No More Foreign Interference in Haiti: The United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) and the Core Group Do Not Represent Haitian People!

NO MORE FOREIGN INTERFERENCE IN HAITI:
The United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) and the Core Group Do Not Represent Haitian People!

APRIL 26, 2023—Today, the United Nations Security Council is holding consultations on the future of Haiti. No Haitian individuals or organizations will be present at the meeting. Instead, Haiti will be represented by its occupying entities: The Core Group and the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH), the mandate of which is set to expire on July 23.

The Haiti/Americas Team of the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) and BAP member organization in Haiti, MOLEGHAF (Mouvement National pour la Liberté et L’égalité des Haïtiens pour la Fraternité or National Movement for Liberty and Equality of Haitians for Fraternity), denounce the Core Group’s and BINUH’s continued occupation of Haiti as well as their ongoing actions to undermine Haiti’s democracy and sovereignty.

Over the past year, we have witnessed massive popular protests that have been part of a broader struggle for a Haiti free from suffocating foreign interference. That includes manufactured “gang violence” and the illegitimate government installed by the United States and the Core Group. Yet, those speaking on behalf of Haiti refuse to recognize the core demands of the people for democracy, sovereignty and a just life.

BINUH and the Core Group do not represent Haitian people. Haitian people consider these entities occupation forces. BAP and MOLEGHAF have consistently demanded the Core Group and the so-called “International Community” acknowledge and atone for their role in the continuing deterioration of the situation in Haiti today.

As we have continually stated, the “crisis” in Haiti is a crisis of imperialism, a crisis initiated in 2004 by the United States, France and Canada, and consecrated by the United Nations. No decision about Haiti should be made by those who not only do not represent the people, but have also consistently harmed them.

Once again, we demand the disbanding of the Core Group, the removal of the BINUH office from Haiti, respect for the sovereign rights of the Haitian people, and NO MORE FOREIGN INTERFERENCE IN HAITI!

Banner photo: Mass protest on February 28, 2021, demanding now-assassinated President Jovenel Moïse’s departure. (Reginald Louissaint Jr./AFP/Getty Images)

Indictment of African People's Socialist Party Is a Racist Assault on the Black Liberation Movement

Indictment of African People's Socialist Party Is a Racist Assault on the Black Liberation Movement

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) unequivocally condemns and opposes the recent indictment of four members of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP), alongside three Russian nationals. 

The unsealed indictment states that on Tuesday, April 18, 2023, a federal grand jury in Tampa, Florida, levied charges of “conspiring to covertly sow discord in U.S. society, spread Russian propaganda and interfere illegally in U.S. elections.” While no evidence of conspiracy, propagandizing, or interference has been presented, the APSP and its members have the right, as all U.S. citizens do, to freely criticize U.S. domestic and foreign policy. 

Not since the Palmer Raids of the early 20th century, nor since the indictment of W.E.B DuBois in 1951, or the confiscation of Paul Robeson’s U.S. passport during the anti-communist “McCarthyist” era, has there been such a hysterical response to African people asserting their rights and freedom of speech in the United States. This renewed attack against anti-imperialist Africans, framed within the absurd notion of “Russian influence,” comes as capitalism decays and U.S. global hegemony loses its hold on the world. The attacks on the APSP and the Uhuru Movement are part of a historical tendency to align African political activists with U.S. “adversary” states to marginalize African internationalism (including solidarity with Cuba and Palestine, for example) and to suppress Black radicalism. 

It is also an assault on the efforts of Africans organizing against the violence and murders suffered at the hands of the U.S. state. Indeed, Africans do not need Russia to tell them they are suffering the brunt of violence in the heart of the U.S. empire! 

BAP demands the indictment be dismissed, and Uhuru must be free!

For further reading on this case, please read BAP’s July 30 statement that commented on the initial FBI raid of the APSP’s properties.

BAP Coordinating Committee

Banner photo: Courtesy of Alex Wong/Getty Images

Open Letter to Institute of the Black World 21st Century (IBW21) President Ron Daniels

Dr. Ron Daniels

President

Institute of the Black World 21st Century

Dear Dr. Daniels,

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) notes with interest the upcoming State of the Black World (SOBW) Conference in Baltimore, Maryland, to be held April 19-24.

As we have been working on launching our Zone of Peace campaign in recent months, we regret that we have not been able to engage you regarding this event until this late date. However, BAP’s Mid-Atlantic Region nonetheless believes it is important to convey our concerns regarding this event.

Particularly, as a formation of Africans, we understand that any solution to the problems that the African/Black masses in the domestic colonies of the United States, as well as throughout the diaspora and on the Continent, face will be led by those peoples who bear the brunt of that oppression in every aspect of life wherever we are. Therefore, BAP’s position rests on the historic Black Radical Tradition of anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist struggle to dismantle the global system of white supremacist, patriarchal, settler-colonial capitalism, and imperialist and neocolonialist oppression.

Naming the People’s enemy is an important aspect of the struggle against these systems as is organizing People to that struggle. In reviewing the conference’s program, we do not see where these aspects are named. 

The “American disease” of capitalism, as the late Glen Ford characterized it, is spread by a globe-swallowing superpower that insists on the right to penetrate every nook and cranny of the planet with its corporate spores, imposed on peoples around the globe at the barrel of this country’s 800-plus military bases and multinational “trade” treaties that obliterate governments’ abilities to resist. This imperialist aggression by the United States fuels the endless militarism around the world that affects Africans and our brethren of darker hue.

The United States became a major economic power through Black chattel slavery within its own borders, genocide of the natives on whose land the Republic stood, and expansion through the seizure and incorporation of its darker neighbor’s territory (Mexico), so certainly reparations—a major focus of your upcoming conference—is a discussion that must be continually engaged. However, how does a People properly assess what is needed to redress their centuries of harm under domestic colonization and international empire-building without naming capitalism, which is at the core of both domestic oppression and global imperialist domination

Kwame Nkrumah had already warned in his 1967 Challenge of the Congo that there were at least 17 air bases, nine foreign naval bases, three rocket sites and an atomic testing range operated by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in northern Africa, in addition to military missions in about a dozen other African countries, and called for the urgent need to counter the challenge of NATO in the strategy he outlined in his Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare, which included the call for a military high command and an All African People’s Revolutionary Army (AAPRA). Amilcar Cabral said that Portugal “...would never be able to launch three colonial wars in Africa without the help of NATO, the weapons of NATO, the planes of NATO…”

Therefore, it is clear NATO has a long history of undermining African sovereignty and colonial liberation. This was dramatically re-affirmed with the NATO-led destruction of Libya in 2011 and the brutal assassination of Gen. Muammar Gaddafi. That event plunged the most developed and prosperous nation on the African continent into an open-air slave market and turned it into a perpetually unstable state. It is a continuing assault on Africans in that country, an insult to Pan-Africanists abroad, and the validation of those revolutionary leaders’ warnings about that white-supremacist international military formation and its continuing threat to our People’s freedom.

Yet, we see IBW21 and speakers highlighted in the SOBW Conference’s program that are in clear alignment with NATO and the agenda of Western imperialism.  

We see no mention in the SOBW program of any opposition to the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), which is a direct product of NATO through the U.S. European Command that originally “controlled” 42 African states. Established in 2007, AFRICOM was expanded under U.S. President Barack Obama under the guise of fighting fundamentalist Islamic terrorism. But, not only has AFRICOM not made the Continent more secure, terrorism and instability have increased drastically with the command’s expansion, which renders the presence of NATO and AFRICOM on the Continent an enduring and existential threat to African self-determination, stability, and peace. The support for the U.S./EU/NATO-propelled proxy war in Ukraine that the leadership of the IBW21 signed onto has potentially clouded this issue. 

Signing onto the Ukraine Solidarity Network puts IBW21 on the same ideological side as NATO. Few of the featured speakers at the upcoming SOBW Conference have a track record of raising these existential issues that Africans are struggling against on the Continent and in connected struggles against militarized police terrorism in the domestic colonies of the United States. And some—like Bill Fletcher, Jr.—are practically wholesale apologists for NATO and imperialist domination through continued U.S. militarism. 

Further, we point to IBW21’s recent support of U.S. State Department statements on the conflict in Ethiopia and the role of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF). The State Department is using alleged genocide and the Ethiopian government’s reported aggression as a justification for supporting the TPLF, as well as a possible intervention via NATO and AFRICOM forces, which raises our concerns regarding IBW21’s ability to speak on behalf of the Black World. 

As one of the two African nations to have never been colonized and, in fact, had defeated fascists in World War II, subjugation of Ethiopia has long been a U.S. goal. Like Haiti, the United States and its allies in imperialist domination still want to make Ethiopia pay for its independence from imperialism. Threatening military intervention in Ethiopia to bring it under U.S. control using the “Responsibility to Protect” principle was the same blueprint used to “intervene” in Libya. But African problems should be solved with African solutions presented and worked out by African people, and any support of U.S. interference is not only tacit support of continued U.S./NATO gangsterism on the Continent, but is in opposition to the right to self-determination of African people everywhere.

We believe this historical moment demands we can no longer sugarcoat and ignore the nature of the enemy, and what tools the enemy deploys in denying true liberty for African people on the Continent and around the world. And, we can no longer pretend that liberal solutions to these problems will merit anything more than the continued capitalist domination and oppression that has gotten us to this point. We believe that revolutionary solutions must also be a part of this conversation to give the People the choice they deserve.

