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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <font
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href="https://truthout.org/articles/pro-democracy-movement-in-haiti-swells-despite-lethal-police-violence/">https://truthout.org/articles/pro-democracy-movement-in-haiti-swells-despite-lethal-police-violence/</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Pro-Democracy Movement in Haiti Swells
Despite Lethal Police Violence</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">Frances Madeson - October
16, 2019<br>
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<p>It’s getting hard not to notice that U.S. corporate
media is covering pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong
far more than pro-democracy forces in the Caribbean. It
can be challenging to catch up on significant events in
a place that’s a mere two-hour flight from Miami; with a
few exceptions, the media is largely failing Haiti right
now.</p>
<p>A movement birthed in the shantytowns of Port-au-Prince
has now swelled to broad swaths of the populace in all
10 of Haiti’s geographical departments. Friday, October
11, saw a national mobilization of tens of thousands of
protesters out in force throughout the country demanding
the resignation of President Jovenel Moise — and 10 of
them didn’t make it home alive.</p>
<p>Longtime Haiti observer Kevin Pina, editor of Haiti
Information Project, told <em>Truthout</em> that
protesters were assaulted on October 11 by police armed
with guns, tear gas and water cannons, and that <a
href="https://twitter.com/HaitiInfoProj/status/1182842504871170051"><span>seven</span></a>
protesters were reported to be killed by police in
Petion-ville, a wealthy enclave in the hills above
Port-au-Prince. <a
href="https://twitter.com/HaitiInfoProj/status/1182784199092080640"><span>Three</span></a>
more were killed in Saint-Marc in the western department
of Artibonite. Those killed on October 11 included <a
href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-haiti-protests/journalists-killing-fuels-ire-of-haiti-protesters-idUSKBN1WQ2MQ"><span>a
16-year-old boy</span></a>, bringing the documented
death toll (all on the side of the protesters) to more
than 20.</p>
<p>Pasha Vorbe, a member of the executive committee of the
political party Fanmi Lavalas, told <em>Truthout</em>
in a call from Port-au-Prince that Lavalas has counted
28 total protesters killed by police during the current
revolt.</p>
<p>“Today, I can tell you, we are living in a humanitarian
crisis; it is not just Lavalas, the entire population is
against Jovenel Moise and the rigged elections that
delivered him to us,” Vorbe said.</p>
<p>Haiti is in revolt against <a
href="https://www.oecd.org/countries/haiti/44826404.pdf"><span>The
Core Group</span></a>, a political entity formed by
dint of United Nations Security Council <a
href="https://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/RES/1542(2004)"><span>Resolution</span></a>
in 2004, the same year as the U.S.-backed coup toppled
former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his Lavalas
party from Haiti’s helm. A multi-national supervisory
body with the nebulous mission of “steering the
electoral process,” its creation was originally proposed
as a six-month interim transition support measure, yet
it endures to this day.</p>
<p>At issue is the legitimacy of the presidency of Jovenel
Moise, who was installed in 2017 to serve a five-year
term. Protesters say Haiti cannot wait until 2022 for
his departure from office.</p>
<p>Moise stands accused of <a
href="https://www.haitilibre.com/docs/Rapport-final-2-CSCCA_31-mai-2019.pdf">embezzling
millions of dollars</a> from the proceeds of the
PetroCaribe energy loan program extended by Venezuela.
He earned the ire of many Haitians after attempting to
remove energy subsidies in July 2018. The president’s
administration has been directly implicated in the
massacre of upward of 70 people (some reports say closer
to 300) in the Lasalin neighborhood of Port-au-Prince —
a four-day torture and killing spree in November 2018.</p>
<p>The massacres took place in the same community that had
been demonstrating on a weekly basis since July 2018 in
protest of the economic violence of double-digit
inflation, currently at approximately 19 percent.</p>
<p>Targeted assassinations are ongoing. On October 10,
Haitian journalist Néhémie Joseph, a reporter with Radio
Méga and critic of the Moise administration, was found
dead in his car with multiple shots to the head,
prompting a demand for a swift <a
href="https://cpj.org/2019/10/radio-panic-fm-journalist-found-dead-in-haiti-foll.php"><span>investigation</span></a>
from the Committee to Protect Journalists.</p>
<p>With continued backing from The Core Group — which is
chaired by the Special Representative of the U.N.
