[News] Haiti - The OAS, Or the “Ministry of Colonies”

[Anti-Imperialist News]

 *The OAS, Or the “Ministry of Colonies”*
<https://www.blackagendareport.com/oas-or-ministry-colonies>
Jemima Pierre, BAR Editor and Columnist
<https://www.blackagendareport.com/author/Jemima Pierre, BAR Editor and
Columnist>
27 Apr 2022

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*In the wake of the expulsion of the Organization of the American States
from Nicaragua, we need to revisit one of its major crime scenes: Haiti.*

On April 24, 2022, Nicaragua’s Sandinista government officially booted
<https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/04/26/nicaragua-formally-withdraws-from-the-oas/>
the Organization of American States (OAS) out of their country. Foreign
minister Denis Moncada called the OAS a “deceitful agency of the State
Department of yankee imperialism” and in an official statement, the
Nicaraguans proclaimed that they “will not recognize this Instrument of
Colonial Administration, which does not represent at any time, the
Sovereign Union of Our Latin and Caribbean America, and that…violate[s]
Rights and Independences, sponsoring and promoting interventions and
invasions, [and] legitimizing coups.”

In response to Nicaragua’s break with the OAS, many in the imperialist west
will undoubtedly speak self-righteously about the Central American
republic’s lack of “democracy.” Others, on the left, will correctly point
to the OAS’s long-standing role in undermining democracy – to the support
the organization has given to regime change in Bolivia, Honduras, and,
especially, Venezuela, where the OAS recognized unelected stooge Juan
Guaido as president.

However, to really understand the undemocratic, demagogic, and racist
history of the OAS, we need to return to one of its major crime scenes:
Haiti.

In no small part because of the OAS, Haiti is currently a de facto colony
administered and controlled by foreign, white rulers: the U.S., France,
Canada, and the European Union. With an outsized involvement in Haiti’s
political bureaucracy, it has had a clear and incontrovertible role as a
tool of western imperialism and white supremacy. A brief review of the past
two decades reveals its meddling in Haiti’s politics and democratic
processes, all to support US interests while undercutting Haitian
self-determination and sovereignty.

In 2010, in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Haiti, with
hundreds of thousands dead or displaced, many counseled against holding
national elections. Yet the US, France, and Canada forced Haiti to carry on
with the vote, pumping $29 million dollars into the country for logistical
support. But, in the run up to the elections, Haiti’s partisan electoral
provisional council (CEP) banned the most powerful political party - Fanmi
Lavalas, founded by former president, Jean Bertrand Aristide. The first
round of the elections was notably flawed (because of the exclusion of
Fanmi Lavalas, voter turnout was low, with 71% of registered voters staying
away from the polls). Those displaced because of the earthquake were
disenfranchised. Moreover, of those votes cast, a high percentage were
irregular. Nevertheless, the first round of elections saw the first place
go to conservative candidate Mirlande Manigat, and second place to Jude
Celestin (who was endorsed by sitting president Rene Preval). US-backed,
neo-Duvalierist
<https://blackagendareport.com/content/fools-and-sycophants-haiti%E2%80%99s-presidential-selection?page=831#sdendnote10anc>
Michel Martelly, of the new PHTK party, came in third place. Members of the
Haitian political and activist community called for the cancellation of the
elections. However, according to Wikileaks
<https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/wikileaks-haiti-cable-depicts-fraudulent-haiti-election/>,
the US demanded that Martelly replace Celestin in the run-off despite his
third place position.

For this to work, however, the white rulers mobilized the OAS. The OAS was
the first organization to affirm the integrity of the flawed and dubious
election of 2010. It put together an “Expert Electoral Verification Team,
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKcp6Da52OQ&t=465s>” composed of seven
members, six of which came from three western countries - US, France,
Canada - and one from Jamaica. It must be remembered that it was these same
three western countries that were behind the 2004 coup d'etat that
overthrew Haiti’s democratically elected president, ushering in the
subsequent UN military occupation, which was ongoing at the time of this
presidential selection. These countries are also key members, along with
the OAS and the European Union, of the Core Group
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1t6RmBawvRCIY9VPYdv1ng_4fdEtor_zZp6njuzbBhlw/edit>
(of foreigners) that continues to be Haiti’s colonial master. The OAS
“Verification Team” discarded some votes and changed the results to ensure
that Martelly came in second place, affirming his position on the run-off
ballots, thus ensuring two right wing candidates as finalists in the
election. Haitian officials at first refused to accept the OAS
recommendation. However, the US and other Core Group countries threatened
to withhold post-earthquake relief. To consolidate this position, Barack
Obama’s Secretary of State Hillary
<https://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/04/11/hillary-clinton-and-electoral-coup-haiti>
Clinton <https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/08/24/hait-a24.html>, flew
<https://cepr.net/clinton-e-mails-point-to-us-intervention-in-2010-haiti-elections/>
down to Haiti and threatened Preval with exile if his government did not
change the results of the election to allow Martelly  on the run-off ballot.

This is how Haiti came to be under the corrupt and murderous “Parti Haïtien
Tèt Kale” (PHTK) neocolonial government.

