Caribbean island had been brought to a standstill for nearly a month by strikes and demonstrations over high prices for food and other necessities. Yesterday protesters ransacked shops and torched cars in several towns across the island. The violence has also spread to the nearby island of Martinique. France has deployed over one hundred riot police to both islands and last night police used tear gas to disperse protesters. The president of the local regional council admitted Guadeloupe was "on the verge of revolt."

That island's mostly peaceful demonstrations were coordinated by an alliance of about 50 unions and associations. The collective goes by the name of "Liyannaj Kont Pwofitasyon" (LKP) which is local dialect for "Stand Up Against Exploitation." The LKP demanded aid and pay rises for workers struggling to survive on an island with a high cost of living. On 30 January they organised a protest of 60,000 people in Pointe-à-Pitre, which represents 15 percent of the island’s total population. LKP have shut down petrol stations, ports, supermarkets, banks and government offices and the strike has caused power blackouts and food and water shortages. The island’s main airport was also closed down yesterday after many employees failed to turn up for work.

With Martinique also now joining the strike action and riots, France sent its minister for overseas territories to the region yesterday for a second round of emergency talks. Yves Jégo left the Caribbean last week after promising €180m in aid to the poor. But France steadfastly refuses to meet the main demand for a monthly €200 increase in base salaries. Patrick Lozès, the head of France's umbrella group of black associations Cran, blamed racial discrimination for the government’s refusal to accede to Guadeloupe’s demands. "Is it normal,” he asked, “that, 160 years after the abolition of slavery, the descendants of colonists possess 90 per cent of Guadeloupe's riches, but represent only 1 per cent of the population?”

The racial theme is also important in Martinique where the mainly black demonstrators chanted "Martinique is ours, not theirs!" Whites dominate the economy of both islands despite representing only around one percent of the population. Both Guadeloupe and Martinique are French overseas regions in the euro zone. France acquired Guadeloupe in the 1630s and was developed for sugar plantations worked by African slaves who still form the vast majority of the population. The islands were disputed by Britain but awarded to France in petty recompense for the loss of Canada in 1763. Today Guadeloupe still depends on sugar and rum production as well as tourism. But both islands’ economy is topped up with support from France. Both Guadeloupe and Martinique were formally assimilated into the metropole in 1946 when they became two of the four departments d’outre mer (along with Guyane and Reunion) with elected departmental and regional councils as well as representation in the French parliament.

While none of the departments d’outre mer have their own currency, postage stamps or official flags, they are still considered second class French citizens in many respects. Unemployment is double that of the mainland and Guadeloupe is considered one of the poorest areas of the EU. France outlawed one major pro-independence group in Guadeloupe in the 1980s. But despite the implied racism of the colonial system, there is no great nationalistic passion in either island. Only a tiny percentage of people in either Guadeloupe or Martinique have ever voted for independence movements. No party in either department has been able to articulate how it would manage economic and social development without French assistance. Even today, the demonstrators on the islands want Paris to do more, not less.

unending hatred in Haiti

Two Jordanian UN peacekeepers were shot dead in Haiti on the weekend. Unidentified gunmen attack a UN convoy as peacekeepers were heading back to their base near a slum area of the capital Port-au-Prince. The 8,000 UN peacekeepers in the country are facing increasing slum violence. Many slum dwellers have accused them of firing indiscriminately into civilian crowds during gun battles with gangsters. Opposition is growing to the Brazilian-led force who were sent into the country to restore order after a bloody 2004 revolt ousted then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The death of the two Jordanians brings the total UN dead to nine since the mission started in June 2004.

French-speaking Haiti occupies the western third of the island of Hispaniola. It shares a land border with the Spanish-speaking Dominican Republic. The island was initially inhabited by Taíno and Amarak Amerindians. The Taino called the island Quisqueya which means "mother of the earth" whereas the Arawak name, Ayiti, was reintroduced in 1804 as the name for independent Haiti. Columbus ran aground on the island in 1492 and claimed it for Spain. He named the island La Española for “the Spanish”. The name was eventually anglicised to Hispaniola. Columbus left a settlement on the island but when he returned a year later the settlers had all disappeared. He left his brother Bartholomew to start a new colony. The impact on the Taíno and Amarak was devastating and most died due to old world diseases and repression. French pirates established a toehold on the island in 1625. In 1664, the newly established French West India Company took control over the colony, and France formally claimed control of the western portion of the island of Hispaniola. Spain formally ceded control to France after the Treaty of Nijmegen ended the Franco-Dutch war in France’s favour.

