[News] Haiti: Stop the Destruction of a Nation

[Anti-Imperialist News]

counterpunch.org
<https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/06/06/stop-the-genocide-a-call-for-international-solidarity-with-the-haitian-people/>
Haiti: Stop the Destruction of a Nation
Seth Donnelly - June 6, 2023
------------------------------

Image: Emory Douglas.

“As the people of Haiti continually attest, we women in the Grandans are
clear that since the coup d’etat of February 29, 2004, this has been the
plan to wipe out the Haitian people and our country. We call on all women’s
organizations, popular organizations, students and all to stand against
this system that generates the high cost of living, misery, corruption and
rape that are destroying our lives…”

– From a press release
<https://haitisolidarity.net/statement-from-haitian-womens-popular-organizations/>
on March 17th, 2023, by Haitian women’s and popular organizations in the
Grandans Department of Haiti.

As the current crisis in Haiti has metastasized into one of the worst human
rights disasters in the Americas, Haitian activists in the popular movement
and in diaspora are increasingly charging
<https://www.stabroeknews.com/2023/04/17/features/in-the-diaspora/haiti-is-being-led-to-a-genocide/>
the US government– the key force behind the 2004 coup and subsequent
occupation of Haiti– with genocide, as reflected in the above quote. They
recognize that the ongoing, systematic destruction of the Haitian people as
a sovereign nation is not some “random” work of “gangs’, but instead the
deliberate outcome of the efforts by the US and “Core Group”
<https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/core-group-signals-support-for-haitis-designated-pm-jovenel-moise-haiti-portauprince-united-nations-brazil-b1885904.html>
powers– in collaboration with members of the Haitian oligarchy– to prevent
the vast majority of Haitians from exercising genuine self-determination
and popular democracy.

Ever since the Haitian people successfully overthrew slavery and
colonialism in 1804, they have been subjected to interventions and policies
by the French and US governments– from devastating “debt” collection to
brutal military occupation, from coups to neocolonial puppet
dictatorships– *designed
to destroy* their existence as sovereign people, as an independent nation.
There is extensive evidence
<https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/20/world/americas/haiti-history-colonized-france.html>
to prove the genocidal nature of these historical interventions, including
the brutality
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/08/06/haiti-us-occupation-1915/>
of the US invasion and occupation of Haiti between 1915-1934. The
subsequent US-backed dictatorship of “Papa Doc” Duvalier who ruled Haiti
from 1957–1971. Tens of thousands of Haitians were tortured, murdered, and
disappeared while even more perished through the structural genocide of
impoverishment, malnutrition, death by preventable disease, and extreme
exploitation. As journalist Nathalie Baptiste stated
<https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/terror-repression-and-diaspora-baby-doc-legacy-haiti/>
:

“Papa Doc presided over the murders of an estimated 30,000 people
<http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/566.html>. Thousands of others
simply disappeared or were imprisoned at the notorious Fort Dimanche
<http://kreyolicious.com/haiti-history-101-fort-dimanche-prison/2520/>, a
prison known for torture, mutilation and death.”

After “Papa Doc” Duvalier died in 1971, even *The New York Times* conceded
<https://www.nytimes.com/1971/04/23/archives/papa-doc-a-ruthless-dictator-kept-the-haitians-in-illiteracy-and.html>
that this US-backed dictator– who had been maintained in power and showered
with millions of dollars by the US government– left this legacy in Haiti:

“The Tontons [Papa Doc’s private deathsquad system], sunglass‐wearing thugs
whose fanatical loyal ty to Duvalier was rewarded with virtual licenses to
torture and kill, murdered thousands of their fellow Haitians. Often they
slit the throats of their victims and left them tied to chairs or hanging
in market places for days as “examples”of what could happen to anti
Duvalierists…By 1971, more than 13 years after he assumed power, little had
changed for the great majority. Almost *90 per cent of the people were
illiterate and were plagued by yaws, tuberculosis and malnutrition.* Per
capita income for Haiti’s 4.5‐million people was about $75 a year, compared
with the Latin‐American average of about $400.” [emphasis mine]

It is documented
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPIwP-T-PpM&t=1s&ab_channel=haitianhistory>
that the notorious Tonton Macoutes received training by the US military.

Between 1971 and 1986, the US government maintained and funded the
dictatorship of “Baby Doc” Duvalier, perpetuating the same system of terror
and exploitation
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdWx0K8jIOs&ab_channel=haitianhistory>
considered a “favorable investment climate” for US corporations.