We believe these critical conversations are necessary among African people because we cannot talk about repairing what we will not name. In that spirit, BAP would hope that a resolution would emerge from this gathering that condemns all U.S. and NATO imperialist policies in Africa and throughout the African world. 

We stand ready to offer clear alternatives for how Africans must see and respond to the existential challenges Africans and colonized peoples face at this historic moment. But we must be clear. We are also ready to go into public opposition to those forces that collaborate with our enemies. 

We thank you for your consideration and await your response.

Mid-Atlantic Region, Black Alliance for Peace

Building a People(s)-Centered Zone of Peace in the Americas

DECLARATION: Building a People(s)-Centered Zone of Peace in the Americas

In Havana, Cuba, on January 29, 2014, the heads of state and governments of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) declared Latin America and the Caribbean should be seen and respected as a “Zone of Peace.” 

This declaration from government representatives, however, has not translated into a people(s)-centered movement across the region. The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) believes that it is only through the concentrated efforts of the people that the Americas will free itself of the anti-human, anti-democratic and violent policies that Western imperialist subversion and militarism have brought to the peoples and nations in our region.

Lifting up as a popular demand that our region be free of externally-imposed state violence is even more important today as it was when the declaration was issued in 2014. From the assault on democracy in Haiti to the subversion and illegal sanctions directed at Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, the nations in Latin America and the Caribbean continue to find themselves in an existential battle against geo-strategic interests of the hegemon to the North—the United States of America. 

Ending the Militarization of the Americas

Dictated by Monroe Doctrine directives and attempts to expand Western hegemony, the West uses both hard- and soft-power mechanisms in the Americas. These structures are forged through global capitalism, militarism and police violence, as well as the through multinational machinations of organizations that serve as proxies for U.S./Western economic and political power. 

Police and military training, arms sales, and increasingly intrusive activities of the U.S Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) structure in our region represent the military components of U.S. policies. And with the reformulated U.S. national security strategy that was articulated in 2018, which identified Russia and China as existential threats to the United States, militarization has developed with the emphasis on “great power competition,” moving Our Americas back into the center of international intrigue. 

Building up the Zone of Peace means prioritizing People(s)-Centered Human Rights (PCHRs) in the Americas by observing the principles of national sovereignty, equal rights and self-determination of peoples. This requires ending the foreign military presence and bases, as well as all structures and practices of regional militarization. 

Other aspects of the Zone of Peace include exposing the lie of benevolent and democracy-driven “humanitarianism” that fuels the soft-power imperialist projects of the United States and NATO, as well as the Core Group, the United Nations, United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Organization of American States (OAS).  Democracy and “human rights'' as dictated by the West must be understood as no more than ideological props.

Activating the Popular Movement Element of the Zone of Peace

The response to this militarism as well as to occupying forces must be built from the bottom-up through popular struggle, rather than relying on governments to act. Therefore, BAP, along with key partner organizations, is calling on the peoples and nations of the Caribbean and Latin America to build, grow and defend the Zone of Peace of the Americas. 

BAP is building a region-wide coalition to rid the Americas of warmongers and foster a network of popular-peoples’ struggles. Grounded and informed by the needs and aspirations of the oppressed, this network would anchor a unified comprehensive strategy for decolonization and radical social change.

As part of this work, we in the United States, and all of North America, must cease to see ourselves as fundamentally different from people in “Latin America and the Caribbean.” We, the oppressed and colonized living within the heart of empire, see it as our duty to confront the empire from within. We ask all colonized people to join in the struggle to end imperialist domination and to build collective self-determination in Our Americas. 

We aim to build awareness about the idea of a “Zone of Peace” across the Americas. This means, first and foremost, opposing the stronghold of the interlocking issues of global conflict, nuclear armament and proliferation, unjust war, as well as subversion. This is only possible through the defeat of Western-led global systems of oppression that include colonialism, imperialism, patriarchy and white supremacy. 

The Work of Peace

Building out a people-to-people network for a “Zone of Peace” in the Americas would involve developing public education, advocacy, grassroots organizing and social-media campaigns. These activities would build awareness on the idea of a “Zone of Peace” across the Americas, as well as create avenues for communication to connect organizations and individuals in areas where imperialist violence is most intense. 

Heightening the contradictions of the “rules-based international order” through region-wide, non-state campaigns, would build capacity for a more effective strategic engagement. 

Coordinating among anti-imperialist organizations, political parties, labor and social-justice organizations, as well as movements across our region, we will move the region toward building alternative institutions and centers of power.

This work must be de-colonial, anti-imperialist, advance a People(s)-Centered Human Rights (PCHRs) framework, and be conducted across at least five languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, French and Haitian Creole.

We declare Our Americas to be a Zone of Peace. And we resolve to organize, engage and fight for our right to peace. 

Join the call to build a Zone of Peace in Our Americas! We invite organizations and individuals to endorse the Zone of Peace campaign and activate the popular movement element in this multi-phase campaign that aims to build a united-front opposition to liberate our Americas from the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination. Endorse here.

Banner photo: Haitian male youth standing proudly in front of a mural by Bungy Baka, that says “MOLEGHAF, Black Alliance for Peace”; courtesy unknown photographer.

On Anniversary of the Assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Black Alliance for Peace Launches a People(s)-Centered Campaign for a Zone of Peace in the Americas

On the Anniversary of the Assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Black Alliance for Peace Launches a People(s)-Centered Campaign for a Zone of Peace in the Americas

For Immediate Release

Media Contact

communications@blackallianceforpeace.com

(202) 643-1136

APRIL 4, 2023—Today, the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) will launch a collective campaign for a Zone of Peace in Our Americas with organizations throughout our region in Washington, D.C.; Havana, Cuba; and Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

The “Zone of Peace” concept emerged from the January 29, 2014, meeting of the heads of state and governments of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), all of which declared Latin America and the Caribbean should be seen and respected as a “Zone of Peace.” BAP is leading an effort to activate the popular movement element of this state-centered declaration by building support for its implementation across the region.

Organizations and key allies such as SOLI of Puerto Rico; Asociación de Trabajadores del Campo (ATC) (Nicaragua); MOLEGHAF (Haiti); the Task Force on the Americas; the Organisation for Caribbean Empowerment; Observatorio de Derechos Humanos de los Pueblos (México); the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations; the U.S.-based United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC); Alliance for Global Justice; and others, have signed on to support a collective campaign for a Zone of Peace in Our Americas.

The effort to build a region-wide campaign to expel the forces that bring death, political destabilization and destruction to our region will be informed by the principles of the Black Radical Peace Tradition. The Black Radical Peace Tradition asserts that peace is not the absence of conflict, but rather the achievement by popular struggle and self-defense of a world liberated from the interlocking issues that contribute to global conflict. This would be accomplished through the defeat of the global systems of oppression that include colonialism, imperialism, patriarchy and white supremacy.

This call for peace is an appeal to the peoples and states of the Caribbean and Latin America to resist the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination, as well as the increasing militarization of the region and U.S./NATO soft power practices in Our Americas.

 “The people want peace,” says Erica Caines, Black Alliance For Peace Haiti/ Americas Team Co-Coordinator. “The Zone of Peace means strengthening alternative, people(s)-centered systems through coordinated anti-militarist and anti-imperialist struggle.”

Through a multi-phase campaign, we will build awareness and political education around the necessity and purpose of a Zone of Peace, as well as initiate the formation of an anti-militarist, anti-imperialist network anchored by popular, mass-based organizations.

“Establishing the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace will be an important achievement for the peoples of the region, removing military bases of former and current colonial powers, and abolishing the regular military exercises and other forms of interference would be a significant contribution to creating the other world of peace, development and cooperation that is possible and attainable,” says Shaun Ajamu Hutchinson of the Caribbean Organisation for People’s Empowerment.

Initial Core Demands

1. Dismantle SOUTHCOM. Shut down the 76 U.S. military bases in the region

2. End U.S./NATO military exercises. Close foreign military bases, installations and enclaves, as well as withdraw foreign occupation troops

3. Disband U.S.-sponsored state terrorist training facilities. Shutter the “Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation” (WHINSEC)—formerly the School of the Americas—in Fort Benning, Georgia, United States, and terminate U.S.—as well as foreign—training of police forces

4. Oppose military intervention into Haiti. Support the people(s)-centered movement for democracy and self-determination

5. Return Guantánamo to Cuba. The United States must give back to the Cuban people and their government the territory it illegally occupies

6. Sanctions are war. End illegal sanctions and blockades of regional states, including all economic warfare and lawfare, and recognize their sovereignty

Lifting up as a popular demand that our region be free of internal and externally-imposed state violence is even more important today as it was when the declaration was issued in 2014. From the assault on democracy in Haiti to the subversion and illegal sanctions directed at Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, the states in Latin America and in the Caribbean continue to find themselves in an existential battle against the geo-strategic interests of the hegemon to the North—the United States of America.

BAP believes it is only through the concentrated efforts of the people that the Americas will free itself of the anti-human, anti-democratic and violent policies that wars, subversion and militarism have brought to the peoples and nations in our region. 

View the DC press conference here.

Banner photo: Panelist at the press conference launchng the Zone of Peace campaign in Washington DC at the Institute for Policy Studies.

Black Alliance for Peace Supports National Day of Action Against Police Terror

Black Alliance for Peace Supports National Day of Action Against Police Terror

Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) member organization Community Movement Builders (CMB) is calling all organizations, organizers and community members to a National Day of Action Against Police Terror on March 9, 2023.