The OAS would strike again in the effort to help the white rulers keep
their PHTK puppets in power. This time, it was during the political and
electoral crisis of 2015-2016. As Jake Johnston of the Center for Economic
and Policy Research correctly stated
<https://cepr.net/the-oas-picks-sides-in-haiti-again/>, “The brazen
intervention, backed up by threats of aid cutoffs and visa sanctions, has
inextricably tied the fate of the OAS in Haiti with Martelly and his
political party, Parti Haïtien Tèt Kale (PHTK). The 2015/2016 electoral
process did little to dispel those concerns.”

Haiti’s “sham elections,” as they were called, occurred in August and
October of 2015, after massive public protests forced Martelly to organize
legislative, local, and presidential elections.  By this time Martelly was
running the country by decree - a move that the OAS and Haiti’s other
rulers supported -  after allowing the terms of the Haitian senate to
expire without elections. The result of Martelly’s actions were to leave
Haiti without a functioning government. Despite extreme low voter turnout,
electoral fraud, violence, and the destruction of ballots, the OAS, along
with the UN (and the Core Group), immediately congratulated the country for
its peaceful and “well-organized” elections. The OAS would later verify the
election of Martelly’s handpicked successor, Jovenel Moïse as he proclaimed
victory in a set of fraudulent elections in 2016.

Moïse’s tenure was marked by nonstop protests, both for corruption and
theft of PetroCaribe funds, and for refusing to step down at the end of his
mandate, which many in Haiti argued was in February 2021. Moïse, whose rule
continued the legacy of PHTK’s corrupt and kleptomaniac practices, seems to
have received the most direct support from the OAS. His relationship with
OAS’s Secretary General, Luis Almagro, helped him survive his lack of
legitimacy.  The OAS provided cover
<https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article231731618.html>
for Moïse during the PetroCaribe protests, offering to put together an
“OAS-sanctioned commission” to investigate claims of corruption. In return,
Haiti voted against Venezuela’s democratically elected government of
Nicolas Maduro, and in favor of the unelected Juan Guaido.

When the Haitian masses were protesting Moïse’s refusal to step down at the
end of his term, on February 7, 2021, Almagro released a statement
unilaterally determining that Moïse’s term actually was to end in February
2022. This move went directly against the OAS’s own charter
<https://cepr.net/the-oas-picks-sides-in-haiti-again/> that declares that
the organization does not have the power to “intervene in matters that are
within the internal jurisdiction of the Member States.” Haitian leaders
protested
<https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nD3KlJPi0ncJeMRAorHSV7tmfiOp3Yc3/view>,
arguing, “President Moïse cannot determine the duration of his term of
office, in the same way that the Secretary General himself could not define
his own mandate according to his interpretation of the OAS Charter.”
Nevertheless, Moïse stayed in power, ruling by decree, until he was
assassinated in July 2021.

The forced elections in Haiti, in 2010/2011 and 2015/2016, are only the
most recent in active OAS actions to deny the people their human and
political rights.

It must also be remembered that since 2004, Haiti has been under foreign
occupation
<https://blackagendareport.com/haiti-interventions-and-occupations> that
began as full fledged military control and continues through the
political/colonial control of the country by the UN's Core Group. The Core
Group
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1t6RmBawvRCIY9VPYdv1ng_4fdEtor_zZp6njuzbBhlw/edit>,
an unelected, self-styled council of foreign western representatives,
“plays an active, interventionist role in Haiti’s everyday political
affairs.” The OAS is an active member of the Core Group.

Going back slightly further in time, Haiti would not be under western
colonial rule by 2004 without the aid of the OAS in 2000, when its
representatives interfered in Haiti’s legislative elections under President
Aristide. Here, after admitting that the May 2000 elections were, as Yves
Engler reported
<https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/11/22/organization-of-american-states-in-bolivia-and-haiti/>,
“a great success for the Haitian population which turn out in large and
orderly numbers to choose both their local and national governments,” the
OAS did an about face and labeled the elections “deeply flawed.” The
reason? Because the US and the other western powers did not like the
election results and their clear affirmation of the popularity of the
Aristide government. The Haitian opposition and the western powers then
used the OAS claims to not only undermine these democratically elected
officials, but to also call into question Aristide’s presidential mandate.
Anxious to dispense with Aristide, the US imposed an economic embargo on
his government, while organizations such as the National Endowment for
Democracy and USAID funded youth and other “opposition” groups against his
government. This led directly to the 2004 coup d’etat, and the full
destruction of Haiti’s sovereignty.

When recounting the history of the OAS’s unending assault on Haitian
democracy and Haitian people, we see clearly an organization that acts in
the service of the US-led white western imperial order. In this sense, we
have to understand that the OAS is but one of the many western
“international” organizations that uphold an unequal racial and economic
order. To the OAS, we can add the UN, the IMF, the ICC, the WTO, NATO, and
others.

Nicaragua’s decision <https://kawsachunnews.com/nicaragua-expels-the-oas>
to kick out the OAS should be saluted. The rest of our people in the region
- a region that Joseph Biden arrogantly calls “America’s backyard” - could
only be so lucky. Instead we are stuck with an organization that Fidel
Castro called
<https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cuba-castro-oas-sb-idUKTRE53E07K20090415>
a “Ministry of Colonies,” that “has a history that collects all the trash
of 60 years of betrayal of the people.”

*Jemima Pierre is an editor and columnist for Black Agenda Report, the
Haiti/Americas Team Co-Coordinator for the Black Alliance for Peace, and a
Black Studies and anthropology professor at UCLA.*
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