As the stars illuminate the dark alleyways of Solino, Ezayi’s heavy beige Timberlands stomp across the cracked concrete. He is on a mission. The night lookouts who stand guard at the western barricades against the marauding paramilitary gangs of the mass murderer Kempès Sanon do not have money to eat. When the night watchmen don’t eat during their shift, they get weak, drink kleren (moonshine) to…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
You’ve read, heard and seen countless stories about supposed Chinese interference in Canada, but how many times has the dominant media mentioned Canadian subversion in other countries?
Don’t believe that Canada does that? Here are a few examples of Canada contributing to leading international stories:
While the media reported the above-mentioned stories, they refuse to discuss Ottawa’s negative role. Instead of holding our governments to account and describing Canadian subversion the media sphere focuses on foreign interference by our designated ‘enemies’ that’s had little demonstratable negative impact. In war and politics this is called distraction.
Starting Thursday in Ottawa I’ll be speaking on Canada’s Long Fight Against Democracy in Ottawa, Waterloo, Hamilton and Toronto.The information is here.
The post Please Ignore Our Subversion There first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
Caribbean leaders are holding an emergency meeting in Jamaica today to discuss the crisis in Haiti, where armed groups are calling for the resignation of unelected Prime Minister Ariel Henry. Haiti is under a state of emergency, with tens of thousands displaced amid the fighting, and United Nations officials warn the country’s health system is nearing collapse. Ariel Henry was appointed prime…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The past few days have seen unprecedented violence and an escalated humanitarian crisis in Haiti that has reached unimaginable proportions. De facto Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who was traveling this past weekend, is unable to return to Haiti as gang leaders threaten to create even more chaos if he returns. Meanwhile according to Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, the U.S.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
In the last few days, the gang violence that has become a way of life in Haiti has worsened. With gangs controlling the streets, people are being prevented from leaving their homes. Haitians have lost access to food and water, schools are closed, and the UN estimates nearly 5 million people in the country are experiencing food insecurity. On Friday, the UN Security Council unanimously passed a resolution, proposed by the U.S. and Mexico, to set up a “sanctions regime” to target gangs in Haiti.
Ariel Henry, Haiti’s unelected prime minister, came to power in July 2021 after President Jovenel Moïse’s assassination, with support from the U.S. and other foreign powers. On October 9, Henry called for foreign military intervention to help him curtail the gangs. Since then, the U.S. and Canada have sent armored vehicles and other military supplies to Haiti. However, many Haitians in Haiti and among the diaspora have protested this request, given the U.S.’s and UN’s track records of repeated military occupations since Haiti’s independence in 1804 (1915-1934; 1994-2000; 2004-2017), which have hurt Haiti and its people. Demonstrators have protested for weeks against Henry’s government over unemployment, ongoing violence and the high price of gas.
Even before Moïse’s assassination last year, Haiti was in a state of chaos. Haitians were already suffering due to corruption, gang violence, kidnappings, disregard for the rule of law and more than two centuries of exploitation by the close-knit 1 percent of elites who have long controlled the country’s economy — including through foreign meddling under the guise of help. During the last few weeks and months, however, the situation has been exacerbated. The prices of fuel and food are now extremely high, and gang leaders directly connected to business and political elites are running Haiti, including blocking major ports, thereby preventing basic supplies from entering the country. As if that were not bad enough, cholera is spreading.
Haiti is now in a state that could be called a civil war between civil society and the following groups: the countless number of gangs in the streets; the elites who are mainly parasites sucking the blood of average people yet who are supported by the U.S. and other powerful countries, including France and Canada; and the government. The gangs are being armed by both Haitian elites and foreigners who are the masterminds behind the scenes. These gangs are connected to international actors through money laundering, drugs and guns. Haiti does not produce guns. How is it that so many guns are able to enter the country, to the point that there are armies of gangs?
The English language lacks words to explain this horrific and complex situation. Haitian Creole, a language that emerged from revolution, contains more apt terms: Peyi lòk or peyi bloke refers to a movement to prevent the country from functioning on all levels. Sometimes it refers to a group of gangs who may be supported by the oligarchy (whether the government, the elite or both) or by a political opposition group. The intention of creating peyi lòk is to terrorize the population and prevent them from living. Peyi lòk contributes to a humanitarian crisis by undermining the economy. Schools are closed, government revenues are diminished, and it can be impossible to pay already underpaid civil servants.
I have colleagues who teach at the state university in Haiti who have not been paid for months. Meanwhile, already strained, understaffed, undersupplied hospitals have cut back on services due to the lack of fuel. Doctors are not able to go to work, pregnant people cannot reach hospitals to receive prenatal care, and children, some of whom only get a meal at school, are further malnourished. Banks and supermarkets have had to limit their hours. The situation also fosters gender-based violence as gang members use rape as a weapon.
Meanwhile, the leader of one of the largest gangs, former police officer Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier of the “G9 Family and Allies” gang, claims that “his gang is more of a political community than an organized crime group,” and argues, “The gang in this country is not those men with guns you can see here. The real gangs are the men in suits. The real gangs are the officials in the national palace, the real gangs are the members of the opposition.” Despite this rhetoric, Cherizier and his followers behave like any other gang, orchestrating death and terror in an effort to win power. He is currently holding the nation’s largest fuel terminal hostage, demanding the resignation of acting Prime Minister Ariel Henry and $50 million in ransom.
Thus, Haiti is being annihilated as a result of injustice, inhumanity, greed and the unwillingness of the elites to share power. The majority of Haitians are not members of any gang, nor tied to elites. They want to be able to live their lives in peace.
Following Moïse’s assassination, the U.S. and other so-called “friends” of Haiti have helped Henry stay in power. This support for his government is enough to keep him in power because the U.S. and the Core Group — consisting of ambassadors from Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, the European Union and the U.S., and representatives from the UN and the Organization of American States — are the ones calling the shots in Haiti. Despite allegations of corruption and economic mismanagement committed by members of Henry’s government, and Henry’s implication in Moïse’s assassination, the U.S. has continued to prop up his government.
And now Henry’s corrupt, illegal, immoral government has asked for help from the very colonizers who occupied Haiti, because he is both unable and unwilling to listen to the people, who want real democracy. Henry has completely refused a proposal from a coalition of civil society organizations to find a Haitian solution to the multiple crises that have been devastating the country for years and have worsened over the past 15 months. The coalition has a transition plan that includes full involvement of Haitians from all walks of life in creating a path toward democracy through negotiations, dialogue and political accountability. The plan includes proposals for dealing with the gang situation, which has disrupted the country’s economy at all levels. On October 17, the date that commemorates the assassination of independent Haiti’s first emperor, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, thousands of Haitians marched in various cities, including the capital of Port-au-Prince, Cap-Haïtien and Les Cayes, to protest the possibility of yet another foreign intervention. Dessalines must be turning over in his grave!
These events cannot be separated from Haiti’s history as a colony of France. The nation has been crushed by the debt that France forced it to pay after it obtained its independence in 1804 and abolished slavery. And this was precisely what France hoped to achieve. When the U.S. government refused to recognize Haiti’s independence, this — what we see in Haiti today — was, in fact, precisely what it hoped would happen.
When the U.S. occupied Haiti in 1915 — on the pretense of helping to create stability — it instituted forced labor, generated more violence and further destabilized the country. This was a crucial turning point that would determine future state institutions and patterns of U.S. control of Haiti throughout the rest of the 20th and 21st centuries, resulting in ongoing occupations. Now, we have neoliberal, neocolonial, capitalist, patriarchal vultures both within and outside of Haiti, those Haitians and non-Haitians alike who arm gang members in order to maintain control and destroy the people.
The UN, the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) and the Core Group have exerted control behind the scenes under the guise of support, diplomacy and helping to maintain stability in Haiti. In fact, their presence only exacerbates the challenges faced by the Haitian people. The UN has blatantly contributed to gender-based violence and poverty by refusing to deal with the so-called Petit MINUSTAH, hundreds of Haitian children born of sexual assaults by foreign UN peacekeepers on Haitians. It has refused to take real responsibility and pay reparations for the cholera outbreak tied to the UN peacekeeping mission, a tragedy that killed over 10,000 Haitians. The UN has offered only empty apologies.
Foreign intervention is dangerous because it is generally one-sided. When the U.S., Canada and other members of the Core Group support the power of an illegitimate government instead of the will of the people, Haiti and Haitians are rendered invisible in the eyes of the world. Haitian Creole has another word for this phenomenon: dedoublaj. A concept deeply rooted in Haitian history, dedoublaj refers to the idea of the milat elite (a Haitian creole term generally referring to light-skinned Haitians who hold the country’s wealth and power) who used dark-skinned presidents as figureheads. It is rumored in Haiti that Jovenel Moïse was killed in part because he refused to accept the role he was assigned in the dedoublaj.
The international community is playing the politics of dedoublaj; they say they want to support Haiti, but that support comes with many strings attached. What they actually want is to support the leaders who seek to exploit Haiti.
Former U.S. Special Envoy to Haiti Daniel Foote, who resigned from his post last year over U.S. deportation policies, has been blunt about U.S. foreign policy in Haiti. “American foreign policy still believes subconsciously that Haiti is a bunch of dumb Black people who can’t organize themselves and we need to tell them what to do or it’s going to get really bad,” Foote told The New York Times. “But the internationals have messed Haiti up every time we have intervened. It is time to give the Haitians a chance. What’s the worst that can happen? They make it worse than we have?”
In fact, Haitian civil society groups have created coalitions and proposed concrete steps to move forward. But the international community, Haiti’s so-called “friends,” have not recognized these efforts. During President Moïse’s last year and a half, the “Commission for the Search for a Haitian Solution to the Crisis,” composed of civil society organizations and political parties, was working on a national proposal. Weeks after Moïse’s death the commission produced the August 2021 Montana Accord, which proposed a transition period that would give Haiti time to organize elections. Likewise, the recent Manifesto for an Inclusive Dialogue Toward a Peaceful Transition to a Democratic and Prosperous Haitian Society, created by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the watchdog organization Observatoire Citoyen de l’Action des Pouvoirs Publics en Haiti (“Citizen Observatory for Action by Public Authorities in Haiti” or OCAPH), offers practical solutions that Haitians have generated to resolve the crisis. (The involvement of NED in supporting the Manifesto has drawn some scrutiny due to the group’s ties to U.S. interests, but this does not undercut the fact that many Haitian civil society groups are involved with the Manifesto and backing its recommendations.)
On the one hand, the international community is encouraging different political factions to find a national consensus to benefit the country, while on the other hand it is refusing to endorse the Montana Accord or the Manifesto. Without foreign nations’ support for concrete solutions, their pledges to allow Haitians living in Haiti to find a Haitian solution to the crisis are empty rhetoric.
If the international community respectfully, openly and honestly supported these proposals from Haitian civil society with no strings attached, Haitians in Haiti and the diaspora (which economically contributes to over half of the country’s GNP through remittances) could begin a national dialogue to address this layered crisis that includes security, political, economic and climate issues.
International interventions and occupations have never fostered stability in Haiti. Why not try something else? Change can only come if Haiti is able to decide for itself what happens next. This vision for the future must come from the Haitian people, and cannot be imposed by outsiders who do not understand Haiti’s culture, language or history, and are enmeshed in their own colonial, imperial histories.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Gélin Buteau (Haiti), Guede with Drum, ca. 1995.
At the United Nations General Assembly on 24 September 2022, Haiti’s Foreign Minister Jean Victor Geneus admitted that his country faces a serious crisis, which he said ‘can only be solved with the effective support of our partners’. To many close observers of the situation unfolding in Haiti, the phrase ‘effective support’ sounded like Geneus was signalling that another military intervention by Western powers was imminent. Indeed, two days prior to Geneus’s comments, The Washington Post published an editorial on the situation in Haiti in which it called for ‘muscular action by outside actors’. On 15 October, the United States and Canada issued a joint statement announcing that they had sent military aircraft to Haiti to deliver weapons to Haitian security services. That same day, the United States submitted a draft resolution to the UN Security Council calling for the ‘immediate deployment of a multinational rapid action force’ into Haiti.
Ever since the Haitian Revolution won independence from France in 1804, Haiti has faced successive waves of invasions, including a two-decade-long US occupation from 1915 to 1934, a US-backed dictatorship from 1957 to 1986, two Western-backed coups against the progressive former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1991 and 2004, and a UN military intervention from 2004 to 2017. These invasions have prevented Haiti from securing its sovereignty and have prevented its people from building dignified lives. Another invasion, whether by US and Canadian troops or by UN peacekeeping forces, will only deepen the crisis. Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, the International Peoples’ Assembly, ALBA Movements, and the Plateforme Haïtienne de Plaidoyer pour un Développement Alternatif (‘Haitian Advocacy Platform for Alternative Development’ or PAPDA) have produced a red alert on the current situation in Haiti, which can be found below and downloaded as a PDF.
What is happening in Haiti?