Openly admitting the US domination of Haiti, *Forbes* magazine noted
<https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2022/09/22/haiti-riots-triggered-by-imf-advice-to-cut-fuel-subsidies/?sh=5cd9b7315169>
on September 22nd, 2022, that “Haiti has been a ward of the US government
and international agencies for decades.” And what have been the
consequences?

Compare these basic life indicators in Haiti to those in revolutionary
Cuba, which broke free from US control in 1959. According to UN data
compiled by the Macrotrends
<https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/HTI/haiti/infant-mortality-rate>,
Haiti’s infant mortality rate in 1959 was a staggering *192 deaths per 1000*
live births. Despite advances in global health and vaccines over the past
70 years, leading to a dramatic, global reduction in infant mortality, the
infant mortality rate in Haiti today remains one of the highest in the
world, at *48 deaths per 1000* live births. In stark contrast, as David
Blumenthal, former President of the Commonwealth Club, noted
<https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2016/fidel-castros-health-care-legacy>
in 2016: “Since its 1959 revolution, Cuba’s infant mortality rate has
fallen from 37.3 to 4.3 per 1000 live births—a rate equivalent to
Australia’s and lower than the United States’ (5.8).” How is that in Haiti
today, under US/ UN occupation, the infant mortality remains *twelves times
higher* than that of revolutionary Cuba? This disparity between the
countries cannot be explained by the pre-existing 1959 disparity ratio in
which Haiti’s infant mortality was only approximately *five times higher*
than that of Cuba. In other words, the disparity ratio in deaths between
the two countries has more than doubled following Cuba’s revolution while
Haiti has remained firmly under US domination during the ensuing decades to
the present.

A similar picture of disparity emerges when it comes to indicators of acute
hunger and malnutrition in Haiti and Cuba. According to data by the World
Food Programme, “A total of 4.9 million
<https://www.wfp.org/countries/haiti> Haitians – *nearly half the
population* – do not have enough to eat, and 1.8 million are facing
emergency levels of food insecurity.” [emph.mine] In contrast, regarding
Cuba, the World Food Programme states: “Over the last 50 years,
comprehensive social protection programmes have largely eradicated
<https://www.wfp.org/countries/cuba> poverty and hunger.”

It is impossible to understand these disparities without taking into
account and centering the significance of genocidal interventions by the US
and French governments in reaction to the Haitian revolution of 1804 and
the recolonization of Haiti by the US in the 20th century.

The pattern of US domination was interrupted briefly when the grassroots,
non-violent mass movement of the Haitian people later called Lavalas
(meaning flood in Kreyol) successfully dismantled the US-backed Duvalier
dictatorship in 1986. This created the conditions for the first truly fair
and free elections in 1990, resulting in the landslide election of
Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The US quickly moved to support the Haitian
military and elite to violently overthrow this democracy within 8 months.
During the following 3 years of military dictatorship, the US-funded
Haitian military and US-funded paramilitary death squad known as FRAPH
killed thousands of Haitians. FRAPH leader Emmanuel (Toto) Constant was on
the CIA payroll
<https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/08/world/a-haitian-leader-of-paramilitaries-was-paid-by-cia.html>
during this reign of terror, threatening to restore the old order.

The democratic resistance by the Haitian people, joined by intensive
international solidarity, pressured President Clinton to support President
Aristide’s return, although Clinton tried to coerce Aristide into accepting
destructive US-prescribed economic policies. Aristide and the Lavalas
popular movement refused
<https://haitianalysis.blogspot.com/2008/08/labor-neoliberalism-and-2004-coup-in.html>
to follow Clinton’s prescription. The popular, democratic Fanmi Lavalas
governments headed by President Aristide– in power at two intervals between
1994 and 2004– pursued development policies that were created and driven by
the Haitian people for the benefit of the Haitian people. These policies
involved refusing to privatize national resources, increasing the minimum
wage, investing public funds in healthcare, education, and cooperatives,
subsidizing access to vital resources, and much more. The achievements
<https://65c874.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/We_Will_Not_Forget_2010.pdf>
in poverty reduction and human rights during this decade of popular
democracy were undeniable, explaining Aristide’s vast popularity with the
Haitian people and the respect
<https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v26/n08/paul-farmer/who-removed-aristide>
for Fanmi Lavalas by international humanitarian leaders such as the late
Dr. Paul Farmer. Yet these achievements, just like the brief opening to
democracy in 1990, would be destroyed in a second US-backed coup in 2004,
waged against President Aristide and thousands of other democratically
elected officials on all levels.

