[News] Oppose US and UN military intervention in Haiti!

[Anti-Imperialist News]

counterpunch.org
<https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/10/18/oppose-us-and-un-military-intervention-in-haiti/>
Oppose US and UN military intervention in Haiti!
Haiti Action Committee
------------------------------

*October 17th, 2022.*

We join with Haiti’s popular movement to strongly condemn the call
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/07/haiti-military-assistance-us-un-crisis/>
for an expanded foreign military occupation of Haiti made on October 7th by
US/ UN occupation-imposed prime minister Ariel Henry. Henry obediently
followed calls made by the UN Integrated Office in Port-au-Prince the day
before for an expanded UN occupation of Haiti and by OAS General Luis
Almagro who tweeted
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/07/haiti-military-assistance-us-un-crisis/>
that Haiti “must request urgent assistance from the international community
to help resolve security crises, determine the characteristics of an
international security force.”

We strongly condemn the letter
<https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/10/1129372> submitted on October 9th by
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to the UN Security Council, proposing
the deployment of a foreign, armed occupation force to Haiti. And we
denounce theBiden Administration’s drafting of a UN Security Council
Resolution calling for the immediate deployment of a foreign “rapid action
force” in Haiti, as reported
<https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/15/politics/biden-administration-haiti-united-nations-resolution>
on October 15th.

*Turning to the UN Security Council, the OAS, and the US government to
“stabilize” the crisis in Haiti today is akin to pleading with the
arsonists to quell the fire they have unleashed.*

For more than 18 years now, ever since the US-backed coup d’etat in 2004
against the democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti
has been under US/ UN occupation, an occupation that has perpetrated gross
human rights abuses
<https://www.cepr.net/soldiers-without-a-cause-why-are-thousands-of-un-troops-still-in-haiti/>
including rape and other forms of sexual abuse
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/sep/03/minustah-un-haiti-abuse>,
an occupation that has brought cholera
<https://www.blackagendareport.com/dirty-occupation-uns-criminal-enterprise-and-ecological-catastrophe-haiti>
to Haiti and that has systematically destroyed Haiti’s institutions while
increasing hunger and misery. <https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1114422>

Courageously facing police and paramilitary attacks, the population of
Haiti has taken to the streets in ever-growing numbers, demanding their
basic human rights and democracy, along with an end to corruption and to
the plunder of public resources. They demand an end to US/UN occupation,
and an end to the right-wing Haitian Tét Kale Party(PHTK) regime headed by
Ariel Henry. They are demanding a transitional government of public
safety (Sali
Piblik <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzRk6knuNK8%5C>) to create a
foundation for free and fair elections and a return to democratic rule.
They are demanding an end to IMF-imposed austerity, soaring prices
<https://news.trust.org/item/20220714135735-aq0pn> of basic necessities,
and declining real wages. Instead, they are demanding that their tax money
be invested in education, healthcare, sanitation, clean drinking water, and
support for Haiti’s peasant farmers who have been the backbone of local
food production.

Moreover, the people are demanding an end to the terror inflicted by the
Haitian National Police and paramilitaries, including the G-9 death squad
led by ex-police officer Jimmy Cherizier, working with the PHTK regime.
They are demanding an end to the proliferation of kidnappings, rape, police
killings, and massacres
<https://hrp.law.harvard.edu/press-releases/report-finds-haitian-government-complicit-in-crimes-against-humanity/>
throughout the country, such as the horrific Lasalin massacre
<https://www.nlg.org/report-the-lasalin-massacre-and-the-human-rights-crisis-in-haiti/>.
For further testimony regarding this massacre, view this powerful video.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6kQH-_IrAg> The people are protesting the
atrocious conditions in Haiti’s prisons and the  skyrocketing rate of prisoner
deaths
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/23/haiti-prisons-starvation-un-deaths-crisis#:~:text=It%20blames%20insufficient%20government%20funds,or%20some%20type%20of%20meat>
due to starvation, overcrowding, medical neglect and other abuses. All of
these injustices have been occurring with total impunity, under the
authority of the US/UN occupation.

