This morning we got to know a marvel of world architecture: a great fortress built by the Negro emancipated slaves and not by Europeans in the colonies (.) The Citadel, in the outskirts of Ca-Haitien, is a showcase of uneven and combines development applied to architecture and military engineering. Built a short time after the independence of Haiti, in 1804, it was part of a series of defence fortifications in case the metropolis tried a new invasion. It was planned by a Haitian military engineer, who had studied in France and learned the latest European military engineering. with 375 guns, it was built by thousands of Haitians during seven years. It is an expression of the power of the revolution and of the most advanced technology of those days. (.)
European did not regard slaves as people but as thing, possessions or animals. But the Black Haitians defeated the armies of the main powers on earth in those days: France, Spain, and England. The great Negro generals equalled and surpassed the greatest strategists of that time, including Napoleon. Imperial arrogance with respect the Haitians proved to be historic folly. (.)
We are on our way to Ouanaminthe, where the first Free Zone in Haiti is to be found. Those free zones began in the days of Aristide. Codevi is emblematic or the zone: jeans are produced there for famous trade marks, such as Levis and Wrangler; it is part of a Dominican conglomerate linked to Chase Manhattan. Workers are paid 46 dollars a month and they work under the watchful eye of armed foremen, the trade union reports. In 2003, a short time after production started, a trade union was organised to fight against all this abuse. The immediate reaction was to fire 34 activists. A two-day strike made the employers recoil and employ the fired workers back. Immediately, 370 workers joined the trade union. A short time after that the employers dismissed the 370 and another struggle started that lasted over a year with strikes and an international campaign that reached the USA. An alliance with New York and Los Angeles university students made a boycott of jeans of this trade mark possible. Finally the company had to recoil and readmit the dismissed workers.
On our arrival we were taken to the BO office. After lunch, there was a meeting attended by about a hundred people of the region, among them other men and women workers of Codevi and the trade union of the factory. A young woman workers tells us that they are fighting again against the layoff of 42 workers because of a spontaneous strike for better wages. We went to the factory. By the entrance we saw five miserable huts without walls, that would make the worst Brazilian shanty town look like a palace. Six thousand workers eat there remembering a lot of the days of slavery. We crossed a bridge over a river significantly dubbed Massacre and we bumped into armed watchmen blocking the gate leading to Codevi.
This is the economic explanation to all the occupation: the troops are here to guarantee an economic plan that includes bio diesel in the countryside and 18 free zones. They want to take advantage of semi-slave labour to produce for the USA market, very near Miami. Again, violent exploitation combines with the military occupation in Haiti. Once again, imperial arrogance and violence unleashed against workers are the rule of this country.
