[News] Stand with the People's Uprising in Haiti - Oakland - Saturday, March 2, 3 pm

[Anti-Imperialist News]

*Stand with the People's Uprising in Haiti**
Saturday, March 2, 3-5 pm*
Eastside Arts Alliance, 2277 International Blvd, Oakland
$10-20 no one turned away

_Haiti Action Committee Statement in_
_Solidarity With the Popular Uprising In Haiti_

On November 15, 2018, in the midst of mass demonstrations taking place 
across the length and breadth of Haiti, Fanmi Lavalas Political 
Organization, the party of Haiti’s poor majority, issued a statement 
titled Crisis and Resolution 
<https://haitisolidarity.net/crisis-and-resolution/>. In the statement, 
Fanmi Lavalas denounced the regime of president Jovenel Moise and prime 
minister Jean-Henri Ceant as corrupt and dictatorial, and called for a 
transitional government for a period of three years to address the needs 
of the population and to set the stage for new elections for an 
inclusive and democratic government. The statement closes with the 
following:

/“Fanmi Lavalas Political Organization continues to stand firmly with 
the Haitian people to “chavire chodyè a (overturn the cauldron)”. No 
cosmetic solution will bring an effective and lasting solution to the 
crisis in which we are plunged. This system has run its course. It 
cannot be patched up. It must be changed.”/

In the months since the statement was released, Haiti’s population has 
been in the streets without let up, risking their lives each and every 
day as they attempt to oust the Moise-Ceant government. The Petro Caribe 
scandal, in which some $4.2 billion worth of funds made available 
through a Venezuelan government program and targeted for infrastructure 
and social services, was pocketed by Haitian government officials and 
their business cronies, has proven to be the tipping point -- just like 
the rise in fuel prices last July that led to an earlier massive rebellion.

But the roots of the crisis go much deeper than rising fuel prices or a 
corruption scandal. The current Haitian government has no legitimacy; it 
is a classic puppet regime, there to do the bidding of its international 
sponsors in the UN headquarters in New York, in Washington, Ontario and 
Paris. It is selling off the country’s mineral wealth, grabbing land 
from farmers, stealing money, and sacrificing Haiti’s sovereignty in its 
search for profits and power. There can be no resolution without a 
fundamental change in governance and the social order.

This February marks the 15th anniversary of the 2004 /coup d’état/ that 
ousted the democratically elected government of President Jean-Bertrand 
Aristide. In these fifteen years, the Haitian popular movement has 
refused to be silenced, in spite of the kidnapping and forced exile of 
President Aristide and his wife and colleague, Mildred Trouillot 
Aristide, a subsequent UN military occupation, continuous and deadly 
repression against peaceful protestors, and a rigged electoral system. 
In 2015 and 2016, a series of stolen elections financed by the U.S. 
government--called an “electoral coup” by Fanmi Lavalas - resulted in 
the installation of Jovenel Moise, who is now desperately hanging on to 
power in the face of overwhelming opposition. While Fanmi Lavalas and 
other opposition parties produced detailed evidence of fraud and voter 
suppression, the U.S. State Department countered by calling the election 
“free and fair.”

The Moise government has most recently shown how beholden it is to the 
Trump regime by voting with the U.S. to recognize Guaido’s 
self-proclaimed government in Venezuela. The same State Department that 
has attempted to convince Haitians that a stolen election = democracy is 
currently railing against Venezuela’s legitimate elected government and 
attempting to lay the groundwork for yet another coup in the Americas.  
What hypocrisy.

The consequences of Haiti’s electoral coup in 2016 can be seen today in 
the dramatic footage of Haitians standing up to heavily armed police, 
carrying the bodies of their dead relatives, and turning their grief 
into more determined resistance. Denied free and fair elections, 
Haitians are now voting in the streets.

The uprising in Haiti is a powerful statement in favor of democracy and 
inclusion. This is what threatens the small elite that now rules Haiti.  
And they are striking out in the most brutal ways. In one particularly 
grim episode in November 2018, heavily armed police and criminal gang 
members recruited by the police and given police uniforms, unleashed a 
horrific massacre in the community of Lasalin, a center of the Lavalas 
movement. Well over 70 people were killed as the police and their armed 
agents went door to door, slaughtering whole families, gang-raping 
women, burning homes, and terrorizing the community. As a final assault, 
they fed some of the dead bodies to pigs -- a message sent to dramatize 
the utter disregard with which this current government views the Haitian 
people.

Just last week, it was revealed that 7 heavily armed U.S. mercenaries 
had been arrested in Haiti while, in their words, “working for the 
government.” What were they doing there? And why were they whisked out 
of the country so quickly with no consequence? What was their 
relationship to the Haitian government and to its repressive actions? 
Clearly, this is only the tip of the iceberg.
 From mainstream news media, we have been subjected to the usual 
racialized commentary about Haiti - “mobs in the streets”, “police 
outgunned”, “looters”, “riots.” And from far too many progressives, 
there has been complete silence. What is acknowledged as revolutionary 
social movement in other areas of the world is somehow dismissed as 
chaos in Haiti.  Yet what we are seeing today in Haiti is the latest 
chapter in an unending struggle for democracy, dignity and justice.

In this time of rebellion, crisis and repression, we send our support to 
the people of Haiti, to the grassroots movement, and to the people’s 
party, Fanmi Lavalas.  It is a time for our voices to be heard, for the 
silence around Haiti to be broken, and for a dramatic increase in 
solidarity - something that should be on all of our agenda.

For more information, go to www.haitisolidarity.net 
<http://www.haitisolidarity.net>
-- 
sent by Haiti Action Committee
www.haitisolidarity.net <http://www.haitisolidarity.net>

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
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