We Say Quite Clearly: 'U.S. Out of Haiti!' - A Statement from BAP Haiti Committee

To clarify on any confusion, the Black Alliance for Peace Haiti Committee briefly called itself the BAP Haiti Action Committee. We will continue as the BAP Haiti Committee.

On Wednesday, March 25th, the United States Embassy in Haiti tweeted, in Haitian Kreyol, the statement:

“Mwen ka di sa byen klè: pa vini.”
Prezidan, Joseph R. Biden, Jr.

The tweet, accompanied by a photo of the U.S. president, was followed with an English translation of Biden’s words: “I can say quite clearly: Don’t come over.”

"I can say quite clearly, don't come over." - @POTUS pic.twitter.com/awzbolMzU6

— U.S. Embassy Haiti (@USEmbassyHaiti) March 24, 2021

Without having to reprise the vulgar pronouncements by his predecessor about Haiti as a “shit-hole country,” Biden’s policy on Haiti is clear: Haitians are not welcome in the U.S. and they should not, under any circumstances, attempt to immigrate to the U.S.

Yet the intended audience of the tweet was not only Haitians. Biden’s public admonishment of Haitians also sends a message to U.S. citizens that he will be tough on immigration, doing whatever he can to prevent Black migrants from entering the country. Already, he has come through on this count. In his short time in office, Biden has broken records for the scope, speed, and scale of the deportation of Haitian immigrants currently detained in the U.S.

But there’s more to Biden’s message. The tweet, while utterly paternalistic, also fuels a long-standing and deeply racist U.S. vision of Haiti: A vision of Haiti’s dark and restless masses ready to burst the country’s borders, traverse the Caribbean Sea, and invade the peaceable sanctuary of the white Republic.

Remember: Biden’s statement comes at a moment of increased protest against the corrupt, dictatorial, and U.S. supported regime of Haiti’s Jovenel Moïse, and a growing Haiti solidarity movement in the U.S. Instead of acceding to the demands of the Haitian people, the U.S.—through the Core Group, the UN, and the OAS—have doubled-down on their support of Moïse. It is a sign of the effectiveness of protests inside and out of the country against Moïse that the U.S. State Department would, somewhat pathetically, take to social media to try to change the emerging public discourse surrounding US imperialism in Haiti.

Moreover, we cannot forget that while Biden is telling Haitians “Don’t come over,” Haiti and its allies have been saying “U.S. Out of Haiti.” If the U.S. had not consistently meddled in Haiti’s affairs, undermining Haitian democracy and undercutting the Haitian economy, there would be no need for Haitian immigration to the U.S.

Back in 1994, Biden stated, “If Haiti—a godawful thing to say—if Haiti just quietly sank into the Caribbean or rose up 300 feet, it wouldn’t matter a lot to our interests.” To suggest that the first Black Republic in the world is expendable is profoundly racist, but Biden also shows his profound ignorance of the history of U.S.-Haitian relations.

Much of Philadelphia’s early wealth came from the profits of plantations in Saint-Domingue. The Louisiana Purchase would not have happened without the Haitian Revolution and Napoleon’s defeat by the Haitian people. Haiti was a beacon of emancipation for enslaved Africans in the U.S., and throughout the Americas – becoming a constant cause of fear for white planters. The U.S. refused to grant diplomatic recognition to Haiti because of this fact, even as white American profiteers and carpet-baggers used Haiti as a personal source of profit.

In a strategic but cynical move by Abraham Lincoln, recognition was granted Haiti in 1862. For many U.S. politicians it was hoped that Haiti could become a solution to the “Negro Problem” in the U.S. and home to its population of newly-emancipated Africans. Near the end of the nineteenth century, the U.S. sent Frederick Douglass to Haiti on a failed (and for Douglass, humiliating) mission to secure a concession for a military base at Mole St. Nicolas for U.S. strategic purposes.

