[News] Haiti - Roots Of An Uprising
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Tue Aug 28 12:37:54 EDT 2018
http://theinternationalcommittee.org/haiti-roots-of-an-uprising/
Haiti - Roots Of An Uprising
<http://theinternationalcommittee.org/>
By Robert Roth on August 26, 2018
“The cauldron of corruption and lies has been boiling non-stop 24 hours
a day. The time has come to overturn it, for Haitians to begin to see
the light of peace. Haiti is for all Haitians.” – Fanmi Lavalas
statement, July 8, 2018.
(Fanmi Lavalas is the party of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide,
Haiti’s first democratically elected president, and represents Haiti’s
poor majority.)
On July 6, 2018, Haiti exploded. By the tens of thousands, Haitians
poured into the streets of Port-au-Prince to demand the resignation of
President Jovenel Moise. The protests were sparked by the government’s
announcement that it would reduce or remove subsidies on fuel, leading
to a rise of 38% in the price of gasoline, and that the price of
kerosene would jump 50% to $4.00 a gallon. The uprising spread across
the country and lasted three days. Port-au-Prince was brought to a
standstill. Protesters set up barricades in the streets, burned tires,
and attacked stores owned by the rich. Luxury hotels in the Petionville
area were sacked by angry demonstrators. In the immediate aftermath, the
government rescinded the price increases (for now), and Prime Minister
Jack Guy Lafontant – the same official who announced the fuel price hike
– resigned. And a squad of U.S. Marines was sent to Port-au-Prince,
supposedly to increase security at the U.S. Embassy, but also to send
Haitians an ominous warning of what was to come should the protests
continue.
The Moise administration had waited until the World Cup to make the
price hikes official, in the vain hope that Haitians would be so
preoccupied with the festivities that they would ignore this attack on
their already precarious standard of living. But the writing had been on
the wall since February, when the new Moise government reached an
agreement with the International Monetary Fund on an austerity package
in exchange for $96 million in loans. Even after the protests, the IMF
insisted that the steep price rise was necessary, but that the price
increases should be introduced more gradually. Clearly, the end of this
story has not yet been written.
The powerful and militant popular upsurge caught the mainstream U.S.
media by surprise. Having ignored months of continuous demonstrations
against the stolen elections that brought the current Haitian government
to power, media outlets like the /New York Times /and /Miami Herald
/could only guess at the underlying causes of the rebellion. CNN focused
its reporting on the plight of U.S. missionaries who were “trapped” in
Haiti. Media coverage was replete with the usual racialized code words:
“rioters”, “looters”, “violence”
What was missing from the headlines was the fact that the Moise
government was already operating under a cloud of popular suspicion and
anger long before the uprising. Birthed via two elections so replete
with fraud and voter suppression that they were denounced as an
“electoral coup” by opposition parties, the current Haitian government
has no legitimacy among the population. The first round of elections in
2015 was annulled after weeks of mass protests backed by Fanmi Lavalas,
the party of Haiti’s first democratically elected president,
Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The overwhelmingly peaceful demonstrations were
met by police clubs, chemical agents, tear gas and bullets, but the
grassroots movement persisted, finally forcing the annulment, leading to
a new round of presidential elections in October 2016. The new round was
yet another charade, resulting in the inauguration of Jovenel Moise as
the new president in February 2017.
The electoral coup spawned a corrupt presidency. Even before being
installed as president, Moise was implicated in a money laundering
scheme after an investigation by Haiti’s banking watchdog agency. Dating
back to 2012 when Moise’s mentor, former president, Michel Martelly, was
in power, the money laundering is said to have garnered Moise over $5
million. In one of his early acts as president, Moise replaced the
director of the investigating agency with one of his cronies for the
purpose of suppressing the investigation. Peasant organizers have also
spoken out against Moise’s expropriation of land for his banana
plantation in northern Haiti. Not only did small farmers lose land;
Moise’s much-heralded banana exporting business now appears to have been
a short-lived election image gimmick. In reality, $25,000 was spent to
export only one container of bananas worth $10,000 to Germany. This is
part of a pattern where government officials tout projects, get funding,
take over land, and then pocket the money rather than develop the
country’s agriculture or infrastructure.