Secretary-General, and comprised of the Ambassadors to
Haiti from Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, the
European Union, the U.S. and the Special Representative
of the Organization of American States — Moise clings to
power. If he can hold on until January 2020, and
parliamentary elections (currently scheduled for October
27) do not take place by then, the parliament will be
dissolved and Moise can rule by decree. </p>
<p>Cécile Accilien, director of the Institute of Haitian
Studies at the University of Kansas told <em>Truthout</em>
the political situation in Haiti is complex.</p>
<p>“We’re ruled by far more powerful countries, the 1
percent, the NGOs — everyone’s playing a game,” she
said. “But most of us don’t know what the rules are or
who the players are, but we know this: Everyone is
playing Haiti.”</p>
<p>Pina noticed how Moise appeared more confident after <a
href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-caribbean/trump-dangles-investment-to-caribbean-leaders-who-back-venezuelas-guaido-idUSKCN1R313H"><span>meeting</span></a>
with Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago in March 2019.</p>
<p>“Moise’s entire disposition changed after he’d gotten
reassurance from Trump that he will back him,” Pina told
<em>Truthout</em>. “I assume there was a <em>quid pro
quo</em> for Trump supporting him in exchange for
doing a 180 on Venezuela.”</p>
<p><span>“</span><a
href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-vice-president-pence-organization-american-states-reception/">I’ll
make a promise to you</a><span>,” Pence told the
assembled leaders. “Stand with us and know we’ll stand
with you. Work with us and we will work with you.” </span>Haiti
had pointedly not been invited in June 2018 to a confab
with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence who was courting
nations willing to vote to eject Venezuela from the
Organization of American States and to invoke the <a
href="https://www.oas.org/juridico/english/treaties/b-29.html"><span>Rio
Treaty</span></a> (the Inter-American Treaty of
Reciprocal Assistance) for the first time since 9/11,
potentially clearing the way for U.S. military
intervention in Venezuela.</p>
<p>Subsequently, Moise reversed Haiti’s support for Maduro
and Venezuelan sovereignty.</p>
<p><span>“Our response has to be sarcastic,” Vorbe said.
“If they think that Moise is so good and great why
don’t they give him a job in the U.N. or in
Washington? Quick, before he drains the economy
completely.”</span></p>
<p>The hypocrisy of the U.S. attacking Venezuelan
President Nicolás Maduro as “illegitimate” while
upholding Moise is not lost on Vorbe. Much of what
Washington claims about Maduro’s 2018 re-election is
verifiably true about Moise’s election in 2016: Yes,
there was a record low voter turnout in Venezuela, only
46 percent, but in Haiti it was vastly lower: only 18
percent of the electorate went to the polls. Accusing
Maduro’s government of drug trafficking and money
laundering reminds Haitians that Moise came into office
<a
href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article131095069.html"><span>already
accused</span></a> of laundering millions of
dollars. Plus, he was mentored by Guy Phillippe,
currently serving nine years in a U.S. prison for those
exact crimes.</p>
<h2>The Devastation of Haiti’s Economy</h2>
<p>Vorbe said Moise has bankrupted the startup businesses
that were developing in Haiti and has annihilated the
education system. This year there will be 70,000 high
school graduates and places for only 7,000 university
students. Jobs are in scarce supply. Without a
meaningful economic development program, Haitian workers
are left to labor in sweatshops that pay the lowest
sub-poverty wages in the hemisphere. <a
href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BX.TRF.PWKR.DT.GD.ZS?locations=HT"><span>According
to the World Bank</span></a>, 32 percent of the
country’s GDP in 2018 was derived from remittances from
family members living elsewhere.</p>
<p>“Today the majority of Haitians do not eat three
regular meals a day,” Vorbe said. “Maybe they eat once a
day, or every other day. They feel practically doomed,
and their living conditions are getting worse every
day.”</p>
<p>Maud Jean-Michel is known as Sanite B., the host of
Sewom Patriyotik on Radyo Tele Timoun. A human rights
protector and freedom fighter, she uses her radio
platform to expose what the U.S. is doing to Haiti. She
bristles at hearing Haiti referred to as a poor country,
the poorest in the Western hemisphere.</p>
<p><span>“We are one of the richest, but Haiti has been
impoverished,” she continued. “This is the reason they
keep us in turmoil. If we stabilized, we could use our
resources — our bauxite, uranium and black marble —
how can we be poor when we have so much? If Haiti is
so poor, why is the U.S. there, why is The Core Group
there, why do they refuse to leave us alone?” </span></p>
