No to Blackface imperialism. Yes to Haitian Sovereignty

OPPOSE FOREIGN INTERVENTION IN HAITI

No to Blackface imperialism. Yes to Haitian Sovereignty.

On August 1, 2023, the United States stated it would “put forward a U.N. Security Council resolution that will authorize Kenya to lead a multinational police force to help combat gangs in Haiti.” While Kenya has offered to deploy a contingent of 1,000 police officers to help train and assist Haitian police, ostensibly to “restore order” in the Caribbean republic,” their proposal is nothing more than military occupation by another name. An occupation of Haiti by an African country is not Pan-Africanism, but Western imperialism in Black face. By agreeing to send troops into Haiti, the Kenyan government is assisting in undermining the sovereignty and self-determination of Haitian people, while serving the neocolonial interests of the United States, the Core Group, and the United Nations.

For the last two years, these imperialist forces have been pushing for further armed intervention into Haiti to forcefully uphold the illegitimate “government” they have installed to maintain their control. The occupying entities of the US, United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH), and the Core Group have been desperately searching for any multilateral institution to lead this intervention, be it the UN Security Council, Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), and others. The goal is the continued denial of Haitian sovereignty.  

Haiti’s occupiers, the Core Group and BINUH, along with their puppet government, are incapable of ensuring healthcare, food, security, and access to basic needs for the people. We are told that the interest of the U.S. is humanitarian, that it wants to protect the Haitian people from “gang violence.” But we know that Haiti’s imperial occupiers have created the crisis and have fueled the violence against Haitian people.

The Black Alliance for Peace stands in solidarity with the Haitian’s people’s constant call for disbanding the Core Group, for an arms embargo against the Haitian and U.S. elite who import guns into the country, for the end of support for Haiti’s installed puppet government, and for the reinstatement of the fuel subsidies removed by order of the IMF.  It is curious that the Core Group and US/UN are calling for military intervention while not making calls to build either hospitals or schools, or to build the infrastructure for power and clean water. Yet, BINUH and the Core Group cooperate with the oligarchs who establish monopolistic domination through intimidation and force.

The ongoing occupation of Haiti and calls for increased foreign military presence in Haiti have been justified as the only solution to political or economic crises. Yet, the true ongoing crisis in Haiti is a crisis of imperialism. The country's economic and social situation has reached a critical stage, allowing for  increased political instability.

BAP demands that Kenya rescind their proposal to send 1,000 police to Haiti, and calls on the Kenyan people to join the Haitian masses and radical voices worldwide in condemning the continued occupation and governance of Haiti by the Core Group and the UN.

BAP calls on individuals and organizations in the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean and Central and Latin America, especially those member states of CELAC and CARICOM, to demand that their elected representatives SAY NO to any resolution at present or in the future to militarily intervene in Haiti.

BAP calls on individuals and organizations on the continent of Africa, particularly Pan-African organizations, to denounce African governments participation in present or future armed intervention into Haiti, and demand leaders of their countries seek true Pan-African alliances with the people and grassroots organizations of Haiti, in support of their sovereignty and self-determination – in line with demands of 60+ Haitian civic and social organizations in their letter to the African Union, dated 6 August 2023  (English | Francés).

BAP calls for popular movements in the Americas in support of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) 2014 call to make the Americas region a Zone of Peace.

SIGN HERE

Call, tweet, and email these demands to: 

Kenya: Ambassador William Ruto 

(202) 387-6101

Email: information@kenyembassydc.org or complaints@kenyaembassydc.org

Twitter: @KenyaembassyDC or@ForeignOfficeKE or @StateHouseKenya

Jamaica: Ambassador Audrey Patrice Marks

(202) 452-0660

Email: contactus@jamaicaembassy.org

Twitter: @USEmbassyJA

The Bahamas: Ambassador Wendall K. Jones

(202) 319-2660

Email: EMBASSY@BAHAMASEMBDC.ORG

Twitter: @bahamasembassy

CARICOM: CARICOM Secretariat

Turkeyen Georgetown, Guyana

Email registry@caricom.org or communications@caricom.org 

 +1(592) 222-0001

Twitter: @CARICOMorg

UN: UN Secretary-General António Guterres 

(212) 963-7160

Twitter: @antonioguterres

No to occupation. No to foreign intervention. No to Blackface imperialism. 