Following this coup, Haitians have once again experienced the systematic
destruction of their democracy and the social-economic conditions that
permit them to *exist* as a sovereign people, as an independent nation.
Crimes against humanity have returned and are intensifying.

Today, there is not a single elected official left
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/10/haiti-no-elected-officials-anarchy-failed-state>
in the entire country since the ruling US-installed Haitian Tet Kale Party
(PHTK) regime has failed to hold, nor is capable of holding, fair and free
elections. On January 9th, 2023, the terms of the last ten remaining
Senators in Haiti’s parliament expired, leaving Haitians with no
Constitutional representation at any state level. This latest development
only lays bare that Haitians have been deprived of meaningful, consistent
representation since the 2004 coup, through political repression and
US-sponsored fraudulent elections that brought the PHTK into power.

Immediately after the 2004 coup, there was a massive wave of violent
repression <https://www.ijdh.org/CSHRhaitireport.pdf>, targeting officials
and activists with Fanmi Lavalas, the most popular political party in the
country. Thousands upon thousands of people were killed. In an
investigative report
<https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140673606692118.pdf>
published by the British medical journal *The Lancet *on August 31st, 2006,
Athena R. Kolbe and Dr. Royce A. Hutson found that during the first
22-months of the U.S.-backed coup regime, 8,000 people were murdered in the
greater Port-au Prince area *alone.* 35,000 women and girls were raped or
sexually assaulted. The violence was politically motivated as part of the
coup regime’s war on Haiti’s popular movement.

Subsequent US-sponsored “elections” cemented this political repression by
excluding <https://cepr.net/haitis-elections-parties-banned-media-yawns/>
Fanmi Lavalas from participation, as in the 2010–2011 election— dominated
by the US and personally manipulated
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/03/10/hillary-clinton-needs-to-answer-for-her-actions-in-honduras-and-haiti/>
by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton– that resulted in the “victory” of
PHTK godfather
<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/12/world/americas/jovenel-moise-haiti-president-drug-traffickers.html>
Michel Martelly. The next election in 2016 that put PHTK puppet Jovenel
Moise in power was likewise based on blatant fraud
<https://globalexchange.org/2016/12/15/haiti-november-20th-elections-delegation-report/>.
The result of this political repression is to deprive the Haitian people of
political sovereignty.

Under the US/UN occupation, Haitians– particularly in impoverished
neighborhoods that are bases of pro-democracy, pro-Lavalas activism– have
been subjected to relentless massacres: first those perpetrated directly by
UN occupation forces such as the 2005 massacre in Site Soley
<https://www.democracynow.org/2005/7/11/eyewitnesses_describe_massacre_by_un_troops>
(Cite Soleil), and in more recent years those perpetrated by the US-funded/
trained Haitian National Police (HNP) and heavily weaponized
paramilitaries, most notably the G9 Family and Allies, working with the
PHTK dictatorship, such as the 2018 Lasalin massacre
<https://www.nlg.org/report-the-lasalin-massacre-and-the-human-rights-crisis-in-haiti/>
(see this video
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6kQH-_IrAg&ab_channel=TheRealNewsNetwork>)
and the 2019 massacres
<https://www.ijdh.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/DelegationPressReleaseFinal5-08-2.pdf>
in the Tokyo and Site Vensan (Cite Vincent) neighborhoods. The Harvard Law
School International Human Rights Clinic documented this pattern in its
2021 report “Killing with Impunity: State-Sanctioned Massacres in Haiti”
<https://hrp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Killing_With_Impunity-1.pdf>.
On May 21st, 2023, the National Human Rights Defense Network in Haiti
released a detailed report
<https://www.haitiwatch.org/home/rnddhmassacresbelaircitesoleil> on recent
massacres in Bel Air and Cite Soleil, noting that from “2018 to the
present, at least twelve (12) massacres and armed attacks have been carried
out in the disadvantaged neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince. In the first 10
cases, the survivors lodged a complaint with the judicial authorities
against their aggressors, most of whom were notorious armed bandits
and *well-known
state authorities”* [emphasis mine].

