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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">US Tax Dollars at Work: Neocolonial Dictatorship, Paramilitary and Police Terror in Haiti Today</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Seth Donnelly - December 2, 2022<br></div>
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<img src="cid:ii_lb6fc0720" alt="image.png" width="392" height="257"><br><p>On October 7th, in the face of massive and ever-growing
demonstrations all across Haiti demanding the uprooting of the
right-wing Haitian Tét Kale Party (PHTK) dictatorship, Prime Minister
Ariel Henry exploited the fiction of a war between his regime and
“gangs” to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/07/haiti-military-assistance-us-un-crisis/">call</a> for the intervention of foreign troops to expand the colonial occupation of Haiti. In doing so, he was echoing the <a href="https://twitter.com/Almagro_OEA2015/status/1578178421175160833">tweet</a> made the day before by OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro. Within days, the Biden Administration proceeded to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/15/politics/biden-administration-haiti-united-nations-resolution">draft</a>
a UN Security Council resolution calling for the expanded deployment of
foreign troops in Haiti. To date, the UN Security Council has not yet
passed this resolution, due to concerns voiced by the governments of
Russia and China. On the ground in Haiti, there have been major
demonstrations against new intervention of foreign troops.</p>
<p>The Biden Administration argues that such foreign intervention is a
“humanitarian” necessity given the weakness of the Hatian police force
to effectively deal with the “gangs,” more accurately described as
highly weaponized <strong>paramilitaries </strong>indispensable to
maintenance of the PHTK regime and the US/UN occupation of Haiti. The
Biden Administration calls for both strengthening this police force,
through enhanced US aid and training, alongside the deployment of
foreign troops to Haiti in order to allegedly restore “law and order”
and alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Haiti. This argument reproduces
the racist stereotype that the Haitian people are incapable of
governing themselves, that they will devolve into “gangs’” without
proper supervision by a foreign-funded and trained police force
buttressed by foreign occupation troops.</p>
<p>Some liberal critics of the Biden Administration’s position, such as
former Special Envoy to Haiti Daniel Foote, disagree with the call to
send in more foreign troops, but agree with the Administration’s policy
prescription to strengthen the Haitian police. US funding of the Haitian
police continues to be accepted and legislated by the US Congress at
the behest of the Biden Administration.</p>
<p>The question over sending additional foreign troops into Haiti misses
the fact that Haitians were recently subjected to such an intervention,
culminating in the ongoing foreign occupation of Haiti since 2004.
Similarly, the call for greater US-funding and training of the Haitian
police camouflages the following fundamental realities:</p>
<blockquote><p><strong>+ The Haitian police, as an institution, serves as an instrument of the PHTK regime’s repression.</strong>
Not only do the police work closely with the paramilitaries, but the
police directly perpetrate gross human rights violations, from targeted
killings of activists and journalists to massacres.</p>
<p><strong>+ The US government, under both Trump and now Biden, has been
dramatically increasing aid to the Haitian police, but this has only
correlated with ever-growing human rights violations by the police and
ever-widening power by the paramilitaries.</strong></p></blockquote>
<p>Evidence to substantiate these 2 points will be provided below. But
first, it is necessary to provide some background and context for the
crisis today in Haiti.</p>
<p><strong>Background and Context for the Crisis:</strong></p>
<p>The PHTK came to power through <a href="https://cepr.net/documents/publications/haiti-2011-01.pdf">the fraudulent election</a> of Michel Martelly in 2010 and then maintained its grip on power through the <a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2016/1/for-us-in-haiti-black-votes-dont-matter.html">fraudulent election</a> of <a href="https://haitisolidarity.net/in-the-news/electoral-coup/">Jovenel Moise in 2016</a>,
what Haitian activists refer to as electoral coup d’etats. Both
elections were held under UN occupation and sponsored by the US
