[News] Haiti is in a deep crisis right now - Robert Roth on Grass is Greener

[Anti-Imperialist News]

*/“Haiti is in a deep crisis right now. If you  read the mainstream 
media, it’s projected as being a crisis of gang warfare. Really it’s a 
crisis of imperialist intervention, foreign occupation and the overthrow 
of democratically elected governments in Haiti over the past decades.”/ *


Grass is Greener WXRW River West Radio.com 104.1 FM Milwaukee

Gary Grass and Babette Grunow interview with

Robert Roth, Haiti Action Committee

– some edits made for clarity


https://soundcloud.com/user-240416425/202305-16-2000-grass-is-greener-roth-in-haiti-walker-on-cuba?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing 
<https://soundcloud.com/user-240416425/202305-16-2000-grass-is-greener-roth-in-haiti-walker-on-cuba?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing>


Robert:  Haiti is in a deep crisis right now. If you read the mainstream 
media, it’s projected as being a crisis of gang warfare. Really it’s a 
crisis of imperialist intervention, foreign occupation and the overthrow 
of democratically elected governments in Haiti over the past decades. 
The crisis that now exists in Haiti has its roots all the way back to 
the 2004 coup d’etat that the US orchestrated that overthrew the 
democratically elected government of Jean Bertrand Aristide and his 
Lavalas administration. Lavalas is a Kreyol word for flash flood - the 
flood of the people where it starts as a trickle down the mountains, 
gathers force as people join it and eventually is unstoppable. The 
Lavalas movement is the movement that put President Aristide into power 
both in an election in 1990 that led to him becoming president in 1991 - 
with the U.S. overthrowing him in September 1991 -  and then when he was 
elected again in 2000.  His administration was overthrown again in 2004 
so these were two coup d’etats against the most progressive governments 
in Haitian history.


The result of that has been the real decimation of Haitian society where 
at this point the conditions are worse than they have ever been for 
Haitians. The insecurity has been horrific. There’s been a wave of 
kidnappings that have affected all sectors of the population; there’s a 
new cholera epidemic that has gone on now for months. Food insecurity 
impacts over 5 million people in a country of 12 million. And so you 
have a country where you can see the after effects of the destruction of 
democracy and the end result of foreign occupation. After these coup 
d’etats it’s been the United States, the UN, and a grouping of countries 
called the Core Group that effectively govern Haiti. And so all of the 
conditions that we are now seeing in Haiti are the direct result of 
foreign occupation and the attempt to destroy a very vibrant popular 
movement.


Grass Is Greener: When you said it’s not really a matter of gang 
warfare, in some sense it is. There’s groups in Haiti that you could 
call gangs. And moreover the term isn’t evenly applied. If you look at 
the imperialist forces you could call them gangs too


Robert: That’s absolutely true, and of course there are gangs in Haiti. 
That’s true. But the notion that these gangs are operating independently 
of the elite in Haiti or of the government in Haiti is false. We look at 
them as paramilitary death squads that have been unleashed on the 
popular movement with a series of massacres that have been directed at 
opposition neighborhoods. For example at La Saline in 2018 where it was 
a combination of police and paramilitary “gangs” that attacked a Lavalas 
stronghold killing well over 100 people with total impunity. And so in a 
situation where you have these paramilitary forces operating in concert 
with government actors, they also have the impunity to do whatever else 
they want, like kidnapping people on the roads or taking over certain 
fuel depots, whatever it is.  But just like the death squads in El 
Salvador were not independent from the Salvadoran military, these gangs 
are not independent of a strategy of repression and terror that’s being 
directed by the government. And it’s a government that is supported 
wholly and consistently by the US.


Grass Is Greener: Yes, the death squad model works because the death 
squads in El Salvador worked hand in hand with the government and 
military, but they did have a quasi-independence, right? They had their 
own leadership and there was sometimes in-fighting between the death 
squads and the military. It wasn’t this complete absolute control but 
they were a creation of the state and they were allied with the state 
but they also had just enough independent action to make it kind of 
deniable.