A popular insurrection has unfolded in Haiti throughout 2022. These protests are the continuation of a cycle of resistance that began in 2016 in response to a social crisis developed by the coups in 1991 and 2004, the earthquake in 2010, and Hurricane Matthew in 2016. For more than a century, any attempt by the Haitian people to exit the neocolonial system imposed by the US military occupation (1915–34) has been met with military and economic interventions to preserve it. The structures of domination and exploitation established by that system have impoverished the Haitian people, with most of the population having no access to drinking water, health care, education, or decent housing. Of Haiti’s 11.4 million people, 4.6 million are food insecure and 70% are unemployed.
Manuel Mathieu (Haiti), Rempart (‘Rampart’), 2018.
The Haitian Creole word dechoukaj or ‘uprooting’ – which was first used in the pro-democracy movements of 1986 that fought against the US-backed dictatorship – has come to define the current protests. The government of Haiti, led by acting Prime Minister and President Ariel Henry, raised fuel prices during this crisis, which provoked a protest from the trade unions and deepened the movement. Henry was installed to his post in 2021 by the ‘Core Group’ (made up of six countries and led by the US, the European Union, the UN, and the Organisation of American States) after the murder of the unpopular president Jovenel Moïse. Although still unsolved, it is clear that Moïse was killed by a conspiracy that included the ruling party, drug trafficking gangs, Colombian mercenaries, and US intelligence services. The UN’s Helen La Lime told the Security Council in February that the national investigation into Moïse’s murder had stalled, a situation that has fuelled rumours and exacerbated both suspicion and mistrust within the country.
Fritzner Lamour (Haiti), Poste Ravine Pintade, ca. 1980
How have the forces of neocolonialism reacted?
The United States and Canada are now arming Henry’s illegitimate government and planning military intervention in Haiti. On 15 October, the US submitted a draft resolution to the United Nations Security Council calling for the ‘immediate deployment of a multinational rapid action force’ in the country. This would be the latest chapter in over two centuries of destructive intervention by Western countries in Haiti. Since the 1804 Haitian Revolution, the forces of imperialism (including slave owners) have intervened militarily and economically against people’s movements seeking to end the neocolonial system. Most recently, these forces entered the country under the auspices of the United Nations via the UN Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), which was active from 2004 to 2017. A further such intervention in the name of ‘human rights’ would only affirm the neocolonial system now managed by Ariel Henry and would be catastrophic for the Haitian people, whose movement forward is being blocked by gangs created and promoted behind the scenes by the Haitian oligarchy, supported by the Core Group, and armed by weapons from the United States.
Saint Louis Blaise (Haiti), Généraux (‘Generals’), 1975.
How can the world stand in solidarity with Haiti?
Haiti’s crisis can only be solved by the Haitian people, but they must be accompanied by the immense force of international solidarity. The world can look to the examples demonstrated by the Cuban Medical Brigade, which first went to Haiti in 1998; by the Via Campesina/ALBA Movimientos brigade, which has worked with popular movements on reforestation and popular education since 2009; and by the assistance provided by the Venezuelan government, which includes discounted oil. It is imperative for those standing in solidarity with Haiti to demand, at a minimum:
Marie-Hélène Cauvin (Haiti), Trinité (‘Trinity’), 2003
The common sense demands in this red alert do not require much elaboration, but they do need to be amplified.
Western countries will talk about this new military intervention with phrases such as ‘restoring democracy’ and ‘defending human rights’. The terms ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’ are demeaned in these instances. This was on display at the UN General Assembly in September, when US President Joe Biden said that his government continues ‘to stand with our neighbour in Haiti’. The emptiness of these words is revealed in a new Amnesty International report that documents the racist abuse faced by Haitian asylum seekers in the United States. The US and the Core Group might stand with people like Ariel Henry and the Haitian oligarchy, but they do not stand with the Haitian people, including those who have fled to the United States.
In 1957, the Haitian communist novelist Jacques-Stéphen Alexis published a letter to his country titled La belle amour humaine (‘Beautiful Human Love’). ‘I don’t think that the triumph of morality can happen by itself without the actions of humans’, Alexis wrote. A descendent of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, one of the revolutionaries that overthrew French rule in 1804, Alexis wrote novels to uplift the human spirit, a profound contribution to the Battle of Emotions in his country. In 1959, Alexis founded the Parti pour l’Entente Nationale (‘People’s Consensus Party’). On 2 June 1960, Alexis wrote to the US-backed dictator François ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier to inform him that both he and his country would overcome the violence of the dictatorship. ‘As a man and as a citizen’, Alexis wrote, ‘it is inescapable to feel the inexorable march of the terrible disease, this slow death, which each day leads our people to the cemetery of nations like wounded pachyderms to the necropolis of elephants’. This march can only be halted by the people. Alexis was forced into exile in Moscow, where he participated in a meeting of international communist parties. When he arrived back in Haiti in April 1961, he was abducted in Môle-Saint-Nicolas and killed by the dictatorship shortly thereafter. In his letter to Duvalier, Alexis echoed, ‘we are the children of the future’.
The post The Last Thing Haiti Needs Is Another Military Intervention first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
Even before Haiti’s unelected de facto and extremely unpopular Prime Minister Ariel Henry shocked an already economically burdened Haitian populace by announcing on September 11 that he was ending fuel subsidies (a single gallon of gas now costs $4.79 in U.S. currency), the Haitian economy has been taking hit after hit from its foreign “investors.” Conflicts concerning who has the right to govern Haiti, and for what term, have torn up the country since prior to the assassination of Haitian President Jovenal Moïse in his Port-au-Prince home in July 2021. Moïse had selected Henry as Haiti’s prime minister just two days before he was trapped in his bedroom, roughed up (the autopsy showed several broken bones) and then slain in a hail of 15 bullets, one of which exploded his heart.
After a two-week power struggle between Henry and the then-incumbent Prime Minister Claude Joseph, Henry prevailed and assumed power on July 21, becoming Haiti’s seventh prime minister in four years. Henry’s alignment with the foreign oligarchic forces suppressing Haiti politically and economically was a factor in Daniel Foote’s resignation as U.S. Special Envoy a year ago. As Truthout reported, Foote did not mince words when criticizing the Biden administration for its decision to support Henry: “[W]hat our Haitian friends really want, and need, is the opportunity to chart their own course, without international puppeteering and favored candidates,” Foote wrote. “The hubris that makes us believe we should pick the winner — again — is impressive.”
While Foote’s historic act was noted, it was not heeded, and continued U.S. support of Henry has come grievously home to roost. In mid-July, a major foreign apparel company operating in Haiti announced massive layoffs in the garment sector, passing along the pain of what they say has been a 45 percent reduction in orders from major U.S. customers such as Target, Walmart and The Gap to Haitian workers and their families. Other companies have also indicated that mass layoffs are likely, and industry insiders have predicted that an estimated 20,000 jobs could soon disappear, according to local reports. This represents over 34 percent of all workers in the garment industry, which accounts for nearly 90 percent of Haiti’s exports. Some factories, such as Go Haiti which laid off 800 workers, have already closed up shop entirely, and Val D’Or CEO Robert Rothbaum stands accused of illegally shuttering the apparel company’s Port-au-Prince factory without notice in January, and absconding with 1,000 Haitian workers’ wages and severance pay.
That indignity, along with an inflation rate that was in excess of 22 percent making it impossible for Haitian workers to close the gap between their meager sweatshop earnings and the cost of basic human necessities, led to an industry-wide strike that won workers some modest gains: On February 21, the Superior Council on Wages acted to raise the minimum wage for garment worker to 770 gourdes (or $6.63 in U.S. currency) a day, which amounts to roughly half of what they were demanding. But with the rate of inflation now at 30.5 percent, those gains have been eroded and then some. In such desperate times, a job, even one that’s woefully compensated, is arguably better than no job at all.
Even in the midst of the current widespread turmoil, labor unions and workers’ rights advocates in Haiti are sounding a screeching alarm about the layoffs that are expected to happen by year end. They are explicitly connecting the issue to international interference with Haiti’s political sovereignty, especially the continued imposition of the U.S.-backed Henry, who critics say has stood squarely in the way of democratic self-governance.
In an open letter last month to S&H Global SA, the subsidiary corporation of a South Korean company which said it will reduce its workforce in Haiti from 10,000 workers to 6,000, the Autonomous Central of Haitian Workers (CATH) called the deep cuts “illegal, unjustified, and unjustifiable.” The labor union’s letter cries out against the proposed layoffs and the union-busting tactics used against workers attempting to advance garment workers’ rights, and demands restitution for harms against them.
The Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI), a law firm based in Port-au-Prince that represents unions in their fight against labor rights abuses in Haiti, is pressing the money damages case for the Val D’Or workers. In a blistering press release, the labor law firm blames the proposed massive layoffs on the stranglehold that foreign business interests have on the garment sector. The firm points to a number of key formal legal mechanisms in loan and trade programs that have been disastrously imposed on Haiti over the years by The Core Group, the very same multinational supervisory body to which Ariel Henry answers. Imposed upon Haiti by the United Nations in 2004 after the U.S.-backed coup of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, The Core Group is charged with “steering the electoral process.” Comprised of ambassadors to Haiti from Brazil, the European Union, France, Germany, Spain and the United States, in addition to representatives to Haiti from the Organization of American States and the United Nations, its creation was originally proposed as a six-month interim transition support measure, yet it endures to this day. Many Haitians understandably see Henry as being in cahoots with the enemy, defined in this instance as foreign states exploiting (and now blithely discarding) the Haitian workforce, enabled by Haiti’s entrenched oligarchic forces.
BAI also calls out a turn in U.S. foreign policy so intent in controlling Haiti’s politics that it perversely acts against the business interests of U.S. companies that have, until recently, been able to richly profit from low-cost apparel goods manufactured in Haiti. BAI’s September 8 press release states:
This is most recently manifest in U.S. support for de facto Prime Minister Ariel Henry and his repressive and undemocratic government, whose policies drive many of Haiti’s current challenges — including the deteriorating security situation that is pushing foreign investors out of the country. “Haitians do not need more conditioned loans and sweatshops,” explains BIA Managing Attorney Mario Joseph. “If the international community really wants to help, they should stop interfering in our democracy and investing in jobs that inhibit our self-sufficiency and fail to give back to the community.”
In its announcement, S&H Global attributed the reduction of demand by its customers which precipitated the layoffs to “the recent economic decline in the US market.” But Ose Pierre, a representative of the Solidarity Center who is living among, organizing with and talking to garment workers every day, says the nebulous statement makes sense. “They don’t want to say that there’s a problem because there’s no order,” Pierre told Truthout by telephone from Port-au-Prince, “because of the political situation in Haiti.”
In Pierre’s analysis, Henry’s continuation of Moïse’s extra-parliamentary authoritarian rule has created such political instability, bloody turf wars and lethal street fights, that businesses are being defeated in their struggles to fulfill orders.
“The political issue has a very big impact on production in Haiti,” Pierre explained. “We have gangs in control of the street. They decide when people can go to work, or not.” This is especially a problem for workers who live in one district of the city, but who have to pass through another to reach their workplace, he added. “We have two factories in Carrefour but the workers cannot cross Martissant. It’s a problem. There are two other factories in Croix-des-Bouquets where drivers crossing the border were kidnapped while trying to deliver the containers.”
Factory owners are closing the factories because “business as usual” cannot be conducted, he emphasized, and not because workers are intentionally withholding their labor. Surrounded by ruthless gang and police violence, people are sticking close to their neighborhoods where neighbors know each other, he says. Venturing out of one’s own turf can lead to dangerous confrontations with warring gang members affiliated with various political parties, or just getting caught in the crossfire.
“We have a prime minister here, but we don’t have a parliament, and we don’t know exactly who manages this country,” Pierre said. “Maybe that’s one of the reasons why one year after the assassination of Moïse, we’ve never heard a resolution about what actually happened. We’ve heard that the prime minister may be implicated, but the story keeps changing, and we don’t know exactly where these things are left.”
Those who can, Pierre says, are selling their possessions to scratch together enough money to secure a visa and $800 or $900 for a ticket to Brazil or Chile “where it’s actually not that much better,” he said. Or they attempt to cross into the Dominican Republic, which has become openly and murderously hostile to Haitian workers. Even Dominican Black people have been slain there recently, because they were mistaken for Haitian nationals.
Also perilous, Haitians are risking their lives on unsafe voyages on the open sea to the U.S. “In the last couple of months, we saw many boats, and those sailing in them were being arrested on the ocean,” Pierre said. “People cannot afford to live in Haiti. For those who cannot go to another country, they try to find another job.”
But having been trained on the sewing machines and having devoted their entire working lives to manufacturing apparel, many workers do not possess transferable skills, Pierre said, and have taken to peddling home-produced wares on the street. “You can go everywhere and you can find people trying to do some trade on the street, some little commerce,” he explained. Before the spike in gas prices, some intrepid Haitians, for example, would go to the north to buy fruits unavailable in the west and south, and bring them to the other regions for sale. But options like these are few, and are becoming increasingly foreclosed.