In the wake of the brutal killings of Tyre Nichols and forest defender Manuel Tortuguita, the city of Atlanta is going full steam ahead to build what activists have dubbed “Cop City.” Atlanta officials have proposed a $90 million complex be built on 85 acres of a forest. This would only arm and deploy more police—whom we refer to as the domestic army—in African and colonized working-class and poor communities. 

CMB has been at the forefront of efforts to defeat Cop City. CMB’s analysis suggests placing Cop City in the heart of a still-majority African city is an insidious reminder of the collaborative nature of the “Black misleadership class” that serves the white capitalist minority. It also makes clear this minority is preparing for the massive use of physical, repressive power to maintain control of its internal colonies. 

Cop City has been ostensibly framed as a neutral tool for fighting crime. But there is no neutrality when confronted with the asymmetrical power of the settler-colonial state in relation to poor and working-class communities. In that relationship of power, the police are instruments of control and containment, with Cop City being a part of the growing infrastructure for increased police terror in the United States, as well as in the U.S. state of Georgia and in the city of Atlanta.

For CMB, as well as for all of BAP’s member organizations and individual members, Cop City is part of the effort by city, state and federal governments to militarize the lives of African and poor people in the United States and around the world. This local, national and international military-police structure wages war in Ukraine, sends U.S. and NATO troops to Africa, advocates military intervention in Haiti, sanctions progressive governments in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and threatens humankind with nuclear annihilation. 

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! LET OUR VOICES BE HEARD!

Join us in the fight against police terror. 

#StopCopCity, end the 1033 Program and end U.S. sanctions against progressive governments. We are asking everybody to organize one or more of the following actions:

• Marches

• Rallies

• Civil disobedience actions

• Direct actions

• Banner drops

• Teach-ins

• Petition drives 

In addition, we want to flood social media with the hashtag #STOPCOPCITY.

Find an action near you.

Register for BAP’s March 9 webinar, “Countering Colonial Policing in U.S. Domestic Colonies.”

Use BAP’s resources on the 1033 program to hold a teach-in.

Defeat the War on Africans in the U.S. and Around the World!

We Are an African People and We Are at War!

New Maryland Governor Wes Moore: Another ‘First Black’ In a Colonial System

BAP-Baltimore Statement on New Maryland Governor Wes Moore: Another ‘First Black’ In a Colonial System

Recently, Maryland swore in its first Black governor, Wes Moore, in a “historic” ceremony cemented with a tearful introduction by Oprah Winfrey and a hand on Frederick Douglass’ Bible. The Black elite flocked to fill the rooms of the inauguration to witness the third elected Black governor in U.S. history. Yet, this “first Black” gubernatorial win is history repeating itself. 

African/Black communities have witnessed “first Blacks” consistently continuing over-policing, surveillance, criminalization and austerity policies. 

As Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) member organization Ujima People’s Progress Party understands, 

“The Black middle-class’ allegiance to capitalism, and not Black liberation, has largely led the Black political leadership class to function as a comprador misleadership class over the Black majority of working peoples on behalf of the capitalist parties, and political machines they are members of.”

For nearly a century, radical African/Black people have criticized elements of the African/Black community as being designed to serve as buffers to ruling class elements. Whether discerned as “neocolonial,” “the comprador class,” or “the Black Misleadership Class,” this sector has evaded accountability to the masses of African/Black people, while using their Black identity as cover for self-serving opportunism.

Moore first became famous for his 2010 bestselling memoir, The Other Wes Moore, an inspirational story of two boys with the same name and ties to Baltimore City. In interviews, Moore is depicted as a Black boy from an economically struggling background who became formally educated, rising to become a U.S. military veteran, and thus a socioeconomically developed Black man. The framing of his “life story,” as told through the book, not only helps manufacture an Obama-like image, politically. But in juxtaposition to the “other Wes Moore,” it leaves room to question how this narrative will affect his policies.

It remains unclear if Moore had been raised in Baltimore City. Yet, as the backdrop of Moore’s life story, the city has been central to his platform on crime. The Public Safety and Criminal Justice page on wesmoore.com states, “Violent crime is on the rise across Maryland and people are dying in our streets.” The solutions presented, however, will be nothing short of a plan to continue what former Governor Larry Hogan started in his campaign to “refund the police,” which increased resources for state law enforcement agencies following the 2020 uprisings. 

Citing an “ineffectiveness of leadership,” Moore ignores that not only is Baltimore City already occupied with an array of federally funded police directives, it has just received an additional $7.9 million in federal funds to “fight crime.” This funding is a part of the Biden administration’s $350 million American Rescue plan to “fund the police,” as he enthusiastically announced in his 2022 State of the Union address. Unsurprisingly, in 2022, 1,192 people were killed by police, exceeding any other year in U.S. history. Also, Moore has ignored the existing consent decree issued in 2017, acknowledging the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) engaged in a pattern and practice of conduct that violated the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution, and specific provisions of federal statutory law. 

“The BPD has access to the Department of Defense (DOD) 1033 program budget. They also train with the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) through the ‘deadly exchange program’ and continue to receive federal agents through Trump’s 2020 Operation Relentless Pursuit policy,” says Petros Bein, member of the Baltimore City Wide Alliance of the Black Alliance For Peace (BAP-Baltimore). “This is in addition to the approved privatized policing for universities, like Johns Hopkins, engulfing Black communities.”

These continued failed approaches to “crime” have only proven that added resources, as well as changes in policy or the law, will not contribute to public safety. Moore cannot “rebuild and strengthen relationships between communities and law enforcement agencies” by “increasing accountability and transparency” in a city in which the police department constantly violates its consent decree. Nor should funding community-policing initiatives that “recruit diverse officers that reflect the diversity of communities they serve” be taken seriously. The recent death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Tennessee (a city also operating under Operation Relentless Pursuit) has been the most illuminating example of the fallacy of Black faces occupying these spaces to the benefit of the African/Black community. 

Policies that address crime in an over-policed city cannot be presented in the abstract. As the country celebrates a “first Black” governor, Maryland continues to imprison more African/Black people, per capita, than any other state. Moore needs to provide more specifics to explain what will be done and how this builds or departs from existing efforts to return control of the Baltimore City Police Department from the federal government to Baltimore City.

“Wes Moore’s connections with Mayor [Brandon] Scott’s office and the city design/city planning committee will shape or harm what’s happening in Baltimore. With no control over the city's policing, Moore's decisions directly affect the most marginalized of us,” acknowledges BAP-Baltimore core member, Kimya Nuru Dennis. 

The Democratic Party has been able to  depict Moore as a trusting solution for Maryland, in general, and for African/Black people, specifically. His socioeconomic status, as well as that of his donors, indicates to BAP-Baltimore what will undoubtedly shape whose voices matter most in prioritizing health, education, and safety-based policies and laws.

The lack of equitable housing that causes displacement, as well as food deserts, and low wages, have been pressing issues in Maryland. African/Black elected officials have not resolved the economic and social crisis facing the African/Black working class of Baltimore City. Instead, their lack of solutions have resulted in the overt criminalization and over-policing of African/Black communities. Police are constantly and consistently well-funded and well-resourced. BAP-Baltimore understands police are used to enforce the status quo of white power and colonial control over the lives of African/Black and other oppressed nations of people. This comes as the city has increasingly privatized and priced out our people. More police funding, while ignoring the causes of crime, cannot resolve the ongoing dilemma facing the African/Black working class in Baltimore City.

No Compromise! No Retreat!

Banner photo: Wes Moore with Joe Biden at a gubernatorial campaign rally in Rockville MD, August 2022. (courtesy Dominick Sokotoff/Rex/Shutterstock)

BAP Haiti/Americas Team Opposes Apparent CELAC Support for Foreign Military Intervention Into Haiti

Black Alliance for Peace’s Haiti/Americas Team Opposes the Apparent Support of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) for Foreign Military Intervention Into Haiti

Peace and Solidarity In the Region Cannot Be Achieved at the Expense of Haitian Sovereignty

For Immediate Release    

Media Contact

communications@blackallianceforpeace.com

(202) 643-1136

FEBRUARY 1, 2023—The Haiti/Americas Team of the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) vehemently protests CELAC’s (Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños / Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) apparent support for multinational military intervention into Haiti, and strongly opposes CELAC including unelected Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry in its recent summit in Buenos Aires. We deem such acts as betrayals of the Haitian people as well as the democratic and anti-colonial forces in the region. 

Founded in 2011, CELAC is a bloc of 33 Caribbean and Latin American countries. It has stated its mission as promoting regional integration and providing an alternative to U.S. power in the region, especially as that power is channeled through the multi-state entity, Organization of American States (OAS). 

At the conclusion of the summit, CELAC members released the Buenos Aires Declaration, a 28-page, 111-point document covering environmental cooperation, post-pandemic economic recovery, food and energy security. Included in that document was CELAC’s endorsement of the development of the region as a Zone of Peace, free of nuclear weapons and committed to non-militaristic solutions to intra-regional problems. 

Yet, CELAC’s commitments to peace as well as to other principles, such as “democracy; the promotion, protection and respect of Human Rights, international cooperation, the Rule of Law, multilateralism, respect for territorial integrity, non-intervention in the internal affairs of States, and defense of sovereignty,” are all directly undermined by its stance on Haiti. By inviting Henry, CELAC has legitimized an unpopular, Core Group-installed, de facto prime minister in Haiti. Henry has not only refused to hold elections, but he has presided over the departure from office of every single elected official in the country. Meanwhile, against the wishes of the Haitian masses and majority, he has begged for foreign intervention to shore up his power. 