Robert: But they couldn’t have existed without the complicity of the 
military. And the same thing is true in Haiti. In other words, these 
gangs have a function that is not just independent of the government. 
They have a function within an overall structure of repression. The 
danger of looking at the violence in Haiti as internecine gang warfare 
and just simplifying it as that is that then the solution becomes more 
money to the police, more heavy armament to the police and also more 
foreign intervention. Troops on the ground in Haiti, which is what the 
UN is calling for, what Canada and the US have been debating over the 
last number of months. What we say is we want no more funding for the 
Haitian police which is a repressive force in Haiti that’s been used to 
attack the Haitian people. And we want no further foreign intervention. 
In fact, we want the Core Group to leave, we want the US State 
Department to keep its hands off Haiti. The current Haitian government 
has no legitimacy.  There are no elected officials in Haiti anymore. 
There’s no Parliament, there are no elected mayors.  This is a 
government that was imposed by the US and its Core Group.  It is the 
source of the crisis in Haiti. Until that government is removed and 
until there’s really a popular united front government that emerges in 
Haiti based among the people, this crisis is going to continue.


Grass Is Greener: I believe the current government was put in after the 
President was killed.


Robert: Yes. The president who was killed was Jovenel Moise. He was 
assassinated in 2021. We look at that assassination as a falling out 
among thieves. Moise was a dictator in Haiti whose election was 
protested for months and months by hundreds of thousands of people in 
the country who called it a stolen election, an electoral coup d’etat. 
When he was assassinated,the Core Group, in a tweet, named Ariel Henry – 
the current de facto ruler of Haiti – and said he should be the new 
leader of Haiti. And then he refused to leave office when the term of 
Jovenel Moise expired. Now the US is saying that his government should 
supervise the next round of elections which Haitians view as a total 
farce and an invitation to more fraud, more dictatorship and more 
neo-colonial rule.


Grass Is Greener: Would he be running in the next election?


Robert:Who knows? If the US selects him, I’m sure he will. If they 
believe he has no legitimacy they will pick another person and make sure 
that they come into power through another fraudulent election.  That’s 
why the broad popular movement in Haiti, including Fanmi Lavalas - the 
party of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide - has been calling for 
a transitional government, called Sali Piblik by Lavalas. This would be 
a broad government representing civil society, popular organizations, 
grassroots groups that could lead a transition towards free and fair 
elections.  You would be hard-pressed to find someone in Haiti who  
believes that this current government  – which is a creature of the Core 
Group – could ever lead to free and fair elections that would be 
legitimate for the people of Haiti.


Grass Is Greener: The model is a really familiar one. I think we’ve seen 
it in country after country. We first create total chaos and then we 
say, “Oh look you’ve got total chaos and we need to come in and fix the 
chaos.” You’ve got all these violent extremists and then we fund the 
violent extremists. It’s all just a plot to get what we want. What is 
valuable in Haiti, what do we want to take in Haiti?


Robert: That’s a very interesting question because you could ask that 
question about every US intervention, right? What did they really want 
in El Salvador? What do they want in Nicaragua? Why was Cuba such a 
defeat for them?


Grass Is Greener: In Syria at least we want the oil.


Robert:On that level, Haiti is an incredibly rich country. It’s been 
made poor by plunder, foreign domination, the control of a very tiny 
elite. But it is rich in mineral resources, it has gold, it has silver, 
it has copper, it has limestone, marble and bauxite. Right now under 
this government they are digging up Haiti to try to find all the mineral 
wealth. Plus it has a labor force that the US and other foreign powers 
and companies look at as a cheap labor source that they can pay slave 
wages to. One of the things that happened after the 2010 earthquake 
which killed over 300,000 people in Haiti was that it was the perfect 
set-up for what’s been called the shock doctrine where Hillary Clinton 
could go in there at the time and say,  “Wow this is an opportunity. 
Haiti is now open for business. We can rebuild better.” And what she 
meant was that we can create new free trade zones, build huge garment 
centers in both the north of Haiti and in Port au Prince where US and 
other companies can come in and make super profits.


