Haiti's White Rulers Have Spoken on Haiti's Political Future

For Immediate Release

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

JULY 9, 2021—The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) condemns the arrogance and illegality of United Nations Special Envoy for Haiti Helen La Lime’s July 8 statement that Haitian Prime Minister Claude Joseph will be the new president, just one day after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.

The decision was announced to the press after a closed-door UN Security Council meeting had been called on Haiti. But BAP asks: Who gave the United Nations special envoy the power to make that kind of determination for the people of Haiti?

This sounds like a play right out of the old regime-change book. As BAP stated in its July 7 press release, BAP smells a rat.

BAP is concerned the political situation the United States created by supporting a dictatorship in Haiti is quickly replicating the moment when the United States swept in to colonize the predominantly African/Black country after the 1915 assassination of Haiti’s president, Vilbrun Guillaume Sam.

“The Black Alliance for Peace remains steadfast in our call against foreign intervention and occupation of Haiti,” says Jemima Pierre, BAP’s Haiti/Americas Coordinator. “We call on all anti-imperialist and Black internationalist forces to stand with the Haitian people and oppose U.S. and European interventions deployed under the guise of the ‘Responsibility to Protect.’”

What Haiti needs is authentic national sovereignty and self-determination.

“When people say Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, they fail to understand it is the Pan-European colonial powers that have kept Haiti with its hands tied behind its back,” says BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka. “We say time out on white Western powers causing destruction in the global South.”

Shortly after Democrats wrung their hands over the possibility of Donald Trump staying past his term in office, Biden came into office and immediately lent his support to Moïse to stay beyond the February 7 term limit. That decision sent thousands of Haitians protesting in the streets week after week.

“The Haitian people clearly understood that the United States, the United Nations, and the Organization of American States were behind this,” says Chris Bernadel, a member of BAP’s Haiti/Americas Committee. “During these massive protests, they called for all of these Western powers to exit Haiti.”

While Biden expressed support for Black Lives Matter and for democracy during his campaign for president, true support would have meant ending U.S. meddling in Haiti’s affairs. This assassination relieves the Biden-Harris administration of the embarrassment of having to reconcile the contradiction between pretending to respect Black lives and democracy and supporting a dictator who had reigned after his term had ended on February 7.

That is why for BAP, it doesn’t matter who pulled the trigger to kill Moïse because the Pan-European colonial-capitalist powers are responsible for the suffering of the Haitian people.

BAP vigorously opposes any and all foreign institutions and structures intervening in Haiti. The Haitian people must be allowed to exercise self-determination and address their internal political situation without interference, as BAP noted in its July 6 press release.

Banner photo: Haiti’s President Jovenel Moïse and first lady Martine Moïse sit during his swearing-in ceremony in Port-au-Prince on February 7, 2017. (Dieu Nalio Chery/AP)

On Assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse: Black Alliance for Peace Smells a Rat

For Immediate Release

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

JULY 7, 2021—Unknown assailants overnight assassinating Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was a horrific act that should be condemned in no uncertain terms. Unfortunately, such violence is unsurprising. As the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) noted in its July 6 press release, Moïse’s actions since usurping power have brought Haiti to a boiling point, with heavily armed gangs being unleashed, both supported by and enabled by the Haitian elite and those international “friends” of Haiti, including the United States, the United Nations, the Core Group and the Organization of American States.

What happens now is the question. Will the Biden administration and other political players use this moment as the pretext for military intervention, as was done in 1915? Will interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph attempt to consolidate power under the pretext of the current state of siege? Will the Core Group find a new willing puppet, more pliable than Moïse, to bring “stability”?

Whatever happens, the Black Alliance for Peace remains steadfast in our call against foreign intervention and occupation of Haiti. And we call on all anti-imperialist and Black internationalist forces to stand with the Haitian people and oppose U.S. and European interventions deployed under the guise of the “Responsibility to Protect."

Banner photo: Haiti's President Jovenel Moise (center) left the National Pantheon museum during a ceremony in Port-au-Prince, Haiti in 2018. (Dieu Nalio Chery/AP)

Black Alliance for Peace Condemns Increasing Human Rights Violence in Haiti and the Continued U.S./OAS/UN Support for Unconstitutional Actions by Haiti’s Illegitimate Government

For Immediate Release

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

JULY 6, 2021—Over eight days, from June 25-30, Haiti had been subjected to increasing state-sponsored, imperial and gang violence. Massacres killed almost 60 people in Port au Prince, including in Cité Soleil, Delmas and Pétionville, as well as on on Rue Magloire Ambroise. Prominent human-rights activist Antoinette (Netty) Duclaire and journalist Diego Charles were two of the victims.