The U.S. military occupation of Haiti (1915-1934) occurred because of the needs of Wall Street interests in Haiti, as well as the strategic location of Haiti vis-à-vis the Caribbean and the Panama Canal. The U.S. used the Duvalier regime as a bulwark against the spread of Communism in the Caribbean during the Cold War. And the recent United Nations occupations of Haiti have been both to choke the development of progressive forces in the country and to protect U.S. and other foreign interests.

In short, Prezidan Biden, Haiti does matter to U.S. interests. It matters a lot. But now, the Haitian people are determined to center Haitian interests.

You can tell Haitians that they will be denied their internationally protected right to asylum because they are Black. You can continue to deport Haitians from the U.S. in record numbers. But you will not be able to reverse the historical momentum sparked by the spirit of the Haitian revolution. Haiti will prevail again.

In solidarity with the Haitian people, the Black Alliance for Peace, says quite clearly: U.S. out of Haiti!

Banner photo: A Haitian man kneels on the tarmac at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in late June. He, along with several other deportees on this flight, knelt on the ground in protest of their deportation from the U.S. (Dieu Nalio Chery/AP)

Black Activists Call Out Biden-Harris Administration's White Supremacy with Rallies Demanding U.S. and Western Organizations End Support for Dictatorship in Haiti

For Immediate Release

Media Contact:
Dr. Jemima Pierre
(202) 643-1136, info@blackallianceforpeace.com

Members of the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) in Chicago and Washington, D.C., will rally in the coming days to demand the Biden-Harris administration and Western entities—such as the Core Group and the Organization of American States (OAS)—end decades of interventions that have violated the right of the Haitian people to transparent democratic processes and sovereignty.

These rallies come as news reports state U.S. President Joe Biden has—in his first two months in office—deported more Haitians than Donald Trump did in his whole term. Biden also made a racist call to the Haitian people, as the U.S. Embassy in Haiti tweeted Wednesday: "I can say quite clearly: Don't come over."

The latest phase of the crisis in Haiti was ignited when Haitian dictator Jovenel Moïse, whom the Biden administration supports, refused to step down on February 7, the final day of his term. That sparked weeks of protests against the U.S./UN/OAS interventionism that put Moïse into power. In response, Moïse deployed security forces to violently quell these protests.

"As Black radicals, we are compelled to call out the white supremacy and double standards of this administration," says BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka. "The Biden administration can not have it both ways. It can not pretend that Black lives matter and Black participation in democracy is important in the United States, while denying the value of Black life and democracy in Haiti."

While the Chicago rally will take place Sunday, March 28, in front of the Haitian consulate at 11 E. Adams Street, the Washington rally will convene Monday, March 29, at the U.S. State Department, at the corner of 21st Street NW and Virginia Avenue. The State Department is instrumental in spreading misinformation and manipulating Haitian elections in order to keep right-wing regimes in office in Haiti and throughout the so-called “Americas.” The upcoming rallies will build on the March 1 rally that took place in front of the Haitian embassy in Washington, D.C., as well as the dual March 15 rallies that took place at the Haitian consulate in Chicago and in front of the Organization of American States in Washington.

“The United States has backed Moïse to rule by decree and inflict terror on the Haitian working class by deploying U.S.-trained Haitian police and foreign military entities,” said Dr. Jemima Pierre, a Haitian-born BAP member and an associate professor of Black Studies at the University of California Los Angeles. “The Haitian people's right to national sovereignty must be respected.”

BAP is in solidarity with the Haitian masses. We understand uprisings are not new for Haiti, the first Black republic that has fought for decades against the white-supremacist dominance of the United States and its Western partners.

BAP will be joined by allied organizations and individuals from across the country.

Banner photo: On Valentine’s Day, thousands of Haitians gathered in Port-au-Prince to protest the government of President Jovenel Moïse. (Orlando Barría / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock)

BAP-Chicago Statement in Solidarity with Haiti

“We stand with the Haitian people because it is our responsibility as believers in self-determination and people-centered human rights, to do so.”

“We will never retreat, even when they attempt to confuse us with intersectional imperialism and identity reductionism.”