Yes to sovereignty. Yes to a true Pan-African alliance between the people of Haiti and Kenya.  

#HandsOffHaiti

Banner photo: Painting of French colonizing soldier being hung from trees by Haitian rebels. (courtesy PBS Documentary - Egalite for All: Toussaint Louverture & The Haitian Revolution)

Black Alliance for Peace Once Again Calls on International Community To Reject U.S./U.N./CARICOM Plan for An Armed Intervention of Haiti

Black Alliance for Peace Once Again Calls on International Community To Reject U.S./U.N./CARICOM Plan for An Armed Intervention of Haiti

No to Foreign Militarism, Yes to Self-Determination!

For Immediate Release July 17, 2023

Media Contact: 

info@blackallianceforpeace.com 

(201) 292-4591

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) is alarmed that representatives of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) are at the forefront of the call for armed intervention in Haiti calling on Rwanda and Kenya to help lead the charge. Once again the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) calls on the international community to reject U.S., UN, and CARICOM plans for an armed intervention in Haiti. We have been consistent in our support for Haitian people who view the presence of the United Nations Integrated Office (BINUH) and the Core Group as a foreign occupation. Since 2004, they have suppressed Haiti’s independence and sovereignty. A U.S./UN-led armed foreign intervention in Haiti is not only illegitimate, but illegal. 

CARICOM has caved in to pressure from the Biden administration and now supports the US/UN plan to violently attack Haiti under the racist guise of humanitarian intervention. This stance reverses a position that many members of CARICOM held early this spring; at that time, the organization’s president and Prime Minister of Bahamas, Philip Davis, said that the Caribbean countries had no intention of sending forces to Haiti. BAP condemns CARICOM’s betrayal of the people of Haiti and their complicity in surrendering regional sovereignty to the U.S. and the Core Group’s undemocratic and imperialist aims.

And what was the argument advanced by U.S. officials concerning Haiti? We are told that the interest of the U.S. is humanitarian, that it wants to protect the Haitian people from gang violence. Yet, no mention has been made of the Haitian people’s constant call for the disbanding of the Core Group, for an arms embargo against the Haitian and U.S. elite who import guns into the country, for the end of support for Haiti’s installed puppet government, and for the deep financial crises placed on the people by the IMF-led move to remove fuel subsidies. There are no calls to build either hospitals or schools. And there are no efforts to provide asylum for the thousands of Haitians in the United States, Mexico – and the CARICOM countries themselves.

The call for an armed intervention of Haiti is not about humanitarianism. Indeed, as Erica Caines, co-coordinator of BAP’s Haiti/Americas Team, argues:

 “It is an ahistorical absurdity that U.S. officials would have any concerns about the lives of the Black people of Haiti. The U.S. has one agenda, and one agenda only, and that is to maintain its hegemonic control over the peoples and territories of the Caribbean and Latin America. The real reason for the violent intervention into Haiti by the U.S. with its European allies, is to shore-up the undemocratic and illegitimate government of Ariel Henry.”

It is understandable that unprincipled servants to white power like Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the U.S. House Democrats who attended the CARICOM meeting along with the warmongering U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, would advocate for an imperialist military assault into Haiti to prop-up its unelected puppet regime. But it is a sad day for the Caribbean that a majority of the Black heads of state in CARICOM have agreed to give political cover to this white power intervention against the dignity and rights of the Haitian people. As we said in our earlier letter to CARICOM, “We call on your countries to respect Haitian sovereignty and to support the Haitian masses in their stand against the ongoing occupation of their country by foreign powers.”

BAP, once again, is also compelled to call on the representatives of the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation to vote against any UNSC resolution sanctioning military force to Haiti.

In our initial communication with the representatives from Russia and China, we made it clear that, “in alignment with the wishes of the Haitian masses and their supporters, [we] absolutely stand against any foreign armed intervention in Haiti.” We further demand a stop to the unending meddling in Haitian affairs by the United States and Western powers. We hope that the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China will stand with the people of Haiti in its fight for liberation by voting NO on another military invasion to brutalize the long-suffering Haitian masses.

No to Occupation! No to Foreign Militarism! No to CARICOM Neocolonialism!

Yes to Self-Determination!