So that’s on the one hand. The other thing about Haiti is that the 
movement in Haiti is a “bad example” that the US wants to crush. When 
you have a progressive movement like the Lavalas movement that led to 
President Aristide’s two terms, and you have a movement that is 
determined to do land reform, to spend more money on health care than 
police, that recognized Cuba for the first time after the US under the 
Duvalier regimes had worked with Duvalier to isolate Cuba. Had taxed the 
rich for the first time in Haitian history, calling out their names on 
the radio if they hadn’t paid their taxes. So you have this progressive 
government in the Caribbean and the US has never allowed that to happen 
– whether in Guatemala, El Salvador, Haiti, or Venezuela.  Wherever 
those examples exist, the US feels that its business interests and its 
hegemony is threatened. So that’s why Haiti is important. We think the 
Haitian popular movement is an example that should be studied much more 
thoroughly by the US left and we think one of the reasons that it’s not 
is the white supremacist notions of Haiti that have been imbued in our 
society every since Haitians rose up and became the first people to end 
their own enslavement and become a free nation. Ever since then Haiti 
has been demonized and has been marginalized and attacked. We think it’s 
time for people who are in the progressive and left movements to take a 
serious look at the importance of Haiti and the importance of solidarity 
with Haiti.


Grass Is Greener:One thing that bodes poorly for Haiti is that the US 
seems to have its power in decline, its power is waning throughout the 
world. I think for a country with 12 million people that’s so close to 
the US that’s not a good thing because it means that we’re going to have 
fewer opportunities to attack Russia and China and Iran and great big 
countries with significant power. So that means more intervention in 
those little countries nearby that we can more easily dominate.


Robert: Yes, and it's the 2023 version of the Monroe Doctrine which just 
had its 200th anniversary. This is the Americas and the US still demands 
hegemony and here’s this Black nation with a radical tradition that’s 
rising up and so they are suppressing it.


Grass Is Greener: We’re not going to be able to keep China out of Mexico 
or Brazil but maybe we can keep it out of smaller Caribbean countries.


Robert: And maybe we can keep progressive social and radical change out 
of the Caribbean.  So the reality is that Haiti is very important to US 
imperialism, as evidenced by the fact that they have orchestrated two 
coups over one generation to oust progressive governments in Haiti. So 
they think it’s important.


Grass Is Greener: The going in of the UN is not a positive thing either.


Robert: That’s right. The UN has headed the occupation of Haiti since 
2004. And is still a major force in determining policy around Haiti.


Grass Is Greener: That’s really sad because the UN is sometimes good, 
sometimes bad. I’m not quite sure what to say about the UN. What 
countries were involved in the UN forces in Haiti?


Robert: First of all, the UN in Haiti has been horrific. It committed 
massacres, it brought the cholera epidemic to Haiti through some of its 
soldiers defecating in rivers, and then it never accepted responsibility 
or agreed to pay reparations even after 10,000 plus Haitians were 
killed. And it has overseen one illegitimate government after another in 
Haiti. The countries that led the UN occupation? Brazil under Lula the 
last time Lula was in power was at the forefront of the occupation of 
Haiti. Argentina, Chile, Jordan.  Jordanian troops committed massacres 
in Cite Soleil. The Chileans were in the north. Brazil controlled large 
sections of Port au Prince. And you know, these were the militaries of 
these countries and they treated Haitians as colonial subjects. There 
was massive sexual abuse of women and children by UN soldiers that was 
exposed over and over again. And the occupation was a classic foreign 
occupation that treated the country’s citizens as second class. It was a 
totally racist occupation. So in terms of Haiti, the US organized their 
“coalition of the willing” like Bush did around Iraq. Large numbers of 
countries both in the Americas and outside paid off their debts to the 
US by doing service in Haiti. Nepal was in Haiti, Sri Lanka was in 
Haiti. It has been a major world-wide occupation.