The following remarks were delivered at a Black Alliance for Peace protest in front the Haitian consulate in Chicago, on March 15, by BAP member Charisse Burden Stelly, a Visiting Scholar in the Race and Capitalism Project at the University of Chicago and Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and Political Science at Carleton College.

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) seeks to recapture and redevelop the historic anti-war, anti-imperialist, and pro-peace positions of the radical black movement. We fundamentally oppose militarized domestic state repression; the policies of de-stabilization and subversion abroad; and the permanent war agenda of the U.S. state globally. 

The reason we’re here today in front of the Haiti Consulate-General is simple: we stand in solidarity with the Haitian people against the corrupt and illegitimate regime of Jovenel Moïse, which is propped up by the Joseph R. Biden administration, the United Nations, and the Organization of American States. We understand the connections between the imperial occupation of Haiti and the police occupation supported right here in Chicago by Lori Lightfoot and her anti-people, anti-poor politics, and throughout the United States more broadly. Just like we can’t breathe here in the United States because militarized police forces continue to brutalize, suffocate, and murder us with impunity, neither can the people of Haiti breath as their sovereignty, self-determination, and livelihoods are snuffed out by Pan-European forces like the Core Group, the United Nations, and the International Monetary fund. 

“We understand the connections between the imperial occupation of Haiti and the police occupation supported right here in Chicago.”

The Haitian people have taken to the streets because they demand rule by the people and for the people; they have organized a general strike because they demand economic and material conditions that support their needs and livelihoods and not the profits and enrichment of the global elite. Their struggle is connected to the labor struggles right here in the U.S., like the one that’s currently underway in Bessemer, Alabama, for an Amazon Union.

BAP is here today, despite the snow and wind and cold because we see the protests of our Haitian brothers, sisters, and siblings against the Moïse regime as intimately linked to the End SARS struggle in Nigeria, to the Uganda people’s demand for an end to the Museveni dictatorship—the Uganda PEOPLE, that is, and not so-called opposition leaders who are in cahoots with the US State department—to getting Africa Command (AFRICOM) off of the Continent and especially out of the Horn of Africa, and to the demand for an end to brutal sanctions against Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Iran, and other racialized nations that reject U.S. imperialism. 

“The Haitian people demand economic and material conditions that support their needs and livelihoods and not the profits and enrichment of the global elite.”

BAP is also here today because we understand that the U.S. funding and training of the Haitian police to undermine the people’s protests is linked to the U.S. 1033 program that militarizes local police departments so they can defend property and the interests of the ruling elite against poor, working, oppressed, and marginalized peoples. We know that this process is linked to the prison industrial complex that tortures and confines political prisoners like Mumia Abu Jamal, Mutulu Shakur, Sundiata Akoli, Imam Jamil Al-Amin, Rev. Joy Powell, and Russell Maroon Shoatz. We say free ‘em all! And this also means freeing all Africans from the yoke of U.S. imperialism.

At Black Alliance for Peace we say NO COMPROMISE, NO RETREAT because unlike the petit bourgeois Negroes who take every opportunity to compromise with the ruling elite to oppress and repress us, we will NEVER compromise with imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism, warmongering, and capitalist exploitation. And unlike the liberals who think that just because the troglodyte Donald Trump is out of office that we no longer have anything to struggle against, we will NEVER retreat from holding any administration accountable for their crimes against humanity even when they attempt to confuse us with intersectional imperialism and identity reductionism. 

“We will never compromise with imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism, warmongering, and capitalist exploitation.”

In the spirit of chairman Fred Hampton, who said “peace if you’re willing to fight for it,” in the spirit of the freedom fighter Amilcar Cabral who said “tell no lies and claim no easy victories,” in the spirit of mama Ella baker who said  “Remember, we are not fighting for the freedom of the Negro alone, but for the freedom of the human spirit--a larger freedom that encompasses all mankind,” we protest, in the belly of the beast, in the heart of empire, the tentacles of U.S. imperialism, funded by our tax-payer dollars, that brutalize African, oppressed, and poor people throughout the world and here at home. Today we stand with the Haitian people not because they need us to free them—because the Haitian people, since at least 1791, have proven that they are more than capable of liberating themselves—but because it is our responsibility as African people, as anti-imperialists, as anti-war activists, and as believers in self-determination and people-centered human rights, to do so.