Even tourism marketed to Haitians living in the diaspora or internal to Haiti is stymied under the circumstances. “Haitians would be very happy to come to eat naturally, to enjoy the nice temperature we have in the country, and the sea, the mountains, and the ecological diversity. But we can’t activate it because of the instability.”
In Pierre’s assessment, the most important thing, even more important than saving a single sector like the garment sector, which is relatively new in Haiti, is gaining democratic political stability, which means an end to international interference and moving beyond Henry’s continuation of Moïse’s gang-plagued and autocratic governance.
“The solidarity you find in Haiti is a force of strength,” he said. “If we have political stability, people can live in this country, and even live well.”
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
A mass hunger strike has reportedly erupted in a notorious immigration jail in Florida, where Haitian immigrants are demanding to be released rather than deported to the island nation already reeling from a deadly earthquake and violent political crisis.
The Glades County Detention Center is run by a local sheriff in Moore Haven, Florida, and incarcerates immigrants under a federal contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). At least 100 people are staging a hunger strike at the jail, according to Freedom for Immigrants, a group that has received calls from multiple strikers. As the hunger strike began this week, the Biden administration reportedly angered fellow Democrats and human rights advocates by resuming deportation flights to Haiti in order to turn away migrant families seeking asylum.
Along with other immigration and civil rights groups, Freedom for Immigrants has filed multiple civil rights complaints detailing an array of alleged human rights abuses at Glades County Detention Center over the past two years, including medical neglect during COVID outbreaks and retaliation against participants in hunger strikes and other peaceful protests. Members of Congress have called on federal officials to halt transfers to the jail and shut it down.
Freedom for Immigrants reports that a number of the hunger strikers are Black and originally hail from Haiti and the Dominican Republic, although many have lived in the United States for years.
“Jonas,” a Haitian man who said he has lived in the U.S. since he was a small child and asked to remain anonymous due to fear of retaliation, said he is hunger striking to be released while officials consider an appeal to his immigration case. Jonas said his mother is in the hospital recovering from cancer, and he wants to see his 12-year-old daughter. His parents and siblings are U.S. citizens.
“How are you going to deport someone like me who has been here for 43 years?” Jonas said in a statement provided by Freedom for Immigrants. “I have no family ties in Haiti. Haiti is in turmoil right now.”
Haiti, one of the poorest nations in the Caribbean, is indeed in turmoil. On July 7, assassins killed President Jovenel Moïse, setting off a complicated political crisis as competing politicians, protest movements and gangs claiming to represent poorer neighborhoods rushed to fill a power vacuum. Escalating violence has displaced more than 19,000 people from the capital city of Port-au-Prince alone.
In mid-August, a 7.2 magnitude earthquake rocked southwestern Haiti, killing at least 2,200 people and injuring 12,000 more. The earthquake was quickly followed by a tropical storm that brought heavy rains and flash flooding that reportedly increased the death toll. More than 120,000 homes were damaged or destroyed and the disasters affected an estimated 800,000 people, according to the United Nations.
“I have nothing in Haiti. No family left,” said Stervens Datus, a hunger striker who came to the U.S. from Haiti when he was 5 years old, in a statement. “The government has killed people in my family in the past, and the gangs there will kidnap you if they think you have relatives in the U.S. with money.”
On August 30, more than 300 human rights groups signed a letter to President Joe Biden urging his national security team to halt all ICE deportation flights to Haiti due to natural disasters, political violence and “crippling poverty” that is exacerbated by the pandemic. While the Biden administration announced in May that Haitians living in the U.S. can apply for new temporary immigration protections lasting 18 months, deportation flights from the U.S. to Haiti have continued despite the political and environmental disasters rocking that country.
In July, eight members of Congress led by Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Shultz sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security demanding that the Glades Country Detention Center be shut down. The lawmakers cited lawsuits and dozens of civil rights complaints filed by incarcerated migrants and immigrant rights groups against the facility:
These testimonies detail patterns of medical abuse; lack of soap, hygiene products, sanitation, and PPE; continued transfers between facilities without quarantine; failures to follow court orders to release individuals from Glades; retaliation for peaceful protest, including a pattern of off-camera physical assault; use of toxic chemical spray in enclosed spaces; and hospitalizations and death. Since February, additional CRCL complaints have been filed, demonstrating that conditions at Glades have not substantially improved.
ICE’s press office did not respond to questions submitted over email by the time this story was published.
Sofia Casini, the director of visitation and advocacy strategies at Freedom for Immigrants, said ICE has the discretion to release the hunger strikers and others held at the Glades jail to their families as they wait to resolve immigration cases. Many have medical conditions that make them particularly vulnerable to COVID, but ICE routinely denies applications for release, claiming in boilerplate determinations that the incarcerated migrants are a flight risk or danger to the community. Under its contract with a local sheriff, ICE pays for 300 beds at the jail even when there are not enough people facing immigration charges to fill them, according to the letter from lawmakers.
“It’s a money-making machine … this is human trafficking, most people qualify for release,” Casini said in an interview.
Casini pointed to Ernst Francois, a Black Haitian man who has allegedly faced retaliation for participating in peaceful protests against conditions at the jail. Francois has been incarcerated by ICE for four years and has four young children waiting for him at home.
After participating in a hunger strike in February 2021 protesting medical neglect during a COVID outbreak, Casini said a sheriff’s deputy allegedly threatened to place a rope in Francois’s solitary confinement cell that could be used as a noose for suicide.
Fearing for his life, Francois was transferred to another facility for his protection before being returned to the Glades County Detention Center, according to Casini. He is currently on hunger strike and demanding to be released to his family.
“We are incredibly concerned by Ernest’s welfare and safety in solitary confinement as he undertakes this peaceful hunger strike,” Casini said.
In a statement, Francois said he “hasn’t done anything wrong for over 20 years,” but ICE continues to deny his requests for release while an immigration judge considers his case.
“I have four children in the US who are still young and are waiting for me,” Francois said. “I need to see them and be a father to them.”
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Almost exactly 230 years ago, on a plantation near modern-day Cap-Haïtien, enslaved people met under the leadership of Dutty Boukman (a hougan, or Vodou priest) and Cécile Fatiman (a manbo, or Vodou priestess), to plan a revolt that would come to be considered the official beginning of the Haitian Revolution. Boukman’s invitation to the enslaved people at that meeting on August 14, 1791, known as the Ceremony of Bois Caïman, was a challenge to the white narrative in Saint-Domingue that saw enslaved people as without soul, agency or spirit. As scholar Jean-Eddy Saint Paul has stated, Haiti was the first nation to insist that “Black lives matter,” and in 1804, it became the world’s first Free Black Nation as it cast off the yoke of slavery. But that independence has come at a tremendous cost.
In his recent essay, “A Killing Two Hundred Years in the Making: On Haiti and the Narrative of Empire,” poet Sony Ton-Aime stresses that in order to truly understand the problems that have plagued Haiti — in terms of lack of infrastructure and political, social and economic instability — we must view them in the context of empire. He writes:
The shadow of the American government has haunted political life in Haiti since 1804, when the impertinent Black and enslaved rebelled against their “masters” and secured their freedom. The same freedom that the French and the Americans were boasting so mightily about as the model for the future of society just some decades prior. Yet Haitian freedom was a threat to Americans’ survival. It threatened the economic security and the metaphysical comportment of a racist country busy establishing itself as the hegemon of the hemisphere. They decided to suppress this kind of freedom by keeping a close watch on Haiti and a constant presence there. The best way to do so was to sow chaos and tell a story in which Haiti was always in need of saving, of civilizing, of occupying.
This story is still being told today without context, as evidenced from the recent The Washington Post article titled, “Haiti’s long, terrible history of earthquakes and disaster.”
It seems that Haiti only makes it into the U.S. news when some disaster strikes. Saturday, August 14, 2021, was no different. At around 8:30 am, a 7.2-magnitude earthquake hit the southwestern part of the country.
My friends and family members sent worried texts from Haiti. One of my cousins, from the town of Hinche, in the Central Plateau, about 106 miles from the epicenter, told me, “We were on the second floor balcony and the whole house moved from side to side.” It was like reliving the 2010 earthquake again.
I consciously choose not to open the images that people have been sending me.
On Saturday, the day of the earthquake, I was on a panel titled, “In the Name of Boukman,” organized by the Caribbean Literary Conference (Caricon) to commemorate the 230th anniversary of Bois Caïman. This event is often misrepresented, particularly in certain church circles both in Haiti and in the United States, as a “dedication of the island to Satan,” and has been used to justify invasions and efforts at conversion. It will not be surprising if the same narrative is repeated in the context of this earthquake. After all, it is so much easier and simpler to blame natural and human-made disasters on religious beliefs instead of contextualizing history and its connections to empires.
A friend sent me a text saying, “I am sorry about Haiti.” I have received other texts and email versions of that same statement. #EarthquakeHaiti is trending on Twitter. Countries around the world are offering their condolences in a similar manner and some say they are ready to send humanitarian aid. In a statement, President Joe Biden described the United States as a “close and enduring friend to the people of Haiti.” But despite the “friend” rhetoric, the patronizing narratives of disaster and helplessness that surround Haiti are being repeated.
The stories representing the earthquake are being told via two lenses: an outside and an inside one. Outsiders’ stories will most likely be told from the perspective of “saving” Haiti, since that narrative is good for business. Insiders — Haitians and Haitian Americans — will tell different stories to help us get through these hard moments. Our stories will be more complicated. They will be intertwined with memories of the January 12, 2010, earthquake, as well as with the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, ongoing gang activities in Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas, the COVID pandemic, and hurricane season.
They will also be stories about how Haitians in Haiti and in the diaspora are putting our resources together to help others. I am in contact with three individuals from Les Cayes and Jérémie who are working on ensuring that people in those areas receive monetary aid long after the disaster tourists have left. Personally, knowing these inside and complex stories helps empower me because they help me focus on the fact that Haiti did not make a pact with the devil, nor is it materialistically poor or damned.
Raoul Peck’s film, Fatal Assistance, made after the 2010 earthquake, offers many lessons on how aid should not be administered. Will outsiders have learned these lessons? Will the people who truly need aid receive it? Will international aid organizations meaningfully engage ordinary Haitians in their relief efforts?
Or will the response mainly be, “I am sorry about Haiti”?
Haitians in Haiti from all walks of life must be at the center of all relief efforts because they are the ones who know what they need to rebuild Haiti. Any help or support that outsiders would like to offer to Haiti must be done in the spirit of racial and cultural humility, and the helpers must be mindful of their positionalities and their country and culture’s history with Haiti.
We must finally shift to another narrative — like the one alluded to by Naomi Osaka, who considers herself Japanese, Haitian and American: “I know our ancestors’ blood is strong, we’ll keep rising.”
Like Boukman. Like Cécile Fatiman.
It is time to hear the stories of the Haitian people — not those of empires, which will justify their meddling while offering no accountability.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Préfète Duffaut (Haiti), Le Générale Canson, 1950.
In 1963, the Trinidadian writer CLR James released a second edition of his classic 1938 study of the Haitian Revolution, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. For the new edition, James wrote an appendix with the suggestive title ‘From Toussaint L’Ouverture to Fidel Castro’. In the opening page of the appendix, he located the twin Revolutions of Haiti (1804) and Cuba (1959) in the context of the West Indian islands: ‘The people who made them, the problems and the attempts to solve them, are peculiarly West Indian, the product of a peculiar origin and a peculiar history’. Thrice James uses the word ‘peculiar’, which emerges from the Latin peculiaris for ‘private property’ (pecu is the Latin word for ‘cattle’, the essence of ancient property).
Property is at the heart of the origin and history of the modern West Indies. By the end of the 17th century, the European conquistadors and colonialists had massacred the inhabitants of the West Indies. On St. Kitts in 1626, English and French colonialists massacred between two and four thousand Caribs – including Chief Tegremond – in the Kalinago genocide, which Jean-Baptiste Du Tertre wrote about in 1654. Having annihilated the island’s native people, the Europeans brought in African men and women who had been captured and enslaved. What unites the West Indian islands is not language and culture, but the wretchedness of slavery, rooted in an oppressive plantation economy. Both Haiti and Cuba are products of this ‘peculiarity’, the one being bold enough to break the shackles in 1804 and the other able to follow a century and a half later.
Osmond Watson (Jamaica), City Life, 1968.
Today, crisis is the hour in the Caribbean.
On 7 July, just outside of Haiti’s capital of Port-au-Prince, gunmen broke into the home of President Jovenel Moïse, assassinated him in cold blood, and then fled. The country – already wracked by social upheaval sparked by the late president’s policies – has now plunged even deeper into crisis. Already, Moïse had forcefully extended his presidential mandate beyond his term as the country struggled with the burdens of being dependent on international agencies, trapped by a century-long economic crisis, and struck hard by the pandemic. Protests had become commonplace across Haiti as the prices of everything skyrocketed and as no effective government came to the aid of a population in despair. But Moïse was not killed because of this proximate crisis. More mysterious forces are at work: US-based Haitian religious leaders, narco-traffickers, and Colombian mercenaries. This is a saga that is best written as a fictional thriller.