government. As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton detoured from her
trip to the Middle East at the height of the Arab Spring uprising in
Egypt and personally <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/03/10/hillary-clinton-needs-to-answer-for-her-actions-in-honduras-and-haiti/">intervened</a>
to put Martelly into power. Similarly, the US State Department
immediately heralded the 2016 elections as legitimate, and subsequent US
administrations, first Trump then Biden, continued to prop up the Moise
regime diplomatically and financially.</p>
<p>The assassination of Jovenel Moise by a professional kill squad on
July 7th, 2021, did not alter US support for the PHTK regime. Instead,
the Biden Administration intervened to install and back another PHTK
official, Ariel Henry, as the Prime Minister of Haiti, in opposition to
the wishes of the vast majority of the Haitian people and in violation
of the Haitian Constitution.</p>
<p>Under Martelly, Moise, and now Henry, the PHTK dictatorship represents the repressive <strong>institutionalization</strong>
of the US-backed coup d’etat in 2004 against the democratically elected
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, along with thousands of
democratically elected Fanmi Lavalas officials serving Haiti’s poor
majority. Since the coup, 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>Just as the US-backed dictatorship in El Salvador during the 1980s
carried out systematic repression through both the official security
forces and “unofficial” death squads, working closely with the
Salvadoran police, the PHTK regime is waging its war against the poor
majority through heavily weaponized paramilitaries affiliated with and
supported by the regime.</p>
<p>Indeed, the paramilitaries that have proliferated across Haiti for
neary the past twelve years of PHTK rule bear a strong resemblance– in
organizational structure and repressive function– to the notorious
“Tonton Macoute” and the “Section Chief” system during the long era of
the Duvalierist dictatorship. During this dictatorship, the Tonton
Macoute secret police and the Section Chiefs in charge of various
districts ruled through terror, pillaging the people in their zones of
control. Today’s paramilitaries also bear a strong resemblance with
“Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti” (FRAPH), a deathsquad,
financed in part by the CIA, working closely with the military
dictatorship that seized power after the first coup against President
Aristide in 1991. During the brief period of popular democracy led by
Lavalas governments in Haiti following the return of President Aristide
from exile in 1994, the system of paramilitary rule was dismantled.
Following the US-backed coup in 2004 against President Aristide this
system of control and corruption has been rebuilt under the US/ UN
occupation, this time with paramilitaries, frequently working closely
with the occupation regime and being <a href="https://blackagendareport.com/solve-crisis-permanently-force-us-stop-backing-notorious-white-warlords-haiti">financed by various Haitian oligarchs.</a></p>
<p>The most salient example of the collusion between the “gangs” and the
PHTK regime is the G9 federation led by former police officer <a href="https://insightcrime.org/caribbean-organized-crime-news/jimmy-cherizier-alias-barbecue/">Jimmy Cherizier</a>,
aka “Barbecue”. Cherizier created the “G9 Family and Allies: in 2020 as
an alliance of 9 different “gangs” in Port-au-Prince. Cherizier’s
symbiotic links with the PHTK regime are overwhelmingly clear. As widely
<a href="https://www.gazettehaiti.com/index.php/node/1949">reported</a>
in the Haitian media, it was the suggestion of high-ranking PHTK
officials to create the federation of “gangs” that took the name G9
Family and Allies. Despite a standing arrest warrant issued against him
since 2017 for a massacre in the impoverished neighborhood of Grand
Ravine, Cherizier has continued to operate, create, and launch the G9
with relative impunity. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41chTGFn0r0&ab_channel=AlJazeeraEnglish">Here</a>
he is giving a recent press conference in broad daylight before major
Haitian media outlets without any police interference. During the
Presidency of Jovenel Moise, the PHTK regime, through its officials
worked closely with Cherizier, providing him with <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article230380739.html">logistical support</a> to terrorize popular, impoverished neighborhoods such as <a href="https://www.nlg.org/report-the-lasalin-massacre-and-the-human-rights-crisis-in-haiti/">Lasalin</a>, <a href="https://insightcrime.org/news/gang-led-massacres-relied-support-police-state-officials-haiti/">Bel Air</a>, and <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/whos-behind-haitis-powerful-gang-alliance">Cite Soleil</a>