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) seeks to recapture and redevelop the historic anti-war, anti-imperialist, and pro-peace positions of the radical black movement. Through educational activities, organizing and movement support, organizations and individuals in the Alliance will work to oppose both militarized domestic state repression, and the policies of de-stabilization, subversion and the permanent war agenda of the U.S. state globally.  

Banner photo: Black Alliance for Peace: We Fight for Haiti Because We Are Haiti. People rally in front of the Haitian consulate in Chicago demanding the U.S./UN/OAS end its interference in Haiti at an action in solidarity with Haiti organized by BAP-Chicago.

Black Alliance for Peace Activists in Chicago Call on Biden Administration to Stop Supporting Repression in Haiti

For Immediate Release                                                                   

Contact: Vichina Austin, (773) 676-4535

MARCH 15, 2021—Members of the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) in Chicago will rally today at the Haitian consulate at 11 E. Adams Street to demand the Biden administration end decades of interventions that have violated the right of the Haitian people to transparent democratic processes and sovereignty.

Haitian dictator Jovenel Moïse, whom the Biden administration supports, refused to step down on February 7, the final day of his term. That sparked weeks of new protests against the U.S./UN/OAS interventionism that put Moïse into power. Moïse has attempted to violently quell these protests. Despite tens of thousands of people pouring into the streets of Haiti, the Western mainstream media has refused to cover the crisis.

“Moïse has ruled by decree and inflicted terror on the Haitian working class with the full support of the Trump and now apparently the Biden administration,” said Vichina Austin, a Chicago-based BAP member. “The Haitian people demand their right to national sovereignty be respected and the Biden administration that pretends that all Black life matters should respect that demand.”

BAP is in solidarity with the Haitian masses. We understand uprisings are not new for Haiti, the first Black republic that has fought for decades against the white-supremacist dominance of the United States and its Western partners. 

BAP will be joined by allied organizations, including the Black Alliance for Peace Solidarity Network, made up of non-African organizations and individuals who support BAP’s mission.

Banner photo: Opponents of Haitian President Jovenel Moise demonstrate in Port-au-Prince on Jan. 15. (Valerie Baeriswyl/AFP/Getty Images)

Black Alliance for Peace Organizes Rallies in United States to Demand Biden Administration and Western Organizations End Meddling in Haiti

For Immediate Release

Media Contact: info@blackallianceforpeace.com, (202) 643-1136

Members of the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) in Chicago and Washington, D.C., will rally today to demand the Biden administration and Western entities, such as the Organization of American States (OAS), end decades of interventions that have violated the right of the Haitian people to transparent democratic processes and sovereignty.

While the Chicago rally will take place in front of the Haitian consulate at 11 E. Adams Street, the Washington rally will convene at the Organization of American States (OAS), 200 17th Street NW, because the OAS has played a key role in manipulating Haitian elections in order to keep right-wing neocolonial regimes in office in Haiti and throughout the so-called “Americas.” These rallies build on the March 1 rally that took place in front of the Haitian embassy in Washington, D.C. BAP plans to build momentum for the March 28 international day of action organizations in Haiti have called non-Haitian organizations to participate in.

“The OAS was created by the United States as a way to enforce the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine, a policy of white-supremacist U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere to ensure corporate profits and geopolitical advantage,” said BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka. “Therefore, the OAS is not an independent entity, but an extension of U.S. power, and it has no place in the affairs of the global working class.”

Haitian dictator Jovenel Moïse, whom the Biden administration supports, refused to step down on February 7, the final day of his term. That sparked weeks of new protests against the U.S./UN/OAS interventionism that put Moïse into power. Moïse has attempted to violently quell these protests. Despite tens of thousands of people pouring into the streets of Haiti, the Western mainstream media has refused to cover the crisis.