The paramilitaries, an outgrowth of the PHTK regime, have also utilized
other forms of terror to expand their power. Rape
<https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/10/haiti-gangs-use-sexual-violence-instill-fear-un-report>
and kidnappings
<https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/haiti-rights-group-records-three-fold-rise-kidnappings-early-2023-2023-04-05/>
have proliferated along with the massacres under the US/UN occupation and
the PHTK regime. The paramilitaries have taken over neighborhoods, burning
down houses, and creating a massive internal refugee crisis. In October,
2022, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) released a report
<https://www.iom.int/news/96000-haitians-displaced-recent-gang-violence-capital-iom-report>
showing that the number of people displaced by “gang violence” in
Port-au-Prince over the past five months had tripled. Between June and
August of 2022 alone, the IOM documented that 96,000 people in
Port-au-Prince had been forced into internal exile. Within my own
relatively small number of close friends in Haiti, there have already been
several deaths and widespread displacement.

Of course, the paramilitary violence has the political function of
terrorizing impoverished communities like Bel Air, Cite Soleil, and Lasalin
as well as rural areas that are bases of Lavalas resistance, making it all
the more difficult for people to assemble and protest for fear of their
lives and the lives of their loved ones. But the violence also has the
economic function of depopulating these communities, thereby facilitating
land grabs. Such brutal dispossession was evident
<https://www.counterpunch.org/2014/08/21/haiti-where-will-the-poor-go/> in
the early years of the PHTK dictatorship under President Martelly.

Moreover, the paramilitary violence is designed to force people to accept
the structural genocide being imposed onto them by the PHTK regime,
implementing the austerity dictates of the IMF and the US model of
neoliberal “development”, something the Haitians have called the “death
plan”. Like IMF-imposed “structural adjustment programs” throughout the
Global South, the “death plan” involves these measures by the ruling regime
backed by the US and the IMF:

+ Engaging in pervasive corruption and the massive looting of public funds
<https://www.npr.org/2019/06/11/731640235/protesters-demand-resignation-of-haitian-president-over-corruption-allegations>
.

+ Perpetuating 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/>,
including by former PHTK President Jovenel Moise himself to enlarge his
personal banana republic
<https://landportal.org/news/2016/02/haiti%E2%80%99s-fraudulent-presidential-frontrunner-seizes-land-his-own-banana-republic>,
as well as 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>

+ Underwriting the super-exploitation of Haitian workers like the Caracol
Industrial Park
<https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/karlazabludovsky/haiti-industrial-park-caracol>
initiative with the Clintons.

+ Eliminating government subsidies on staples such as fuel, consequently
plunging even more people into misery.

Predictably, in the aftermath of an agreement with the IMF
<https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2022/06/28/pr22235-haiti-imf-management-approves-a-staff-monitored-program-for-haiti>
made in June, 2022, the PHTK regime proceeded to eliminate fuel subsidies
in September, 2022, resulting in cost-push inflation ruthlessly punishing
the poor majority. By March 2023, a record 4.9 million people
<https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/mar/24/haiti-faces-hunger-emergency-amid-escalating-gang-violence-and-surging-inflation>
were experiencing acute hunger, nearly half the population. Haiti’s food
inflation is among the highest in the world, increasing by 48%
<https://tradingeconomics.com/haiti/food-inflation> between February 2022
and February 2023.

The Haitian people have consistently shown steadfast resistance to the
US-backed coup and to the neo-colonial policies of the “death plan”.
Witness the huge mobilizations right after the coup calling for the return
of President Aristide, as captured by the documentary “We Must Kill the
Bandits”. <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1544549/plotsummary/?ref_=tt_ov_pl>
Witness the immense protests
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8uI2GW9puc&ab_channel=VoiceofAmerica>
against Jovenel Moise despite lethal police repression. Witness the courage
of activist students like Gregory Saint-Hilaire
<https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/28/stop-the-massacres-in-haiti-end-u-s-and-un-support-for-the-criminal-regime-of-jovenel-moise/>
who organized on his campus and was assassinated by police on October 2nd,
2020. Witness the courage of journalists like Romelson Vilsaint
<https://www.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/news/world/2022/11/01/protests-haiti-over-death-journalist-romelo-vilsaint/10659085002/>
who was shot in the head and killed by police on October 30th, 2022, for
his activism. Witness the courage of so many survivors
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6kQH-_IrAg&t=4s&ab_channel=TheRealNewsNetwork>
who are still willing to speak out in the face of ongoing terror. Witness
the singular act of resistance by Karl Udson Azor on May 21st, 2023, a
medical student who publicly took off his shirt and shoes and laid them
alongside a Haitian flag on the steps of the Monument of the Heroes of
Vèrtières in Cap-Haitien, erected to the last battle of Haitian
independence. Azor handed out his money to passing strangers, then sat
down, doused himself with gasoline, and burned himself to death in protest
over the ongoing destruction of Haiti, as reported in the Haitian media.