Banner photo: A man waves a red flag during a protest against fuel price hikes. [AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: BAP Opposes Biden Administration’s Security Council Resolution on Haiti and Calls for its Veto

The Black Alliance for Peace Opposes Biden Administration’s Security Council Resolution on Haiti and Calls for its Veto

The Crisis of Haiti is a Crisis of Imperialism

For Immediate Release   

Media Contact

info@blackallianceforpeace.com

(202) 643-1136

October 17, 2022. The Black Alliance for Peace emphatically opposes the Biden administration’s draft resolution to the United Nations Security Council to call for the immediate deployment of a “multinational rapid action force” to Haiti. We have specifically asked two permanent members of the Security Council - the representatives of the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation - to veto this resolution. 

Western nations, led by the United States, and supported by Canada, the Dominican Republic, and the Caribbean Community, among others, are at the forefront of the push for another foreign military intervention in Haiti. Through a global public relations campaign, they are justifying invasion by pointing to a “humanitarian crisis” (including a new cholera outbreak) that has come about as a result of “gang violence.” 

Yet by now, we should know that when it comes to Haiti, we cannot trust the words of Western politicians and the coverage of Western media. In the context of the current “crisis,” politicians and media have worked overtime to shape the discussion of Haiti by highlighting particular details – while ignoring important historical facts.

 In the first instance, when calling for a military invasion of Haiti and promoting a narrative of crisis, the western media does not acknowledge that the current “government” in Haiti is unelected and unaccountable to Haitian people. It also fails to acknowledge that one core demand of the people is for authentic Haitian self-determination. Therefore, the last thing the Haitian people want is another “humanitarian” invasion and occupation by the US and the “Core Group.''  

Second, rarely does the media mention that, along with the demand for self-determination, the nationwide protests of hundreds of thousands of Haitian people have also been against the massive economic distress caused by a sharp increase in the cost of living. This increase was a direct result of a major increase in the cost of fuel – an increase decreed by the puppet Prime Minister and dictated by the IMF. 

Third, media coverage refuses to implicate the U.S., France, and Canada in the 2004 coup d’etat which removed the country’s popularly elected president, eventually leading to the current crisis. 

Much of what we hear about Haiti today is a distortion - or outright fabrication - of Haiti’s social and political reality. Much of it lacks historical context, especially when it comes to the unrelenting meddling of the foreign agents and institutions, for understanding the Haitian situation. Much of it is based in a deep racism that presumes that Black people are ungovernable while resenting the implications of Haiti’s historical commitment to Black freedom.

As a response to distortions and deceptions surrounding Haiti, the Haiti/Americas Team of the Black Alliance for Peace has compiled a dossier of recent statements, essays, and articles which collectively demonstrate both the imperial origins of Haiti’s crisis and the racist justifications supporting it.

We want to be clear: The crisis of Haiti is a crisis of imperialism. 

The Black Alliance for Peace, in alignment with the wishes of the Haitian masses and their supporters, absolutely stands against any foreign armed intervention in Haiti, and continues to demand an end to the unending meddling in Haitian affairs by the United States and Western powers. 

-Haiti/Americas Team of the Black Alliance for Peace 

~END~

ARTICLES :

“The Black Alliance for Peace Rejects the Calls for Foreign Intervention in Haiti and Demands that International Community Respect Haitian Sovereignty and the Wishes of the Haitian People for National Self-Determination" 

https://blackallianceforpeace.com/bapstatements/nooascallforhaitiintervention

Open Letter to Secretary General of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), on the need to Support Haitian Sovereignty

https://blackagendareport.com/open-letter-secretary-general-caribbean-community-caricom-need-support-haitian-sovereignty

An Open Letter to His Excellency, Mr. Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), President of Mexico, on the Renewal of the UN Occupation of Haiti

https://blackallianceforpeace.com/movement-news/amloopenletter

Black Alliance for Peace Condemns Renewal of the UN Mission to Haiti (BINUH) 

https://blackallianceforpeace.com/bapstatements/2022unmandaterenewal

Who Rules Haiti? Black Alliance for Peace Condemns Undermining of Haitian National Sovereignty

https://blackallianceforpeace.com/bapstatements/whoruleshaiti

What is the Core Group?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1t6RmBawvRCIY9VPYdv1ng_4fdEtor_zZp6njuzbBhlw/edit