The Haiti/Americas Team affirms the words of Ajamu Baraka, chairperson of BAP’s Coordinating Committee, who stated, “Solidarity has to be reciprocal. CELAC must commit itself to supporting the democratic struggles in Haiti against an illegitimate U.S. puppet [government]. Inviting the Haitian government to CELAC is like inviting Juan Guaidó to represent Venezuela.”

Points 101 and 102 of the Buenos Aires Declaration directly address the situation in Haiti. Point 102 endorses the September 8 letter from the UN Secretary General to the President of the Security Council encouraging the organization of a “specialized multinational force” to intervene in Haiti. Nowhere in the Declaration do they mention the role of the international community in creating the current crisis in Haiti. Nowhere do they mention that the crisis is a crisis of imperialism, brought on by the United Nations, the Core Group (an alliance of countries as well as multilateral organizations, such as the World Bank), the United States, Canada, and other so-called “friends” of Haiti in the international community. 

If CELAC supports non-intervention in the internal affairs of independent states, how can they call for foreign intervention in Haiti? If CELAC promotes a Zone of Peace, how can they demand foreign military intervention? If CELAC is for regional sovereignty, how can they support an imperialist design, driven by the United States and others? If CELAC is an advocate for the people of the Caribbean and Latin America, how can they so brazenly ignore the wishes and demands of the people of Haiti? 

BAP’s Haiti/Americas Team suggests CELAC government leaders listen to the voices of the Haitian people, and their supporters in the region, as well as CELAC Social. This new entity of more than 200 organizations issued its own declaration demanding, in part, that the “region give its own response to the Haitian question, respecting the principle of non-intervention and the right of the people of Haiti to define sovereignly their destiny.” 

CELAC’s position on Haiti is ill-informed and dangerous, representing an all-too frequent, reactionary “Haiti exception” when it comes to the “progressive” governments of the Americas. Peace and solidarity in the region cannot be achieved at the expense of Haitian sovereignty. CELAC must avoid contributing to Haiti’s current crisis—the crisis of imperialism.

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Para publicación inmediata

Contacto para medios de comunicación

comunicaciones@blackallianceforpeace.com

(202) 643-1136

1 DE FEBRERO DE 2023— El Equipo Haití/Américas de la Alianza Negra por la Paz (BAP) protesta con vehemencia por el aparente apoyo de la CELAC (Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños) a la intervención militar multinacional en Haití, y se opone enérgicamente a la CELAC incluyendo al primer ministro haitiano no electo Ariel Henry en su reciente cumbre en Buenos Aires. Consideramos tales actos como traiciones al pueblo haitiano, así como a las fuerzas democráticas y anticoloniales de la región.

Fundada en 2011, la CELAC es un bloque de 33 países del Caribe y América Latina. Ha declarado que su misión es promover la integración regional y brindar una alternativa al poder estadounidense en la región, especialmente porque ese poder se canaliza a través de la entidad multiestatal, la Organización de los Estados Americanos (OEA).

Al concluir la cumbre, los miembros de la CELAC publicaron la Declaración de Buenos Aires, un documento de 28 páginas y 111 puntos que cubre la cooperación ambiental, la recuperación económica pospandemia, la seguridad alimentaria y energética. Incluido en ese documento estaba el respaldo de la CELAC al desarrollo de la región como una Zona de Paz, libre de armas nucleares y comprometida con soluciones no militaristas a los problemas intrarregionales.

Sin embargo, los compromisos de la CELAC con la paz, así como con otros principios, como “democracia; la promoción, protección y respeto de los Derechos Humanos, la cooperación internacional, el Estado de Derecho, el multilateralismo, el respeto a la integridad territorial, la no intervención en los asuntos internos de los Estados y la defensa de la soberanía”, son directamente socavados por su postura sobre Haití . Al invitar a Henry, la CELAC ha legitimado a un impopular primer ministro de facto instalado por el Grupo Central en Haití. Henry no solo se ha negado a celebrar elecciones, sino que ha presidido la salida del cargo de todos los funcionarios electos del país. Mientras tanto, en contra de los deseos de las masas y la mayoría haitianas, ha suplicado una intervención extranjera para consolidar su poder.

El Equipo de Haití/Américas afirma las palabras de Ajamu Baraka, presidente del Comité Coordinador de BAP, quien afirmó: “La solidaridad tiene que ser recíproca. La CELAC debe comprometerse a apoyar las luchas democráticas en Haití contra un [gobierno] títere ilegítimo de los Estados Unidos. Invitar al gobierno de Haití a la CELAC es como invitar a Juan Guaidó a representar a Venezuela”.

Los puntos 101 y 102 de la Declaración de Buenos Aires abordan directamente la situación en Haití. El punto 102 refrenda la carta del 8 de septiembre del Secretario General de la ONU al Presidente del Consejo de Seguridad alentando la organización de una “fuerza multinacional especializada” para intervenir en Haití. En ninguna parte de la Declaración mencionan el papel de la comunidad internacional en la creación de la crisis actual en Haití. En ninguna parte mencionan que la crisis es una crisis del imperialismo, provocada por las Naciones Unidas, el Core Group (una alianza de países y organismos multilaterales, como el Banco Mundial), Estados Unidos, Canadá y otros. -llamados “amigos” de Haití en la comunidad internacional.

Si la CELAC apoya la no intervención en los asuntos internos de los estados independientes, ¿cómo pueden reclamar la intervención extranjera en Haití? Si la CELAC promueve una Zona de Paz, ¿cómo pueden exigir una intervención militar extranjera? Si la CELAC está por la soberanía regional, ¿cómo pueden apoyar un diseño imperialista, impulsado por Estados Unidos y otros? Si la CELAC es una defensora de los pueblos del Caribe y América Latina, ¿cómo pueden ignorar tan descaradamente los deseos y demandas del pueblo de Haití?

El Equipo de Haití/Américas de BAP sugiere que los líderes gubernamentales de la CELAC escuchen las voces del pueblo haitiano y sus seguidores en la región, así como a la CELAC Social. Esta nueva entidad de más de 200 organizaciones emitió su propia declaración exigiendo, en parte, que la “región dé su propia respuesta a la cuestión haitiana, respetando el principio de no intervención y el derecho del pueblo de Haití a definir soberanamente su destino”

La posición de la CELAC sobre Haití es mal informada y peligrosa, y representa una “excepción de Haití” reaccionaria y demasiado frecuente cuando se trata de los gobiernos “progresistas” de las Américas. La paz y la solidaridad en la región no se pueden lograr a expensas de la soberanía haitiana. La CELAC debe evitar contribuir a la crisis actual de Haití, la crisis del imperialismo.

Banner Photo: Line up of CELAC and member country flags in a conference room. (Courtesy @EmbaCubaUS on Twitter)

Colonial-Capitalist Fascism and Its Deadly Outcome: The State Murder of Tortuguita in Atlanta and Tyre Nichols in Memphis Are Inextricably Linked

The cold-blooded assassination of Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, also known as Tortuguita, Spanish for “Little Turtle,” is a reminder that fascism in the United States cannot be reduced to the political intentions of avowed white nationalists. African/Black and Indigenous people residing in the settler-colonial project known as the United States continue to be subjected to a cycle of state-sanctioned violence and political repression with bipartisan consensus. People of the global majority and their allies must not allow these latest episodes of injustice to go unanswered.

The Atlanta City-Wide Alliance of the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP-Atlanta) has been working with a coalition of Indigenous people, African/Black people, other people of color, and Euro-Americans to prevent the construction of “Cop City,” as BAP-Atlanta expressed in a recent statement. The statement highlighted the obvious nexus between the proposed $90 million police-training facility site, where Tortuguita was killed on January 18, and the white supremacy-fueled genocide, militarism, and oppression the U.S. empire exercises both outside and within. Both domestically and internationally (including within sovereign Indigenous nations), the United States continues to carry out wanton abuses of human rights with impunity via the illegal use of militarized force. Tortuguita’s execution, and the obvious attempts by law enforcement to cover it up and suppress the truth, are yet another example of the abject malfeasance of this state’s law-enforcement apparatus.

That Tortuguita was standing in defiance of an urban-warfare training facility which has now perpetuated their brutal execution should be lost on no one. Given the function of policing in this settler colony, the race of the perpetrators who brutalize protestors and commit other forms of state sanctioned violence should surprise no one. The brutal execution of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Tennessee is the most recent evidence highlighting this obvious point.

Proponents of increasing military and police budgets also rally behind gentrification, deforestation, further extraction and use of fossil fuels, as well as other drivers of the racialized climate crisis. The root causes of the cataclysms, including the state murders of Tortuguita and Tyre Nichols can no longer be ignored: White supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy and colonization.

BAP asserts the inexorable link of liberation African/Black and Indigenous people share, just as we proclaim the need for a set of intersectional solutions to the interlinked forms of oppression subjecting Indigenous and African/Black people to the irrefutable war crimes the United States and local law-enforcement regimes have committed. To this end, we call on all social-justice movements, including the larger environmental community, to demonstrate solidarity and support for Tortuguita, their family, other justice seekers working to shut down “Cop City,” and African/Black people and Indigenous people writ large. 

Until we exercise and implement a program of defiant activities that stop bellicose militarism and policing, these acts of state-sanctioned violence will increase in frequency and intensity. These latest murders reaffirm the absolute necessity for nationally oppressed peoples to build the capacities to defend their collective human rights. 

In the process of building that independent power, we will also struggle for accountability against state authorities that violate human rights. 

We demand accountability for Tortuguita in Atlanta. We demand an impartial and transparent investigation of Tortuguita’s assassination, we demand all charges against demonstrators supporting the Stop Cop City movement be dropped, and we demand an immediate cessation of all activities that contribute to the construction and operation of “Cop City.” 

