[News] July 28th Protests Demand Biden Stop Supporting Dictatorship in Haiti!

Wed Jul 28 13:31:53 EDT 2021

For Immediate Release:

July 28th Protests Across the SF Bay Area Demand that Biden Stop 
Supporting Dictatorship in Haiti

On July 28th, marking the 106th anniversary of the US Marine invasion of 
Haiti 
<https://haitisolidarity.net/in-the-news/the-first-us-occupation-of-haiti-1915-1934/>, 
human rights protesters displayed banners across major freeways in the 
SF Bay Area, including highways 101, 580, and 280. Under the slogan # 
Stop US Intervention in Haiti, the banners called for an end to US 
government support for the ruling PHTK dictatorship in Haiti that came 
to power through the fraudulent election 
<https://cepr.net/documents/publications/haiti-2011-01.pdf>of Michel 
Martelly in 2010. The PHTK dictatorship maintained its grip on power 
through the fraudulent election 
<http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2016/1/for-us-in-haiti-black-votes-dont-matter.html>of 
Jovenel Moise in 2016 
<https://haitisolidarity.net/in-the-news/electoral-coup/>, and remains 
in power today despite the recent assassination of Moise. Both elections 
were held under UN occupation and sponsored by the US government.

Freeway banner drop on July 28th, 2021 in Oakland, California over 
highway 580

The freeway banner drops were done in conjunction with protests on the 
east coast, along with those in Haiti, making the following demands on 
the Biden Administration:

 1.

    Cut off all US aid for the Haitian police once and for all.

 2.

    Stop supporting the PHTK regime regardless of who the new figurehead
    becomes.

 3.

    End US support for sham elections and the Constitutional referendum
    organized by the PHTK regime this September.

 4.

    Support the right of the Haitian people to form, through their own
    popular movement, their own Sali Piblik
    <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzRk6knuNK8&t=4s&ab_channel=KiyoshiTaylor>transition
    government free from US interference. No US military intervention in
    Haiti.

Throughout its reign, the Haitian people have taken to the streets by 
the hundreds of thousands, again and again, to oppose the PHTK 
dictatorship, facing live ammunition, tear gas, arbitrary arrest, 
torture, rape, and extrajudicial killings by the Haitian National Police 
(HNP)-- trained by UN occupation officials in Haiti and by the US 
police, including the NYPD. The HNP has likewise been funded 
<https://cepr.net/state-department-awarded-contract-to-politically-connected-security-firm/>by 
the US government to the tune of millions of dollars per year, with US 
funding increasing under the Trump Administration, a move correlating 
with increasing human rights violations by the HNP. The Biden 
Administration has likewise continued this support for a police force 
clearly implicated in massacres 
<http://hrp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Killing_With_Impunity-1.pdf>in 
poor neighborhoods, such as Lasalin 
<https://www.nlg.org/report-the-lasalin-massacre-and-the-human-rights-crisis-in-haiti/>and 
Bel Air <https://www.miamiherald.com/article250400641.html>. Police and 
regime-backed paralimitlary violence have displaced thousands 
<https://reliefweb.int/report/haiti/haiti-displacement-port-au-prince-situation-report-no-1-8-june-2021>of 
people who have been forced from their neighborhoods after their homes 
have been burned down and their relatives and neighbors have been 
massacred.

Since the assassination of Jovenel Moise, the Biden Administration has 
continued to support the PHTK regime to maintain its grip in power, 
calling for increased funding for the regime’s police. Additionally, the 
Biden Administration continues to back the regime’s plans to hold 
elections this September, against the wishes of the Haitian majority who 
recognize clearly that no fair and free elections are possible under the 
PHTK dictatorship.

According to Pierre Labossiere, co-founder of the SF Bay-Area based 
Haiti Action Committee: “The Haitian people are in the streets, 
demanding their basic human rights, genuine democracy, and the right to 
true independence from foreign domination. We cannot allow tax dollars 
to perpetuate misery and massacres in Haiti. Black Lives Matter! From 
Haiti to the Bay!”

The function of the PHTK dictatorship is to favor upper class and 
corporate interests at the expense of the poor majority. The regime is 
notorious for the massive looting of public funds 
<https://www.npr.org/2019/06/11/731640235/protesters-demand-resignation-of-haitian-president-over-corruption-allegations>, 
for facilitating land grabs 
<https://capiremov.org/en/experience/women-resist-land-grabbing-and-free-zone-in-haiti/>  
and the dispossession of Haitian farmers 
<https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/haitian-farmers-file-complaint-at-inter-american-development-bank-for-financing-caracol-industrial-park-project-that-caused-displacement/>, 
as well as for further enabling the plunder of Haiti’s vast natural 
resources 
<https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-are-the-major-natural-resources-of-haiti.html>(gold, 
petroleum, bauxite and more) by domestic oligarchs and foreign 
corporations. The “open” investment climate supported by the PHTK regime 
is noted in this 2018 US State Department Report on "doing business in 
Haiti". 
<https://ht.usembassy.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/100/Haiti_Country-Commercial-Guide.pdf>

US support for the PHTK dictatorship is consistent with the long track 
record of US intervention in Haiti, from opposing the Haitian revolution 
in 1804 to invading and occupying Haiti in the early 20th century, from 
propping up the Duvalier dictatorship between the 1950s and 1980s to 
backing two violent coup d’etats against the democratically elected, 
popular President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1991 and again in 2004. The 
PHTK dictatorship is the institutionalization of this last coup, waging 
a one-sided war of repression--  funded by  US tax dollars-- against the 
popular movement led by Fanmi Lavalas, the political party based on 
speaking to the needs of the poor majority.

-- 
Haiti Action Committee
PO Box 2040
Berkeley,CA 94702
https://haitisolidarity.net <https://haitisolidarity.net>

<https://haitisolidarity.net/donate/>
/Contributions to Haiti Action Committee are not tax deductible for IRS 
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