In the face of this resistance to mounting genocide, the Haiti Action
Committee <https://haitisolidarity.net/>put out a call for protests
throughout the US and the world on May 18th, 2023, Haitian Flag Day
<https://haitisolidarity.net/haitian-flag-day-call-to-action-may-18th/>.
The actions were coordinated to raise international solidarity with the
Haitian people and their struggle for national liberation against the
US-installed PHTK dictatorship and ongoing US/ UN occupation.

Art by Emory Douglas

Emory Douglas, revolutionary artist and former Minister of Culture of the
Black Panther Party, recently created this art in solidarity with the
people of Haiti. His art was widely taken up by solidarity activists around
the US and the world for May 18th Day of Action. At the top of his art, he
chose the words: “Stop the Genocide”, based upon internationally recognized
criteria
<http://genocidewatch.net/2013/03/14/raphael-lemkin-defines-genocide-2/>.
Similarly, the ongoing, systematic destruction of Haiti as a nation
conforms to the criteria established in The Convention on the Prevention
and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
<https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/Genocide%20Convention-FactSheet-ENG.pdf>
(1948) by the United Nations.

Dozens of organizations
<https://haitisolidarity.net/what-you-can-do-to-stand-with-haiti/> within
and beyond the US endorsed and participated in these actions. Protests
inside of the US were held in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles,
San Pedro, Atlanta, and Philadelphia. Beyond the US, there were protests in
London, Belize, and Guyana. All protests were unified in demanding that the
US government and the Core Group:

+ Stop using US tax dollars to fund the brutal Haitian police
<https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/12/02/us-tax-dollars-at-work-neocolonial-dictatorship-paramilitary-and-police-terror-in-haiti-today/>
and affiliated death squads such as the G-9 responsible for gross human
rights violations.

+ Stop supporting the Ariel Henry dictatorship
<https://haitisolidarity.net/haiti-the-truth-speaks-for-itself/>.

+ Stop attacking and deporting Haitian refugees
<https://quixote.org/biden-has-deported-nearly-as-many-haitians-in-his-first-year-as-the-last-three-presidents-combined>.
Within one year, the Biden Administration has violently deported more
Haitians than the previous three US presidents combined.

+ No more foreign intervention in Haiti. Support the right of the Haitian
people to establish their own transition government
<https://haitisolidarity.net/fanmi-lavalas-calls-for-sali-piblik/> free
from US and Core Group interference. Oppose the fiction– being perpetuated
by the Biden Administration– that the Ariel Henry dictatorship is capable
of organizing fair and free elections.

May 18th Protesters in Philadelphia holding up Emory Douglas’ art.

It is past time for the world to act in solidarity with the Haitian people.
Haiti, historically and currently, continues to live up to the true
meanings of revolution, liberation, and solidarity. The mobilizations on
May 18th were another step towards this goal of intensifying international
solidarity. As called for in the press release of the women’s and popular
organizations of the Grandans, international solidarity is needed now to
stop the genocide that is unfolding in Haiti, a genocide made in the USA,
subsidized by US tax dollars, and aided and abetted by the “Core Group” and
the UN. The array of attacks against Haiti’s grassroots movement for
national liberation includes military interventions, fraudulent elections,
phony economic assistance, media disinformation to maintain the status quo
that benefits foreign multinationals and the Haitian oligarchy.
Mobilizations are needed globally to condemn US and UN support for the
Ariel Henry dictatorship and to end their policies that are destroying
lives in Haiti. Solidarity actions including disruptive non-violent forms
of resistance will need to be employed on greater and greater scales–in
coordination with the decisive resistance on the ground in Haiti– until the
Haitian people can complete their heroic revolution of 1804 and claim true
victory once and for all.

*Selma James at a May 18th Protest in London organized by Global Women’s
Strike.*
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20230606/fac7b30a/attachment.htm>