that were bases of resistance by the Lavalas movement to PHTK rule. For
additional information on the Lasalin massacre, see this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6kQH-_IrAg&t=2s&ab_channel=TheRealNewsNetwork">powerful video</a>
by investigative journalist Margaret Prescod. G9 operatives have
systematically perpetrated rape as an instrument of terror in their war
of repression.</p>
<div id="gmail-attachment_267173" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-267173" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/whos-behind-haitis-powerful-gang-alliance-or-pbs.jpeg" alt="Who's behind Haiti's powerful gang alliance? | PBS NewsHour" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="392" height="261"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-267173" class="gmail-wp-caption-text">Photo of Jimmy Cherizier courtesy of <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/whos-behind-haitis-powerful-gang-alliance">PBS</a>.</p></div>
<p>The reliance of the PHTK regime upon paramilitary death squads like
G9 crystallizes the essence of the regime itself– an instrument of
organized crime by members of the Haitian oligarchy, an instrument best
personified by the “Godfather” role of Michel Martelly as the first PHTK
president and then the force behind Jovenel Moise. It is clear that
Moise stepped on the wrong toes within these elite circles, triggering
his murder, with evidence implicating current PHTK dictator Ariel Henry
in the plot. In an in-depth <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/12/world/americas/jovenel-moise-haiti-president-drug-traffickers.html">article</a> for the <em>New York Times</em>,
investigative journalist Maria Abi-Habib unearthed massive evidence to
substantiate all of these assertions. Even some police officers have <a href="https://ayibopost.com/under-threat-the-police-officers-who-had-arrested-fednel-monchery-are-fleeing-haiti/">reportedly</a>
been the targets of repression by the regime and its proxies. With
mounting exposure of this glaring criminality, this past November 19th,
the Canadian government <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/20/world/canada/canada-haiti-sanctions.html">imposed sanctions</a>
on Martelly and a handful of other high-ranking PHTK officials for
“possible ties to criminal gangs”. The US government has yet to follow
suit.</p>
<p><strong>The Haitian police, as an institution, serves as an instrument of the PHTK regime’s repression.</strong></p>
<p>Ever since the 2004 coup, the Haitian National Police (HNP), as an
institution, has been remade under US influence, to re-integrate former
military and FRAPH death squad members, thereby functioning as an
instrument of mass repression in a manner that the Haitian military did
during the Duvalier years. For example, Marcel Maurrissant, formerly the
third person in command of FRAPH, became a HNP commissioner, working
with the Minister of the Interior. Leon Charles, the first HNP chief
installed after the coup, was a former officer with the notorious
Haitian military. Under Charles’ leadership, the HNP participated
directly in the heavy wave of massacres and extrajudicial killings in
the first year of the coup. In a <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UG78tjwNIAsmA6c_OjXZfd_z16fk-MfH/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=112589527240431954622&rtpof=true&sd=true">petition</a>
to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights prepared by human
rights attorneys with the National Lawyers Guild and the Chicago
Conference of Black Lawyers, a formal complaint was filed against the US
government for financing and equipping the HNP following the coup,
thereby aiding and abetting gross human rights abuses in Haiti. As the
petitioners stated:</p>
<p>“Since the February 29 coup, the US government has provided the HNP
with significant financial aid, weaponry, and other police equipment,
such as vehicles, in violation of the US arms embargo and despite the
clear record of PNH extrajudicial killings and massacres of the civilian
population. Moreover, the US government has conducted training of the
PNH, thereby facilitating the integration of former military and death
squad elements into the command structure of the force.</p>
<p>This arming and training of the HNP stands in stark contrast to the
elimination of weapons, equipment, and training to the HNP during the