Four days after Moïse’s assassination, Cuba experienced a set of protests from people expressing their frustration with shortages of goods and a recent spike of COVID-19 infections. Within hours of receiving the news that the protests had emerged, Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel went to the streets of San Antonio de los Baños, south of Havana, to march with the protestors. Díaz-Canel and his government reminded the eleven million Cubans that the country has suffered greatly from the six-decade-long illegal US blockade, that it is in the grip of Trump’s 243 additional ‘coercive measures’, and that it will fight off the twin problems of COVID-19 and a debt crisis with its characteristic resolve.
Nonetheless, a malicious social media campaign attempted to use these protests as a sign that the government of Díaz-Canel and the Cuban Revolution should be overthrown. It was clarified a few days later that this campaign was run from Miami, Florida, in the United States. From Washington, DC, the drums of regime change sounded loudly. But they have not found find much of an echo in Cuba. Cuba has its own revolutionary rhythms.
Eduardo Abela (Cuba), Los Guajiros (1938).
In 1804, the Haitian Revolution – a rebellion of the plantation proletariat who struck against the agricultural factories that produced sugar and profit – sent up a flare of freedom across the colonised world. A century and a half later, the Cubans fired their own flare.
The response to each of these revolutions from the fossilised magnates of Paris and Washington was the same: suffocate the stirrings of freedom by indemnities and blockades. In 1825, the French demanded through force that the Haitians pay 150 million francs for the loss of property (namely human beings). Alone in the Caribbean, the Haitians felt that they had no choice but to pay up, which they did to France (until 1893) and then to the United States (until 1947). The total bill over the 122 years amounts to $21 billion. When Haiti’s President Jean-Bertrand Aristide tried to recover those billions from France in 2003, he was removed from office by a coup d’état.
After the United States occupied Cuba in 1898, it ran the island like a gangster’s playground. Any attempt by the Cubans to exercise their sovereignty was squashed with terrible force, including invasions by US forces in 1906-1909, 1912, 1917-1922, and 1933. The United States backed General Fulgencio Batista (1940-1944 and 1952-1959) despite all the evidence of his brutality. After all, Batista protected US interests, and US firms owned two-thirds of the country’s sugar industry and almost its entire service sector.
The Cuban Revolution of 1959 stands against this wretched history – a history of slavery and imperial domination. How did the US react? By imposing an economic blockade on the country from 19 October 1960 that lasts to this day, which has targeted everything from access to medical supplies, food, and financing to barring Cuban imports and coercing third-party countries to do the same. It is a vindictive attack against a people who – like the Haitians – are trying to exercise their sovereignty. Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez reported that between April 2019 and December 2020, the government lost $9.1 billion due to the blockade ($436 million per month). ‘At current prices’, he said, ‘the accumulated damages in six decades amount to over $147.8 billion, and against the price of gold, it amounts to over $1.3 trillion’.
None of this information would be available without the presence of media outlets such as Peoples Dispatch, which celebrates its three-year anniversary this week. We send our warmest greetings to the team and hope that you will bookmark their page to visit it several times a day for world news rooted in people’s struggles.
Bernadette Persaud (Guyana), Gentlemen Under the Sky (Gulf War), 1991.
On 17 July, tens of thousands of Cubans took to the streets to defend their Revolution and demand an end to the US blockade. President Díaz-Canel said that the Cuba of ‘love, peace, unity, [and] solidarity’ had asserted itself. In solidarity with this unwavering affirmation, we have launched a call for participation in the exhibition Let Cuba Live. The submission deadline is 24 July for the online exhibition launch on 26 July – the anniversary of the revolutionary movement that brought Cuba to Revolution in 1959 – but we encourage ongoing submissions. We are inviting international artists and militants to participate in this flash exhibition as we continue to amplify the campaign #LetCubaLive to end the blockade.
A few weeks before the most recent attack on Cuba and the assassination in Haiti, the United States armed forces conducted a major military exercise in Guyana called Tradewinds 2021 and another exercise in Panama called Panamax 2021. Under the authority of the United States, a set of European militaries (France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom) – each with colonies in the region – joined Brazil and Canada to conduct Tradewinds with seven Caribbean countries (The Bahamas, Belize, Bermuda, Dominican Republic, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago). In a show of force, the US demanded that Iran cancel the movement of its ships to Venezuela in June ahead of the US-sponsored military exercise.
The United States is eager to turn the Caribbean into its sea, subordinating the sovereignty of the islands. It was curious that Guyana’s Prime Minister Mark Phillips said that these US-led war games strengthen the ‘Caribbean regional security system’. What they do, as our recent dossier on US and French military bases in Africa shows, is to subordinate the Caribbean states to US interests. The US is using its increased military presence in Colombia and Guyana to increase pressure on Venezuela.
Elsa Gramcko (Venezuela), El ojo de la cerradura (‘The Keyhole’), 1964.
Sovereign regionalism is not alien to the Caribbean, which has made four attempts to build a platform: the West Indian Federation (1958-1962), Caribbean Free Trade Association (1965-1973), Caribbean Community (1973-1989), and CARICOM (1989 to the present). What began as an anti-imperialist union has now devolved into a trade association that attempts to better integrate the region into world trade. The politics of the Caribbean are increasingly being drawn into orbit of the US. In 2010, the US created the Caribbean Basic Security Initiative, whose agenda is shaped by Washington.
In 2011, our old friend Shridath Ramphal, Guyana’s foreign minister from 1972 to 1975, repeated the words of the great Grenadian radical T. A. Marryshow: ‘The West Indies must be West Indian’. In his article ‘Is the West Indies West Indian?’, he insisted that the conscious spelling of ‘The West Indies’ with a capitalised ‘T’ aims to signify the unity of the region. Without unity, the old imperialist pressures will prevail as they often do.
In 1975, the Cuban poet Nancy Morejón published a landmark poem called “Mujer Negra” (“Black Woman”). The poem opens with the terrible trade of human beings by the European colonialists, touches on the war of independence, and then settles on the remarkable Cuban Revolution of 1959:
I came down from the Sierra
to put an end to capital and usurer,
to generals and to the bourgeoisie.
Now I exist: only today do we own, do we create.
Nothing is alien to us.
The land is ours.
Ours are the sea and sky,
the magic and vision.
My fellow people, here I see you dance
around the tree we are planting for communism.
Its prodigal wood already resounds.
The land is ours. Sovereignty is ours too. Our destiny is not to live as the subordinate beings of others. That is the message of Morejón and of the Cuban people who are building their sovereign lives, and it is the message of the Haitian people who want to advance their great Revolution of 1804.
The post Washington Beats the Drum of Regime Change, but Cuba Responds to Its Own Revolutionary Rhythm first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
Two weeks after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, Ariel Henry has been sworn in as Haiti’s new prime minister, after acting Prime Minister Claude Joseph announced he was relinquishing power. Henry is a neurosurgeon who was appointed by President Jovenel Moïse shortly before he was assassinated, but not formally sworn in. Both Joseph and Henry had claimed power following Moïse’s death. Over the weekend, the United States and other members of the so-called Core Group threw their support behind Henry, who will become Haiti’s seventh prime minister in four years. Monique Clesca, a Haitian pro-democracy advocate based in Port-au-Prince, says despite the polarization and turmoil in the country, it is ultimately up to Haitians to find a political solution. “It is not up to the United States State Department to tell us who should be the prime minister of Haiti,” Clesca says. “It is offensive. It should not be done. It is unacceptable.”
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Ariel Henry has become Haiti’s new prime minister. He was sworn in to office Tuesday, a day after the acting Prime Minister Claude Joseph announced he was relinquishing power. Henry, who’s a neurosurgeon, was appointed by President Jovenel Moïse shortly before he was assassinated on July 7th. Both Joseph and Henry had claimed power following Moïse’s death. Over the weekend, the United States and other members of the so-called Core Group threw its support behind Dr. Henry, who will become Haiti’s seventh prime minister in four years. Claude Joseph will stay in the new government as foreign minister.
On Monday, State Department spokesperson Ned Price defended the Biden administration’s decision to back Henry. He was questioned by the Associated Press’s Matt Lee.
NED PRICE: We are taking the side of the Haitian people. We’re taking the side of —
MATT LEE: No, you took the side of the guy who was named but hadn’t taken office.
NED PRICE: We are taking the side of the Haitian people. This is a dialogue that has been ongoing between various Haitian political stakeholders.
MATT LEE: Ned, whether you want to admit it or not, there was a shift in what you had been saying. Prior to that statement, you were all in support of the acting prime minister, and then, all of a sudden, on Saturday, you and the other members of the Core Group came out in support of Mr. Henry.
NED PRICE: Matt, we are supporting the inclusive dialogue that Haiti’s political actors are undertaking themselves.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by Monique Clesca, a Haitian pro-democracy advocate, usually based in Port-au-Prince. She worked for many years with the U.N., including at UNICEF in Haiti for 15 years. She’s joining us now from Washington, D.C., where she’s just arrived from Port-au-Prince.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Monique. As you listen to this, this discussion in the United States about who will be the prime minister, who is the prime minister of Haiti after the assassination of the Haitian president, what are your thoughts? And what are you calling for?
MONIQUE CLESCA: Well, thank you. I’m very honored to be invited to Democracy Now!
My thoughts, in hearing — after hearing Ned Price, is, they haven’t talked to us. They haven’t — how can — such arrogance of a State Department spokesman to say they are speaking on behalf of the Haitian people. No, I believe the Haitian people are able to speak for themselves. And we have been speaking for ourselves for the last three years during this crisis, demonstration after demonstration. How many demonstrators have been killed? No one listened to what we’re saying.
And now what we’ve been saying is, “Let us pause. Let us sit down. And, Haitians, talk together, come together and find a solution.” It’s not going to be like magic that it’s going to be done. There is such polarization. There is such mistrust. But we must do this.
It is not up to the United States State Department to tell us who should be the prime minister of Haiti. It is offensive. It should not be done. It is unacceptable. That is my reaction to this. And the Haitian people will not accept it. We will protest. We will fight. And we will continue to bear, to continue the fight to get a democracy, but not a democracy à la Jovenel, as Mr. Moïse had said before his unfortunate, brutal and untimely death. No, we will do it the way Haitians want to do it, properly and in a democratic way.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Monique Clesca, I wanted to ask you why, in your sense — what is your sense of why Claude Joseph agreed to hand over power to Mr. Henry, to Ariel Henry? Because it seems almost like who is less illegitimate, because they were — both got their power from the assassinated leader, who was himself — questions about his ability to hold power, after not being — after his term ended.
MONIQUE CLESCA: They are all illegitimate. Jovenel Moïse was illegitimate. He held power in a very autocratic way. He was a dictator. He should have left back in February. The Prime Minister Claude Joseph was illegitimate, because he came from Jovenel Moïse’s same regime. Ariel Henry is illegitimate. They are all legitimate. And that’s what we’re saying.
Why did Ariel Henry decide to step aside? I have no idea. I have no idea who whispered anything in his ear. All we know is that before Jovenel Moïse’s corpse was even cold, they were saying — the U.S. and the U.N. were saying it should be Claude Joseph. Then, a few days later, they change and say it should be Ariel Henry. Whatever is being cooked on the back burner somewhere in the U.S. Embassy, the U.S. State Department or the U.N. BINUH office of Madame La Lime really has nothing to do with the Haitian people.
We, actually, at the commission that I’m honored to be part of, had several meetings where various groups of civil society came to discuss a draft agreement. And they agreed that the Constitution 1987 should be respected. They agreed that there should be a provisional president and a prime minister, and are about to set up a committee so that they can decide and propose names to be provisional president and provisional prime minister. And it has come from an elaborate, consensual process over the last four months, with political parties and civil society.
That is what we are saying. It is up to the Haitian people. And we cannot continue this way, to have our sovereignty just stepped upon, not only by the United States government, but also by the U.N. and also by the likes of Ariel Henry and Claude Joseph, who await instructions from the State Department and from the U.S. Embassy rather than listen to us Haitian people. And this is what we’re saying. Listen to our voices. That’s what democracy is about. It’s not taking something from the State Department, from a very arrogant spokesperson at the State Department who is saying, “We’re listening to the Haitian people.” This is funny. The American Embassy has not even called our commission. Not once have they called us to say, “We would like to hear what you’re saying.” No, this is unacceptable.
AMY GOODMAN: Monique Clesca, we want to thank you for being with us. Of course, we’re going to continue to follow this and also who murdered the Haitian president. Monique Clesca is a Haitian pro-democracy advocate, who’s just come up to Washington, usually in Port-au-Prince. She’s a member of the Commission for a Haitian Solution to the Crisis.