Settlers begun to grow tobacco, indigo, cotton and cacao using African slave labour. An estimated 800,000 slaves were brought to work on sugarcane and coffee plantations which amounted to a third of the Atlantic slave trade. In 1681 Louis XVI enacted the code noir, which gave basis human rights to slaves and responsibilities to the master to feed and clothe them. The code sanctioned corporal punishment and many slaves escaped to the hills to avoid its harsh sanctions. The 1789 French Revolution had a powerful effect on the colony. Within two years, the slaves revolted. Over the next 12 years, slaves burnt plantations and killed their overseers. The French were weakened by a British naval blockade and Napoleon was unwilling to send reinforcements. Finally in 1804, Haiti declared independence from France, the first and only successful slave rebellion. The cost of freedom was high. Haiti was forced to make reparations to French slaveholders in 1825 in the amount of 90 million gold francs. It took 100 years to repay and turned Haiti into the poorest nation in the western hemisphere. And because of resistance from the US slave states, Haiti was not recognised by the US until 1862.

Haiti survived a period of rebellions until it achieved some stability with the constitution of 1867. This period of growth ended when in 1911 when revolution broke out and the country plunged into debt and anarchy. In four years there were six different Presidents, each of whom was killed or forced into exile. The US military occupied the island in 1915 due to threats to business interests in the country. They ruled Haiti for the next twenty years. Franklin Roosevelt removed the marines as one of his first acts of presidency. The US trained local military was only cohesive institution left in the wake of withdrawal. This resulted in a series of military-backed dictatorships over the next 50 years.

The most famous of these were the Duvaliers; Dr Francois Duvalier and his son Jean-Claude who between them ruled Haiti from 1957 to Jean-Claude’s overthrow in 1986. Francois, nicknamed Papa Doc, was a country doctor who won acclaim for his role in fighting typhus. He won office by presidential election but soon abandoned any notion of democracy. He enlisted the aid of a private army modelled on Mussolini’s Blackshirts known as the Tonton Macoute. The Tonton Macoutes were known for wearing dark glasses, wielding machetes, and leaving their victims hanging in a public place as a warning to others. Papa Doc revived the traditions of Haitian voodoo and killed nearly all of his political enemies during his 14 years in power.

He declared himself "president for life", and rewrote the constitution after a rigged election to pass power onto his overweight and dim-witted 19 year old son Jean-Claude upon his death. Known as Baby Doc he somehow managed to gain public affection and support from the US. His mistake was to marry a light-skinned mulatto and he lost much support in the black community. Pope John Paul II visited Haiti in 1983 and said “something must change here”. Within two years the country revolted. The game was up for Baby Doc when he lost the support of the US Reagan administration and he fled to France.

The charismatic Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected president in 1991 and he ushered in a new period of optimism. It was short-lived. He was brutally deposed in yet military coup. The US invaded again in 1994 to overturn this coup and Aristide’s ally Rene Preval was elected president. Preval was the first democratically elected Haitian leader to serve out a full term. Aristide returned to power in 2001 but was overthrown by a 2004 coup after he attempted to disband Haiti’s feared and despised military. Aristide accused US President Bush of supporting the rebels. The US sent in marines again. Chief Justice Boniface Alexandre was appointed interim leader and he immediately asked the UN to intervene with an international peacekeeping force. Brazil leads the MINUSTAH (Mission des Nations Unies pour la stabilisation en Haïti) force with a mandate to “"to concentrate the use of its resources, including civilian police, towards increasing security and protection during the electoral period". In July 2005, MINUSTAH carried out a raid in a Port-au-Prince slum targeting a base of illegally armed rebels. Estimates of fatalities ranged from 5 to 80 but the incident served to harden resistance against the force.

Elections were finally held in February 2006, and the well-respected René Préval was elected president for a second term. But Preval is helpless to solve his country’s issues without external support. Yesterday, the president of the neighbouring Dominican Republic urged international help to solve the intractable problems of Haiti. On a visit to Washington, President Leonel Fernández urged President Bush to "help Haiti in any way you can." Asserting it "may have been a mistake" to disband the military, he said the police cannot handle the security challenges alone. Haiti remains one of the poorest countries in the world with about 80% of the population living in abject poverty.

Castro out, Castro in

On July 31, Cuban state television issued a letter read by Fidel Castro’s secretary. It said sustained intestinal bleeding required him to undergo what was described as a complicated surgical procedure, and requires several weeks of rest. The Cuban leader said the health crisis was provoked by severe stress because of a heavy work schedule during recent trips to Argentina and eastern Cuba. Castro named his 75-year-old brother and Vice President Raúl Castro as temporary leader of the Cuban government, military and Communist Party. Raul has served as defence minister, and is second in command of the Communist Party and Council of State, Cuba's Supreme governing body.