No Compromise, No Retreat!

BAP-Atlanta

bapatl@blackallianceforpeace.com

@bapatl on IG and Twitter

Banner photo: Demonstrators protest the death of environmental activist Tortuguita in Atlanta, Georgia (Courtesy Washpo by Elijah Nouvelage via Getty Images)

The State Repression of U.S. Settler Colonialism in The South: BAP ATLANTA STATEMENT

Atlanta City-Wide Alliance

The State Repression of U.S. Settler Colonialism in The South

BAP ATLANTA STATEMENT

Atlanta is historically described as “The Black Mecca” and more contemporarily referred to as “Wakanda.” The Black Alliance for Peace Atlanta (BAP-Atlanta) rejects this deception because we know that since the 90s the population of Black people in Atlanta has decreased by more than 20% due to gentrification and that Black people overwhelmingly make up the majority of the houseless population. Although we have a Black Mayor, a Black City Council, and other Black elected officials, the income inequality gap has increased as more and more Black/African people have been displaced and forced into poverty, in large part due to the policies of these Black misleaders. The Black politicians, celebrities, clergy, HBCUs, and business owners are “readily prepared to ‘sell out the interests of the overwhelmingly working class Black masses’ (Ford, 2018) for the sake of capitalist, corporate, or imperialist interests.” (Springer 2020). Instead of defunding the police, the elected officials have increased funding for racist, violent policing.

BAP-Atlanta sees that violence in the U.S. and around the world are linked. One example of that connection is the relationship between two settler colonies - the U.S. and Israel. Since 2002, exchange programs have taken place that bring together U.S. police, ICE agents, the FBI, and other law enforcement with their counterparts in Israel. In these programs, worst practices are shared to promote the militarization and occupation of the working class and poor Black and Brown communities. Founded by Robert Friedmann, Professor Emeritus of Criminal Justice at Georgia State University, Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE) is the local manifestation of the Deadly Exchange program, in which U.S. and Israeli police and Israeli military share hyper-militarized policing techniques and technology and physically travel to zionist Israel to engage in this exchange.

Atlanta participates in the 1033 program, through which the U.S. Department of Defense transfers military equipment to local state and federal law enforcement agencies. It is the critical source of the most visible, big-ticket military items being sent to local law enforcement across the country. Originally known as the 1208 Program, this program was created in 1990 for two specific reasons: to eliminate military surplus waste following the Cold War, and to assist in the hardline federal push of the “war on drugs.” From 2009 to 2018, police departments in Georgia received $43.5 million in firearms, vehicles and other gear from the military through the program. Georgia has also received more than 2,700 military rifles, night vision goggles and laser gun sights, and literally hundreds of armored vehicles, including more than two dozen mine-resistant vehicles built to fight the war on terror abroad.

The Atlanta Police Foundation is a private non-profit that allows corporations and wealthy donors to fund police terrorism in Atlanta. It supports various police programs, including Operation Shield, “a network of advanced technologies that create more efficient policing including the citywide network of surveillance cameras and license plate readers, predictive policing platform and criminal analytics software.” Through Operation Shield, police officers view footage captured by the Foundation’s privately owned cameras. When the initiative was announced in September 2011, authorities had access to about 100 public and private cameras. Today it’s nearly 12,000. The police foundation has funded these cameras to monitor and surveil Black people every second of the day. 

The foundation has also been instrumental in the effort to establish a new “Public Safety” Training Center, also known as Cop City, to be located across 150 acres of the old Atlanta Prison Farm. This training facility — larger than 85 NFL football fields combined — would include shooting ranges, spaces for militarized drills, and a mock city complete with buildings and roads to allow APD to practice urban warfare tactics, including bomb testing and tear gas deployment. At this new installation, police will learn military-like maneuvers to kill Black people and control our bodies and movements. The Cop City new training facility is yet another massive, militarized, and corporate-funded project that the police foundation is trying to prop up behind closed doors.

Black people in the United States have a colonial relationship with the larger society. It is a relationship characterized by over-policing and institutional racism. This colonial status operates in three areas: politically, economically, and socially. We are politically stunted, with our political decisions made for us due to a lack of power. We are economically disenfranchised, depending on larger society. This is maintained by a social order that designates police in our communities as occupying forces, and the rationale and objective of increased militarism is to maintain the hegemony of the Pan-European, colonial/capitalist, and patriarchal, white supremacist system. 

The South is the base of U.S. military infrastructure. It’s 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.

Footnote: Atlanta Police Foundation | Technology & Innovation

Downloadable PDF version of statement

Banner photo: Map of Cop City site plan (courtesy whatnowatlanta.com)

BAP Haiti/Americas Team Condemns the Dina Boluarte Coup Regime’s Violent Repression of Protesters in Perú

The Haiti/Americas Team of the Black Alliance for Peace Condemns the Dina Boluarte Coup Regime’s Violent Repression of Protesters in Perú 

We Support the Peruvian Popular Struggle’s Call for the Immediate Resignation of the Coup Regime, the Release and Reinstatement of Pedro Castillo Terrones, and For a Popular Constituent Assembly

For Immediate Release    

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

JANUARY 16, 2023—The Haiti/Americas Team of the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) denounces the bloody repression targeting the predominantly poor indigenous rural and Amazonian communities protesting the December 7, 2022 right wing coup that removed Perú’s President Pedro Castillo Terrones from power. These communities had resoundingly and overwhelmingly voted for Castillo, rejecting outright the neoliberal regime installed by the previous governments. The violence, of an intensity not seen since the Alberto Fujimori dictatorship (1990-2000), has been led by the Peruvian Armed Forces, under orders of coup-leader Dina Boluarte, the Fujimorista Fuerza Popular Party, and other political factions. In under 40 days, at least 50 people have been massacred, including 17-year-old student and animal shelter volunteer Yamileth Aroquipa Hancco. 

Instead of mourning the loss of life of fellow Peruvians, the right, its lapdog press in Lima, and the liberal middle class (“pitucos”), have labeled the protesters “terrucos” (terrorists) and “indios salvajes pobres” (poor savage Indians) – fuelling racism and class antagonism. Although Peruvian Armed Forces and the coup regime claim to want calm (going so far as to stage a farcical  “March for Peace”), they have continued to snipe protesters from helicopters, while rounding up and arbitrarily detaining organizers, union leaders, and students. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and other human rights organizations have begun investigations, but the coup regime continues to dig in its heels and Dina Boluarte has declared she will not resign. 

For BAP, the coup in Perú, and the subsequent violence against Perú’s poor and indigenous communities, is part of a dangerous trend targeting progressive forces in the region. It represents Western imperialist efforts to deny popular sovereignty and self-determination throughout the Americas as a means towards expanding the free market and neoliberal political regimes, while bolstering the U.S. military presence via SOUTHCOM. Significantly, the U.S. Ambassador in Perú, Lisa Kenna, met with Perú’s Defense Minister two days before the coup against Castillo and the U.S. government, through Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, swiftly recognized Boluarte. Meanwhile, there has been silence from other Western nations on the brutal repression of the masses. 

BAP’s Haiti/Americas Team welcomes the repudiation of the coup by Perú’s regional neighbors. Yet we view with concern President Lula of Brazil’s seeming acceptance of the coup. We follow the lead of the Peruvian parties of the São Paulo Forum who call on President Lula and the Brazil Workers’ Party to condemn the human rights violations in Perú. We remember clearly Lula’s support for the 2004 U.S.-Canada-France coup d’etat in Haiti and we hope that, this time around, the leftist government in Brazil will do right by Perú.

In support of the Peruvian popular struggle, BAP’s Haiti/Americas Team condemns the violence against the people, calls for the immediate resignation of the Boluarte coup regime, the release and reinstatement of President Castillo, and for a popular Constituent Assembly. BAP mourns the loss of life and denounces the escalating political repression and arbitrary arrests of social leaders and students. We align ourselves totally with the popular struggle of the Peruvian people. 

As one of the popular chants in the streets of Perú states, “hasta la victoria siempre, carajo!” or “towards victory always, damn it!” And as BAP says, “no compromise, no retreat!”

-END-

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El equipo Haití/Américas de la Alianza Negra por la Paz (BAP) condena el régimen golpista de Dina Boluarte por la represión violenta contra manifestantes en Perú.

Apoyamos la llamada de la lucha popular peruana por el renuncio del régimen golpista, la liberación y restitución de Pedro Castillo Terrones, y por una Asamblea Popular Constituyente.

Para Publicación Inmediata

contacto con los medios de comunicación

communications@blackallianceforpeace.com

(202) 643-1136

16 de enero 2023— El equipo Haití/Américas de la Alianza Negra por la Paz (BAP) denuncia la represión sangrienta que se dirige a las comunidades, los cuales son predominantemente comunidades amazónicas, indígenas y campesinas que protestan contra el golpe derechista de 7 de diciembre 2022, lo que derrotó el Presidente de Peru Pedro Castillo Terrones. Estas comunidades votaron rotundamente y abrumadoramente por Castillo, rechazando el régimen neoliberal instalado por los gobiernos anteriores. La violencia, de una intensidad que no se ha visto desde la dictadura de Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), ha sido dirigida por la Fuerzas Armadas de Perú, bajo los órdenes de la golpista Dina Boluarte, el partido fujimorista Fuerza Popular, y otras facciones políticas. En menos de 40 días, al menos 50 personas han sido masacradas, incluyendo Yamileth Aroquipa Hancco, una universitaria y voluntaria animalista.

