1981, July – September 29: (The Herodian Pig Slaughter: All of Haiti’s Pigs to Be Killed Within Two Years, Peasants Sacrifice Their Pigs to the Lwa Rather Th…

1981, July – September 29: (The Herodian Pig Slaughter: All of Haiti’s Pigs to Be Killed Within Two Years, Peasants Sacrifice Their Pigs to the Lwa Rather Than the Blan, Rural School Registrations Drop 30%, Not Since SHADA Had the Peasant Paid So Dearly, the Reagan Coast Guard Cordon, and Thirty Pieces of Silver for Haiti’s Acquiescence): In what proved to be another betrayal of its people — though one about which it had no choice, given that some of Haiti’s major aid donors were involved — the regime in July 1981 signed a protocol with the Inter-American Institute of Cooperative Agriculture. The protocol called, in Herodian terms, for the slaughter of all Haiti’s pigs within two years on the theory that this would prevent African Swine Fever from reaching the North American mainland. Peasants were to be compensated and plans called for foreign pigs — kochon blan — to replace the native ones, but in the short term all the cultivators saw was the forced liquidation of the closest thing many had to a savings account, often at distress prices. Some took pigs into hiding; others preferred to sacrifice their pigs to their own gods rather than the blan, so that an upsurge of pig offerings to the lwa was reported throughout the country. Within a year, rural school registrations had dropped thirty percent as the pig traditionally kept in the yard to pay for fees, books, and uniforms was no longer there. Not since the SHADA fiasco forty years earlier had the Haitian peasant had to pay so dearly for the theories of foreign agronomists. Faced with a backlog of more than ten thousand refugees in detention and hundreds more landing every week, the U.S. administration quietly entered into discussions with Port-au-Prince. President Reagan announced the result on September 29, 1981: with immediate effect, a U.S. Coast Guard cutter was to be stationed off Haiti permanently, assisted by other rotating vessels to form a cordon sanitaire sealing off Haiti. Howls of protest came from many quarters, not least the UN, which publicly questioned both the legality and ethics of the policy — but the UN’s views didn’t count much at the Reagan White House. The price for Haiti’s acquiescence became quickly clear: in Washington, senior Haitian officials wrangled through October with their U.S. counterparts over the exact definition of thirty pieces of silver — at the beginning of November, U.S. aid was to continue and even increase after categorical assurances that returned refugees would face no punishment.