Cuban Women I've held off writing in the hopes that you would publish a second issue about women in Latin Amer- ica. You left out so much in your first issue [July/August, 1993]. For instance, why did you not talk about Cuban women? Is it part of your new editorial direction to leave out political pariahs in order to be more acceptable to the main- stream? Conservative ideologies relegate women to "sainted motherhood," whereas leftist ideology has always attempted to address women's issues. Cuba is the first and only place in Latin America where abortion is legal, free, and available to all who want it. The Cuban Constitution also requires equal pay for equal work, and stip- ulates that household duties must be shared evenly by husband and wife. While equal rights in the home might only exist on paper, the fact that they were ever even discussed or put down in writing is miraculous to me. Regrettably, the current embargo on Cuba has ricocheted back on Cuban women in particularly nasty ways. Many have been forced to revert to old ways. If the Cubans in Miami come back to Cuba in force, what will happen to the rights of Cuban women? Louisa Rocha Norfolk, England Haiti im Ives' "The Unmaking of a resident" [January/February, 1994] is an insightful overview of the post-coup era in Haiti. I dis- agree, however, with his views on two closely related aspects of the crisis: I) the question of U.S./U.N. military intervention, which he characterizes as a goal of U.S. poli- cy; and b) the purported "surren- der" of President Aristide to "bour- geois" forces in Haiti and the U.S. government, both of which, he claims, support military interven- tion and deal-making with coup leaders instead of revolution by the popular sector. Ives portrays Aristide as unwill- ing to commit to either of his two supposed alternatives"U.S. mili- tary intervention or popular revo- lution." He makes Aristide out to be naive, easily manipulated and even a dissembler. "On November 9 [1993], Aristide himself seems to have finally cast aside all pre- tense as to the option he favors," Ives writes. "When asked.. .if he was finally ready to call openly for foreign military intervention, he responded 'I am sure that the Hait- ian people would be happy to be rid of the criminals, but if I ask for an intervention, I will be con- demned by the Constitution." That is hardly a powerful call to arms. Only recently, with the col- lapse of the Governors Island accord and in the face of ongoing killing and repression, has Aristide for the first time seemed inclined to consider military options. What alternative action would Ives urge upon Aristide? Ives speaks of "popular revolution" and "calling on the Haitian masses to defend their nascent revolution after the coup," and he criticizes Aristide for "never taking the offensive in the streets and mountains." These are rousing sentiments. Aristide' s religious background might, how- ever, incline him to try peaceful options before sacrificing the lives of his countrymen. Moreover, Ives should consider that Aristide, no stranger to the clout of the Haitian military, might believe that a "pop- ular revolution" by unarmed Hait- ian civilians could leave untold thousands dead, quite in vain. Then, to be sure, we could count on U.S. military intervention to take over affairs on the grounds that Aristide was, as the CIA has told us all along, "violence-prone" and attached to "mob rule." Ives' other pointthat the Unit- ed States was looking around for an excuse to intervene militarily conforms to no reality that I'm aware of, When our government wants to intervene militarily, it is not constrained by considerations of humanity, public opinion, or intemational law, much less by lack of provocation. Given such past adventures in Grenada and Panama, or Clinton's attacks on civilians in Somalia and Iraq, can we seriously conclude that the lack of U.S. mili- tary intervention in Haiti is any- thing but an indication that the gov- ernment has no desire to intervene? The introduction to the NACLA report states that the issue of inter- vention has "divided the U.S. Left," but none of the articles defends the interventionist stance. Of course, people in the Third World have good reason to view military intervention by the First World with suspicion. And in light of the fact that embargoes and negotiations to date have been inadequate, direct intervention at this moment would be misguided. But given U.S. culpability in creat- ing, financing and arming the forces currently decimating Haiti, nonintervention should not be an absolutist position. If the gradual extermination of an unarmed opposition in Haiti continues, those on the Left should not be afraid to demand an appropriate application of international force. John Watson Carlsbad, CA Kim Ives responds: John Watson's letter is quite contradictory. First, he dismisses the strategy of mobilizing the Hait- ian masses as likely to provoke a U.S. military intervention and denounces the U.S. government for making bloody forays into other countries "barely constrained by elementary considerations of humanity, public opinion, or inter- national law." In the next breath, he calls for, if need be, an "appro- priate application of international force" to restore democracy in Haiti. While noting "U.S. culpabil- ity in creating, financing, and arm- ing the forces currently decimating Haiti," he would call on the United States to intervene to oust those forces. Watson justifies military inter- vention because the Haitian people are "unarmed." Come on. How many revolutions begin well armed? The uprising gets its weapons from the enemy. In the Haitian revolution of 1804, the slaves not only had to find arms; they had to cast off chains as well. Watson has no faith in the people, saying they would be sacrificed "in vain." He would have them defeat- ed before they have begun. It is illogical to think that the U.S. government, which has worked hard to get and keep Aristide out of power, would use military interven- tion to restore him as anything more than a figurehead to preempt a pop- ular uprising. Such a restoration, which was the goal of "internation- alists" in the State Department who championed the project of a dis- guised U.N. peacekeeping force, would be the worst of all possible scenarios. Should he go along with it, Aristide, the symbol of Haiti's "Second Independence," would jus- tify and collaborate in Haiti's sec- ond occupation. Let's be clear. Since the Soviet Union imploded, the United States has been on an unfettered rampage to co-opt or crush all resistance and independence movements in the Third World. Certain "internation- alist" sectors of the U.S. bour- geoisie would like to make the Un- ited Nations the New World Order's policeman. If Watson and others allow themselves to be duped by the new "intervention- ism," they are simply making the struggle of the Haitian people, and people the world over, that much more difficult. The autonomous, organic organi- zation and mobilization of the Haitian people through their bud- ding popular organizations is the only solution to the crisis in Haiti today. Let us argue how best to achieve and support this, not about the possible merits of foreign military intervention. Let us learn from Mogadishu and Chiapas. Let the Haitian people forge their own history.
