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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/10/18/oppose-us-and-un-military-intervention-in-haiti/">counterpunch.org</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Oppose US and UN military intervention in Haiti!</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Haiti Action Committee</div>
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<p><em>October 17th, 2022.</em></p>
<p>We join with Haiti’s popular movement to strongly condemn the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/07/haiti-military-assistance-us-un-crisis/">call</a>
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 <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/07/haiti-military-assistance-us-un-crisis/">tweeted</a>
that Haiti “must request urgent assistance from the international
community to help resolve security crises, determine the characteristics
of an international security force.”</p>
<p>We strongly condemn the <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/10/1129372">letter</a>
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 <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/15/politics/biden-administration-haiti-united-nations-resolution">reported</a> on October 15th.</p>
<p><strong>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.</strong></p>
<p>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 <a href="https://www.cepr.net/soldiers-without-a-cause-why-are-thousands-of-un-troops-still-in-haiti/">gross human rights abuses</a> including <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/sep/03/minustah-un-haiti-abuse">rape and other forms of sexual abuse</a>, an occupation that has brought <a href="https://www.blackagendareport.com/dirty-occupation-uns-criminal-enterprise-and-ecological-catastrophe-haiti">cholera</a> to Haiti and that has systematically destroyed Haiti’s institutions while increasing <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1114422">hunger and misery.</a></p>
<p>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 (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzRk6knuNK8%5C">Sali Piblik</a>)
to create a foundation for free and fair elections and a return to
democratic rule. They are demanding an end to IMF-imposed austerity, <a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20220714135735-aq0pn">soaring prices</a>
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.</p>
<p>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 <a href="https://hrp.law.harvard.edu/press-releases/report-finds-haitian-government-complicit-in-crimes-against-humanity/">massacres</a> throughout the country, such as the horrific <a href="https://www.nlg.org/report-the-lasalin-massacre-and-the-human-rights-crisis-in-haiti/">Lasalin massacre</a>. For further testimony regarding this massacre, view this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6kQH-_IrAg">powerful video.</a> The people are protesting the atrocious conditions in Haiti’s prisons and the skyrocketing rate of <a href="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">prisoner deaths</a>
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.</p>
<p>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 <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/07/13/fact-sheet-u-s-assistance-to-haiti/">pumped</a>
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 <a href="https://haitiantimes.com/2022/07/15/us-gives-training-and-48m-more-to-fight-crime-in-haiti/">bolstered</a>
the SWAT training program with a $48 million package.” All the while,
HNP police killings of unarmed Haitians have continued with impunity.</p>
<p>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.:</p>
<blockquote><p>+ 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.</p>
<p>+ 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.</p>
<p>+ 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.</p></blockquote>
<p>We denounce the arrogance of the UN, OAS, the US government, and the <a href="https://ht.usembassy.gov/press-release-port-au-prince-10-february-2019-the-core-group/">Core Group</a> of imperial powers claimingthe role of guardians of the people of Haiti while they fan the flames of repression and violence.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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:</p>
<p><a href="https://news.un.org/en/content/contact-un-news">Contact the office of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres</a> at ph: (212) 963-7160</p>
<p><a href="https://ziplook.house.gov/htbin/findrep_house">Contact Your House Representative</a> in Congress</p>
<p><a href="https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm">Contact Your Senator</a> in Congress</p>
<p><a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/">Contact the White House</a> at ph: (202)-456-1111</p>
<p>Tell US officials in particular to:</p>
<blockquote><p>+ Oppose US-financing/training of the Haitian National Police!</p>
<p>+ Stop US support for the Ariel Henry dictatorship!</p>
<p>+ Stop the Deportations of all Haitians!</p></blockquote>
<p>Support Haiti’s Popular Movement with a donation to the <a href="https://haitiemergencyrelief.org/">Haiti Emergency Relief Fund.</a></p>
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