And that does it for our show. Democracy Now! is currently accepting applications for our video production fellowship and our digital fellowship here in our New York City studio. Learn more and apply at democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced with Renée Feltz, Mike Burke, Deena Guzder, Messiah Rhodes, Nermeen Shaikh, María Taracena, Tami Woronoff, Charina Nadura, Sam Alcoff, Tey-Marie Astudillo, John Hamilton, Robby Karran, Hany Massoud and Adriano Contreras. Our general manager is Julie Crosby. Special thanks to Becca Staley, Miriam Barnard, Paul Powell, Mike DiFilippo, Miguel Nogueira, Hugh Gran, Denis Moynihan. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The recent assassination of Haiti’s president Jovenel Moise has created a great deal of confusion, not only about the crime itself but about the role that the United States might play in that nation. Scant and contradictory information make it difficult to discern who benefits from his killing. Moise was the United States puppet president who refused to step down in February as Haiti’s constitution required, and despite massive protests across the country opposing the continuation of his administration.
Questions about the assassination are relevant but they are not particularly helpful in analyzing the situation. Details about the plot are important but so is understanding the history of Haiti’s relationship with the U.S. and other countries. That history makes a mockery of any claim that the U.S. could be helpful at this moment.
The post US Out of Haiti! appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
As the investigation into President Jovenel Moïse’s assassination unfolds, the United States is laying the groundwork to deploy troops into Haiti for the fourth time in 106 years, at the request of a figure it has spent decades grooming, writes Dan Cohen.
This post was originally published on Green Left.
Port-au-Prince, Haiti – As shock grips the Caribbean island nation of Haiti following the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, the Haitian government has carried out a campaign to arrest suspects it alleges are responsible for the murder.
Haitian Director of National Police Leon Charles announced at a press conference that the assassination squad that killed Moise is comprised of 28 foreigners, including two Haitian-Americans and 26 Colombian nationals. Fifteen of those Colombians have been detained while three were killed in a gun battle and eight remain fugitives. Colombian Defense Minister Diego Molano has admitted that some of the Colombians are retired military personnel.
The post Suspected Assassins Of Haitian President Moïse Trained By US appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
U.S. President Joe Biden and the Democrats have been playing the “Black Lives Matter” tune on their fiddle. Biden even raised the issue of Black Lives Matter during his presidential campaign. But, just days after Biden was sworn into office, his administration lent support for the Haitian dictator, Jovenel Moïse, who stayed in office past his term to the dismay of the Haitian people, who flooded the streets in protest.
Now, Moïse is dead and the United Nations has decided who will be the new president of Haiti. We see the racist irony. The people of Haiti have not been allowed to weigh in. The white rulers have made their decision, as the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) stated in its July 9 press release.
And while the director of Colombia’s National Intelligence Agency and the director of its national police’s Intelligence Division are in Haiti to investigate the role of Colombia in the assassination, those agencies have not launched investigations into police forces and paramilitary elements involved in the recent killings of peaceful protesters in Colombia, a client state of the United States.
Accepting the recommendation from the United Nations Special Envoy for Haiti that contested Prime Minister Claude Joseph would be the new president is the ultimate in Western arrogance. The white West is continuing its white-supremacist narrative that the predominately African/Black population of Haiti cannot govern itself. What is really going on is the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination is working through the “Core Group” to ensure Haiti remains subordinate to its interests. The United States remains in the lead of that axis.
That is why we say Biden and Democrats could care less about Black lives.
In fact, Biden was quoted in 1994 as saying, “If Haiti just quietly sunk into the Caribbean or rose up 300 feet, it wouldn’t matter a whole lot in terms of our interest.”
Is this the man and are Democrats the people Africans and other colonized people around the world are supposed to trust with our lives?
No, they are committed to one thing: The perpetuation of the pan-European colonial-capitalist project that has been underway for more than 500 years. That ideological foundation explains why they do not believe in the inherent dignity of all human beings. Hence, the double standard in place: The pretense of democracy and the rule of law for them and colonial fascism for the nations and peoples of the global South.
This is why the white West’s deployment of “humanitarian intervention” because of the “Responsibility to Protect” is so cynical. The West is responsible for the barbaric treatment and conditions colonized peoples have faced for centuries. The U.S. ruling class has shown nothing but contempt for the lives of workers inside its borders and for the millions worldwide who live in abject poverty as a result of the global U.S.-dominated capitalist-imperialist system.
Why the concern about Muslims in China while Biden and Democrats greenlight Israel’s war crimes against predominately Muslim Palestinians?
Whenever the United States raises humanitarian issues—be it in the Horn of Africa or in China—we know it can only mean one thing: The United States has strategic interests that have nothing to do with the humanity of the people they pretend to care about.
That is why BAP will continue to tell the truth, no matter the consequences.
The post Why Human Rights in China and Tigray but Not in Haiti, Palestine, or Colombia? first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
After the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse at his home in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s interim government says it has asked the United Nations and the United States to send troops to help secure key infrastructure. The U.S. has so far declined, but has sent an inter-agency team from the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI. Democratic Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says the situation in Haiti is “extraordinarily delicate and extremely fragile,” and that the U.S. should not send troops to the country. “Our role should be in supporting a peaceful transition and democratic process for selecting a new leader,” she says.
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
As we’ve reported, Haitian police said Sunday they arrested a key figure in Wednesday’s assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse at his home in Port-au-Prince. Haiti’s National Police chief said they arrested Dr. Christian Emmanuel Sanon, Haitian-born Florida doctor, that he arrived in Haiti last month with, quote, “political objectives.” Police said Sanon is one of three Haitian Americans now arrested in the attack, along with 18 Colombians. The Miami Herald reports the Colombians said they were hired by Miami-based company CTU Security, which is run by a Venezuelan man named Antonio Emmanuel Intriago, who is known to be anti-President Maduro of Venezuela.
Haiti’s interim government says it has asked the United Nations and the United States to send troops to help secure key infrastructure. The U.S. has so far declined but has sent an inter-agency team from the Department of Homeland Security as well as the FBI.
Colombia has sent their head of military intelligence because the massive number of those involved, it is believed, with the assassination team are former Colombian military or Colombian.
For more, we are joined by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the U.S. representative for New York’s 14th Congressional District. She represents over 650,000 people across parts of Bronx and Queens, one of the most diverse districts in the United States.
We want to talk about the mayoral election here in New York. We want to talk about infrastructure and the Green New Deal, Congressmember Ocasio-Cortez. But this latest news in Haiti and the call for U.S. or U.N. troops from some sectors, the interim government of Haiti, what is your concern here with President Biden pulling the troops out of Afghanistan and the possibility of pressure to go back to — the U.S. going back to occupying Haiti?
REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO–CORTEZ: Well, you know, I think there are an enormous amount of concerns. I, first of all, applaud the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, but this is — you know, the intention of that is to not relocate troops from Afghanistan to anywhere else. And I don’t believe that that was the intention in withdrawal from the White House, either.
But this situation is extraordinarily delicate and extremely fragile. And I do not believe right now that the introduction of U.S. troops, without — particularly without any sort of plan, sets any community, whether it’s the U.S. or whether it is Haitians, up for success.
I do believe that with the assassination, the people of Haiti and the country is in a very delicate moment, and our role should be in supporting a peaceful transition and a peaceful democratic process for selecting a new leader, and avoiding any sort of violence, but particularly in really carrying any — supporting any due process for justice here in the United States for any actors that may have been complicit on U.S. soil.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The interim prime minister of Haiti has declared a state of siege and imposed martial law following the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, who died in an armed attack on his home. The first lady of Haiti was injured in the attack and airlifted to a hospital in Miami, where she is reportedly in stable but critical condition. Haitian authorities say police have killed four suspects and detained two others, but the individuals have not been identified. No evidence linking them to the assassination has been made public. It is unclear who is now in charge of Haiti, which was already facing a political, security and economic crisis prior to the assassination of the president. Haitians are “in mourning,” whether they supported Moïse or not, says Guerline Jozef, co-founder and executive director of Haitian Bridge Alliance. “Today the streets of Haiti are empty because people are trying to make sense of what just happened.” She calls on the Biden administration to stop deporting Haitians and to allow more people who fled to the U.S. to apply for temporary protected status.
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to begin today in Haiti. The interim prime minister there has declared a state of siege and imposed martial law following the assassination of Haiti’s President Jovenel Moïse, who died in an armed attack on his home early Wednesday. The first lady of Haiti, Martine Moïse, was injured in the attack and was airlifted to a Miami hospital in Miami. She’s reportedly in stable but critical condition.
Haitian authorities say police have killed four suspects and detained two others, but the individuals haven’t been identified. Haiti’s ambassador to the United States said the assassination was carried out by, quote, “foreign mercenaries and professional killers.” Video shot from outside the president’s home shows the heavily armed attackers claimed to be from the U.S. DEA, the Drug Enforcement Administration. Listen carefully.
ARMED ATTACKER: This is a operation. This is a operation. DEA. Everybody, go, go, go. [inaudible] Everybody, do not shoot. This is a DEA operation. This is a DEA operation.
AMY GOODMAN: “This is a DEA operation,” you hear them saying, the person speaking with an American accent, but this video hasn’t been verified. On Wednesday, State Department spokesperson Ned Price was asked if the DEA was involved in the assassination.
HÜMEYRA PAMUK: Can you speak to the DEA element of all of this? You’ve — the ambassador also talked about this footage where they’re identifying themselves as DEA agents, and he said that he doesn’t believe in it. I mean, can you say that that’s not the case, that you have an assessment that those are not DEA officials? Can you sort of, you know, set the record straight on that?
NED PRICE: Well, as you said, the Haitian ambassador himself has dismissed these allegations. These reports are absolutely false. The United States condemns this heinous act. These false reports are nothing more than that, just false reports.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s unclear who’s now in charge of Haiti. Under Haiti’s Constitution, the president of the Supreme Court would normally take power, but the judge recently died of COVID-19. Haiti’s Parliament was dissolved last year. Haiti now has two men claiming to be prime minister. Last week, President Moïse appointed Ariel Henry to become his seventh prime minister in four years, but Henry has not yet been sworn in. Meanwhile, Haiti’s acting Prime Minister Claude Joseph has assumed power following Moïse’s assassination. On Wednesday, Joseph addressed the nation.
ACTING PRIME MINISTER CLAUDE JOSEPH: [translated] The first elements of information we have at our disposal make us understand it happens to be a group of English- and Spanish-speaking persons. They were carrying huge-caliber weapons and killed the president. As the incumbent chief of government, I gathered this morning a special Supreme Council of the National Police. In strict accordance with Article 149 of the Constitution, I just presided an extraordinary council of ministers, where we decided to declare a state of siege on the whole territory.
AMY GOODMAN: Haiti was already facing a political, security and economic crisis prior to the assassination of the president. Earlier this year, opponents of Moïse accused him of orchestrating a coup to stay in power beyond February 7th, when his term officially ended.
We go now by Guerline Jozef, co-founder and executive director of Haitian Bridge Alliance, that works with Haitian immigrants in the United States.
As all of this unfolds, Guerline, if you can give your assessment of what took place? I mean, you’ve got this video with an American voice saying, “This is the DEA,” the Drug Enforcement Administration. This hasn’t been verified. Apparently people were speaking in Spanish — of course, not the language of Haiti. How is it that even this group of people could get to the president’s house without the acquiescence of the police or the military, which would suggest a kind of coup going on? What do you understand at this point, as you talk to people around Haiti?
GUERLINE JOZEF: Good morning, Amy, and thank you for having me.
As all of this are developing on the ground in Haiti, actually, after we received the call yesterday morning, in the middle of the night at 2:45, my first question was: What happened? Where are the guards? Where are the extreme security that the head of state is supposed to be having? As we’ve heard from the video, allegedly — we do not know exactly who those people are. I understand that people on the ground are still looking into those allegations. So we are hoping to get a light on those.
But what I can tell you is that today, as of yesterday, Haiti is in mourning. Whether you are, you know, for the Jovenel government or against his ideologies, today the people are in mourning. Today the people are in fear. Today the streets of Haiti are empty because people are trying to make sense of what just happened.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Guerline, could you talk about the significance of the assailants allegedly claiming to be from the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Administration, of the U.S.? To your knowledge, has the DEA operated in Haiti in the past? And if so, would the invoking the DEA overcome, as you said, the extreme security that the president’s residence has?
GUERLINE JOZEF: Well, I am not a person who deals with those specific issues. You know, our main issue is dealing with immigration and what’s happening on the ground when it affects people that are being forced to leave the country. So, as those investigations continue, I do hope that we get clarifications of what’s happening, and whomever are involved in this extremely, extremely disturbing and inhuman act in the country of Haiti will be brought to justice.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Guerline, could you talk a little bit — of course, we reported earlier, and there have been widespread reports of this, of the political violence and security situation in Haiti prior to this assassination, the government accused of using gangs to crush the opposition, many hundreds who have been detained, arrested or killed in the last several years. And you deal, of course, with migrants coming to the U.S. What do you know of that situation and how many people who come to the U.S. are fleeing that violence?