En lugar de lamentar la pérdida de vidas de compatriotas peruanos, la derecha, sus perros falderos en los medios limeños, y la clase media liberal (“pitucos”) han ridiculizado los manifestantes como “terrucos” y “indios salvajes pobres” – una reacción que hace crecer el racismo y los antagonismos clasistas. Aunque las Fuerzas Armadas de Perú y el régimen golpista pretenden querer calma, incluso dar una falsa “marcha por la paz”), ellos han continuado el tiroteo desde helicópteros, mientras se detienen organizadores, sindicalistas, y estudiantes. La Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (CIDH) y otras organizaciones de derechos humanos han empezado investigaciones, pero el régimen golpista sigue sin impunidad y Dina Boluarte ha declarado que no renunciará. 

Para BAP, el golpe en Perú, y la siguiente violencia contra las comunidades pobres e indígenas de Perú, son parte de una tendencia  peligrosa dirigida contra las fuerzas progresistas en la región. Representa los esfuerzos de imperialistas yanqui y occidentales para rechazar la soberanía popular y autodeterminación a través de Nuestras Américas para expandir el mercado libre y los regímenes de la política neoliberal, mientras tanto se refuerza su presencia militar vía SOUTHCOM. Significativamente, la embajadora estadounidense en Perú, Lisa Kenna, se reunió con el ministro de defensa de Perú dos días antes del golpe contra Castillo, y el gobierno de EEUU, a través del secretario de estado Anthony Blinken reconoció a Boluarte como presidenta con rapidez. Mientras tanto, ha sido silencio de otras naciones occidentales sobre la represión brutal de las masas populares.

El equipo Haití/Américas de BAP celebra la repudiación del golpe por los vecinos regionales de Perú. Todavía, miramos con preocupación la aceptación aparente del golpe del Presidente Lula de Brasil. Seguimos el liderazgo de los partidos peruanos del foro São Paulo, quienes llamaron al Presidente Lula y el Partido Trabajador de Brasil para condenar las violaciones de derechos humanos en Perú. Recordamos claramente el apoyo que Lula dio al golpe del EE.UU.-Canada-Francia en Haití y esperamos que, esta vez, el gobierno izquierdista en Brasil haga lo correcto por el pueblo de Perú.

En apoyo de la lucha popular peruana, el equipo Haití/Américas de BAP  condena la violencia contra el pueblo y exige la renuncia inmediata del régimen golpista de Boluarte, la liberación y restitución de Pedro Castillo Terrones, y por un Asamblea Popular Constituyente. BAP lamenta la pérdida de vida y denuncia la escalada de represión política y las detenciones arbitrarias de líderes sociales y estudiantes. Nos alineamos totalmente con la lucha popular del pueblo peruano.

Como dice uno de los cantos populares de las calles de Perú “hasta la victoria siempre, carajo!” Y como dice BAP, “sin compromiso, sin retirada!”

-fin-

Banner Photo: A protester in the center of Lima holds a sign that reads Dina Boluarte, resign. (courtesy: Zoe Alexandra.)

Protect Vice President, Francia Marquez: An Open Letter to President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro

11 de enero 2022 – January 11, 2022

Media Contact
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+001 (202) 643-1136

Honorable President Gustavo Petro,

Today the Vice President of Colombia, Francia Marquez, revealed on Twitter that her “security team found a device with more than 7 kilos of explosive material on the road that leads to [her] family residence in the village of Yolombó, in Suárez, Cauca”. This security breach against Vice President Marquez is only the most recent worrying incident, which has reinforced our ongoing concern around her security. We have received reports that call into question the physical security of the Vice President. 

We, the Black Alliance for Peace’s Haiti/Americas Team, seek assurance that your administration is also watching this with concern and we hope the government will take appropriate measures. The Black Alliance for Peace is a coalition of organizations and individuals that oppose militarization, imperialism, and the permanent war agenda of the U.S. state domestically and globally. As the Haiti and the Americas Team, we are focused on achieving the liberation of all peoples in the region and real peace in Nuestra América, through the advancement of an “Americas-wide” struggle for authentic decolonization and social development. 

As you are aware, Vice President Marquez’s position is unique. In addition to being a high-ranking public official in Colombia, she has been a long-time activist for the rights of Afro-Colombian and Ethnic peoples and communities. This activism and her position are important not only in Colombia, but Marquez is also a prominent leader for all of us in the African diaspora, particularly in the Americas. As an activist outside of the government, she was under constant death threats, as are so many activists in Colombia, who since 2016 have faced even more violence and uncertainty. We understand this is part of a pattern of violence against social activists, particularly Afro-Colombian and Indigenous Colombian leaders, which both the Santos and Duque administration did little to stop. According to Indepaz, at least 1,550 social leaders have been murdered since 2016, with 189 killed in 2022 (more than in 2021). We condemn the ongoing targeting of social leaders, including the Vice President Marquez, as well as the continued racist comments and other slurs against the Vice President. We urge you, President Gustavo Petro, to take note of these matters, increase the capacity to protect social leaders, and act in all necessary ways to ensure the physical integrity of the Vice President, her relatives and close advisors.

Sincerely,
Haiti/Americas Team
Black Alliance for Peace

————————————— Español —————————————-

11 de enero de 2023

Contacto:

info@blackallianceforpeace.com

+001 (202) 643-1136 (EE. UU.)

Honorable Presidente Gustavo Petro,

Ayer, la Vicepresidenta de Colombia, Francia Márquez Mina, reveló en Twitter que su “equipo de seguridad encontró un artefacto con más de 7 kilos de material explosivo en la vía que conduce a la residencia de [su] familia en la vereda Yolombó, en Suárez, Cauca”. Esta brecha de seguridad contra la Vicepresidenta Márquez es solo el incidente preocupante más reciente, que ha reforzado nuestra preocupación constante por su seguridad. Hemos recibido informes que ponen en entredicho la seguridad física de la Vicepresidenta y las prioridades del gobierno colombiano para garantizar su protección.

Nosotros, el Equipo de Haití/Américas de la Alianza Negra por la Paz, buscamos la seguridad de que su administración también está observando esto con preocupación y esperamos que el gobierno tome las medidas necesarias. La Alianza Negra por la Paz es una coalición de organizaciones e individuos que se oponen a la militarización, el imperialismo y la agenda de guerra permanente del Estado de los EE. UU. a nivel nacional y mundial. Como Equipo Haití/Américas, estamos enfocados en lograr la liberación de todos los pueblos de la región y la paz real en Nuestra América, a través del avance de una lucha “en toda América” por una auténtica descolonización y desarrollo social.

La figura de la vicepresidenta Márquez es única. Además de ser una funcionaria pública de alto rango en Colombia, ha sido una activista por los derechos de los pueblos y comunidades afrocolombianas y étnicas durante mucho tiempo. Este activismo y su cargo son importantes no solo en Colombia, sino que Márquez también es una líder destacada para todos nosotros en la Diáspora Africana, particularmente en las Américas.

Como activista fuera del gobierno, estuvo bajo constantes amenazas de muerte, al igual que muchos activistas en Colombia, que desde 2016 han enfrentado aún más violencia e incertidumbre. Entendemos que esto es parte de un patrón de violencia contra activistas sociales, particularmente líderes afrocolombianos e indígenas colombianos, que tanto la administración de Santos como la de Duque hicieron poco para detener. Según Indepaz, al menos 1.550 líderes sociales han sido asesinados desde 2016, con 189 asesinados en 2022 (más que en 2021).

Condenamos los continuos ataques contra líderes sociales, incluida la vicepresidenta Márquez, así como los continuos comentarios racistas y otros insultos contra la vicepresidenta. Le exhortamos, Presidente Gustavo Petro, a tomar nota de estos asuntos, aumentar la capacidad de protección de los líderes sociales y actuar en todas las formas necesarias para garantizar la integridad física de la Vicepresidenta, sus familiares y allegados.

Atentamente,

Equipo de Haití/Américas

Alianza Negra por la Paz

Banner photo: Colombian President Gustavo Petro and Vice President Francia Márquez celebrate their victory at the Movistar Arena in Bogotá on June 19. (courtesy Juan Barreto/AFP via Getty Images)

An Africa Anti-Imperialist Week of Actions Launches Today to Expose and Denounce Biden Administration’s U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington, D.C.

For Immediate Release     

Media Contact

communications@blackallianceforpeace.com 

(202) 643-1136

DECEMBER 12, 2022— In a direct response to the Biden administration’s “U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit''—taking place in Washington, D.C., December 13-15—the U.S Out of Africa Network, the organizational arm of the Black Alliance for Peace’s (BAP) campaign to shut down the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), has launched an anti-imperialist week of actions in Washington to raise public awareness about the cynical intentions of the summit.

BAP’s December 9 statement challenges in detail the Biden administration’s claim that the summit will “demonstrate the United States’ enduring commitment to Africa, and will underscore the importance of U.S.-Africa relations and increased cooperation on shared global priorities.” BAP pointed out the United States militarily occupies 53 of the 54 countries on the continent in one form or another, that it sustains a drone war in Somalia, and that it led the 2011 NATO destruction of Libya.

BAP’s actions throughout the week will include protests and rallies, starting on December 13 with a noon forum, “Africa Anti-Imperialist Summit: Voices from the Ground.” Then a press conference will be held at 2 p.m. on December 16. Both events mentioned will take place at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) at 1301 Connecticut Avenue, 6th Floor, Washington, D.C.