Grass Is Greener:  We just had a show on Palestine and one of the points 
that was made there that I think needs to be made for Haiti too is that 
there is a little bit of a tendency to see Haitians as just perpetual 
victims when in fact there is so much strong active resistance and so 
much resolve and activity on the part of the Haitians. It needs to be 
acknowledged that they are actors and not just subjects.


Robert: Well that’s right. That’s why understanding the popular 
movement, understanding the Lavalas movement, and understanding the 
accomplishments of the Aristide administrations is so important. You 
know, there’s a new Haiti that will be built by this popular movement. 
Right now in the midst of all this repression and paramilitary violence. 
For example, when the Aristides came back to Haiti in 2011 from forced 
exile in South Africa they pledged to re-open a university that had been 
shuttered by the coup. It’s called UNIFA, the University of the Dr. 
Aristide Foundation - and at this point it has over 5000 students coming 
from all walks of life in Haiti, including the poorest communities. They 
have a medical school, they have a school of Dentistry, they have a Law 
school, an architecture school, an agriculture school. And they are now 
opening a world-class Teaching Hospital. And all of this has been 
accomplished in the midst of this incredibly repressive situation and 
it's just like a microcosm, a vision of what Haitians will and can 
build. In terms of the Haiti Action Committee, we’ve been building 
solidarity with this movement for 30 plus years and we’ve never seen it 
stop. Even dealing with two coups, dealing with thousands of people 
killed, exiled, disappeared. This movement still continues today and is 
demanding the end of the Ariel Henry regime and a transition government 
led by popular organizations. So it is very important to pay attention. 
One of the most vibrant movements in the world today is in Haiti.


Grass Is Greener:Obviously they face a lot of threats. What are some of 
those, both foreign and domestic?


Robert: The biggest foreign threat is the US, Canada and France. That 
triumvirate are the countries behind the 2004 coup and have deep 
interests in keeping Haiti under neocolonial control. One of the things 
that the Aristide administration did right before it was overthrown was 
it went to the International Court demanding restitution from France. 
France in the 1800s tried to reinvade Haiti after the Haitian Revolution 
and it demanded the equivalent of $21.7 billion in today’s money from 
Haiti as reparations to France for Haiti freeing itself from slavery. 
And the Haitian government had to pay that up until the 1940s and it’s 
what put Haiti in huge debt. So, the Aristide government said we’re the 
only people in the world that had to pay our enslavers for freeing 
ourselves from slavery and we demand restitution. Within a year, he was 
overthrown by the US, France and Canada. So the international elite is 
determined to crush this popular movement and they have their allies 
within Haiti. There’s a small elite in Haiti that has been in control in 
Haiti forever and is extremely rich and extremely determined to not have 
any kind of labor, peasants, or other popular organizations have any 
power. So it’s that alliance between the foreign powers and the elite in 
Haiti that represents the greatest danger to the Haitian people.

Grass Is Greener: And that elite is very very interesting because you 
have far-right fascist tendencies within the elite, but you also have a 
kind of liberal veneer over a lot of it. It’s a fascinating case study 
in and of itself.


Robert: The party that’s now in control, the PHTK, is really a 
neo-fascist party. This is the extreme right in Haiti that’s now come 
into power with clear backing from the United States. It started with 
the Martelly government, it went to Jovenel Moise and now Ariel Henry. 
This is the extreme right that’s in power and it's not giving up that 
power easily. One of the things that has just happened in Haiti which is 
portrayed only as vigilante violence is that people in these communities 
that have been attacked over and over again by paramilitary forces have 
taken matters into their own hands. And there are horrific images being 
shown by mainstream media of gang members, paramilitaries being killed 
in one neighborhood after another. But this is the result of the 
unconscionable acts that these paramilitaries have committed in one 
community after another. And so you have a society that is imploding.  
And the only way that this will both stop and that progressive change 
can happen is if a new government emerges out of popular protest and 
then is able to maintain itself without foreign intervention attempting 
to destroy it as they’ve attempted to destroy every progressive change 
in Haiti. Otherwise all of this will escalate and who knows what will 
happen.


