[News] What is Happening in Haiti is a Genuine Anti-imperialist Popular Revolt

[Anti-Imperialist News]

  What is Happening in Haiti is a Genuine Anti-imperialist Popular
  Revolt
  <http://resumen-english.org/2016/01/what-is-happening-in-haiti-is-a-genuine-anti-imperialist-popular-revolt/>

By Carlos Aznárez on January 23, 2016
*http://resumen-english.org/2016/01/what-is-happening-in-haiti-is-a-genuine-anti-imperialist-popular-revolt/*

Port-au-Prince and other Haitian cities are today the stage of the 
largest popular uprising in decades of the suffering Haitian nation. 
Tens of thousands of demonstrators have taken to the street to show 
their revulsion against the current government of Michell Martelly and 
his decision, against the will of the vast majority of Haitians, to hold 
elections on Sunday January 24. Opposition parties have labeled the 
whole process as an “electoral masquerade”. A Deafening scream has begun 
to rise from the poorest corners of the cities that has even overflowed 
into the residential streets of Petion-Ville with unusual ferocity. It 
is the people in full force, resisting and honoring their independence 
and anti-slavery origins of 1804. This wave of struggle has the 
potential to generate an anti-imperialist offensive that will write a 
new chapter in their own history as they stand up and say a huge; 
*“Enough!”.*

-Enough of the use of Haiti as a laboratory of occupation by the United 
States and its allies.

-Enough of the occupying troops of the so called United Nations 
Stabilization Mission. (/MINUSTAH/) whose mission is supposedly to bring 
humanitarian help to the Haitian people but has done the exact opposite. 
The actions of the UN troops have left a trail of repression and 
occupation including the raping and the transmission of the cholera 
epidemic that has caused the deaths of tens of thousands.

-Enough of Latin-American complicity with the invading United Nations troops

-Enough of the international hypocrisy in the degrading and shameful 
“aid missions” headed up by former US president Bill Clinton whose real 
mission is to further the ties of dependency and domination of the 
Haitian people.

It is for these reasons that during the last few weeks Haiti has clearly 
become a pre-revolutionary scene; producing in these last few days a 
truly massive popular uprising. They have faced up to the criminal 
stubbornness of Martelly and his henchmen who are trying to hijack the 
elections in the first place. There has been some formal epistles 
against this from the opposition parties but it has been the thousands 
of young people who decided to take the future into their own hands by 
filling the streets; first peacefully waving slogans against the 
Electoral Council and the resignation of the president.

But when the brutal repression from the police and the troops of 
Minustah began those who had mobilized began to exercise the logical and 
necessary popular violence that arises in situations like the one that 
the Haitian people are facing today. This popular violence always 
produces repudiation and reaction by the oligarchy and the petit 
bourgeoisie (including some sectors of the left) because they cannot 
understand that the patience of the people has clear limits.

In the last few hours there have been compelling examples of class 
struggle as students, workers and fighters of all generations crossed 
the La Saline Boulevard and stormed into the Bel-Air neighborhood on 
route to Delmas, shouting /“Martelly has to go. We are the Government.”/ 
In the Saint-Pierre square the police and some peacekeepers from 
Minustah attacked the crowd with rubber bullets, and tear gas, but the 
young people did not give up and began to lift barricades and set tires 
on fire in the street. The Molotov cocktails, stones and other similar 
objects were the answer to the violence of the military that in a few 
minutes created pandemonium by making the air unbreathable due to the 
gas. Cars were burned, and the local ruling party offices destroyed. The 
word of mouth traveling on the street was /“nobody leave the streets, we 
are the people’s power”./

When the bulk of protesters had invaded the upper class area of 
Petion-Ville merchants quickly closed their doors. A youth being beaten 
by members of Martelly’s party was rapidly defended by the protestors 
fueling the magnitude of the people as they destroyed vehicles and some 
official establishments.

It was at that very moment that the news spread like wildfire that, “the 
Government has decided to cancel the elections on the 24th for security 
reasons”. The outbreak of joy rumbled throughout the territory and 
slogans demanding that Martelly leave office redoubled. “Until he 
resigns no one will go home”, was shouted from the roof of a vehicle by 
one of the Haitian fighters. And thousands of hands making the V for 
victory rose in the air.

So this is how the scene is at this time, despite the media 
misrepresentation of the events, in a nation that Latin America and the 
Caribbean owe so much to. Among many other things is that the victory of 
the uprising of 1804 was the spark that lit up the later struggles for 
independence throughout the hemisphere.

What is needed now from the international solidarity movement is that in 
those Latin American countries that are involved in the invasion and 
occupation of Haiti everything is done to end this shameful situation. 
And that in return, the popular organizations of the continent raise 
concrete solidarity with the people in the streets who are fighting with 
all the means at their disposal for ultimate independence.

Translated by the North America Bureau, Resumen Latinoamericano

http://www.resumenlatinoamericano.org/2016/01/23/lo-que-esta-ocurriendo-en-haiti-es-una-autentica-rebelion-popular-antiimperialista-por-carlos-aznarez/

Source: Resumen Latinoamericano

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