second term of the Aristide government.</p>
<p>For example, the US State Department sanctioned the transfer of 2,636
weapons to the PNH in the summer of 2004. Additionally, the US
government sent a weapons shipment worth $7 million to Haiti in November
2004, and, later, in June 2005, $2.6 million worth of police equipment…</p>
<p>By arming, financing, training, and diplomatically supporting the HNP
after the coup, the US government has directly participated in human
rights violations and fostering the climate of impunity that prevails in
Haiti today. The list of extrajudicial killings and massacres by the
HNP detailed below is indissolubly connected to the intervention by the
US government in the affairs of Haiti.”</p>
<p>The petition proceeds to detail some of the most egregious killings
and massacres by the HNP during the first year-and-a-half of the coup/
occupation regime.</p>
<p>The pattern of repression continued throughout the ensuing years,
escalating under the PHTK regime to levels not seen since the early coup
years. Charles was again picked to run the HNP by Jovenel Moise in
2020, only to be replaced by current HNP chief Frantz Elbe about one
year later. Though Elbe is not a former officer in the Haitian military
nor a former member of FRAPH, under his command police killings of
activists and journalists have raged with impunity.</p>
<p>Alongside of participation in well-documented <a href="http://hrp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Killing_With_Impunity-1.pdf">massacres</a>– including the <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/01/10/haiti-raid-united-nations-police-grand-ravine/">summary execution of civilians on a school campus</a>– in recent years, here are just <strong>a few examples</strong> of the many police extrajudicial executions of unarmed students, activists, journalists, and community members:</p>
<p>+ On <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/americas_haiti-police-fire-tear-gas-live-rounds-student-protesters/6196958.html">October 2nd, 2020,</a>
university student leader, law student, and teacher-in-training Gregory
Saint-Hilaire was shot in the back inside of the university by Jovenel
Moise’s special security unit within the Haitian police that had
illegally invaded the campus. Saint-Hilaire was an outspoken
pro-democracy activist who had been calling upon students and faculty to
denounce government corruption, massacres, and Haiti’s rapid descent
into dictatorship. After being shot Saint-Hilaire was prevented from
receiving medical care for 4 hours or more and died. The next day,
university students accused the Haitian police of involvement in setting
the school library on fire.</p>
<div id="gmail-attachment_267174" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-267174" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/word-image-267171-3.png" alt="" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="275" height="392"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-267174" class="gmail-wp-caption-text">Gregory Saint-Hilaire holding a protest sign: “Down with Weapons! Long Live Education!”</p></div>
<p>+ On <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/haiti-police-open-fire-demonstrators-one-journalist-killed-2022-02-23/">February 23rd, 2022,</a>
“Haitian police on Wednesday opened fire on demonstrators demanding
higher wages and killed a reporter, according to witnesses and a
hospital official…Two other journalists were shot and wounded at the
scene in Port-au-Prince, where hundreds of Haitians gathered to call for
a higher minimum wage than the one approved this week by the government
of Prime Minister Ariel Henry.”</p>
<p>+ On September 15th, 2022, as <a href="https://fcnhaiti.com/haiti-crime-tue-puis-brule-widney-v-joseph-laureat-au-bacc-unique-ouest-loin-de-ses-reves/">reported</a>
extensively in 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>+ On September 17th, 2022, the police opened fire on the protesters
in the Delmas neighborhood of Port-au-Prince. Then, according to a
community 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 dumped her and the other bodies
into the trash compartment, then piling the burning barricades atop
their bodies.</p>
<p>+ On October 30th, 2022, police <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/news/world/2022/11/01/protests-haiti-over-death-journalist-romelo-vilsaint/10659085002/">shot an unarmed journalist</a>, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/caribbean-journalists-port-au-prince-haiti-b973049adf13229dccdd3dd4c6825bdf">Romelo Vilsaint</a>,
in the head, and killed him during a protest at the Delmas police