Grass Is Greener: I can imagine that a good deal of immigration will 
happen and people will start to leave.


Robert: That’s a really good point and people haveleft. Under Biden, 
25,000 Haitians have been deported from the US. There are thousands of 
Haitians at the US Mexican border attempting to get in. It is unlivable 
for people in Haiti and they’ve had to flee all this terror and the US 
is sending them back.


Grass Is Greener:  Unlike refugees from Ukraine where they’re allowed to 
come in or from Cuba where they set foot on US soil and they’re allowed 
to stay. Unlike that, Haitians are shipped back.


Robert: Yes, and Haitians are very conscious of that double standard. 
They’re very conscious that they are not welcome while other people are 
welcome. And you saw the images at the border, right? With Haitians 
being whipped by border patrol officers. That dynamic still exists. The 
only change that the Biden Administration made was they said, try not to 
whip people. Try not to be on horses and blatantly attack them but we’re 
still going to deport all of them.


Grass Is Greener:Try to look a little better.


Robert: Yes, that was an embarrassing image. It was a slavery image. But 
the policy has remained unchanged.


Grass Is Greener: Immigration is an area where the Biden administration 
doesn’t seem to have gotten anywhere different than the Trump 
administration. Trump was supposed to be the most horrible person we’ve 
had on immigration in US history  and we’ve got Biden coming in there 
with a lot of the policies just continuing or being made even worse.


Robert:Right, they have used the Covid epidemic and Title 42 which was 
the Trump plan, so that anyone who came in could be immediately deported 
without any asylum hearing. Now, as as Title 42 is about to end, the new 
policy is that, to apply for asylum, you have to be in Haiti, you have 
to have access to the internet, you have to be able to fill out all 
these forms, pay money to get on a plane, and then you just might be 
considered for asylum.


Grass Is Greener:So if you are part of the elite, if you have money, 
then you can get asylum.


Robert: Right. So for the masses of Haitians who are now getting on 
boats, drowning off the shores of Haiti or wherever they’re attempting 
to go, or have somehow made it to the Mexican border, they’re not going 
to be able to enter. And on the other hand, it’s a message to the 
professional class, which is needed in Haiti, that youmight be able to 
get out. So if you’re a doctor or a lawyer or part of civil society, an 
educator that Haitians need, maybe you’ll be able to get out. So on the 
one hand, it creates this brain drain. And on the other hand for people 
being terrorized under this regime, there’s no way out. It’s a terrible 
policy.


Grass Is Greener: It doesn’t seem like there’s been a huge impact by the 
solidarity movement to reflect the interests of the Haitian people. I 
see some of it but I think there could be a lot more of doing what 
you’re doing.


Robert: Well, you know. This is always an uphill fight. There has been 
an uphill fight around Palestine; there was an uphill fight around El 
Salvador and then that movement built. So that’s what we’re trying to 
do. We’re trying to really help and sustain and build a solidarity 
movement that is powerful and that does affect US policy. On May 18th 
which is coming up next week we’re doing an international day of 
solidarity on Haitian Flag Day, which is really Haitian sovereignty day, 
the day that during the Haitian Revolution the Haitians determined that 
they would break completely free from France. And that’s Haitian Flag 
Day. And we’re going to do actions in many cities across the US and in 
some places internationally in the Caribbean and Europe. People can find 
out about these by either going to the Haiti Action Committee’s Facebook 
page or our website which is www.haitisolidarity.net 
<http://www.haitisolidarity.net/>.


Grass Is Greener: That ends that segment. Robert also wanted people to 
know that contributions to Haiti’s grassroots movement can be made, if 
you’re interested, at www.haitiemergencyrelief.org 
<http://www.haitiemergencyrelief.org/>.

-- 
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>

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

<https://haitisolidarity.net/donate/>


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