TWO countries have made the front pages and lead stories in our lemming-like capitalist media: Haiti and Cuba. One country — Haiti — has earned the ire of the self-styled Western democracies by overthrowing its colonial slavemasters and establishing a free state in 1803, the first country in history to liberate itself from European-imposed slavery. The Europeans and elites in the US never forgave the rebellious followers of Toussaint L’Ouverture and their descendants. Through occupations, threats, “incentives” and economic extortion, imperialism has ensured that Haiti remains among the poorest countries of the Americas, ranking 145 on the UN’s Human Development Index. The brutal assassination of the Haitian president, an attempted coup d’etat by right-wing mercenaries, only added to the country’s miseries.