While Biden administration officials play down their concern about the inroads of China and Russia into Africa, U.S. Out of Africa Network Coordinator Tunde Osazua says, “Challenging these inroads is a clear goal of the summit. On the heels of Human Rights Day they’re convening the summit to undermine the human rights of African people and want us to ignore the historical record of the U.S. in Africa.”

BAP is also calling out the Congressional Black Caucus for their ongoing support of U.S. oppressive, murderous policies in Africa. “These members sit quietly, in active dereliction of their duty, to safeguard the rights and interests of Black and oppressed people,” says Netfa Freeman, BAP Coordinating Committee member.

###

Banner photo: The center of Benghazi in ruins after years of conflict (courtesy Ivor Prickett for The New York Times.)

Invitations for a Seat at the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit Table Should Not Only Be Rejected, the Table Needs Turning Over!

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) recognizes the “U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit'' — scheduled to take place in Washington, D.C. December 13-15th — as nothing more than collusion between neo-colonial powers and U.S. attempts to advance and maintain dominance over the continent.

Liberal elements of U.S. civil society will preoccupy themselves with the issues they think should be addressed at the Summit, claiming to act in the best interest of Africa or, as with the Summit of the Americas held earlier this year, attack those who they say do not deserve to be invited. Such dispositions presume the U.S. has honest intentions for Africa and legitimizes/obscures its real interests and role.

Convened on the heels of Human Rights Day which is held every December 10, the Black Radical Human Rights and Peace Traditions must center the historical record of the U.S. in Africa and the geo-strategic interests it is committed to upholding. The carefully considered proceedings, side events, invitations, and public relations campaigns are designed to secure greater control of Africa’s abundant resources for U.S. “national interests” aligned with the interest of international finance capital.

Having assumed the racist mantle of the “White Man’s Burden” in the Global South in general and Africa in particular, the U.S. claims that this summit will “demonstrate the United States’ enduring commitment to Africa, and will underscore the importance of U.S.-Africa relations and increased cooperation on shared global priorities.” Such statements should be exposed as being disingenuous and an effort to cover up the United States' malign intent.

African independence movements since the 1950s have been destabilized by U.S. administrations of both parties. Democratically elected leaders such as Patrice Lumumba of Congo, who was assassinated by the CIA, and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, who was overthrown in a CIA orchestrated coup, fell victim to U.S. government meddling, and they are only two among many. Contemporary U.S. interference has involved proxy wars in Congo with the assistance of Uganda and Rwanda, and in Somalia with Ethiopia (2006-2009) followed by a sustained drone war over Somalia under the guise of fighting extremists. In 2011 the U.S. led NATO in a regime change operation resulting in the total destruction of Libya. The U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) occupies 53 of the 54 countries on the continent in one form or another for U.S. neo-colonial hegemony.

A core goal of the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit is to challenge the inroads of the People’s Republic of China and to a lesser extent the Russian Federation vis-à-vis the continent. The political sectors of the U.S. oligarchy are concerned about regional cooperation initiated in the Horn of Africa since 2018, and anti-France and pro-Russia expressions among the people in countries like Mali, Guinea, and Burkina Faso, which is invoking the legacy of the revolutionary Thomas Sankara.

Most notably, the complicity and silence of the Congressional Black Caucus members over the role of the U.S. federal government in Africa and the dereliction of their professed purpose to represent the interests of Black and oppressed people will undoubtedly find political cover in the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit. CBC members will be key-note speakers, event conveners, and backdoor deal makers for the U.S. neocolonial, white supremacist, patriarchal order. 

In contrast, the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) is holding an anti-imperialist week of actions to raise public awareness related to the real issues that should be on the agenda for discussion at the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit.  BAP calls for the dismantling of NATO, AFRICOM and all imperialist structures. Africa and the rest of the world cannot be free until all peoples are able to realize the right of sovereignty and the right to live free of domination.

We demand:

1. The complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Africa;

2. The closure of U.S. bases throughout the world; and

3. The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) to oppose the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and conduct hearings on AFRICOM’s impact on the African continent, with the full participation of members of U.S. and African civil society.

Join BAP for an anti-imperialist week of actions!

Banner photo: The 2014 summit table surrounded by the empty chair reserved for invited participants (courtesy DOS Flickr)

Black Alliance for Peace Stands in Solidarity with the People of Haiti and Haitian Migrants Against Racist Harassment and Mass Deportations in the Dominican Republic

The Haiti/Americas Team of the Black Alliance for Peace Stands in Solidarity with the People of Haiti and Haitian Migrants Against Racist Harassment and Mass Deportations in the Dominican Republic

In Support of the Day of Solidarity with Haiti and Haitian Migration in the Dominican Republic and Around the World

For Immediate Release     

Media Contact

communications@blackallianceforpeace.com

(202) 643-1136

NOVEMBER 30, 2022—Haitian people, Haitian-descended Dominicans, and Africans from other parts of the globe are being harassed, detained, and deported across the Dominican Republic. The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) stands in solidarity with Dominican and Haitian organizations in denouncing Dominican President Luis Abinader’s campaign of mass deportations under Decree 668-22. This decree enables the government to round up and deport people of Haitian descent who have been living in the Dominican Republic for years. Some sources say that this year alone nearly 20,000 people have been deported, including 1,800 children.

Decree 668-22 is just the latest in a series of racist, anti-Haitian orders, rulings, and actions that have scarred the history of the Dominican Republic. The most egregious example remains the 1937 Parsley Massacre, in which tens of thousands of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent were systematically killed. More recently, in 2013, under ruling 168-13, Dominican courts stripped over 200,000 Haitian-descended Dominicans of their citizenship, rendering them stateless and vulnerable to abuse and expulsion. Over the past few months, the Dominican Republic has been conducting mass deportations of Haitian people who had first arrived in the country after fleeing the instability and violence unleashed because of the deteriorating security situation in Haiti.

If the crisis in Haiti is a crisis of imperialism, the question of Haitian migration is clearly a direct result of the imperial crisis. The deportation, detention, abuse, and harassment of Haitians in the Dominican Republic—and, we must add, in the United States, Mexico, the Bahamas, and elsewhere—has structural and historical origins in the international community undermining Haiti’s sovereignty as well as brutally gutting its government and economy since 2004. Haiti has been under some form of Western foreign military occupation and control since that time, ruled by the Core Group (a body of Western countries) and administered by the United Nations through programs colloquially known as MINUSTAH and BINUH. Their policies have led to mass migration from Haiti and have further stoked the flames of anti-Haitian sentiment in the Dominican Republic as well as throughout the Americas. This “migration crisis” will not be resolved without the ability of the Haitian people to assert their sovereignty and decide their own fate without imperialist meddling.

BAP’s Haiti/Americas Team supports calls against the harassment and deportation of Haitians, Dominicans of Haitian descent, and all African peoples in the Dominican Republic, as well as action to end racist treatment and violence against Haitian people globally. The war on Haiti and Haitian people must be seen as part of a global war on African people. 

In recognition of this situation, BAP’s Haiti/Americas Team endorses the Day of Solidarity with Haiti and Haitian Migration in the Dominican Republic and Around the World [Dia de solidaridad con Haití y con la migración haitiana en República Dominicana y en el mundo], being observed today. In solidarity, we share the following statement by the Haitian-Dominican civic organization Reconocido Movement. The Spanish version of the statement follows below.

Stop the Racist Harassment! No More Deportations!

—

Visit Black Alliance for Peace’s Haiti page for additional resources on Haiti’s struggle against U.S./UN/OAS colonialism.

###

 Day of solidarity with Haiti and Haitian migration in the Dominican Republic and around the world

On November 11, the Abinader government of the Dominican Republic approved decree 668-22, which creates a specialized police unit to pursue and expel from the country immigrants living on state or private lands. Since then, persecution, evictions and massive deportations, as well as violence against Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent who have been living for decades in bateyes in the country's sugar cane zones have increased. Images of destroyed homes, police and citizen violence, denial of medical attention, and hate speech towards the Haitian origin population have escalated to alarming limits, in an ongoing nationalist campaign, that already totals more than 85,000 mass deportations so far this year.

In the Dominican Republic there is a danger of perpetrating an ethnic cleansing similar to that committed by the Trujillo dictatorship who orchestrated the Parsley Massacre in 1937 killing more than 15,000 people because of their origin and skin color. 

We condemn this policy of mass expulsions and violation of personal safety that affects Haitians and black people in the Dominican Republic and that is based on the ideology of racial and cultural supremacy of the State and the Dominican elite. 

IT IS TIME TO ACT! 

We call for a united voice against the racist state violence that the Dominican state systematically maintains against the most vulnerable population.

We call on the international community, Haitian and Dominican diasporas, churches, trade union, cultural and political organizations, and human rights organizations around the world to stand in solidarity with the Haitian people, with the situation of Haitian migrants and their families in the Dominican Republic and elsewhere in the world. 

Let us remember that the Dominican Republic is a country that is sustained by tourism. We show the world the reality in which many people live because of their origin and skin color outside its beaches and resorts.