<p>Haiti also has billions in gold, iridium, copper, and
oil advises human rights attorney Èzili Dantò. “And,”
she told <em>Truthout</em>, “the Windward Passage and a
history the enslaving nations must rewrite.”</p>
<p>She said the U.S. built its largest embassy in the
Western Hemisphere in Haiti to control Haiti’s
geopolitical position and strip it of its assets and
riches.</p>
<p>“They will obliterate Haiti before they allow it to
succeed as a nation,” Dantò said. “There is white fear
of Haitian success.”</p>
<p>Vorbe sees preserving Haiti’s remaining riches for
Haiti and the Haitian people as Haiti’s last chance for
survival.</p>
<p>“It’s essential that Haiti get out from under the
current constitution before any deals to develop mineral
resources or arable lands go forward,” he warned.</p>
<p>“All of the institutions have failed the majority of
the people,” he said. “Judiciary, legislature and
executive, all corrupted completely. We have to start
over, start fresh, with something that suits the younger
generation.”</p>
<p>The country has come to a full stop and the demands are
clear: Moise must go before finishing his five-year
term, without conditions; the billions embezzled must be
returned to the treasury to capitalize the future of the
country; and a three-year “time-out” must be planned so
the nation can stabilize and a meaningful process for
free and fair elections can be created.</p>
<p>Lavalas has put out a <a
href="https://sfbayview.com/2019/01/fanmi-lavalas-statement-crisis-and-resolution-plan-for-haitis-future/"><span>transition
plan</span></a> that calls for “put[ting] in place
an executive and a government of public
safety…consist[ing] of credible personalities, engaged
in the struggle against exclusion and corruption, who
share a vision of a new method of governance.” If that
sounds vague, it was meant to be a conversation starter.
Dialogues across all segments of Haitian society have
been ongoing with facilitation by civil society groups,
and participants are finding common ground.</p>
<p>“We want a new nation, a democracy, free elections, a
new constitution, and a type of government that’s better
for us,” Vorbe said. “We’re doing the deep thinking
about it now.” </p>
<h2>A Political Crisis in the U.S.’s Backyard</h2>
<p>Pacifica Radio journalist Margaret Prescod recently
returned from a week of documenting the revolt in
Port-au-Prince on the back of a motorcycle ridden
through streets ablaze and blitzed with tear gas. She
and her team were fortunate not to have been hit by the
live rounds fired by police. This was her third trip to
Haiti in the past few months, and she said she’s never
seen a worse human rights crisis or people better
organized and more determined to prevail.</p>
<p>“Over and over the people say, ‘We have no food, no
jobs, no way to support our families,'” Prescod told <em>Truthout</em>.
“‘We are not leaving the streets. We’d rather die on our
feet than live on our knees.’”</p>
<p>Born in Barbados, Prescod keeps a sharp journalistic
eye focused on foreign meddling in Haiti’s affairs.</p>
<p>“I’m with Frederick Douglass,” she said, referring to
the abolitionist’s maxim in his 1893 World’s Fair
speech: “Haitians…striking for their freedom, they
struck for every Black man in the world.”</p>
<p>In the early 1800s, Haiti repelled Napoleon and ended
slavery six decades before Abraham Lincoln signed the
Emancipation Proclamation. Prescod said Haitian
protesters have said that they view the current revolt
as a continuation of the rejection by the Haitian
grassroots of the subversion of Haiti’s sovereignty in
the U.S.-backed 2004 coup and its aftermath, especially
the imposition of presidents “selected” by the U.S. and
Canada in elections ridden with fraud.</p>
<p>“After victory, what follows next is an important
question,” she advises. “The grassroots have nothing,
but they know what’s going on: I was told by protesters
that any Haitian government you see backed and supported
by the U.S. is generally not one that is good for the
Haitian people.”</p>
<p>The days Prescod was on the ground were perilous — the
police were shooting live rounds from unmarked trucks,
she said. She added that her crew was told at the
barricades that police were hiding in ambulances, a
blatant violation of international law, transporting
themselves with teargas to penetrate the roadblocks.</p>
<p>Prescod’s Pacifica radio team was the first
international group of journalists to visit Lasalin and
speak with survivors of a series of massacres said to be
linked to the Moise government. They were accompanied by
a delegation from the National Lawyers Guild. Following
her reporting on the massacre, Prescod returned to Haiti
<a
href="https://waters.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/congresswoman-waters-leads-delegation-haiti-finds-both-inspiration-and"><span>as
part of a delegation</span></a> headed by U.S.