In light of this violence, the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) once again affirms its support for the Haitian people and condemns the continued US/UN/OAS backing for the illegitimate Jovenel Moïse administration. Not only do we repudiate the continued violations of human rights in Haiti, we denounce the attempts by the Moïse government and its handlers—especially the Organization of American States (OAS) and the U.S. State Department—to force legislative and presidential elections and an illegal constitutional referendum under an undemocratic voting structure.

Moïse, who has been ruling Haiti by decree since January 2020, has been attempting to pass a referendum to re-write Haiti’s 1987 constitution.

“We support the Haitian people, who have maintained that there is no chance for credible elections to be held while Jovenel Moïse is in power,” says BAP member and Haitian Chris Bernadel. “We stand in solidarity with the Haitian people against the corrupt and illegitimate regime of Jovenel Moïse, which has been enabled through the support of the U.S., OAS and the United Nations.”

Illegal, according to Haitian law, the proposed referendum has been rejected by every sector of civil society, and opposed by the majority of Haitians.

Yet, a recent OAS report on Haiti not only supports the constitutional referendum, the organization also is pushing for Moïse to single handedly appoint a new prime minister, cabinet, and Provisional Electoral Council in order to move forward with both the referendum and presidential, municipal, and local elections.

These elections will be neither credible, nor legal. The current government is illegitimate. And currently, no clear path exists for free, fair and transparent elections under these conditions.

Yet, the white overseers of Haiti—the United States, the United Nations and the OAS—continue to push for this illegal referendum and elections. The United States has continued its material, logistical and political support of Moïse’s administration. It has spent at least $12.6 million since Moïse was elected in support of dubious elections and bogus political processes. Although the United States acknowledges that thus far, preparations for the referendum “have not been sufficiently transparent or inclusive,” Joe Biden’s administration has not come out against the referendum. Instead, the Biden-Harris administration has focused on the primacy of holding elections in the fall. At the same time, the UN and the OAS also have provided support for Moïse. The OAS has helped by revising the text of the proposed constitution, apparently to remove some of the more controversial aspects from the first draft. The UN also is advising the national police on an electoral security strategy.

Since February 7, when Moïse’s mandate as president had expired, BAP has been calling for the U.S. government and the rest of the so-called “international community” to respect Haitian sovereignty and the will of the Haitian people. We have consistently condemned Western imperialist meddling in Haiti, and BAP members have rallied in Chicago, Washington, D.C. and New York to demand the Biden-Harris administration and Western entities—such as the Core Group and the OAS—end decades of interventions that have violated the right of the Haitian people to transparent democratic processes.

We continue to support the Haitian masses, and express solidarity with the Haitian peoples in their quest for sovereignty and freedom. We condemn the continued imperial violence in Haiti that has been dismissed as merely gang violence.

Banner photo: Demonstrators marched in Port-au-Prince on February 14, 2021, to protest against the government of President Jovenel Moïse. (AFP)

Black Alliance for Peace’s Haiti/Americas Committee Statement on African Liberation Day

In recognition of African Liberation Day, May 25, 2021, the Black Alliance for Peace’s Haiti/Americas Committee salutes the historic and ongoing struggles for emancipation, independence and autonomy of African people world-wide. 

On this African Liberation Day, we give thanks to those past generations of Africans who battled against slavery, colonialism and white supremacy. We recognize the current generation of toilers, strugglers, insurgents, and revolutionaries who continue the fight against neocolonialism and neoliberalism, and against the Black misleadership classes who have betrayed the revolutionary struggles of the African people. 

We recognize the origins of African Liberation Day in the First Conference of Independent African States—convened by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah in 1958 in Accra, Ghana—and with the formation of the Organization of African Unity in 1963. We acknowledge the first efforts of organizing African Liberation Day in North America in 1972, and its message of solidarity with the armed struggle against settler colonialism and its corporate backers in southern Africa. We also support the longstanding work of the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party to continue the radical tradition of African Liberation Day.