What is the OAS?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gYy1MkLVReCfTS6WqQN8r80f8vEipdyJmkcDRXbs6fU/edit

Haiti: On Interventions and Occupations

https://blackagendareport.com/haiti-interventions-and-occupations

The Empire’s Front Yard and the Monroe Doctrine

https://hoodcommunist.org/2022/06/02/the-empires-front-yard-and-the-monroe-doctrine/

The "Leftism" of the Americas Collapses at the Door of Haitian Sovereignty

https://www.blackagendareport.com/leftism-americas-collapses-door-haitian-sovereignty

Borders, Blackness, and Empire

https://blackagendareport.com/borders-blackness-and-empire

PROCLAMATION: LIBERTY OR DEATH, JEAN JACQUES DESSALINES, 1804

Editors, The Black Agenda Review

06 Oct 2021 

https://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php/proclamation-liberty-or-death-jean-jacques-dessalines-1804

END—

Banner photo: A protest in Haiti. (courtesy AP)

Open Letter to Secretary General of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), on the need to Support Haitian Sovereignty

An Open Letter to Her Excellency, Dr. Carla Natalie Barnett Secretary General of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), on the need to Support Haitian Sovereignty

Dear Dr. Barnett: 

On September 19, 2022, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) issued a short statement expressing grave concern about worsening conditions in Haiti and pressing for “urgent and immediate attention from the international community.” In light of CARICOM’s more direct engagement in Haitian affairs in recent months, we call on your organization to respect Haitian sovereignty and to support the Haitian masses in their stand against the ongoing occupation of their country by foreign powers. Despite the erroneous representation of the current protests in Haiti as simply “gang violence,” the latest demonstrations are a direct result of two factors. First, they are a response to the everyday economic misery caused by rising inflation, especially through the staggering increase in the price of fuel. Second, they are part of a long history of demands for the end of foreign meddling in Haitian affairs, especially via the installation and maintenance of an unelected and illegitimate government by the Core Group, of which the United Nations is a part. 

We applaud your concern for Haiti. We have also noted the support your member nations have given to Caribbean and Latin American self-determination. For this reason, we would like to remind CARICOM members that the U.S., Canada, France, and other Western countries, along with the Core Group, and UN missions such as MINUSTAH, are directly responsible for the current conditions in Haiti. Attempting to solve the current crisis in Haiti through a dialogue between unelected and illegitimate Haitian “stakeholders” will not be successful. It will only serve the needs of non-Haitians.

We share with you the words of a coalition of Haitian grassroots organizations explaining the main reason for the currency protests: 

“[T]hese popular protests are part of a struggle for a Haiti free from suffocating foreign interference, gangsterization, this extreme manufactured misery and an anti-national, illegitimate, criminal political regime established by the Core Group of which the UN is a member.”

A brief historical contextualization is in order:

The UN Mission to Haiti Is a Foreign Occupation Repressing Haitian Sovereignty

As you surely are aware, the United Nations became an occupying force in Haiti after the U.S.-France-Canada-led 2004 coup d’état against Haiti’s democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. We must note that, in addition to Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, only Jamaica’s P.J. Patterson, in his capacity as leader of CARICOM, spoke up against the coup.  

Following the coup, the UN took over from U.S. forces. Under Chapter VII of the UN charter, the UN established the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (or MINUSTAH), for the tasks of military occupation under the guise of establishing peace and security. The Workers Party-led government of Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva then betrayed the Haitian people and undercut Haiti’s sovereignty by agreeing to lead the military wing of the UN mission in Haiti.

The history of the UN in Haiti has been a history of violence. An expensive, multi-billion dollar operation, MINUSTAH had between 6,000 and 12,000 military troops and police stationed in Haiti alongside thousands of civilian personnel. Like the first U.S. occupation (1915-1934), the UN occupation under MINUSTAH was marked by its brutality and racism towards the Haitian people. Civilians were brutally attacked and assassinated. “Peace-keepers” committed sexual crimes. UN soldiers dumped human waste into rivers used for drinking water, unleashing a cholera epidemic that killed between 10,000 and 50,000 people. The UN has still not been held accountable for this needless death.