“Moïse has ruled by decree and inflicted terror on the Haitian working class by deploying U.S.-trained Haitian police and foreign military entities,” said Dr. Jemima Pierre, a BAP member and an associate professor of Black Studies at the University of California Los Angeles. “The Haitian people demand their right to national sovereignty be respected.”

BAP is in solidarity with the Haitian masses. We understand uprisings are not new for Haiti, the first Black republic that has fought for decades against the white-supremacist dominance of the United States and its Western partners.

BAP will be joined by allied organizations, including the Black Alliance for Peace Solidarity Network, made up of non-African organizations and individuals who support BAP’s mission.

Banner photo: twitter.com/DannyShawCUNY

Black Alliance for Peace Supports African/Black Workers from Alabama to Haiti

WORKING-CLASS FOUNDATION: BAP identifies the Black working class as the main social force of any reconstituted Black Liberation project.

SOUTHERN ROOTS: The South is the base of U.S. military infrastructure. It is also where 55 percent of Black people happen to live. BAP identifies this region as a priority for collective learning, organizing, and mobilizing the power and influence of Black workers and the poor to oppose militarism, war, and imperialism. —BAP’s Principles of Unity

Led predominantly by Black workers, the struggle for worker dignity and power is at a critical stage in Bessemer, Alabama. That is where Amazon workers are voting to determine if they will be represented by the Retail, Wholesale Department Store Workers Union (RWDSU) against the behemoth transnational corporation.

Understanding the power of organization, these courageous workers formed the BAmazon Union over the last few months to fight back against the failure of the company to protect the elementary human rights of workers to a safe work environment and to be free of inhumane working conditions and treatment.

In the spirit of the militant Black working class, this fight promises to be a historic turning point in the efforts to organize the U.S. South.

As we stand in support of Black workers in Haiti fighting against U.S. imperialism, we must make the connections. We are in a life-or-death fight against the ravages of a vicious global colonial/capitalist system that will use whatever means it has at its disposal to maintain the ability to extract value from the land and labor of African/Black people and all who are forced to sell their labor just to put food on their tables. 

BAmazon workers and the Haitian people currently protesting U.S.-backed Haitian dictator Jovenel Moïse share in common their African ancestry and their struggles against colonial-capitalism. We are in solidarity with the BAmazon Union and Haiti's poor and working class.

For more information, please check out the Southern Workers Assembly Home and Black Workers for Justice (BWFJ), a BAP member organization represented on BAP’s National Coordinating Committee.

In the fight for People(s)-Centered Human Rights, self-determination, and social justice there will be No Compromise, No Retreat!

Photo: Demonstrators shout slogans and hold placards during a protest at the Amazon fulfillment center in Shakopee, Minnesota, Dec. 14, 2018. (Kerem Yucel/AFP/Getty Images)

For Biden Administration, Black Lives Don’t Matter in Haiti!—A BAP Statement on Haiti

The people of Haiti have been demanding freedom from the succession of U.S.-imposed dictators for decades. One such dictator, Jovenel Moïse, refused to leave office February 7, which marked the end of his term four years after an illegal election. This move catapulted yet another intense episode in the historic struggle of the Haitian masses against colonial intervention. Tens of thousands of Haitians went to the streets demanding democracy and an end to dictatorship. And what was the response from the U.S. puppet regime? Bullets, paramilitary terror, curfews, house raids, beatings and the imprisonment of opposition leaders.

With the election of U.S. President Joe Biden, folks believed this so-called “champion” of fair elections and the rule of law—who had expressed a commitment that “Black Lives Matter”—would rally to the side of Haitians and end U.S. support for the dictatorship.

But that did not happen.

When Moïse announced he would stay in office past February 7, and continue to rule by decree, the Biden administration signaled it supported that decision. Moïse’s rule by decree was made possible because elections were postponed in 2019, which allowed the mandates of most of the representatives to the National Assembly—Haiti’s parliament—to expire.