Today, we extend that message of Pan-African solidarity to Africa and to Africans in the Americas. In particular, we salute the people of Haiti. As a liberated African territory, Haiti nurtured the struggles against slavery, imperialism and white supremacy thoughout the Americas; the Haitian people have continued to pay the price for doing so. We acknowledge the mocambos, palenques, quilombos, and the cimarrón, mawon, and maroon communities throughout the Americas that have been necessary for Black survival. And we salute the African peoples of Brazil, Colombia, the United States, and elsewhere who suffer from economic austerity and deprivation, who are victims of legalized discrimination and targeted incarceration, and who are assailed by relentless police and militarized violence. 

On this African Liberation Day, we stand in struggle with all African peoples against capitalism, imperialism, neocolonialism and white supremacy. Our time will come.

No compromise! No retreat!

Banner photo: African Liberation Day event in 1977 in Handsworth Park, Birmingham, U.K. (Vanley Burke)

Black Alliance for Peace Statement of Solidarity with Haitian Workers on International Workers’ Day

On May 1, 2021, on International Workers’ Day, the Black Alliance for Peace salutes the Haitian worker and applauds their long history of struggles for Black freedom and the universal rights of workers.

Haiti is often derided as the “poorest country in the American hemisphere.” Yet, we know it was the enslaved labor of Africans in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now the Republic of Haiti) that contributed to the wealth of the European world, fueling the emergence of capitalism.

The resistance of those Africans against slavery and capitalism also provided a beacon of hope for the enslaved, peasants, and workers—both Black and non-Black—throughout the world. From small acts of subversion to slow-downs, Africans resisted slavery from the moment they arrived in the New World. In the 17th and 18th centuries, escaped Africans—maroons, or mawons in Haitian Creole—formed insurgent communities in remote, mountainous areas. Among the most famous mawon was François Mackandal, an African who in 1757 devised a plot to poison the white planters and burn down the plantations. He was captured and publicly executed as a warning to other Africans.

In 1791, a plot against slavery led by Boukman Dutty and Cecile Fatiman was launched at the famous Bois-Caiman ceremony. In the short term, their plot would fail, but it lit a fire that could not be extinguished. It sparked 13 years of revolt and counter-revolt that we now know as the Haitian Revolution. The Revolution’s heroes—Toussaint Louverture, Jean Jacques Dessalines and others are well known—but its success depended on the struggle of the Haitian masses. Tens of thousands of unknown enslaved Africans defeated Napoleon’s forces, ended slavery and established the Republic of Haiti: the first Black Republic in the Hemisphere, a place where all enslaved Africans would be granted freedom, and a potent symbol of pan-Africanism.

Yet, Haiti’s resistance did not end in 1804. With the establishment of the Republic, Haiti’s Black elites became the primary obstacle for freedom, dignity, democracy and economic sovereignty for Haiti’s African peasant classes. Peasant insurgencies occurred in 1807 and 1811. In 1844, a “suffering army” of peasants in southern Haiti were at the forefront of the Piquet Rebellion’s demand for social equality, radical democracy and the rights of small landholders.

In the 20th century, Haitian peasants initiated the armed resistance against the U.S. military occupation (1915-1930). A brief insurgency led by peasant insurrectionists, known as cacos, lasted from July to November 1915 before it was crushed by the Marines. Despite U.S. Marine efforts to arrest or assassinate suspected cacos, their insurgency was renewed under the leadership of Charlemagne Péralte and later Benoît Batraville. Péralte was assassinated on November 1, 1919—and, like Makandal, his corpse was used as a deterrent to future rebellion. Batraville was assassinated on May 20, 1920, his death effectively marking the end of the caco insurgencies. Rebellion against the occupation would be taken up by Haitian students whose protests in 1929 led to a general strike combining both workers in Port-au-Prince and other cities and peasants throughout the country. These new protests led to the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 1934.

In 1934, the Haitian Communist Party was formed by writer Jacques Roumain (author of the magnificent, fictional homage to Haitian labor, The Masters of the Dew) and others. Inspired in part by Roumain, Haiti Marxists, including Jacques Stephen Alexis, René Depestre and Gérald Bloncourt were behind the “Revolution of 1946” that saw the overthrow of the tyrannical regime of Élie Lescot, after student protests and nationwide strikes. During this period the Parti Communiste Haïtien was revived and the Parti Socialiste Populaire was organized, as was the Mouvement Ouvrier et Paysan, the largest labor organization in Haiti’s history led by the charismatic Daniel Fignolé.