In addition, a massive scandal has been brewing over the outright theft
of $3.8 billion in Petrocaribe loans given to Haiti by the Venezuelan
government. Yes, $3.8 billion. These funds were supposed to lower
energy costs and fund education, agriculture and infrastructure, but
they ended up instead in the coffers of government officials, including
members of Parliament. “Where is the Petrocaribe money?” Haitians
demanded in an anti-government demonstration on August 24th. Where is
the money for hospitals desperate for supplies of blood and in need of
new medical equipment? Where is the money for education, as families
prepare to send their children back to schools with reduced or
non-existent subsidies for school supplies and uniforms?
In the Artibonite region, the center of Haitian agriculture, recent
rains have led to dangerous floods due to neglected infrastructure, but
sanitation workers have not yet been paid to clean up sewage canals and
drains, while the hurricane season looms. In Port-au-Prince, police
have burned down the stalls of market women, a particularly cruel form
of gentrification tearing at the heart of Haiti’s economic life and the
foundation of so many families’ ability to survive. Haiti’s prisons are
now bursting at the seams, with one epidemic after another sweeping
through overcrowded, nightmarish cages.
When Haitians took to the streets in July, they were demanding an end to
*/all/* of this. In essence, they were letting the government know that
there would be no peace without justice. They went far beyond the call
to curtail the fuel price increase, insisting that the Moise government
had to step down. The protests were a reminder that Haiti’s popular
movement — long the target of both the U.S. government and the Haitian
elite — remains viable and powerful. Despite two U.S.-orchestrated coups
against the administrations of former president Aristide, despite a
sophisticated COINTELPRO-style campaign aimed at dividing and
marginalizing Fanmi Lavalas and its allies, despite 14 years of United
Nations military occupation, despite stolen elections, and despite the
grinding economic misery facing most Haitian families, the popular
movement has persisted.
Why? This is a movement that has sunk its roots deep — and it remains
the central force in the country capable of building an alternative to
corruption and repression. During the years that Lavalas governments
were in power, more schools were built than in the entire previous
history of Haiti. Health clinics sprouted up throughout the country, as
the Aristide administrations spent unprecedented amounts on health care.
When the earthquake hit in 2010, killing over 300,000 and forcing over
one million people to live under tarps in desperately overcrowded camps,
it was grassroots activists who immediately went to work with limited
funds to set up mobile health clinics and provide food supplies. In the
wake of the devastation unleashed by Hurricane Matthew in 2016, Fanmi
Lavalas organized caravans to provide aid to the affected regions. As
living conditions have spiraled downwards, grassroots organizations have
stood with the poor — backing striking teachers, garment workers and
students, supporting market women as they defend themselves against
government attack, increasing the reach of independent media to combat
the lies of the elite-run radio and TV stations that dominate Haiti’s
airwaves.
One prime example of the movement’s vision for a democratic and
inclusive Haiti can be seen in the work of the University of the
Aristide Foundation (UniFA). Founded in 2001 as President Aristide began
a new term in office, UniFA’s medical school was violently shut down
after the 2004 coup, its campus taken over by U.S. and UN occupying
troops. When President Aristide and his wife and colleague Mildred
Trouillot Aristide returned to Haiti in 2011 from forced exile in South
Africa, he announced UniFA would be reopened and expanded. As promised,
seven years to the day since the Aristides’ return, UniFA held its first
graduation ceremony. With over 1000 people in attendance, UniFA
graduated 77 doctors, 46 nurses and 15 lawyers. Many of the graduates
were recruited to the university from poor communities that have had
little access to higher education. **Already, UniFA doctors are working
in areas that have rarely, if ever, seen a doctor before. With 1600
students now studying in the fields of medicine, nursing, law,
engineering, physical therapy, and continuing education, this is only
the beginning, a microcosm of the kinds of advances Haiti could make
with a true people’s government in power. The contrast could not be more
stark — education or militarism, democracy or authoritarian rule,
inclusion or exclusion, development or corruption, self-determination or
occupation. With the July uprising, the Haitian people have once again
made known their choice.
(Robert Roth is an educator and a co-founder of Haiti Action Committee)
--
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