GUERLINE JOZEF: Yes. So, as you just mentioned, what we are witnessing is a result of a long and bloody, you know, acts that have been happening. As a matter of fact, last week alone, we have an estimated 15 young men and women who were massacred, including journalists, including a young woman who was leading the fight on behalf of the Haitian community on the ground. We are seeing that, you know, the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, as part of a long strike of bloody massacres on the people on the ground, and now to the highest level of office in Haiti. So, we have to understand that this didn’t just happen yesterday in the middle of the night. This has been a product of both internal violence and external violence that have been plunging Haiti into the darkness, what I said is into a new abyss. What we are seeing right now, we do not know what the next move will be, but please understand that this is part of a long history of bloody murders that have been happening in the country.
And now we are seeing — we at a level where Haiti is in mourning. Haiti is in pain. Our soul, our hearts are crying for justice. Our hearts are crying for peace. Our hearts are crying for protections, because we do understand, as we serve migrants in the United States, they do not want to leave home. But what do people have to do when home is in the mouth of a shark? As we look at what’s happening in the country, we are also seeing, you know, the effect of that in migration, forced migration, forced displacement. And the majority of the people leaving their home countries are because of abuse, because of political unrest, because of the type of issues we are seeing in Haiti right now. So, our heart goes to Jovenel Moïse’s family. The first lady, Martine, we are praying for her recovery. But we are also praying for those who have lost their lives without cause for the past week, the past year, the past month, as you have mentioned before.
AMY GOODMAN: And before we end, Guerline, you live here in the United States. You are a part of what many call Haiti’s 10th department: Haitians who live in the United States. When we spoke to you last, then-President Moïse, who’s now been assassinated, was supposed to leave office. The Biden administration has supported Moïse. And even this week, there was a deportation flight to Haiti. And you deal with immigrants all the time. Can you talk about what you’re calling on the Biden administration to do in this time of this unprecedented assassination?
GUERLINE JOZEF: Absolutely. Again, as you mentioned, you know, as of February 7th — depends on which way you interpret the Constitution — President Jovenel was supposed to leave, from the opposition understanding, you know, how they interpret the Constitution. And at the same time, the government of President Jovenel Moïse, the way they interpret the Constitution said that they were supposed to stay until 2022nd.
But what what we are asking President Biden to do is, one, to quickly release the Federal Register notice, so that Haitians who are currently in the United States are able to apply for TPS, that we have fought so long to be able to win that battle for over 150,000 Haitians who are already in the United States as of May 21st, 2021. And at the same time, we are asking for protection for asylum seekers who have been at the U.S.-Mexico border for between a year to five years, who have been waiting for a chance to apply for asylum. And we are asking President Biden to immediately rescind Title 42, which has been used as a vehicle not only to destroy lives, but to create that pipeline for expulsion and deportation to Haiti.
And, Amy, as you just mentioned, the eve of this assassination, there were a deportation to Haiti. So, it is absolutely unbelievable for us to see, as we just received TPS on the ground of the insecurity that’s on the ground, at the same time, for the United States to be deporting people to Haiti. So we are asking for a complete halt for all deportations to Haiti. We are asking for the release of all the Haitian asylum seekers who are currently caged in immigration prisons in the United States. We are asking the President Biden and his administration to provide protection, security for those asylum seekers and immigrants who have come to our shores asking for protection, as we see what’s happening on the ground today.
AMY GOODMAN: Guerline Jozef, we want to thank you for being with us, co-founder, executive director of Haitian Bridge Alliance.
Coming up, as the U.S. military says its withdrawal from Afghanistan is 90% complete, the Taliban escalates its offensive by seizing more districts. We’ll speak to a longtime Afghan women’s rights defender and an Afghan journalist in Kabul. Stay with us.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Haiti is reeling from a new crisis after President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in an attack on his home in the outskirts of Port-au-Prince early Wednesday. In a statement, Haitian Prime Minister Claude Joseph said “a group of unidentified individuals” attacked the private residence of the president, killing him and injuring the first lady. Moïse, who had led Haiti since 2017, was accused of orchestrating a coup to stay in power beyond February 7, when his term officially ended. For months Haitians have staged large protests against Moïse demanding he leave office, but Moïse clung to power with support from the Biden administration, which backed his claims that his term should end next year. Dahoud Andre, a longtime Haitian community activist and member of the Committee to Mobilize Against Dictatorship in Haiti, says rumors are flying about who could be behind the killing. “As of now, we have no clue where this assassination came from,” Andre says, adding that “the Haitian people loathed Jovenel Moïse” and describing him as a “tool” of the United States. We also speak with Kim Ives, editor of Haiti Liberté, who says the assailants appear to have been well resourced in their attack. “Clearly this was a fairly sophisticated operation,” Ives says.
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show with breaking news. Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated early today after an attack on his home in the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. Moïse’s wife was also shot in the attack; she has been hospitalized. In a statement, the Haitian prime minister, Claude Joseph, said, quote, “A group of unidentified individuals, some of them speaking Spanish, attacked the private residence of the president of the republic and thus fatally wounded the head of state,” unquote.
Moïse had led Haiti since 2017. Earlier this year, critics of Moïse accused of him of orchestrating a coup to stay in power beyond February 7th, when his term officially ended. For months Haitians have staged large protests against Moïse demanding he leave office. But Moïse clung to power with support from the Biden administration, which backed Moïse’s claim that his term should end next year. Human rights groups report — had accused Moïse of sanctioning attacks against civilians in impoverished neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince, the capital, with targeted assassinations and threats against government critics carried out with impunity.
We’re joined now, dealing with this breaking news, by two guests. Dahoud Andre is a longtime Haitian community activist and member of the Committee to Mobilize Against Dictatorship in Haiti. And Kim Ives is with us, the editor of Haiti Liberté.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Let’s begin with Dahoud Andre. Can you tell us what you have heard? Who is responsible for this assassination? And then give us what has been happening — talk about what has been happening in Haiti.
DAHOUD ANDRE: Well, thank you very much, Amy and Juan, for inviting us to speak about what’s happening in Haiti.
We got the call — a call about 5:30 this morning to say that radio in Haiti had reported that, overnight, Jovenel Moïse had been assassinated. I should say that right now, as of now, we have no clue where this assassination came from — certainly not the street gangs, such as the G9; Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, who has been going around recently, after years of demonstrating with an American flag behind his back, and right now purporting to be fighting for a revolution to liberate the Haitian people, so we know it did not come from there.
We know that it could have come from the oligarchy, such people as Reginald Boulos, maybe, you know, Dimitri Vorbe, that at present it appears that Jovenel Moïse has some difficulty with them, because we can imagine that it would take a lot of money to do — and resources, to do an operation such as this.
But a lot of people that I’ve spoken to this morning are saying it’s probably the U.S. government, again, not just affirming their domination over Haiti right now, but maybe to mask the shame of their defeat and running away from Afghanistan in the middle of the night.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Kim Ives, I wanted to get your perspective on this. Clearly, there was a popular opposition and questions, deep questions, about any kind of legitimacy for Jovenel Moïse. So, was this potentially a falling out among the elites, or was there foreign involvement, as well, other than the possible mercenaries themselves being hired from abroad?
KIM IVES: Well, it definitely seems there was foreign involvement. My sources in Haiti this morning tell me that the assailants, the killers, arrived in nine brand-new Nissan patrol pickups. They had a complete understanding of the household of Jovenel Moïse, so apparently they had some inside information. They knew what they were doing. They pretended to be the DEA. So, clearly, this was a fairly sophisticated operation.
Was it Boulos? Was it one of the other members of the bourgeoisie who have had problems with Jovenel? It’s difficult to know. It seems he was also recently in Turkey making some deals, and the Colombians may have not been happy about that. That’s one of the rumors going around. So, we have to wait and see who was behind it.
But definitely, on the street, things have been very hot. The revolutionary forces of the G9 Family and Allies have basically been also calling for Jovenel to go. So I don’t think there’s anybody that is going to be unhappy with this outcome. It was a time when he was very isolated, even within his own circles.
AMY GOODMAN: And the fact that they were speaking Spanish?
KIM IVES: Yeah, and that’s the big question. Yeah, I’m trying to find out why they think it was Colombians involved. I don’t know if it’s an accent question. I haven’t gotten an answer back. But I believe that, you know, it was definitely some fairly sophisticated mercenary operation involved.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Dahoud, I wanted to ask you, in terms of — for those listeners and viewers of Democracy Now! who have not been closely following what’s been going on in Haiti in recent years, could you talk about the connections of Moïse to the previous president and the involvement of the Clintons in the continuing, persistent political crises that have occurred in Haiti in recent years?
DAHOUD ANDRE: Yeah. I want to point out first that this is exactly three years since the major uprisings that happened in the country in 2018, July 6, 7th, when the IMF had demanded that Haiti, the government of Haiti, raise fuel prices. And some of these prices were doubled. And the puppet government that Jovenel Moïse headed, they did this in the middle of a soccer game between Brazil and Belgium. And the idea was that Brazil would win and that it would be euphoria, and the people wouldn’t mind. They wouldn’t notice. They wouldn’t be — they would be celebrating Brazil’s victory. And fate had it that Brazil lost shamefully. And immediately after the game ended, uprisings all over the country. So, it’s important to note this date, this anniversary, and that Jovenel Moïse would be killed on this anniversary.
But also, I want to point out what Kim Ives is calling the revolutionary forces of the G9 and Jimmy Cherizier, these are criminals. These are people that are responsible for killing, massacres in poor neighborhoods in the country. These are people — and a lot of people find it amazing, unbelievable, that Kim Ives and his newspaper, Haiti Liberté, would be defending, trying to make people believe that these are revolutionaries — these are the people who are throwing 78-year-old elderly folks off of buildings, burning them alive — that these are the people who are going to save us.
The audience should understand, yes, Martelly was handpicked by the Clintons as a puppet, as someone who would do their bidding and join the campaign. It was obvious that the Clintons, Bill Clinton, who was running the CIRH to supposedly rebuild Haiti “back better” — same slogan that Joe Biden used in his recent campaign — that they would find that this is the person who would be — a degenerate, someone — I know that this program has done much about Martelly, so I don’t want to even go there. But what is important is that Martelly handpicked Jovenel Moïse.
And Jovenel Moïse, who was a crook, an indicted, fake entrepreneur, was put in directly by the U.S. government again. And in that position, he was a reliable puppet to, first, Donald Trump, to the point that he betrayed Haiti’s historic relationship with Venezuela in recognizing Juan Guaidó as legitimate head of Venezuela. And Jovenel Moïse had the nerve to say that with the most recent legislative elections in Venezuela, he would not recognize them because there was not enough popular participation. And this is someone who, by their own numbers, got about 500,000 votes in a country of 12 million people.
So, I need to say that the Haitian people loathed Jovenel Moïse and Martelly, the PHTK government, because they are the tools of the United States, to impose the will of the United States on the people. And they arm these street gangs. They finance these massacres in the poor neighborhoods, that are supportive of, I should say, President Aristide, the Lavalas government. And they just felt — and this was Martelly’s position — he clearly said, so long as the heavyweights — meaning the United States, the U.N., the OAS, the Core Group — supported him and Jovenel Moïse, nothing could happen to them. And this is what we have seen: the support, the unequivocal support, of the United States to the PHTK government, who was killing the Haitian people and stealing the resources of the country.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to get Kim Ives’ response to this clip. One of Haiti’s most powerful gang leaders warned this week he was launching a revolution against the country’s business and political elites. This is Jimmy Cherizier, who Dahoud just referred to, a.k.a. “Barbecue,” a former police officer who heads the so-called G9 federation of nine gangs formed last year.
JIMMY CHERIZIER: [translated] I’m telling people to keep looking for what belongs to them by right. It is your money which is in the banks, stores, supermarkets and dealerships. So go and get what is rightfully yours. Continue looking for what belongs to us, because it is ours.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us who “Barbecue” Jimmy Cherizier is, Kim Ives, and respond to Dahoud’s criticism of your paper, Haiti Liberté?
KIM IVES: Yes, I can. Haiti Liberté, of which, by the way, I’m just the English-language section editor, has been following, with very great interest, the emergence of the G9. Unlike Dahoud Andre, I have met with Jimmy Cherizier and a number of the organizations on the ground in Haiti.
The massacres that he’s describing are really the product, principally, of an outfit called the RNDDH, the Haitian Network for the Defense of Human Rights in Haiti, headed by a guy called Pierre Espérance, who also issued fallacious reports against the Aristide government after the 2004 coup d’état. He has basically waged some kind of holy war against Jimmy Cherizier, who, according to Cherizier, he asked to bump off, to rub out a rival human rights group head.
So, Jimmy Cherizier was a stellar policeman who was basically radicalized by his betrayal by the Haitian police leadership, who hung him out to dry after an operation went badly in Grande Ravine in 2017. And he was dealing with some of the leading lights of the opposition — Reginald Boulos, previously mentioned, a guy called Youri Latortue, who is also an alleged former death squad leader and was called “the poster-boy for political corruption” by the U.S. Embassy itself in the WikiLeaks cables that we released a decade ago. So he soured on them, too, and he saw that both the government of Jovenel Moïse and the opposition, the bourgeois opposition, with which Dahoud is aligned, were rotten. And he said, “We need a revolution, because the people need schools. They need clinics. They need sanitation.”