It did not matter that Moïse ruled by decree, that he violated the rights of his people and that the majority of the people wanted him gone. What mattered to the Biden administration was the purpose Moïse served in U.S. plans for the Caribbean and Latin American region.

In other words, the people must be sacrificed for the larger interests of the U.S. imperial project. These interests that could not be bothered with the trifle concerns about democracy, legitimacy or the rights of the people. Those rhetorical terms are only evoked as expressions of the United States’ so-called “values” when directed at an adversary like Russia, Venezuela, China or any other country the United States is actively attempting to destabilize. But those values cannot be allowed to complicate U.S. interests in Haiti or even in the occupied Black and Brown communities within the United States.

We ask Joe Biden and his supporters, who claim Biden cares about African/Black people: Why does it seem like the lives of African/Black people in Haiti do not matter? Is it that Black lives only matter when they are supporting U.S. and European colonial white power?

In the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP), we know the answer to that rhetorical question. Both parties and the U.S. state have demonstrated the lives of non-Europeans mean extraordinarily little. And the values that the United States and Western Europeans pretend to uphold—like democracy and human rights—are dead letters when it comes to the fundamental human rights of the peoples of the global South.

The United States and the United Nations armed and trained Haitian police. Moïse has the full support of these armed paramilitary forces, who are committed to upholding the rule of the Haitian ruling class that serves international capital. That is why the Biden administration supports Moïse. Therefore, Moïse has no legitimacy.

Haiti emerged as a free society in the greatest revolution in human history in 1804, when the people of Haiti established the first Black Republic after fighting and defeating first the Spanish and then the French, at the time the greatest military power on the planet. Since then, the West has tried to destroy Haiti.

Invasions, occupations, death squads, economic plunder, attacks on their culture, political isolation and U.S.-backed dictatorships have exacted a severe price on the people of Haiti. Yet, they have never surrendered. That spirit of resistance is on display today in the streets of Haiti.

We, in the Black Alliance for Peace, will continue to support those efforts by organizing actions throughout the United States in solidarity with the Haitian people.

We are not confused. There is nothing exceptional about the United States, except perhaps its hypocrisy. Declarations made by white-supremacist politicians and heads of imperialist corporations that “Black Lives Matter” have rung hollow, opportunistic and completely in contradiction to the lived experiences of African/Black people in the United States from 1619 to the present.

Stripped of the veneer of liberal-rights discourse, the true core values of the U.S. settler-colonial project are obvious: Glorification of violence, white supremacy, patriarchy, social Darwinism, materialism and extreme individualism. These core values facilitated the land theft that allowed for the creation of the United States, enslavement and the most rapacious forms of capitalist accumulation on the planet.

The abandonment of the people of Haiti affirms once again the United States is committed to white power. Subversion, war and brutal sanctions are just some of the instruments employed to maintain the structures of white colonial-capitalist power.

So, our appeal is not to the conscience of Biden and the neoliberal imperialist Democrats—they only have objective interests. Instead, we call on the people of the United States to demand an alteration both in U.S. policies regarding Haiti and in its relationship with Haiti as well as with all nations that currently find themselves in the crosshairs of U.S. imperialist reaction.

However, we understand our commitment to peace and People(s)-Centered Human Rights, social justice, democracy and self-determination cannot be realized without an organized people who are struggling for power.

The people of Haiti are fighting for power, for the ability to determine their own destiny. Stand with them. Stand with us. Fight for freedom and for a new reality in Haiti and the world.

No Compromise, No Retreat!

More resources on Haiti can be found here.

Photo credit: Chandan Khanna/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Black Alliance for Peace Says Struggle in Haiti and Venezuela Connected

FEBRUARY 18, 2019—The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) remains in steadfast solidarity with the people of Haiti, whose revolutionary spirit in 1791 showed the world what is possible when Africans organize and struggle together to remove their shackles and dispose of their oppressors.