Congresswoman Maxine Waters to further investigate the
Lasalin massacres.</p>
<p>Surviving victims of the Lasalin massacre told Prescod
that their communities were politically targeted to
punish them for their protests against Jovenel Moise,
and for their support for Lavalas, the party of
Aristide.</p>
<p>“Jovenel Moise uses paramilitary thugs similar to the
Tonton Macoutes, as a strategy to strike fear into their
hearts,” she explained.</p>
<p>Prescod said the massacres were barely reported by U.S.
and international media, and when they were, it was
framed as gang warfare instead of political terrorism —
even when a U.N. report verified there were in fact ties
between the perpetrators and Moise’s government,
specifically implicating Pierre Richard Duplan of the
PHTK (Parti Haïtien Tèt Kale, the ruling party of
Jovenel Moise).</p>
<h2>What Happened in Lasalin</h2>
<p>This sticks in Judith Mirkinson’s craw as well.</p>
<p>Mirkinson, president of the San Francisco chapter of
the National Lawyers Guild (NLG), is co-author with Seth
Donnelly of <a
href="https://www.nlg.org/report-the-lasalin-massacre-and-the-human-rights-crisis-in-haiti/"><span>The
Lasalin Massacre and the Human Rights Crisis in
Haiti</span></a>, a 14-page report published on July
8, 2019, by the NLG and Haiti Action Committee.</p>
<p>“First of all, the narrative of competing gangs…throw
that out, that’s garbage,” she told <em>Truthout</em>.
“It was the worst massacre in decades. I get very angry
thinking about it.”</p>
<p>The report begins:</p>
<p>On November 13, 2018, police and other paramilitary
personnel entered the neighborhood of Lasalin in
Port-au-Prince, Haiti. What followed was a massacre of
the civilian population. Buildings, including schools,
were fired upon and destroyed, people were injured and
killed, with some burned alive, women were sexually
assaulted and raped and hundreds were forcibly displaced
from homes. Bodies were either burned, taken away to be
disappeared, buried, never to be found, or in some cases
left to be eaten by dogs and pigs.</p>
<p>Mirkinson hopes people will read the report and that it
prompts a renewed focus on Haiti from the human rights
and progressive communities.</p>
<p>“In recent history, the U.S. has overthrown the
government twice, prevented democratic elections twice
and treated Haiti like a neocolony,” Mirkinson said.
“Haiti is in our hemisphere, $260 million of our tax
dollars have paid for police in Haiti since 2010. We do
have a responsibility to pay attention.”</p>
<h2>Solidarity Actions in the Haitian Diaspora</h2>
<p>A spate of solidarity actions has taken place in
California, Montreal, Toronto, New York City and Miami
in recent weeks.</p>
<p>On September 30, Solidarité Québec-Haïti
#Petrochallenge 2019 occupied the prime minister’s
election office in Montreal for three and a half hours.
They delivered a statement to officials and media
demanding that Justin Trudeau stop his support for
Moise. Meanwhile, at a press conference in Toronto,
Trudeau seemed flustered to hear a reporter’s question
about the occupation of his Montreal election office.