While the United States and Haiti’s military forces remained powerful influences in Haiti’s political life, this movement of workers and peasants led to a brief, progressive period in Haiti’s politics before the emergence of the dictatorship of Francois and Jean-Claude Duvalier (1957-1986). In 1961, communist Jacques Stephen Alexis led a coup against Duvalier that ultimately failed. Alexis was brutally tortured and murdered for his efforts. The Duvalier regime would not fall for another two decades, after riots against poverty and student protests in the early 1980s led to a 1986 grassroots uprising. This unseated the Duvalier regime and eventually led to the coming to power of Famni Lavalas and Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

In the decades since, Haitian workers and peasants have continued a ceaseless fight against both the Haitian aristocracy and the imperial powers for sovereignty, dignity and freedom. Today, Haiti’s laboring masses continue this tradition of protest in their attempts to unseat Jovenel Moïse and to destroy the imperialism of the United States, the Core Group, the OAS and others.

To mark International Workers’ Day, the Black Alliance for Peace expresses its solidarity with the modern-day struggle of the Haitian worker—and our gratitude for Haiti’s history of resistance.

Banner photo: Illustration depicting combat between French and Haitian troops during the Haitian Revolution. (Histoire de Napoléon, by M. De Norvins, 1839)

May 1: Making International Workers' Day a Day of Action Against Imperialism

May 1: Making International Workers’ Day a Day of Action Against Imperialism

End the War in Afghanistan, Shut Down AFRICOM, Resist the Militarized Occupation of Black and Brown Working-Class and Colonized Communities

War, repression, and imperialism characterize the objective plight of billions of humans still gripped by the vicious colonial-capitalist world system. May 1 is the day laboring classes claim for themselves as International Workers' Day to reaffirm the struggle against the dehumanization and degradation of the global capitalist order kept in place by state violence and war. May 1 also is the deadline the United States agreed to last year to pull out of Afghanistan to end the suffering of that nation of workers and peasants. It also is the day the workers and poor of Haiti have chosen to revolt against the puppet government imposed on them by the Biden-Harris administration, a duo that has proven in its first 100 days its commitment to Black life does not extend beyond domestic public-relations stunts.

Over a million Black working-class and poor people rot in the gulags of the United States as a surplus population, unneeded by capital except as an income generator for prison custodians and slave labor. And for the rest of the Black and Brown working class and poor, the domestic army referred to as the police are tasked with the responsibility to protect and serve the capitalist extraction of surplus value from labor through coercion and, when needed, terror.

This is the domestic expression of a global system that produces billions of people living in abject poverty in nations ruled by a contemptible neocolonial ruling class, usually supported by the United States or one of the other European colonial powers. These neocolonial puppets have no hesitation in using unimaginable violence to keep the people in line.

But the people are in resistance.

In Haiti, the people have fought for their collective dignity against a U.S. stooge for over a year. Having taken to the streets in the thousands, they have sustained the resistance to the point that the state has turned to increasingly desperate, escalating violence in its goal to contain the people.

In the United States, hundreds of wildcat strikes have occurred, demonstrating that even in the midst of a pandemic, the spirit of working-class resistance finds expression.

And in Venezuela, the Bolivarian process is still holding firm against all measures of U.S. provocations and cruel sanctions meant to punish the people, who refuse the indignity of surrender to Yankee imperialism.

The inability of capitalist states to protect the fundamental human rights of its citizens, revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic, has resulted in a new consciousness among workers and laboring classes globally. It now is clear the interests of the global capitalists are different from the interests of the rest of collective humanity. And because of that understanding, the warmongers are finding it a little more difficult to mobilize the public to protect imperialist interests.

On May 1, the Black Alliance for Peace stands in solidarity with the workers of the world and pledges our commitment to do our part to confront the capitalist dictatorship.

We say without hesitation or concern for retaliation on this International Workers' Day that we will intensify the opposition to imperialism. From the streets of Atlanta, Detroit and Baltimore, to Cuba, Haiti, Libya, and Venezuela, we will “turn imperialist wars into wars against imperialism.”

Banner photo: A sea of Cubans march under the slogan, "Preserve and Perfect Socialism," in Havana on May 1, 2012, to mark Labor Day. (Adalberto Roque)

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