The luckiest in the neighborhood

Unlike Puerto Rico, other countries in the region haven’t fared so well the past century. The most obvious example of this is Cuba, which were it to have remained part of the US after the Spanish-American War, would undoubtedly be far more succesful, safe and prosperous than it is today. US Yet, US involvement in the Caribbean did not end with the defeat of Spain, America went on to intervene in both Haiti and the Dominican Republic

As I noted once before quoting Max Boot,

The proud American administrators who left Haiti could tick off a list of achievements: 1,000 miles of roads constructed, 210 major bridges, 9 major airfields, 1,250 miles of telephone lines, 82 miles of irrigation canals, 11 modern hospitals, 147 rural clinics, and on and on. (The Dominican occupation, being shorter, resulted in less construction.) All built by the occupiers, and at little cost to U.S. taxpayers; in these days before the Agency for International Development, the administrators of Hispaniola were expected to finance their governments out of customs revenues. Even critics were forced to concede the occupation’s material benefits. But the effects of occupation did not last long. After the marines left, the roads decayed, the telephones stopped functioning, and thugs once again took control of the machinary of government.

And as historian Max Boot noted, “The only thing more unsavory than U.S. intervention, it turned out, was U.S. nonintervention.” From 1915 to 1934, the United States occupied Haiti in which time it saw the most stability, prosperity and peace the country ever has, before or after.

In The Savage Wars of Peace, Max Boot wrote about limited US intervention next door in the Dominican Republic. In 1903, a new Domican government entered office and stopped payment of foreign debt, some owed to Americans and most to Europeans. Teddy Roosevelt feared that like in other cases, the Europeans would resort to force and intervene in the island.

In order to preserve order and keep the Europeans out, the president agreed to assume a customs receivership. Under a treaty signed in 1905, a retired U.S. army colonel took over customs collection for the Dominican Republic. The agreement called for 55 percent of the revenues to be turned over to foreign bondholders, but because the American collectors were more honest than their predecessors, the Domican government actually received more money than ever before.

Later, the US intervened in 1916 and occupied the country until 1924, again years of relative peace and stability its residents haven’t seen since.

Today both Haiti and the Dominican Republic are failed states mired in poverty, violence and corruption with no signs of a positive future ahead. When one accepts as a starting point for comparison, the period of European colonization where they wiped out the indigenous population (since little is known about the original inhabitants), those that did in fact become independent have not fared well. This is also one of the biggest reasons why Puerto Ricans realize that independence is a fantasty. Their unparalleld access to the US, citizenship and relative wealth would be signed away with the end of its commonewealth status.

Research even suggests, that America was the most successful colonizer as far as islands are concerned and the evidence suggests that in the Caribbean, as in other places, the only thing that has historically brought peace has been an outside power.

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