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Melissa Harris-Perry: I'm Melissa Harris-Perry. Welcome to The Takeaway.

It's been nearly a year and a half since Haitian President Moïse was assassinated in his private residence. Since that time, the country has grown increasingly unstable. Reports this week indicate food and fuel shortages, and continuing violence perpetrated by heavily armed gangs.

Protester: "Everyone must come together to revolt. Children can't walk on the streets of Port-au-Prince. We're tired. We can't live like this anymore. Let's rise up."

Melissa Harris-Perry: Joining us now is Marlene Daut. She's professor of Professor of French and African Diaspora at Yale University. First of all, welcome to The Takeaway.

Marlene Daut: Thank you so much for having me.

Melissa Harris-Perry: There are these moments in the history of Haiti that speak to this current moment. Can you help us to understand a bit about the context of this crisis?

Marlene Daut: Haiti used to be a French colony in the 18th century. Haitians gained their independence after a 13-year long revolution in 1804, but really, the rest of the world refused to formally acknowledge Haitian independence at that time. It wouldn't be too strong of a word to say that the world has essentially punished Haiti since then.

For example, in 1806, President Jefferson caving to pressure from the French who wanted their colony back, issued a trade embargo. Economic sanctions against Haiti reached an apex in 1825, so quite early when France under King Charles X forced Haiti's President Jean-Pierre Boyer to agree to an indemnity payment of 150 million francs as the price of freedom. Antecedents of foreign occupation and intervention continued.

Throughout the 19th century, the United States tried to acquire the Bay of Samaná of the Dominican Republic, the port of Môle-Saint-Nicolas in Haiti. Of course, this all culminated in 1915 with a 19-year long occupation by the United States that use the pretext actually of the assassination of a different Haitian presidents as the reason to intervene. That was the United States' longest-running foreign occupation until Afghanistan.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Given that this history of foreign intervention has not been friendly to the freedom of the Haitian people, we know that in October, the acting Prime Minister Henry asked for foreign military assistance to try to bring stability. I'm wondering given this history whether or not foreign assistance would be welcomed, for example, by the Haitian people.

Marlene Daut: Definitely not for the majority of the Haitian people who really are saying, "We want to be the ones to choose our leaders for the first time in a long time." Because after the United States occupation ended in 1934, what Haiti was left with was a US-chosen president who was seen as being pro the United States. This really paved the way for the US government to play a role in installing or deposing every subsequent Haitian president, including François Duvalier, known as Papa Doc, who unleashed the regime of terror on the Haitian people until his death in 1971 when his son, known as Baby Doc, actually inherited the dictatorship because his father had declared himself president for life.

Baby Doc enjoyed US protection to a certain extent until it was no longer in the United States' interest to support him. Then he was whisked away during the coup d'état that unseated him in 1986 to France where he was under the protection of the French government. Since that time, Haiti has had various regimes of instability where the United States and the UN have played a role in trying to determine how the outcome of elections would go. That is what brought us to the current moment with Jovenel Moïse and his assassination and Ariel Henry who was the prime minister who hadn't been sworn in yet that Moïse had chosen.

Ariel Henry's legitimacy to rule the country is in question by the majority of Haitians because his predecessor Moïse's legitimacy was in question. His term according to the Haitian Constitution had been up, but the core group which is a coalition of nations supposed to promote democracy in Haiti decided that Moïse's term was not actually up and then once he was assassinated decided that Ariel Henry was the rightful successor.

A group of of Haitians from various parts of civil society as it's called came together after the assassination to create what's known as the Montana Accord, and they said they wanted to find a Haitian-led solution to the crisis. They wanted to be the ones who were to determine the future. In fact, they named people who could step in as interim president, interim prime minister, and various other government functions. All of this has been ignored not just by the Henry administration but by the international community. This is what led the US special envoy to Haiti, the former US Special Envoy Daniel Foote, to resign his position with a scathing letter in which he decried US support for what he called the unelected de facto Prime Minister Dr. Ariel Henry as interim leader of Haiti.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Okay, if foreign nation intervention is not the solution, if in fact, the issue is the Haitian people's self-determination which as you've pointed out is they have in fact been punished for now for centuries, help us to understand the ways that there may be global responsibility and accountability nonetheless even if intervention is the wrong route.

Marlene Daut: We say the hands off Haiti approach, that's not enough to say that what the US and the rest of the world needs to do is leave Haiti alone because Haitians did not create this crisis alone. Then to say the responsibility for fixing it is all on Haitians is not what the creators of the Montana Accord even meant. In fact, France owes Haiti not just reparations for slavery, but repayment plus interest of the indemnity which was recently recalculated by The New York Times for the ransom project to confirm Jean-Bertrand Aristide's number, but it's more than US$20 billion that France would owe Haiti.

There's also restitution that should come from the UN for the cholera crisis that they unleashed in Haiti in 2010 following the earthquake that devastated the city of Port-au-Prince. In fact, after three years of no cholera cases in Haiti, Haiti now has more than 12,000 suspected cases of cholera. More than 200 people have died, so this is an ongoing story with ricocheting consequences because even though the UN occupation formally ended in 2017, Haiti is still suffering the effects of this today.

In fact, the people who are called gangs, who are really these highly weaponized paramilitary forces with US weapons, and some of them have been former members of the police department trained by the United States military and the UN, they have been unleashing a reign of terror on the Haitian people since 2017 with one of the most infamous leaders "Barbecue" Jimmy Chérizier is wanted since 2017 for a massacre in the neighborhood of Grand Ravine. He's recently received sanctions from the UN, but this is really not enough. There needs to be monetary and economic restitution.

Yes, let the Haitian people determine their own elections, and who is going to run their country, but that also doesn't let off the hook the international actors who brought this situation to the point of overflow today where Haitian people are experiencing the highest level of food insecurity that they've ever seen in their more than 200-year history as an independent nation.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Dr. Marlene Daut is professor of French and African Diaspora at Yale. Professor Daut, thank you for taking the time with us today.

Marlene Daut: Thank you so much for having me.

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