The recent revelation that Haitian President Jovenel Moïse embezzled nearly $4 billion Venezuela had loaned the island nation a decade ago caused the popular uprising taking place in the country. And this is where we see where U.S. interventions in Venezuela and Haiti connect.

Moïse is nothing more than a puppet controlled by the U.S. government to disallow Haitian self-determination.

The Haitian people are no strangers to the tentacles of U.S. interventionism, which has been in place since the 19-year occupation commenced by President Woodrow Wilson in 1915. The occupation included the seizure and relocation of Haiti’s financial reserves to the United States, as well as a re-write of the nation’s constitution, which allowed foreign entities to enjoy land-owning rights.

Over time, the actors associated with the U.S. stranglehold on Haiti and its right to self-determination may have changed—from Wilson, to Clinton, to Obama—but the strategy and modus operandi have remained consistent. The method involves financial manipulation, election rigging and racketeering. We are witnessing a parallel between 1929—when U.S. military forces suppressed a nationwide strike in Haiti and peaceful demonstrations by firing live ammunition on 1,500 people—and recently as Haitians have protested, demanding the ouster of U.S.-backed Moïse.

Moïse’s grip on power is being pried from his fingers as police officers continue to defy his orders, stand down and refuse to fire on protesters.

Continued U.S. oppression of Haiti was most recently demonstrated when U.S. sanctions against Venezuela made it impossible for Haiti to repay their loan as part of the PetroCaribe deal, thereby ending the arrangement in 2017. Moïse further demonstrated his loyalty to the United States when he directed his ministers to support a U.S.-engineered vote at the Organization of American States (OAS) that declared the illegitimacy of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

As internationalists who understand the interconnectedness of oppressed peoples’ struggles, BAP declares its solidarity with the people of Haiti in the struggle to end U.S. imperialism in Haiti, Venezuela and all republics of the Caribbean and Latin America. The people of Haiti are once again attempting to win back their nation. All who believe in principle of self-determination should stand with them.

Media contact: info@blackallianceforpeace.com

Photo credit: Hector Retamal/AFP

Justice for Haitian Activist Romario Dangelo Saint Jean!

APPEAL TO TRADE UNIONS, POPULAR ORGANIZATIONS, & POLITICAL PARTIES COMMITTED TO DEMOCRACY AND THE DEFENSE OF HUMAN RIGHTS

This is the official International Solidarity Appeal to demand justice for the assassination of Comrade Azaka, Romario Dangelo Saint John, murdered by a death squad April 18th.

Trade unions, peoples organizations, and political parties who support democracy and universal human rights are urged to sign on to this statement, adopt their own resolutions in defense of MOLEGHAF and its targeted activists, and write letters to the officials listed at the end of the appeal.

On Tuesday, April 18, 2017 at 9 PM, while going out to buy groceries for his 22-year-old fiancée who was caring their 6-month-old baby daughter at home, Romario Dangelo Saint Jean, a 26-year-old militant of the Freedom & Equality Movement of Haitians for Brotherhood (Mouvement de Liberté et d’Egalité des Haïtiens pour la Fraternité, or MOLEGHAF), was the victim of a cowardly murder on rue Icard, Port-au-Prince.

Dangelo had been threatened with death and attacked on Tuesday, August 16, 2016 by police officers consisting of the hirelings of the UN Office of Project Services (UNOPS) in Fort National. Right away, his mother had accompanied him to the Port-au-Prince public prosecutor's office to bring a complaint against these officers denounced by the popular hue and cry as being the murderers of Davidtchen Siméon in August 13, 2016 and abusers of David Oxygène in August 21, 2016. Given the silence of the police and judicial authorities, Romario Dangelo Saint Jean’s parents were planning to send him to a foreign country to save his life, but the delay of the country’s public institutions in the delivery of papers gave way to the assassins of the National Police of Haiti (PNH) and to criminal impunity.

