[News] Haiti Action Committee response to the NYT on Haitian Gangs

[Anti-Imperialist News]

/Recently the New York Times published an article about the increasing 
power of Haitian gangs. The article was correct in describing how the 
gangs operate, and how they are financed by business and political 
elites, but it falls into the Times’s historical pattern of disparaging 
Aristide and the accomplishments of the Lavalas administrations 
<https://secureservercdn.net/45.40.155.106/65c.874.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/We_Will_Not_Forget_2010.pdf>. 
Haiti Action Committee member Charlie Hinton sent the Times a 173-word 
condensed version of the letter below, but they haven’t published it, so 
we want to share the letter with you in an expanded form:/

To the Editor: I’m writing to clarify two misrepresentations about 
Haiti’s former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in your article on the 
advance of Haitian gangs.The gangs plaguing Haiti today started to form 
after the 1986 overthrow of Baby Doc Duvalier, during the 5-year period 
of military dictatorships before Aristide’s presidency began. Known in 
Haitian /Kreyol/ as /zenglendo/s, they included members of Duvalier’s 
/tonton macoutes/ death squad and the Haitian military. They carried out 
robberies and home invasions, and assassinated democracy activists. 
Residents formed neighborhood watch groups for protection and self 
defense. These were not “gangs,” as the /Times/ article maintains.

On the other hand, Chérizier’s G9 gangs, per your article, are supported 
by business and political elites, and use rape, murder, and terror, 
/even burning people alive,/ to suppress protests, steal property, and 
force people to vote a certain way. The origin of these gangs was not 
under Aristide, and there is no evidence of systematic state sponsored 
violence during the Aristide years (see pp. 5-10), 
<https://secureservercdn.net/45.40.155.106/65c.874.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Hidden-from-the-Headlines-2-2016.pdf> 
unlike today.

The situation has now become so out of control that gangs control the 
major highways running north and south out of Port-au-Prince and from 
the port into the city, forcing Haitians to pay a ransom to move goods 
almost anywhere in the country. These gangs continue to be allowed to 
flourish by the administration of Ariel Henry, who was appointed Prime 
Minister by the assassinated president Jovenel Moise and has zero 
popular credibility. He’s maintained in power by the US and the Core 
Group 
<https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/how-canadas-role-in-the-core-group-is-weakening-haitian-democracy> 
that control Haiti, despite ongoing demonstrations calling for his 
removal that are met with intense repression. At the same time, for land 
grabs,Haitians are being terrorized to leave poor neighborhoods, 
creating both an internal and external refugee crisis. The fact that the 
actions of these gangs historically target the neighborhoods that 
support Aristide makes clear their differentiation from the 
Aristide//Lavalas/ administrations.

Second in your article, Aristide did not “flee” Haiti. He and his wife 
were kidnapped in the dead of night by US military forces, flown on a US 
military plane, and dumped in the Central African Republic. One of the 
reasons was his call for France to repay its $21.7 billion debt to 
Haiti, which the /Times/ documents in its exposé, /The Ransom./

-- 
Haiti Action Committee
PO Box 2040
Berkeley,CA 94702
Website <https://haitisolidarity.net>
YouTube <https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjujXAgb681TkRNdEo1hh5Q>
Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/HaitiActionCommittee>
Twitter <https://twitter.com/HaitiAction1>

Celebrating 30 years of solidarity with the anti-colonial grassroots 
struggle for dignity, democracy and self-determination of the Haitian 
people!
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