One, are you implying that the Haitians can have no agency, positive or negative? Your focus on US and World influences, via Chomsky, seems to exclude the ability of Haitians to do anything, positive or negative. It would seem quite obvious that they would be just as capable of digging their hole even deeper. Not all autonomous acts or tactics of resistance are productive, and to deny that is to buy into a binary fallacy of "bad imperialist/good natives" which distorts the situation almost as much as a triumphalist narrative.
Two, the paragraph you cited fits entirely with what Marcatau is arguing. Before 1950, they were agriculturally prosperous. Now they aren't. Topsoil destruction is not hard to accomplish on a small island with rainfall like that of Haiti's, and I've seen some of the pictures Marcatau is citing. Further, the quote you cited doesn't actually make any causative links between anything - they are at best things happen at the same time.
You haven't understood the chronology, Marcatu was talking about the supposed effects of what happened about 200 years ago (as I made clear), not what has happened since 1950. As I pointed out it doesn't work as an explanation when, despite what happened about 200 years ago, the agriculture was relatively healthy in 1950. The destruction of it since then is clearly caused by US intervention and yes, in a desperate sitaution the Haitians themselves may have done some things which made the situation worse - the key question is why is it so bad generally - clearly explained by Chomsky. Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.
Petion's land reform contributed just as much to the dire situation today as did the colonial policies you cite.
"Alexandre Pétion , 1770-1818, Haitian revolutionist."
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-Petion-A.html Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.