This heinous murder happens just 8 months after these two criminal offences that we wish to remind to the national and international public opinion:

• On Saturday, August 13, at 3: 30 PM, in the popular district of Fort National, as a MOLEGHAF meeting concluded, a group of armed men assassinated Davidtchen Simeon, a 23-year-old MOLEGHAF activist, very involved in the fight against the UN occupation forces (MINUSTAH). And before this heinous murder, Wednesday 10 and Thursday, August 11, 2016, Davidtchen had already been violently assaulted and threatened by the police officer Jean Maxime.

• On Sunday, August 21, 2016, 9 days after the assassination of Davidtchen Simeon, at 6:30 PM, on this same street, rue Icard, near St-Antoine Church, after having been assaulted violently, David Oxygène, MOLEGHAF Secretary-General and an emblematic figure of the Haitian resistance against the UN occupation forces and the dominance of transnational capital, was just missed by shots fired by police officer Jean Maxime.

It is important to emphasize that these acts of serial murder and attacks against MOLEGHAF militants are committed with impunity and with the complicity of the judicial and police authorities. For MOLEGHAF has invoked all the legal procedures, accompanied by lawyers of the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) at the national level and those of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) according to the Haitian laws and international covenants and conventions signed and ratified by the Haitian State, but the police and judicial authorities are turning a deaf ear.

These acts of barbarism originated from a critical position taken by MOLEGHAF militants with regard to a construction project, including buildings and a road, that UNOPS wanted to put in their neighborhood without public consultation, accompanied by a miserable salary for construction workers. In fact, as everyone knows, in occupied Haiti, “projects” implementation in the popular districts is often conducted only through the use of henchmen who intimidate the population into compliance.

MOLEGHAF, the Organization to which Davidtchen Siméon, Romario Dangelo Saint Jean and David Oxygène all belong, is known in Haiti for its tenacious fight in defense of national sovereignty and for the withdrawal of the MINUSTAH from Haiti—without which, MOLEGHAF considers that the preconditions for the exercise of democracy do not exist.

But, regardless of the diversity of political views that can be held on such subjects, the assassination of Davidtchen Siméon, the assassination of Romario Dangelo Saint Jean and the assassination attempt on David Oxygène must be condemned with the utmost firmness by all who defend democracy and the most basic human rights.

In this way, we, the presidium of the studies workshop on the situation of freedom of expression and association in the context of the UN occupation in Haiti, gathered in Port -au-Prince this Saturday, April 22, 2017, in the premises of the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI), located in #3, 2ème impasse Lavaud, Lalue, are appealing to the solidarity of national and international trade unions in order to demand of the competent authorities—particularly the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, the Office of the Citizens’ Protector (OPC) and the Inspector General of the Haitian National Police (PNH)—that all the backers and implementers of the identification and conviction of Davidtchen Siméon’s murder, the assassination of Romario John Dangelo be identified, tried and convicted, and that disciplinary measures be taken against the policeman Jean Maxime for his assassination attempt on the person of David Oxygène.

Down with the occupation! Down with barbarism! United Nations out!

In defense of democracy against barbarism: punishment to those responsible for the serial assassinations of our comrades Davidtchen Simeon, Romario Dangelo Saint Jean and to the police officer Jean Maxime for his assassination attempt on David Oxygène!

Send your messages to:

By letter (these offices have no email addresses to receive messages):

• Ministère de la Justice et de la Sécurité Publique (Ministry of Justice and Public Safety (MJSP) : Av. Charles-Summer 18, Port au Prince - post code: HT6113

• Inspection Générale de la Police Nationale d’Haïti (General Inspectorate of the National Police of Haïti (PNH): 07 Autoroute de Delmas (zone Delmas 2, Haïti) - Postal Code: HT6120

By e-mail:

• Office Protecteur Citoyen (OPC) Protectorate Citizen Agency : Av. John Brown, Lalue (Port au Prince) – tel : (+ 509) 2940 3065 / 3702 0656 e-mail: OPC@protectioncitoyenhaiti.org; opc-haiti@hotmail.com; plainte@protectioncitoyenhaiti.org;

Send copies to: ctsp.haiti@yahoo.fr; avokahaiti@aol.com ; moleghaf17@yahoo.fr