[News] For Biden Administration, Black Lives Don't Matter in Haiti!

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://blackallianceforpeace.com/bapstatements/bidendoesntcareabouthaiti 
<https://blackallianceforpeace.com/bapstatements/bidendoesntcareabouthaiti>


  For Biden Administration, Black Lives Don't Matter in Haiti!

February 12, 2021
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The people of Haiti have been demanding freedom from the succession of 
U.S.-imposed dictators for decades. One such dictator, Jovenel Moïse, 
refused to leave office February 7, which marked the end of his term 
four years after an illegal election. This move catapulted yet another 
intense episode in the historic struggle of the Haitian masses against 
colonial intervention. Tens of thousands of Haitians went to the streets 
demanding democracy and an end to dictatorship. And what was the 
response from the U.S. puppet regime? Bullets, paramilitary terror, 
curfews, house raids, beatings and the imprisonment of opposition leaders.

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.

When Moïse announced he would stay in office past February 7, and 
continue to rule by decree, the Biden administration signaled it 
supported that decision. Moïse’s rule by decree was made possible 
because elections were postponed in 2019, which allowed the mandates of 
most of the representatives to the National Assembly—Haiti’s 
parliament—to expire.

It did not matter that Moïse ruled by decree, that he violated the 
rights of his people and that the majority of the people wanted him 
gone. What mattered to the Biden administration was the purpose Moïse 
served in U.S. plans for the Caribbean and Latin American region.

In other words, the people must be sacrificed for the larger interests 
of the U.S. imperial project. These interests that could not be bothered 
with the trifle concerns about democracy, legitimacy or the rights of 
the people. Those rhetorical terms are only evoked as expressions of the 
United States’ so-called “values” when directed at an adversary like 
Russia, Venezuela, China or any other country the United States is 
actively attempting to destabilize. But those values cannot be allowed 
to complicate U.S. interests in Haiti or even in the occupied Black and 
Brown communities within the United States.

We ask Joe Biden and his supporters, who claim Biden cares about 
African/Black people: Why does it seem like the lives of African/Black 
people in Haiti do not matter? Is it that Black lives only matter when 
they are supporting U.S. and European colonial white power?

In the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP), we know the answer to that 
rhetorical question. Both parties and the U.S. state have demonstrated 
the lives of non-Europeans mean extraordinarily little. And the values 
that the United States and Western Europeans pretend to uphold—like 
democracy and human rights—are dead letters when it comes to the 
fundamental human rights of the peoples of the global South.

The United States and the United Nations armed and trained Haitian 
police. Moïse has the full support of these armed paramilitary forces, 
who are committed to upholding the rule of the Haitian ruling class that 
serves international capital. That is why the Biden administration 
supports Moïse. Therefore, Moïse has no legitimacy.

Haiti emerged as a free society in the greatest revolution in human 
history in 1804, when the people of Haiti established the first Black 
Republic after fighting and defeating first the Spanish and then the 
French, at the time the greatest military power on the planet. Since 
then, the West has tried to destroy Haiti.

Invasions, occupations, death squads, economic plunder, attacks on their 
culture, political isolation and U.S.-backed dictatorships have exacted 
a severe price on the people of Haiti. Yet, they have never surrendered. 
That spirit of resistance is on display today in the streets of Haiti.

We, in the Black Alliance for Peace, will continue to support those 
efforts by organizing actions throughout the United States in solidarity 
with the Haitian people.

We are not confused. There is nothing exceptional about the United 
States, except perhaps its hypocrisy. Declarations made by 
white-supremacist politicians and heads of imperialist corporations that 
“Black Lives Matter” have rung hollow, opportunistic and completely in 
contradiction to the lived experiences of African/Black people in the 
United States from 1619 to the present.

Stripped of the veneer of liberal-rights discourse, the true core values 
of the U.S. settler-colonial project are obvious: Glorification of 
violence, white supremacy, patriarchy, social Darwinism, materialism and 
extreme individualism. These core values facilitated the land theft that 
allowed for the creation of the United States, enslavement and the most 
rapacious forms of capitalist accumulation on the planet.

The abandonment of the people of Haiti affirms once again the United 
States is committed to white power. Subversion, war and brutal sanctions 
are just some of the instruments employed to maintain the structures of 
white colonial-capitalist power.

So, our appeal is not to the conscience of Biden and the neoliberal 
imperialist Democrats—they only have objective interests. Instead, we 
call on the people of the United States to demand an alteration both in 
U.S. policies regarding Haiti and in its relationship with Haiti as well 
as with all nations that currently find themselves in the crosshairs of 
U.S. imperialist reaction.

However, we understand our commitment to peace and People(s)-Centered 
Human Rights, social justice, democracy and self-determination cannot be 
realized without an organized people who are struggling for power.

The people of Haiti are fighting for power, for the ability to determine 
their own destiny. Stand with them. Stand with us. Fight for freedom and 
for a new reality in Haiti and the world.

No Compromise, No Retreat!

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