The history of the eradication of the Haitian Creole pig population in the 1980s is a classic parable of globalization. Haiti’s small, black, Creole pigs were at the heart of the peasant economy. An extremely hearty breed, well adapted to Haiti’s climate and conditions, they ate readily available waste products and could survive for three days without food.

Eighty to 85 percent of rural households raised pigs; they played a key role in maintaining the fertility of the soil and constituted the primary savings bank of the peasant population. Traditionally a pig was sold to pay for emergencies and special occasions – funerals, marriages, baptisms, illnesses – and, critically, to pay school fees and buy books for the children when school opened each year in October.

In 1982 international agencies assured Haiti’s peasants their pigs were sick and had to be killed – so that the illness would not spread to countries to the North. Promises were made that better pigs would replace the sick pigs. With an efficiency not since seen among development projects, all of the Creole pigs were killed over a period of 13 months.

Two years later the new, better pigs came from Iowa. They were so much better that they required clean drinking water – unavailable to 80 percent of the Haitian population; imported feed – costing $90 a year when the per capita income was about $130; and special roofed pigpens. Haitian peasants quickly dubbed them prince a quatre pieds (four-footed princes). Adding insult to injury, the meat did not taste as good.

Needless to say, the repopulation program was a complete failure. One observer of the process estimated that in monetary terms Haitian peasants lost $600 million. There was a 30 percent drop in enrollment in rural schools. There was a dramatic decline in the protein consumption in rural Haiti, a devastating decapitalization of the peasant economy and an incalculable negative impact on Haiti’s soil and agricultural productivity. The Haitian peasantry has not recovered to this day.

Most of rural Haiti is still isolated from global markets, so for many peasants the extermination of the Creole pigs was their first experience of globalization. The experience looms large in the collective memory. Today, when the peasants are told that economic reform and privatization will benefit them, they are understandably wary.

The state-owned enterprises are sick, we are told, and they must be privatized. The peasants shake their heads and remember the Creole pigs.

This is an excerpt from “Eyes of the Heart: Seeking a Path for the Poor in the Age of Globalization,” by Jean-Bertrand Aristide, May 3, 2000, available from Common Courage Press at www.commoncouragepress.com/index.cfm. Aristide is the beloved liberation theology preaching former priest whose presidency of Haiti was twice suspended in a coup, the latest on Feb. 29, 2004. He currently lives in exile in South Africa with his family, while the poor of Haiti demand his return.

Salute to solidarity: President Aristide thanks the Haitian people

Dear Friends,

May the spirit of International Day in Solidarity with the Haitian People continue to spread!

If the more than 10,000 people killed in the 18 months that followed the Feb. 29, 2004, coup d’etat could speak, what would they say? Would they join voices with the young women raped and sexually assaulted since the coup? Would they remind us that these women are estimated to constitute half the population of Haiti’s shantytowns? Would they unite with the voices of the 3,200 people imprisoned in a national penitentiary built to hold 1,200 prisoners? And what of the countless others who were inhumanely abused and now clearly betrayed? What would their message be?

They would rise in chorus with Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine to say “Merci,” “thank you,” for the solidarity demonstrated four years later.

Because they cannot, I will: Thank you.

Thank you to each and every participant in the 56 actions organized in 47 cities across four continents as part of the Third International Day of Solidarity. Your solidarity strengthens the people’s determination to continue to affirm human dignity and struggle for true democracy, justice and peace.

United to all our Haitian sisters and brothers who, on that same day, condemned the kidnapping of Feb. 29, 2004, and called for our return to Haiti, let us continue to drink from this historical stream of solidarity with grateful thanks to our mother Haiti. “Gratitude is the least of the virtues but ingratitude is the worst of the vices.”

Ab imo pectore, from the bottom of my heart,

Dr. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Pretoria, March 11, 2008

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