Reason to Aid Haitian Refugees

Permit me to offer the following regarding Jeane Kirkpatrick’s Column Right, “There Isn’t One Reason for U.S. Action in Haiti” (May 22).

I and others know of at least one reason.

When some 50,000 fighting men (and some special women) fought beginning in 1776 to free 13 colonies from the yoke of British imperialism in this country, some 5,000 were black. Of these 5,000 black fighters, some 800 were foreign. In a major battle on an island off the coast of South Carolina during the late 1770s, a French force that had also transported by fleet some 800 volunteers from a Caribbean island engaged a large British force. At a point in the bitter fighting, by prearrangement, the French withdrew from the field while the 800 stood and fought off the British.

Among these 800 was a 14-year-old boy named Henri Christophe. Christophe, with the survivors of this action, returned to his native island and founded a new empire, naming himself Emperor Christophe I. When, some years later, this northern part of the island joined with the southern part to eradicate French control, a new nation, the second democracy in the Western Hemisphere, was founded.

This new nation was modern-day Haiti. Many, many of the oppressed Haitians seeking to flee their native country for the purpose of seeking asylum, and safety, in the United States are direct descendants of 800 men who fought against the British and assisted greatly in the founding of our nation.

Accordingly, I and others submit that there is at least one most compelling reason for the United States to act somehow, meaningfully, effectively, and as promptly as possible, in Haiti: to respond to a desperate need of many, many oppressed Haitians whose forebears helped establish the United States by fighting most heroically and self-sacrificially for our cause at a time of our desperate need.

DAVID K. CARLISLE

Los Angeles