He took me around the neighborhoods of Delmas 4, Delmas 2, Delmas 6, where he grew up. He’s a street — the son of a poor street vendor. And he showed me how people had to do their toilet in a plastic bag and throw it in a canal. And he said, you know, “People can’t live like this.” So he has been calling for a revolution against the system in Haiti and is being radicalized really by the day and by these events.
So, the portrayal of him in the mainstream press, you know, by the AP, The Washington Post, is he’s this gang leader. He’s the bogeyman. But the reality is, on the ground, that this is an uprising really of Haiti’s lumpenproletariat, which has been crushed over the past decades. And Jovenel Moïse was no different than Martelly. And the people, the masses in Haiti, in Port-au-Prince, now some 3 million, 4 million people, have had enough and are rising up.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Dahoud, your response on the issue of Kim saying that you are representing more of the bourgeois opposition?
DAHOUD ANDRE: Kim Ives is a joke, and it’s sad that your program is giving him this platform to, again, push this garbage that Jimmy Cherizier, who — and this is not the RNDDH who’s saying that Cherizier, that Barbecue, is an assassin, a criminal, like someone who is responsible for all of these massacres, and despite the denunciations of the people of La Saline, of all of these poor neighborhoods in Bel Air, who themselves they say that it is Jimmy Cherizier. This is RNDDH. This is Fondasyon Je Klere. This is the CARDH and the people in the streets and any radio station in the country that you turn on. And people who are massacred are speaking directly about who they saw came with guns, with gasoline and fire to burn down their homes.
So, now to say that Dahoud Andre is aligned with the bourgeoisie opposition, [laughs]. There is a former ally of Kim Ives and his newspaper, Haiti Liberté, that he owns. But Kim is a white man, an American. And so, he cannot come to this program or anywhere else and say that he is the owner, the puppet master of this newspaper, so he’s pretending that he is just — but I’m sure that Amy Goodman, Juan González and everyone else who knows about this newspaper knows who owns this newspaper and knows that this is just another wannabe white savior for the people.
And it’s beautiful, the song that you started this segment with, Amy, because this is a song called “Ki Sa Pou-N Fe?” “What Is to Be Done?” as you said. And the song, if you continued to play it, it would say it’s a revolution. And who’s going to make this revolution? The Haitian people. It is not our neighbors. It is not wannabe white saviors, like Kim Ives, who are going to liberate the Haitian people.
I want to speak a little bit about, like, this thing, the Jovenel Moïse. This is what this is about. And I should say, if I knew that I was going to be put in this program together with Kim Ives, I wouldn’t even come on. And you should go to Haiti. You’ve been to Haiti, Amy, Juan. And go speak to someone like Oxygène David, who worked for years with Kim Ives. Go speak to Mario Joseph, who was close collaborator of Kim Ives, who are both denouncing him and his newspaper in Haiti for pushing this garbage that a scum like Jimmy Cherizier, who are — he is not going to Pétion-Ville, to Thomassin, to kill the rich people, to steal from them. The people he has massacred for the government. And this is why for three years the Jovenel government has never executed their warrants against Cherizier, because he is in their pocket. He is someone who’s working for them. And find his previous messages on social media, where he has, this same Jimmy Cherizier, an American flag behind his back to show the world who he stands with. And now that he has some little trouble with his people —
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Dahoud, Dahoud, if we can — Dahoud, if we can, we have only a couple of more minutes —
DAHOUD ANDRE: — he’s pretending that he’s leading revolution. Yeah, the —
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Dahoud, we have only a couple more minutes to go. I wanted to get —
DAHOUD ANDRE: OK.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to get Kim Ives in for — to respond, briefly, Kim. And also, if you could mention, talk about how the Biden administration has been dealing with Haiti since it’s come into office?
KIM IVES: Yes. Well, just to finish with Dahoud, he’s had a longtime bugaboo with Haiti Liberté. I imagined he might explode on the show if coupled with me. His belief that I’m the owner of Haiti Liberté is as unfounded as his rumors that he’s saying about the G9 and Jimmy Cherizier or my relationship with Oxygène David and Mario Joseph, who I have only recently spoken to, as well. So, this is, you know, just typical.
But as for the Biden administration, the administration has, according to my sources in Haiti, been totally supporting Jovenel up until now. But Helen La Lime, who heads the BINUH, which is the U.N. office in Haiti, has been very much on the fence, really, about whether to go over to the bourgeois opposition and use them for a transition. Well, obviously, that probably is going to happen now, because the president no longer is living. But so, the Biden administration has been having this slightly contradictory sort of message, where on the one hand they say, you know, “We’re going to support Jovenel, and he can be in office until February 7th, 2022,” but at the same time they’re saying, “We’re alarmed by authoritarianism and the decrees that he’s passing.”
So, right now we’ll see which way they go. Will they move over to the opposition, which basically is headed by this fellow Youri Latortue, who we have done WikiLeaks articles on, on Haiti Liberté — people can check those out — a decade ago? And I expect that, you know, they may try to find some sort of compromise candidate, somebody with a slight Lavalas color, a slight progressive color, to be the figurehead of this transitional government. But I don’t think they’ll be able to go forward with the remnants of the crew that Jovenel had working with him now. They just appointed a new prime minister on Monday, a guy called Dr. Ariel Henry, who is an old, basically, collaborator of the U.S. in Haiti. He sat on the Council of the Wise, which facilitated the transfer to the de facto government after the coup d’état against Aristide on February 29th, 2004. And so, he was basically named on Monday, but I see that it’s Claude Joseph, the interim prime minister, who is doing all the talking after this assassination of Jovenel.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to leave it there. And, of course, these are just the first few hours after the assassination of the Haitian president, and we will continue to cover what develops since, from this time. Kim Ives, editor of Haiti Liberté, and Dahoud Andre, longtime Haitian community activist and member of the Committee to Mobilize Against Dictatorship in Haiti.
Next up, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones has rejected the tenure offer from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill after major controversy. She’s joining the faculty of Howard University, after a prominent right-wing donor at UNC opposed giving her tenure. Stay with us.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Breakthrough News was on the ground in Haiti for eight days covering the popular uprising sweeping that country. Our BT News team went to Haiti’s agricultural heartland to detail the struggles of small and cooperative farmers against land grabs. Hear directly from the voices of those fighting displacement, destructive mining and agribusiness about their struggles and visions for a better future. As well as its connection to the ongoing struggle against Haiti’s dictatorial ruler Jovenel Moïse and his backer in the US government.
The post Haitian Farmers Fight Dictatorship appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
March 29 is the anniversary of the 1987 Haitian Constitution written after the 1986 overthrow of the brutal Duvalier dictatorship. The 1987 Constitution was designed to create “a socially just, economically free, and politically independent Haitian nation.” Those ideals are again in crisis.
The US-backed de facto president of Haiti, Jovenel Moïse, is refusing to leave office even though his term ended on February 7. Moïse and his Western allies – the US, Canada, Brazil, France, Spain and the European Union – are trying to push through a new constitution.
The post End US Support For The Brutal Moïse Regime In Haiti! appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) seeks to recapture and redevelop the historic anti-war, anti-imperialist, and pro-peace positions of the radical black movement. We fundamentally oppose militarized domestic state repression; the policies of de-stabilization and subversion abroad; and the permanent war agenda of the U.S. state globally.
The reason we’re here today in front of the Haiti Consulate-General is simple: we stand in solidarity with the Haitian people against the corrupt and illegitimate regime of Jovenel Moïse, which is propped up by the Joseph R. Biden administration, the United Nations, and the Organization of American States. We understand the connections between the imperial occupation of Haiti and the police occupation supported right here in Chicago by Lori Lightfoot and her anti-people, anti-poor politics, and throughout the United States more broadly.
The post We Fight For Haiti Because We Are Haiti appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
As thousands of Haitians protest each Sunday against Jovenel Moïse, their embattled and increasingly authoritarian president, their protest signs and songs exhort the U.S. ambassador and the head of the United Nations mission in Haiti, who is also a career U.S. diplomat, “to stop supporting a dictatorship.” The protests reflect a broad consensus among politicians, intellectuals, lawyers and others in Haiti, supported by human rights experts and members of the U.S. Congress, that the Biden administration is propping up Moïse and preventing the emergence of a Haitian-led solution to the political crisis.
The Trump administration had backed Moïse despite revelations of spectacular corruption, government-linked massacres, and the expiration of Haiti’s parliament. In just one incident, the 2018 La Saline massacre, government-allied gangs killed at least seventy people to retaliate against anti-government organizing in the neighborhood.
The post The Biden Administration Is Greenlighting Haiti’s Descent Into Dictatorship appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
Protests continue in Haiti against the dictatorship of Jovenel Moïse and the neo-colonialist, imperialist forces that back him.
Tens of thousands took to the streets in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince, on February 21, two weeks after the official end of the presidential term of Jovenel Moïse.
The post Haitians Continue To Resist Dictatorship And Imperialist Forces appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
Above photo: By Professor Danny Shaw who is currently in Haiti
United States – Today, February 24, 72 organizations and 700 individuals published an open letter calling for the Biden administration to end its illegal and destructive intervention in Haiti. While Joe Biden and the Democrats condemned the Trump forces for not respecting the results of the U.S. election, they are supporting Jovenel Moïse’s refusal to leave office after his term as president ended on February 7, 2021. Moïse has unleashed violent gangs, the police and the military against protesters who are demanding that he respect the Constitution and step down.
“President Biden claims to care about racial equity but his actions in Haiti show the emptiness of that rhetoric,” said Ajamu Baraka of the Black Alliance for Peace. “For centuries now, the United States has employed force to dominate Haiti, the first Black Republic that was established in 1804 after the defeat of French and Spanish colonizers. President Biden has an opportunity to demonstrate his commitment to democracy and Black self-determination by ending support for the Moïse regime and denouncing the current violence.”
The past two presidents of Haiti, Michel Martelly and Jovenel Moïse, were hand-picked and forced into office by the United States during the Obama administration against the will of the Haitian people. Moïse is currently ruling by decree after dismissing most of the legislators and refusing to hold elections. With the backing of the Core Group, composed of the United States, Canada, Brazil, France, Germany, Spain, the European Union and the United Nations, Moïse is trying to push a new constitution through using a referendum in April. The new constitution being written by members of the Core Group and without any real participation of the Haitian people would grant greater power to the executive office.
Since February 7, the rogue Moïse government has launched a brutal crackdown on all dissent resulting in home invasions, arrests, the firing of Supreme Court judges and a police inspector general, attacks on the media and the use of chemical agents and live ammunition to disperse protests, as documented by the U. S. Human Rights Clinics.
“The current situation in Haiti is critical,” stated Marleine Bastien, the Executive Director of the FANM In Action and a leading voice in South Florida’s Haitian community. “The Superior Council of Haiti’s Judiciary, The Haitian Bar Federation, and credible civil society organizations inside Haiti and their diaspora allies agree that President Moise’s term has in fact ended. It is time for President Biden to keep his promise and respect the democratic rights and self-determination of the Haitian people.”
Here is the open letter:
On February 7, 2021, Jovenel Moïse’s term as president of Haiti ended – but with the support of the Biden administration he is refusing to leave office. This has created an urgent crisis in the country. A mass movement, reminiscent of the 1986 popular movement that overthrew the brutal U.S.-sponsored dictatorship of Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, is demanding Moïse step down. We are alarmed by the abundance of evidence of severe human rights violations by the Moïse regime to quell the protests.
One of the main calls from the mobilizations of hundreds of thousands in the streets of Port-au-Prince and across Haiti has been for the United States, United Nations and the Organization of American States to stop their interference. These bodies, as part of the “Core Group” of imperialist nations and institutions targeting Haiti, are currently pushing their rewrite of the Haitian Constitution through a referendum on April 25.
These organizations have a long history of neocolonial intervention in Haiti and the region. Ever since the democratically elected president Jean Bertrand Aristide was overthrown for a second time by a U.S.-sponsored coup in 2004, Haiti has been occupied by a United Nations force that, at its height, deployed 14,000 troops and personnel. This occupation has changed form over the years (from MINUSTAH to BINUH), but it is ongoing.
The U.S. government has consistently stood as a barrier to popular democracy in the Americas. The 2009 coup in Honduras; the 2019 coup in Bolivia; and the ongoing blockades of Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela are but several examples of the U.S.’s poor record on human rights and lack of respect for sovereignty in the region. By its own admission, the State Department “works closely with the OAS, UN, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), and individual countries to advance its policy goals in Haiti.” Under the guise of fighting drug trafficking, the U.S. continues to train and fund the Haitian National Police.
The U.S. establishment spin doctors seemingly live in an alternate universe, claiming, “The remarkable lack of popular response to calls for mass protests in recent weeks indicates that Haitian people are tired of endless lockdowns and squabbling over power.” The reality is quite the opposite: the Haitian people are united in their call for a peaceful transition to democracy.
We express our solidarity with the Haitian people and our support for their rights to democracy and self-determination. We join our voices to the demands of the Haitian people who are calling for the following:
We demand that Jovenel Moïse
We demand that the Biden Administration:
The whole world is watching!
