[News] Haiti: Black Despots and White Rulers

[Anti-Imperialist News]

 *Haiti: Black Despots and White Rulers
<https://www.blackagendareport.com/haiti-black-despots-and-white-rulers> *
* Jemima Pierre <https://www.blackagendareport.com/author/Jemima Pierre>*
17 Feb 2021
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Haiti: Black Despots and White Rulers

The horror story in Haiti since 2004 is not really about despotic Black
government, but is the consequence and crime of global white rule.

*“Moïse is the product of a broader system blocking Haiti’s democratic path
and sovereignty, a system that is built and maintained by the white rulers
of the world.”*

The past week has seen growing protests
<https://www.leftvoice.org/protests-general-strike-and-a-president-who-refuses-to-step-down-crisis-in-haiti>
against
the contested presidency of Haiti’s Jovenel Moïse. An unpopular figure who
has ruled without a mandate, and, increasingly, by decree
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/1/13/political-vacuum-in-haiti-could-let-president-rule-by-decree>,
Moïse refused
<https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/political-crisis-deepens-in-haiti-as-jovenal-moise-refuses-to-leave/>
to
relinquish power when his presidential term expired on February 7, 2021.
While claiming that his term ends in February 2022, Moïse has lashed out
against his political rivals, arresting
<https://www.thestkittsnevisobserver.com/haiti-moise-arrests-judges-to-maintain-power/>
his
critics, members of opposition political parties, and supreme court judges,
all the while consolidating his draconian, some would say dictatorial, rule
over Haiti.

How Haiti arrived at this moment is predictable and unsurprising. Moïse’s
election was marred by fraud
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/29/haiti-presidential-election-result-protest-jovenel-moise>,
extremely low voter turnout, and protests challenging his candidacy. He was
handpicked by his predecessor, Michel Martelly
<https://www.blackagendareport.com/content/fools-and-sycophants-haiti%E2%80%99s-presidential-selection>,
a neo-Duvalierist and former member of the notorious *tonton macoutes*
<https://www.coha.org/tonton-macoutes/> who himself was installed
<https://www.blackagendareport.com/content/fools-and-sycophants-haiti%E2%80%99s-presidential-selection>
by the
Obama administration. As with Martelly, Moïse’s path to the Haitian
presidency was paved by U.S., Canadian, and French funding and support. And
like Martelly, Moïse has been credibly accused of corruption
<http://www.ijdh.org/2019/03/projects/memo-from-ministere-de-la-justice-et-de-la-securite-publique/>,
embezzlement, and the theft of national funds
<https://canada-haiti.ca/content/president-moises-companies-embezzled-millions-petrocaribe-funds-court-finds>.
Moïse has also followed Martelly’s lead in expanding the revived Haitian
military <https://blackagendareport.com/content/unwanted-army-haiti>. He
refused to organize parliamentary elections, allowing the terms of
parliament to expire in January 2020 in order to rule by decree. Moïse’s
administration has been exceedingly brutal in its repression
<https://blackagendareport.com/lasalin-massacre-and-human-rights-crisis-haiti>
of
Haitian activists groups, widening and deepening death squad style
repression across the country, allegedly funding and emboldening groups
such as the “G9” – a violent gang led by former police member, Jimmy
“Barbecue” Cherizier
<https://woymagazine.com/2020/09/18/what-is-happening-in-the-neighborhood-of-belair/>
–
which has been terrorizing
<https://blackagendareport.com/lasalin-massacre-and-human-rights-crisis-haiti>
pro-democracy
activists.

*“As with Martelly, Moïse’s path to the Haitian presidency was paved by
U.S., Canadian, and French funding and support.”*

Yet, it is all too easy to demonize Moïse. As calls for his removal
increase, many critics have fallen into a typical trap when it comes to
Haiti: focusing on one individual – the invariably “Black despot” – as the
source and root of all evil in Haiti’s politics. By doing so, rarely are
important questions asked about how Moïse came to power, how he has been
able to get away with his increasingly autocratic actions and, until now,
how he has survived calls for his ouster, let alone the curtailment of his
powers. To ask such questions is to recognize that Moïse is not a sovereign
political force. Instead, Moïse is the product of a broader system blocking
Haiti’s democratic path and sovereignty, a system that is built and
maintained by the white rulers of the world.

To understand how white rule functions in Haiti is to recognize that Haiti
is and has been under foreign military and political control. The second
occupation <https://thepublicarchive.com/?p=4639>, following the first
occupation from 1915 to 1934, began in 2004 soon after the
U.S.-France-Canada-backed 2004 coup d’état
<https://www.globalresearch.ca/haiti-ten-years-ago-us-france-canada-coup-detat-aristide-forced-on-a-plane-at-gunpoint/5368274>
against
the popularly elected president, Jean Bertrand Aristide. This coup d’état
led to the establishment, in June 2004, of a multinational military
occupation force under the auspices of the United Nations
<https://blackagendareport.com/content/blame-illegal-military-occupation-cholera-outbreak-haiti>
(with
changing acronyms and shifting mandates over the years). It is an
occupation that is led and controlled by a group of white nations and
white-dominated institutions: the United States, France, Canada, the United
Nations, and the OAS. This is in conjunction with the CORE Group
<https://dyalog.org/refleksyon/2019/2/11/the-core-group-as-a-parasite-on-haitian-sovereignty>
–
a group composed of special representatives from the UN Secretary General
and the Organization of American States, as well as ambassadors from
Brazil, Canada, France, Spain, the European Union, and the U.S. The Core
group appointed itself as arbiters of Haitian politics.

*“It is an occupation that is led and controlled by a group of white
nations and white-dominated institutions.”*

It is these white rulers of the world who continue to fund and supply the
Moïse government with arms, ammunition, and tear gas. It is the white
rulers who spent millions building prisons
<https://blackagendareport.com/content/us-gives-haiti-gift-prisons> in
Haiti and funding and training the Haitian police
<https://sfbayview.com/2020/11/stop-the-massacres-in-haiti-end-us-and-un-support-for-the-criminal-regime-of-jovenel-moise/>
and
military. It is the whiter rulers who have turned a blind eye to the
atrocities of the Moïse administration. It is the white rulers who have
condoned the lack of parliamentary elections, the ruling of the country by
decree, and the rewriting of the Haitian constitution. Most importantly, it
is the white rulers who have affirmed
<https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/02/10/haiti-political-crisis-biden-state-department-challenge/>
Moïse’s
illegal extension of his ruling mandate.

The fight for Haitian sovereignty is against these white rulers of the
world. Indeed, it is easy to focus on the Black despot – Moïse as the
dictator in the making. But we cannot ignore that there is a global white
supremacist structure that creates the condition of possibility for someone
like Moïse. This is the structure that exacts its power with laser
precision, without regard to human rights or sovereignty. Especially when
it comes to Haiti.  It is also a structure that can easily replace Moïse
with another despot when he is no longer useful to the white rulers.

*“It is easy to focus on the Black despot.”*

At this moment of intensifying crisis, the questions confronting us should
be: what does it mean to speak of elections, the rule of law, democracy,
and constitutional mandates in Haiti when its people have no rights – the
Haitian nation-state, no sovereignty – that the white rulers are bound to
respect? What is a constitutional crisis – what are elections – when a
nation is under full political and military occupation?

And how do Haitian people demolish this diabolical system and banish its
white rulers once and for all?

*Jemima Pierre, a member of Black Alliance for Peace, is also a professor
of Black Studies and Anthropology at the University of California, Los
Angeles.*
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