The Core Group — an international coalition of self-proclaimed “friends” of Haiti — came together during the MINUSTAH occupation. Non-Black, un-elected, and anti-democratic, the goal of the Core Group is to oversee Haiti’s governance. Meanwhile, as with the first occupation, the United States and MINUSTAH trained and militarized Haiti’s police and security forces, often rehabilitating and reintegrating rogue members. The United States, in collusion with MINUSTAH and the Core Group, also over-rode Haitian democracy, installing both neo-Duvalierist Michel Martelly and his Haitian Tèt Kale Party (PHTK), alongside Martelly’s protege and successor, the late Jovenel Moïse.

It is claimed that this occupation officially ended in 2017 with the dissolution of MINUSTAH. But the UN has remained in Haiti under a new acronym: BINUH, the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti. BINUH has had an outsized role in Haitian internal political affairs. For example, soon after Moïse was assassinated, its representative, Helen La Lime, asserted that Claude Joseph would be installed as Haiti’s leader. Later, the “Core Group” switched gears and demanded that Ariel Henry should be president. And this is exactly what happened when a “new” Haitian government was announced on July 20, 2021, with Henry as leader. This, without any say from the Haitian people, without any pretense of a democratic process, without any concern for Haiti’s sovereignty.

UN Occupation Increases Violence and Instability

Haiti currently has an unelected, unpopular, unaccountable, and illegitimate prime minister, propped up by the United States and the western nations. Meanwhile, Haiti’s security situation has deteriorated considerably as groups, armed by the transnational Haitian and Levantine elite, continue their attacks on the Haitian people. We must emphasize that, in the eighteen years that the United Nations mission has participated in the occupation of Haiti, the Haitian people have only experienced violence and political instability. You must recognize the foreign occupation of Haiti has left it in a state of disarray and violence. 

The consequences of Foreign Meddling and Occupation

We must remind you that this is the sixth week of protests of the Haitian people against both the U.S.-backed puppet government of Ariel Henry and the continued occupation and meddling of the Core Group and the UN itself. With all the talk of Haitian “lawlessness,” one would never know that the other main reason for the protests was the illegitimate government’s decision, under IMF austerity dictates, to cut fuel subsidies, amid spiraling inflation and economic insecurity. Hear the people’s words:

“This new decision, taken to the detriment of the interests of the people, has aroused his anger and also intensified a protest movement already initiated, whose objective is the recovery of our sovereignty, the recovery of Haiti's destiny by Haitians, the establishment by Haitians of a legitimate government, capable of defending the interests of the people and meeting the various challenges of the moment.”

No to Occupation. Yes to Self-Determination.

The speed at which contemporary events are moving in Haiti makes it difficult for those outside the Caribbean republic to understand its internal political dynamics. Because of this, it is easy to resort to historical cliches and short-hand analyses in an attempt to neatly package and summarize or flatten what are oftentimes complex, structural, and historical formations whose origins are as much rooted outside than inside the country. Thus to outsiders Haiti is in the middle of a crisis, a never-ending crisis marked by lawlessness and violence, by the failure of government and the collapse of the state, and by a savage populism paired with well-armed, predatory gangs. 

We believe this representation of Haiti is fueled by an ancient racism premised on the notion that Haitian people (and African people more generally) are incapable of self-government, and this notion, in turn, nurtures the rationalization for the strengthening of the current mandate for the continued international occupation of Haiti. 

We ask that you think with all seriousness about the relationships among nations in our region. All nations should be able to chart their own destiny, not just some. You must know the history of the proud Haitian people whose Revolution changed the course of world history and material aid helped the liberation of the Americas from colonial rule and enslavement. Despite the continued affront to its self-determination, the people of Haiti will continue to fight for its liberation.

The Black Alliance for Peace, in alignment with the wishes of the Haitian masses and their supporters, absolutely stands against any foreign armed intervention in Haiti, and continues to demand an end to the unending meddling in Haitian affairs by the United States and Western powers. We call for the dissolution of the imperialist Core Group, an end to Western support for the unelected and unaccountable puppet government of Ariel Henry, and for the respect of Haitian sovereignty. 

Signed,

The Black Alliance for Peace, Haiti/Americas Team

#####

END

Banner Photo: Protesters demanding the resignation of the President in Port-au-Prince.Credit (Courtesy Reuters by Andres Martinez Casares)