station where he and other journalists were demanding the release of a
jailed colleague, Robest Dimanche. Police had previously detained
Dimanche when he was covering a street protest.</p>
<p>+ On October 31st, 2022, the body of a popular radio host, an attorney, and political analyst, <a href="https://latamjournalismreview.org/news/haiti-missing-radio-host-found-dead-in-les-cayes/">Gary Tess</a>, was found mutilated, with signs of massive torture, in Okay after he had been reportedly abducted <a href="https://rezonodwes.com/?p=296129">by police</a> on October 18th. Tess had been an outspoken critic of the PHTK regime.</p>
<p><strong><img src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/disparu-le-18-octobre-le-corps-sans-vie-de-lanim.jpeg" alt="Disparu le 18 octobre, le corps sans vie de l'animateur Garry Tess retrouvé au bord de la mer au Cayes | ZoomHaitiNews" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="392" height="284"></strong></p>
<p><a href="https://zoomhaitinews.com/disparu-le-18-octobre-le-corps-sans-vie-de-lanimateur-garry-tess-retrouve-au-bord-de-la-mer-au-cayes/">Photo of Gary Tess</a></p>
<p>There are many other examples of police killings throughout Haiti
over the past few months. In the city of Okay and nearby towns,
according to community residents, more than 25 unarmed protestors,
journalists, students and community organizers have been beaten, shot,
disappeared and/or killed by the paramilitaries and the police since
June 2022. Unfortunately, the major, international human rights
organizations such as the United Nations Human Rights Council, Human
Rights Watch or Amnesty International are not keeping a comprehensive
database of the victims of police violence in Haiti, although Amnesty
did issue this 2019 <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/10/haiti-amnesty-verifies-evidence-excessive-force-against-protesters/">report</a> addressing the problem in a very limited manner.</p>
<p>Solidarity organizations like the <a href="https://haitisolidarity.net/">Haiti Action Committee</a>
gather information on victims through direct communication with
grassroots activists in different parts of Haiti and through a careful
study of reports and video evidence coming from independent, progressive
media outlets in Haiti.</p>
<p>From these sources, we know that the Haitian police have not only
routinely been killing unarmed protesters, journalists, and students,
but also collectively punishing entire communities like Lasalin for
their pro-democracy activism. For example, in addition to their
involvement in the 2018 Lasalin massacre, the police attacked Lasalin
earlier in 2016, retaliating against the community for protests,
shooting tear gas into the neighborhood at night and reportedly killing
three babies, according to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFiftwfnSg4&ab_channel=kiilunyasha">community residents</a> (start at minute 33:30 for footage and translation).</p>
<p>The idea that this institution, controlled by and serving the regime
in power, can deliver security for the Haitian people is a deadly
illusion. Not only does this idea ignore the real record of police
repression and terror, but it turns a blind eye to the immense linkages
between the police and the paramilitaries. A recent <a href="https://lenouvelliste.com/alaminute/23339/haiti-40-a-60-des-policiers-ont-des-connexions-avec-les-gangs-selon-le-sant-karl-leveque">study</a> in Haiti made a conservative estimate that between 40%–60% of Haitian police officers have ties with “gangs”.</p>
<p><strong>The US government, under both Trump and now Biden, has been dramatically increasing aid to the Haitian police.</strong></p>
<p>As noted recently by the White House, 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 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UVIXvOrE8U&ab_channel=PalmBeachCountySheriff%27sOffice">training</a>
of the Haitian police. 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.” This funding by
the Biden Administration, authorized by Congress, represents yet another
increase from the immensely high level of funding by the Trump
Administration. As noted in this detailed <a href="https://cepr.net/state-department-awarded-contract-to-politically-connected-security-firm/">report</a>,
“Since Trump took office, the US has nearly quadrupled its support to
Haiti’s police — from $2.8 million in 2016 to more than $12.4 million
last year [2019]. With the recent reallocation, the figure this year
will likely be even higher. US funding for the Haitian police
constitutes more than 10 percent of the institution’s overall budget.”</p>