The group followed up with a boisterous rally on October
1, resulting in one arrest, which also garnered media
attention.</p>
<p>Yves Engler, co-author of <em>Canada in Haiti: Waging
War on the Poor Majority</em>, told <em>Truthout</em>
that the group plans to up the ante during the Canadian
elections.</p>
<p>“Haiti is what brought me to be critical of Canadian
foreign policy,” Engler explains. “In 2004, I was
shocked by how terrible Canada had been in the coup
against Aristide. Life in Haiti is decided in Washington
and Ottawa.”</p>
<p>On October 1, a group of Haitians protested Hillary and
Chelsea Clinton as they were promoting their new book: <em>The
Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and
Resilience</em> at the Kings Theater in Brooklyn, New
York.</p>
<p>Human rights attorney Èzili Dantò said she supports the
protests by KOMOKODA (the Committee to Mobilize Against
Dictatorship in Haiti) who <a
href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-37828098/haiti-protesters-rally-outside-clinton-hq"><span>bird
dog</span></a> the Clintons’ public appearances.</p>
<p>“We know the harms the Clintons have done to Haitian
women,” Dantò told <em>Truthout</em>. “Haitian women
will not have their agony and colonially imposed poverty
be used by parasites like Hillary and Bill Clinton.”</p>
<p>Ricot Dupuy, a Haitian journalist at Radio Soleil in
New York City, said he holds then-U.S. Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton responsible for installing Michel
Martelly as president, ushering in an era of
illegitimate governance that is still killing Haitians
today.</p>
<p>On October 2, Haiti Action Committee held a march and
rally with South Bay students, teachers, human rights
and community activists in downtown San Jose,
California. They expressed solidarity with the uprising
of the Haitian people and demanded an end to U.S.
support for the dictatorship and death squads in Haiti.
Six activists blocked the entrance to the Federal
Building while chanting “Stop massacres in Haiti!”</p>
<p>On October 3, Haitian Americans participated in a
roundtable listening session organized by U.S.
Congresswoman Frederica Wilson with invited guest U.S.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in Miami, Florida.</p>
<p>On October 9, Solidarité Québec-Haïti #Petrochallenge
2019 held <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/frantz.andre.94/videos/o.353566511909422/10157224199476187/?type=2&theater"><span>a
press conference</span></a> reiterating its demand
that Trudeau denounce Jovenel Moise.</p>
<p>And on October 13, the group held a protest rally
outside Trudeau’s campaign office in Montreal. </p>
<p>Dantò said that support from Haitians living in the
diaspora now standing in solidarity with the masses in
the streets has never been higher. Nevertheless, she
worries about political machinations in Washington.</p>
<p><em>Truthout</em> requested an update from the
Congressional Caribbean Caucus and received a statement
from staff containing these assertions:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The country is experiencing fuel shortages, lack of
clean water, dwindling food reserves, and more as
protests escalate…. We hope that the October 27th
parliamentary elections will take place as scheduled
and without violence.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>October 17 is Dessalines Day, a national holiday in
Haiti that commemorates the death in 1806 of
Jean-Jacques Dessaline, a major hero of Haitian
independence. It is also the one-year anniversary of a
bloody day for protesters against Jovenel Moise; two
people were killed last year and many others wounded.
The passing of an entire year is a crystallizing
reminder that the patience Moise asked of the people
last year has been unanswered by any positive or
meaningful action all this time. </p>
<p>“Haiti is caught in a vicious circle,” Vorbe said, “but
we want to prepare for our future.”</p>
<p>Many of the masses of people anticipated to be in the
streets on October 17 will be carrying leafy tree
branches; most don’t have the money for poster board and
magic markers. And they don’t need them — the branch is
the symbol for the mobilization of the Haitian people.
The historical covenant to rebel in 1804, to risk
bloodshed, was made in the mountains, out of sight of
the overseers and bosses. It was also carried by those
fighting the tyranny of their day during the Duvalier
era. The leafy branch is the sign of those
ramifications.</p>
<p>From her academic perch at the Institute of Haitian
Studies in Lawrence, Kansas, Accilien said she struggles
to find the words about this moment.</p>
<p>“Seems like this a moment of steps forward and steps
back. We have a glimpse of hope, but we’ve seen these
moments before,” Accilien said. “When is it going to be
something else — when will it be Haiti’s turn to tell
the story?”</p>
<p><em>Note: This article has been corrected to clarify
that Moise attempted to remove energy subsidies in
July 2018.</em></p>
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