Raúl Castro has similar views to his brother and recognises the Party as the only source of power in Cuba. But he has also promoted free-enterprise farmers' markets and suggested the communist system could be reformed. Fidel Castro, who turns 80 on August 13, has been in power in Cuba for 48 years and his illness has unsurprisingly evoked mixed reaction. Castro was born in 1926 in the Eastern province of Holguin. Christopher Columbus landed there in 1492 and declared that Holguin was "the most beautiful country human eyes had ever seen".

Fidel comes from a family of six children. As well as Raúl, there is the eldest brother Ramón. Although not active in the military like his brothers, Ramón Castro aided in the ongoing revolution as the quartermaster for the troops of Fidel and Raúl. After the revolution he studied agriculture, and is chiefly responsible for many of Cuba's agricultural initiatives. There are also three sisters Angela, Juanita and Emma. Juanita Castro Ruz is estranged from her brother and now lives in Miami. She said on Thursday she has been told the long-time dictator is recovering from surgery and "doing well." She is a pharmacy owner who fled Cuba four decades ago, would not reveal how she learned of her brother's condition, but said: "The surgery was a major surgery. He's doing OK. He's out of intensive care, and he's in his own room." Castro's daughterAlina Fernandez is also estranged from her father. CNN said Thursday it had hired her as a network contributor. She was 3 years old when Castro took power and left Cuba disguised as a Spanish tourist in 1993.

Fidel was educated in Catholic boarding schools before attending the law school at Havana University in 1945. He became immediately fascinated by the politics on campus. Gangs controlled much of what went on in the political sphere, in some cases sanctioning murder to achieve the desired outcome. Castro took part in often violent demonstrations. At the time the island's government had become totally corrupt. Despite being nominally independent since 1898, no Cuban president could come into power unless backed by the US. Fidel joined the newly formed Ortodoxos party in 1947. Founded by Eduardo Chibás, Castro remained a party member for eight years. The party wanted revolutionary change by working within the system. Chibás lost the 1948 election and Castro left Cuba to attend a Pan-American conference in Bogatá, Columbia to escape political and police pressure. The heavy-handed police response to riots he saw there changed forever his view on how to bring about political change.

Chibás committed suicide after another disastrous electoral defeat in 1952. Castro was now the leading figure in the party. That same year Fulgencio Batista overthrew the Cuban government and established himself as dictator. The US immediately recognised his regime. Castro took failed legal action against him saying Batista had broken the constitution. But the case raised his profile as the most prominent member of the Opposition. The rebellion commenced in 1953 with an attack on the Moncada Barracks. It was led by the brothers Fidel and Raúl. The attack failed and one third of the attackers were killed. Castro was captured shortly afterwards. He defended himself at his subsequent trial. He was sentenced to death but Batista had recently removed the death penalty. He was sentenced to 15 years which was commuted to two after an amnesty in 1955. Castro then went to Mexico where he met Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Guevara joined Castro’s rebel group and organised the basics of guerrilla warfare. A group of 60 rebels landed in Cuba in 1956 but were mostly killed. The few survivors escaped to the mountains. They called themselves the July 26th movement after the day of the Moncada attack.

Resistance groups started to organise in the cities. Castro got international coverage when he was tracked down by a New York Times reported and a TV crew. In May of 1958 Batista launched Operation Verano aiming to crush Castro and other anti-government groups. But Batista’s poorly trained conscripts suffered mass desertions and the operation failed. In December the rebels won a decisive victory at the Battle of Yaguajay. This caused the provincial capital of Santa Clara to fall. News of the loss of Santa Clara and other losses elsewhere panicked Batista and he fled the country the next day. At the age of 32, Castro was now in command of Cuba. In 1959, he became Prime Minister. He immediately caused friction with the US as the new government began expropriating property owned by American corporations. He also quickly moved to expropriate farmlands and forbade foreign land ownership. An oil agreement with the USSR caused the US to break off relations in 1960. The 1960s was marked by US-Cuban crises such as the Bay of Pigs and the Missile Crisis.

Castro was supported by the USSR until it broke up in 1991. Cuba was left bankrupt thanks to the US embargo. However that same embargo has served to unite the country behind him. Raul Castro is credited with persuading his older brother to implement agricultural market reforms in the early 1990s which increased the food supply after the Soviet subsidies stopped. In the late 1990s, Castro has pushed for more developed relationships with fellow Latin American countries. The Bolivarian Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is a huge admirer of Castro as is the Bolivian president Eva Morales. As his health started to fail in the last few years, Cuba watchers have look for word on the succession.

Raul was anointed and this was confirmed with the adulatory coverage of the Comrade Raul's 75th birthday last month in the state media. Behind the scenes, his grip was strengthened by the appointment of several "Raulistas" to the party's newly re-formed secretariat. The new Castro era is about to start.