<p>Increased flows of US taxpayer dollars to the Haitian police under
Trump and now Biden correlates with a pattern of what seems to be
ever-expanding police terror and repression in Haiti. Indeed, the US
government is funding the largest terrorist organization in Haiti, the
HNP, just as the US funded the FRAPH death squad after the first coup
against President Aristide. The blood of the thousands of victims of
paramilitary and police violence is on the hands of the US government
and US taxpayers who enable this killing machine to keep killing.</p>
<p><strong>Conclusion: </strong></p>
<p>Haitians have been struggling against US/ UN colonial occupation ever
since the 2004 coup against President Aristide. During this occupation,
the police have become militarized and more brutal, paramilitaries have
flourished, massacres have proliferated, <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1114422">hunger and misery</a>
have deepend, brazen corruption and looting of public funds by the
oligarchy have skyrocketed, and impunity has reigned. Very rarely have
Haitian officials issued formal condolences to family members who have
lost loved ones to the many killings and massacres. UN <a href="https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/10/a-decade-of-seeking-justice-for-haitian-cholera-victims/">occupation forces</a>
brought cholera to Haiti, killing thousands of Haitians, and have yet
to take real responsibility for this crime. Cholera is now back and on
the rise. All of this amounts to the systematic and extreme deprivation
of the Haitian people’s most basic human rights, including the right to
national self-determination. It amounts to a genocide being inflicted
against the Haitian people by members of the Haitian oligarchy, 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> powers arrogantly masquerading as the “international community”.</p>
<p>This war against the Haitian people must be understood within the
historical context of the war perpetrated against them by the slave
owning powers and the colonial elite inside of Haiti who suffered a
major defeat with the end of slavery when the Haitian Revolution
triumphed in 1804 against all odds.</p>
<p>At its very core, the function of the police and paramilitary terror
today in Haiti is to eradicate the hope established by the Haitian
revolution, to erase the promise of true decolonization, and to maintain
a system of exclusion. This function was bluntly expressed in a message
by a self-described member of today’s Haitian elite, claiming to be of
European descent, following the fraudulent presidential elections of
2016 in favor of PHTK’s Jovenel Moise. His message has been widely
broadcasted by Haitian radio stations ever since, reflecting the
ideology and strategy of white supremacy against which the masses of
people are struggling:</p>
<blockquote><p>“…We have more rights to this country because we are the
descendants of the French. We do not have to be afraid of any Lavalas
trash that is trying to scare us to leave the country. The riches of the
country are in our hands, we are the owners of the banks, we are the
owners of the hospitals, we are the ones who control the commerce. We
are the ones who own all that this country has in terms of wealth. We
cannot let little Aristide and all his little dirty tramps destroy us…
We will pay them, those among them – because they are a bunch of hungry,
a bunch of ‘chimeres’, a bunch of dirty people. With the money we have
made, we can again pay them to fight among themselves so that we can
take control of this country….”</p></blockquote>
<p>Courageously facing police and paramilitary attacks, the Haitian
people have taken to the streets in ever-growing numbers, demanding
their basic human rights and democracy, along with an end to the PHTK
regime’s corruption and looting 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>The Biden Administration, enabled by Congress, continues to prop up a
regime in Haiti that starves the people while “opening up” the
country’s mineral resources for plunder by foreign investors. When
Haitians flee the violence and misery, the Biden Administration
intercepts them, deports them back to Haiti, or considers incarcerating
them at Guantanamo. Massive international solidarity with the Haitian
people is urgently required now. For people living in the US (not to
mention other “Core Group” countries), the obligation is
straightforward: to struggle relentlessly to end the Biden
Administration’s colonial policies of occupying Haiti, supporting
dictatorship, funding repression, and deporting refugees.</p>
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