See here for signatories.
*****
Contacts:
Ajamu Baraka – Black Alliance for Peace, 202-643-1136.
Margaret Flowers – Popular Resistance, gro.ecnatsiseRralupoPnull@ofni, 410-591-0892.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Above photo: By Professor Danny Shaw who is currently in Haiti
United States – Today, February 24, 72 organizations and 700 individuals published an open letter calling for the Biden administration to end its illegal and destructive intervention in Haiti. While Joe Biden and the Democrats condemned the Trump forces for not respecting the results of the U.S. election, they are supporting Jovenel Moïse’s refusal to leave office after his term as president ended on February 7, 2021. Moïse has unleashed violent gangs, the police and the military against protesters who are demanding that he respect the Constitution and step down.
“President Biden claims to care about racial equity but his actions in Haiti show the emptiness of that rhetoric,” said Ajamu Baraka of the Black Alliance for Peace. “For centuries now, the United States has employed force to dominate Haiti, the first Black Republic that was established in 1804 after the defeat of French and Spanish colonizers. President Biden has an opportunity to demonstrate his commitment to democracy and Black self-determination by ending support for the Moïse regime and denouncing the current violence.”
The past two presidents of Haiti, Michel Martelly and Jovenel Moïse, were hand-picked and forced into office by the United States during the Obama administration against the will of the Haitian people. Moïse is currently ruling by decree after dismissing most of the legislators and refusing to hold elections. With the backing of the Core Group, composed of the United States, Canada, Brazil, France, Germany, Spain, the European Union and the United Nations, Moïse is trying to push a new constitution through using a referendum in April. The new constitution being written by members of the Core Group and without any real participation of the Haitian people would grant greater power to the executive office.
Since February 7, the rogue Moïse government has launched a brutal crackdown on all dissent resulting in home invasions, arrests, the firing of Supreme Court judges and a police inspector general, attacks on the media and the use of chemical agents and live ammunition to disperse protests, as documented by the U. S. Human Rights Clinics.
“The current situation in Haiti is critical,” stated Marleine Bastien, the Executive Director of the FANM In Action and a leading voice in South Florida’s Haitian community. “The Superior Council of Haiti’s Judiciary, The Haitian Bar Federation, and credible civil society organizations inside Haiti and their diaspora allies agree that President Moise’s term has in fact ended. It is time for President Biden to keep his promise and respect the democratic rights and self-determination of the Haitian people.”
Here is the open letter:
On February 7, 2021, Jovenel Moïse’s term as president of Haiti ended – but with the support of the Biden administration he is refusing to leave office. This has created an urgent crisis in the country. A mass movement, reminiscent of the 1986 popular movement that overthrew the brutal U.S.-sponsored dictatorship of Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, is demanding Moïse step down. We are alarmed by the abundance of evidence of severe human rights violations by the Moïse regime to quell the protests.
One of the main calls from the mobilizations of hundreds of thousands in the streets of Port-au-Prince and across Haiti has been for the United States, United Nations and the Organization of American States to stop their interference. These bodies, as part of the “Core Group” of imperialist nations and institutions targeting Haiti, are currently pushing their rewrite of the Haitian Constitution through a referendum on April 25.
These organizations have a long history of neocolonial intervention in Haiti and the region. Ever since the democratically elected president Jean Bertrand Aristide was overthrown for a second time by a U.S.-sponsored coup in 2004, Haiti has been occupied by a United Nations force that, at its height, deployed 14,000 troops and personnel. This occupation has changed form over the years (from MINUSTAH to BINUH), but it is ongoing.
The U.S. government has consistently stood as a barrier to popular democracy in the Americas. The 2009 coup in Honduras; the 2019 coup in Bolivia; and the ongoing blockades of Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela are but several examples of the U.S.’s poor record on human rights and lack of respect for sovereignty in the region. By its own admission, the State Department “works closely with the OAS, UN, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), and individual countries to advance its policy goals in Haiti.” Under the guise of fighting drug trafficking, the U.S. continues to train and fund the Haitian National Police.
The U.S. establishment spin doctors seemingly live in an alternate universe, claiming, “The remarkable lack of popular response to calls for mass protests in recent weeks indicates that Haitian people are tired of endless lockdowns and squabbling over power.” The reality is quite the opposite: the Haitian people are united in their call for a peaceful transition to democracy.
We express our solidarity with the Haitian people and our support for their rights to democracy and self-determination. We join our voices to the demands of the Haitian people who are calling for the following:
We demand that Jovenel Moïse
We demand that the Biden Administration:
The whole world is watching!
See here for signatories.
*****
Contacts:
Ajamu Baraka – Black Alliance for Peace, 202-643-1136.
Margaret Flowers – Popular Resistance, gro.ecnatsiseRralupoPnull@ofni, 410-591-0892.
The post Over 800 Organizations and Individuals in the United States Demand the Biden Administration End Its Support for the Brutal Moïse Regime in Haiti first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
United States – Today, February 24, 72 organizations and 700 individuals published an open letter calling for the Biden administration to end its illegal and destructive intervention in Haiti. While Joe Biden and the Democrats condemned the Trump forces for not respecting the results of the U.S. election, they are supporting Jovenel Moïse’s refusal to leave office after his term as president ended on February 7, 2021. Moïse has unleashed violent gangs, the police and the military against protesters who are demanding that he respect the Constitution and step down.
“President Biden claims to care about racial equity but his actions in Haiti show the emptiness of that rhetoric,” said Ajamu Baraka of the Black Alliance for Peace.
The post Open Letter: Nearly 800 Organizations And Individuals Demand Biden End Support For Brutal Moïse Regime appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
Major demonstrations continue to rock Haiti as protesters demand that US-backed President Jovenel Moise step down from office. On February 7th, his constitutional mandate to rule ended. But instead of holding new elections, or stepping down, he’s just staying put. The Biden Administration announced it would continue to recognize Moise as the legitimate President, and actually declared he has the right to stay in power through 2022.
For almost two years now there have been daily mass protests demanding Moise step down over extreme corruption, including the embezzlement of billions of dollars for social programs. These demonstrations have been met with severe violence, many times with the assistance of occupying United Nations troops.
But while Haiti has drawn the attention of the world, it’s a good time to revisit the history of not just how Moise ended up in power, but how the American Empire has determined the destiny of the Haitian people for generations.
The post Haiti’s Century Of US Coups, Invasions And Puppets appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
A long-brewing crisis in Haiti, created through intervention by the United States, United Nations and allied western imperialist countries, has now come to a head. The Biden administration is openly backing a violent, corrupt and fraudulent leader, Jovenel Moïse, and maintaining the policies of previous presidents, including Donald Trump, in Haiti.
Activists in Haiti have reached out to the Haitian diaspora in the United States and to organizations that support respect for self-determination and human rights for their solidarity. Listen to my interview about the situation there with Haitian filmmaker and political activist Wilkenson Bruna on Clearing the FOG this week (available on Monday).
The crisis in Haiti will not end until sufficient pressure is placed on the United States to change its positions. As people living in the United States, that is our responsibility. We need to understand what is happening in Haiti, the roots of the crisis and how to take action. As the Black Alliance for Peace writes:
With the election of U.S. President Joe Biden, folks believed this so-called ‘champion’ of fair elections and the rule of law—who had expressed a commitment that ‘Black Lives Matter’—would rally to the side of Haitians and end U.S. support for the dictatorship. But that did not happen.
Today, there are protests in Haiti calling for Jovenel Moïse to step down. You can follow the protests using the hashtag #NouPapDomi (“We will not sleep.”). Take a photo of yourself holding a sign of solidarity with the people of Haiti and share it on social media to raise awareness of what is happening.
Gray Panthers, San Francisco
It was one week ago today that Jovenel Moïse’s term as president of Haiti ended, a presidency achieved through manipulation of the election in 2015-16 and marked by a usurpation of power. Moïse has refused to cede that power and in response to protests, has unleashed greater state violence, harassment and arrests including attacks on journalists.
Leading up to February 7, there were massive protests in Haiti calling for Moïse to respect the Haitian Constitution and step down so that a provisional government could be put in place and elections could be organized. These protests were led by a broad coalition of social movements, trade unions, and opposition political parties. The Haitian Supreme Court and Bar Association agree that Moïse’s five year term ends this year while Moïse claims he has one more year. The Biden State Department backed Moïse’s claim.
On February 7, Moïse announced that a coup was being conducted against him and ordered arrests of people who oppose him. Police raided the homes of a Supreme Court judge and the Inspector General and jailed them. The next day, Moïse fired three Supreme Court judges and police took control of the courts. He then illegally appointed three new judges. In protest, judges are launching a nationwide unlimited strike on February 15. International bodies, such as the Canadian Lawyers Without Borders, denounced Moïse’s assault on the judiciary.
Violence against people who oppose the Moïse dictatorship has been increasing and severe during his term. The “Group of 9,” basically a group of state-sanctioned gangs, have massacred people in opposition communities. Recently, both the police and the military, trained in repressive techniques by the United States, have attacked and arrested demonstrators and the media, even using live ammunition. Two journalists were shot covering protests on February 8.
On February 12, Supreme Court Judge Joseph Mécène Jean Louis publicly announced that he had been chosen by the opposition as a provisional president. He is one of the three Supreme Court judges fired by Moïse. Mécène plans to set up an interim government and call for elections.
In addition to president, there need to be electi0ns for the Parliament and municipal offices. Moïse refused to hold parliamentary elections when they were due in 2019 and dismissed most members of the legislature. He has been ruling by decree, essentially a dictatorship, since early 2020. He also dismissed mayors across the country and appointed replacements for them.
In another attack on democracy, Moïse is working with what is known as the “Core Group,” which includes the United Nations, the Organization of American States, the US, Brazil, France, Spain and the European Union, to rewrite the Haitian Constitution and grant greater powers to the executive office. Haiti has had 23 Constitutions since 1801.
Protesters marched to the UN headquarters in Port-au-Prince. Ted’Actu
The United States has had a hand in Haitian politics for a long time. In this century, it was in 2004 that the United States and its imperialist allies conducted a successful coup against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and brought in the United Nations as an occupying force. In the short time that it was in power, the Aristide government built schools and health centers and raised the minimum wage. It also disbanded the military and started investigating accusations of state violence. Life was improving for Haitians.
Under the United Nations occupation, conditions have deteriorated. There have been massacres. UN troops have been involved in human trade and sexual exploitation and they brought cholera to the country, which has killed tens of thousands of people.
The Clintons have also played a destructive role in Haiti, both through the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton’s interventions as Secretary of State under President Obama. It was the Clintons who succeeded in thwarting the will of the people in the 2010 presidential election by installing the US-backed candidate, Michel Martelly, in what was considered a “silent coup d’etat“. Millions of US dollars poured in to support Martelly’s campaign in an election that occurred after the massive earthquake of 2010 and in which the most popular party, Fanma Lavalas, of former President Aristide was banned. Only about one-fourth of registered voters participated, which is highly unusual.
In the following years, billions of dollars of aid poured into the country but there was little to show for it. Instead, deals were given to businesses owned by Clinton Foundation donors to build factories that are sweatshops. Jake Johnson outlines what followed the earthquake by the numbers. Less than one percent of the money that was pledged went to the Haitian government or to Haitian institutions or businesses. While 105,000 houses were destroyed, the Red Cross, which raised almost $500 million, only built six houses and USAID, which pledged to build 15,000 houses, only built 900.
Jovenel Moïse, another US-puppet, came to power after Martelly’s term in a fraudulent election in 2015. His presidency was delayed by protests over that election because the people were unwilling to concede another assault on their democracy, but ultimately Moïse prevailed and was seated on February 7, 2017. Protests have continued throughout his term, especially when it was revealed that billions of dollars provided through Venezuela’s PetroCaribe program that were supposed to be used for infrastructure were missing. Now, his term has ended.
Haitian activists and immigrants protest on City Hall Plaza in Boston. 2018. Charles Krupa/AP.
It is no surprise that the Biden administration is carrying on with the US’ bipartisan imperialist project in Haiti but now the situation is dire. Jovenel Moïse has dismantled the democratic institutions of the state and rules unilaterally with the support of the police, military and western allies. Opposition to this is being brutally repressed. We, in the United States, a country largely responsible for the devastation of Haiti, must act in response to the request for our support.
The Haiti Action Committee has an action alert with information about contacting Congress. Click here for that alert. Share the alert with your networks. Haitians are protesting today – follow and share their actions too.
Leaders of peace and Haitian solidarity organizations in the United States are planning actions in support of the self-determination of the Haitian people and in opposition to western imperialism. Demands include ending US support for Jovenel Moïse, ending US interference in Haiti’s elections, and denouncing violence and repression.
President Biden claims to care about racial injustice. He must be pressured to demonstrate that with concrete actions. The United States government must respect the people’s will in our close neighbor, Haiti. Look for more to come on this soon.
The post Urgent Solidarity with Haiti is Needed first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.