The US government’s financing of the repressive Haitian National Police
(HNP), which has escalated its attacks against unarmed protestors, has been
extensive, increasing in correlation with the police’s documented
collaboration with paramilitary death squads.  As noted recently, from
“2010 to 2020, Washington pumped
<https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/07/13/fact-sheet-u-s-assistance-to-haiti/>
in $312 million for weapons and training. In 2021, the White House and
State Department sent a combined $20 million. In July 2022, the State
Department bolstered
<https://haitiantimes.com/2022/07/15/us-gives-training-and-48m-more-to-fight-crime-in-haiti/>
the SWAT training program with a $48 million package.” All the while, HNP
police killings of unarmed Haitians have continued with impunity.

Neither the major, international human rights organizations nor the UN
Human Rights Commission are keeping track of the thousands of unarmed
Haitians who have been killed and are being killed by the US-imposed PHTK
regime’s police and paramilitary affiliates over the last 5 years. This
past July alone, more than 500 people were killed in the impoverished
neighborhood of Cite Soleil in Port-au-Prince. In a rare development, the
US corporate media acknowledged this most recent killing spree, but
attributed it to “gang violence”, fitting the convenient racist narrative
about Haitians in particular and people of African descent in general. Here
are but 3 examples, among hundreds, of recent victims this year who do not
exist within the media universe defined by CNN, Fox News, MSNBC etc.:

+ This past September 15th, as widely reported inside of Haiti, Widney
Véron Joseph, a nationally esteemed student and second winner of the new
secondary exams for the western department, was killed on the road to the
airport. The father of the victim believes that this act was committed by
agents of the National Police of Haiti. “After shooting my son, they burned
him alive. I begged the police in vain to allow me to take him to the
hospital, they categorically refused,” said the 21-year-old boy’s father in
tears on Radio Caraïbes. Widney Véron Joseph was about to go to a friend’s
house to charge his laptop and phone when he was murdered, his father said,
adding that his son would have gone to Canada next October for medical
studies.

+ Two days later, on September 17th, following a day of massive protest
mobilization, the Haitian National Police (HNP) approached a barricade
established by protesters in Delmas 47, a neighborhood in Port-au-Prince.
The police opened fire on the protesters. Reportedly, according to a
community witness, about 4 people were killed. One community resident,
known by her nickname as Doudouce, was hit by police fire, but was not
killed. She was screaming for help, but when community members tried to
intervene to help her, the police forced them to disperse. Then, according
to the witness, a police-operated heavy machine, like a garbage truck,
scooped up the bodies of the victims, including Doudouce who was still
alive and screaming. The machine then dumped her and the other bodies into
the trash compartment, then dumping atop of them the burning barricades.

+ Also on September 17th, but in the southern city of Okay, police went to
the home of a young activist named Dimmy Samedi. They shot him in his home,
then dragged him out still alive, and shot him again outside, killing him.

We denounce the arrogance of the UN, OAS, the US government, and the Core
Group
<https://ht.usembassy.gov/press-release-port-au-prince-10-february-2019-the-core-group/>
of imperial powers claimingthe role of guardians of the people of Haiti
while they fan the flames of repression and violence.

The Haitian people are not fooled by this tragedy and farce; they recognize
clearly that arsonists cannot be the firefighters. Only the organized power
of the Haitian popular movement can put out the fires ignited by the
2004-coup d’etat and ensuing US/UN occupation.

We call upon people to condemn all foreign intervention in Haiti and to
stand in solidarity with the Haitian popular movement in this vital moment.

For readers who live in the Bay Area of California, come out to protest on
October 26th, 4 PM, in front of the San Francisco Federal Building (90  7th
St., San Francisco).  All readers are encouraged to voice opposition to the
US/ UN invasion and occupation of Haiti by doing the following:

Contact the office of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres
<https://news.un.org/en/content/contact-un-news> at ph: (212) 963-7160

Contact Your House Representative
<https://ziplook.house.gov/htbin/findrep_house> in Congress

Contact Your Senator <https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm>
in Congress

Contact the White House <https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/> at ph:
(202)-456-1111

Tell US officials in particular to:

+ Oppose US-financing/training of the Haitian National Police!

+ Stop US support for the Ariel Henry dictatorship!

+ Stop the Deportations of all Haitians!

Support Haiti’s Popular Movement with a donation to the Haiti Emergency
Relief Fund. <https://haitiemergencyrelief.org/>
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