#HaitianLivesMatter #RDRacistState #NoMoreDeportationsRD #UnityAgainstRacismRD #LasVidasHaitianasImportan

If you want to learn more about this conflict:

https://www.reconoci.do/rechazamos-el-decreto-668-22-y-las-deportaciones/

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Sd9n4twbaviefP8I6Y0U_9C1cFj8d6xr/view?usp=share_link

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UkskV4JlCNlWyZpMp1K5GWk4RMw72S-W/view?usp=share_link

In English:

https://www.latinorebels.com/2022/11/17/antihaitiandecree/

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/11/21/americas/dominican-republic-expels-haiti-children-intl-latam/index.html

https://www.blackagendareport.com/statement-and-petition-against-inhumane-deportation-haitian-migrants-dominican-republic”

—

Banner photo: Demonstrators protest in front of the presidential palace in Santo Domingo in May calling for the restoration of their Dominican nationality. (Courtesy of Amnesty International)

En español:

El equipo de Haití/Américas de la Alianza Negra por la Paz se solidariza con el pueblo de Haití y los migrantes haitianos contra el acoso racista y las deportaciones masivas en la República Dominicana.

 En Apoyo al Día de la Solidaridad con Haití y la Migración Haitiana en la República Dominicana y el Mundo

Para Publicación Inmediata

contacto con los medios de comunicación

communications@blackallianceforpeace.com

(202) 643-1136

30 de noviembre, 2022- El pueblo Haitiano, Dominicanos descendientes de haitianos, y Africanos de otras partes del mundo están siendo acosados, detenidos y deportados en toda República Dominicana, en lo último en una historia larga de racismo y tratamiento violento de Haitianos y Afro-Dominicanos del gobierno Dominicano. La Alianza Negra por la Paz (Black Alliance for Peace) se solidariza con las organizaciones dominicanas y haitianas denunciando la campaña de deportaciones masivas y el último decreto 668-22 del Presidente Abinader. Este último decreto permite específicamente que el gobierno redondee y deporte miles de personas descendientes de haitianos que han estado viviendo en la República Dominicano durante años. Desde el inicio del decreto el 11 de noviembre de este año, algunas fuentes dicen que casi 20,000 han sido deportados, incluyendo 1,800 niños y jóvenes.

 El Decreto 668-22 es solo lo último en una serie de órdenes, sentencias judiciales y acciones que han marcado la historia de la República Dominicana. El ejemplo más atroz sigue siendo la Masacre de Perejil de 1937, en la que decenas de miles de haitianos y dominicanos de ascendencia haitiana fueron asesinados sistemáticamente. Más recientemente, en el 2013, bajo el decreto 168-13, las cortes dominicanas despojaron más de 200.000 dominicanos descendientes de haitianos de su ciudadanía, dejándolos apátridas y vulnerables al abuso y la expulsión. En los últimos meses, la República Dominicana ha estado realizando deportaciones masivas de haitianos que llegaron por primera vez al país huyendo de la inestabilidad y la violencia desatada por el deterioro de la situación de seguridad en Haití. Si la crisis de Haití es una crisis del imperialismo, la cuestión de la migración haitiana es claramente un resultado directo de la crisis imperial.

La deportación, detención, abuso y acosamiento de haitianos en la República Dominicana –también, debemos agregar, en los Estados Unidos, México, las Bahamas y otros lugares– tiene como origen estructural e histórico el socavamiento de la comunidad internacional de la soberanía de Haití y el brutal desmantelamiento de su gobierno y economía desde 2004. Haití ha estado bajo alguna forma de ocupación y control militar extranjero occidental desde ese momento, gobernado por el Grupo CORE y administrado por las Naciones Unidas a través de MINUSTAH y BINUH. Sus políticas han llevado a la migración masiva desde Haití y avivado aún más las llamas del sentimiento anti-haitiano en la República Dominicana y en todo el continente americano. Esta “crisis migratoria” no se resolverá sin la capacidad del pueblo haitiano de hacer valer su soberanía y decidir su propio destino sin la intromisión imperialista.

El equipo Haití/Américas de la Alianza Negra por la Paz apoya los llamados contra el acoso y la deportación de haitianos, dominicanos de ascendencia haitiana y todos los pueblos africanos en la República Dominicana, así como la acción para poner fin al trato racista y la violencia contra el pueblo haitiano en todo el mundo. La guerra contra Haití y el pueblo haitiano debe verse como parte de una guerra global contra el pueblo africano.

En reconocimiento a esta situación, el Equipo de BAP Haití/Américas respalda el Día de Solidaridad con Haití y la Migración Haitiana en República Dominicana y el Mundo. En solidaridad compartimos el siguiente comunicado de la organización cívica Haitiano-Dominicana Movimiento Reconocido. 

¡Alto al acoso racista! ¡No más deportaciones!

Visita a la página web Haiti de la Alianza Negra por la Paz para recursos adicionales sobre la lucha haitiana contra el colonialismo de EEUU/ONU/OEA.

# # #

Desde nuestra organización queremos invitarte a ser parte de la campaña "Dia de solidaridad con Haití y con la migración haitiana en República Dominicana y en el mundo" dicha campaña busca llamar la atención internacional a la dramática situación de violencia y vulneración de derechos hacia las personas migrantes de origen haitiano y dominicanas de ascendencia haitiana en República Dominicana a raíz del último decreto presidencial que legitima y promueve las deportaciones masivas. Te invitamos a que te unas a esta campaña el día de hoy, miércoles 30 de noviembre durante todo el día. 

Para ser parte de la campaña haz lo siguiente:

1. Pon la imagen que te anexamos en tu perfil de instagran, facebook y twiter

2. Usa los siguientes hashtag: #RDEstadoRacista #NoMasDeportacionesRD #LasVidasHaitianasImportan #UnidadContraElRacismoRD

3. Etiqueta #Tourismrd para que el mundo vea la realidad en que viven muchas personas por fuera de sus playas y resorts

4.  Copia y pega el texto que te dejamos aquí en tus redes:

Dia de solidaridad con Haití y con la migración haitiana en República Dominicana y en el mundo

El 11 de noviembre el gobierno de Abinader de la República Dominicana aprobó el decreto 668-22, que crea una unidad especializada de la policía para perseguir y expulsar del país  a las personas inmigrantes que vivan en tierras estatales o privadas. Desde entonces la persecución, desalojo y deportaciones masivas, asi como la violencia hacia personas haitianas y dominicanas de ascendencia haitiana que viven desde hace décadas en bateyes de las zonas cañeras del país se ha incrementado. Las imágenes de viviendas destruidas, violencia policial y ciudadana, la denegación de atención médica, y los discursos de odio hacia la población de origen haitiano en el país han escalado a límites alarmantes en una campaña nacionalista en curso que ya suma más de 85 mil deportaciones masivas en lo que va de año.

En Rep. Dominicana existe el peligro de que se perpetre una limpieza étnica similar a la cometida por la dictadura de Trujillo quien orquestó la Masacre de Perejil en 1937 asesinando a más de 15,000 personas a causa de su origen y color de piel. 

Condenamos esta política de expulsiones masivas y de atropello a la seguridad personal que afecta a personas haitianas y a personas negras en República Dominicana y que está basada en la ideología de la supremacía racial y cultural del Estado y la élite dominicana. 

¡ES TIEMPO DE ACTUAR! 

Hacemos un llamado a unir la voz en contra de la violencia estatal racista que mantiene el estado dominicano de manera sistemática contra la población más vulnerable.

Llamamos a la comunidad internacional, a las diásporas haitianas y dominicanas, a las iglesias, a las organizaciones sindicales, culturales, políticas, a los organismos de derechos humanos de todo el mundo, a solidarizarse con el pueblo haitiano, con la situación de los migrantes haitianos y sus familias en República Dominicana y en otras partes del mundo. 

Recordemos que Rep. Dominicana es un país que se sustenta gracias al turismo. Le mostramos al mundo la realidad en que viven muchas personas por su origen y su color de piel por fuera de sus playas y resorts.

#LasVidasHaitianasImportan

#RDEstadoRacista

#NoMasDeportacionesRD

#UnidadContraElRacismoRD

Si quieres obtener más información sobre este conflicto:

https://www.reconoci.do/rechazamos-el-decreto-668-22-y-las-deportaciones/

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Sd9n4twbaviefP8I6Y0U_9C1cFj8d6xr/view?usp=share_link

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UkskV4JlCNlWyZpMp1K5GWk4RMw72S-W/view?usp=share_link

The Black Alliance for Peace Welcomes Delayed Security Council Vote on Western Invasion of Haiti

The Black Alliance for Peace Welcomes Delayed Security Council Vote on Western Invasion of Haiti

BAP's Explicit Call for Security Council Opposition Was Heard

For Immediate Release    

Media Contact

info@blackallianceforpeace.com

(202) 643-1136

October 18, 2022 — One day after the Black Alliance for Peace - and other individuals and groups from Haiti and the Haitian diaspora - requested that Russia and China oppose the Biden Administration's UN Security Council resolution providing cover for another Western invasion of Haiti, the Security Council delayed consideration of the vote. The delay is a critical pause on a reckless, poorly-thought out, and potentially disastrous intervention into Haiti. In response to the delay, BAP’s Haiti-Americas team stated:

“We welcome the decision by Chinese and Russian representatives to the security council to speak up against the U.S.-Mexico push for another foreign military invasion of Haiti. We must also note, with worry, that the call for a “Non-UN” armed force, with no oversight, to invade Haiti is extremely reckless, and demonstrates the contempt with which the west and its minions hold Haitian people. Haitian people do not want another U.S.-led foreign intervention; they want to assert their sovereignty and an end to imperialist meddling in their country.” 

As we stated in a release yesterday, we want to be clear: The crisis of Haiti is a crisis of imperialism. 

The crisis is a result of consistent manipulation and intervention by the US, the Core Group, and aligned Western powers–with Mexico, Canada, the Dominican Republic, and the CARICOM nations assuming prominent roles.  The supposed “humanitarian” invasion that they are planning is not designed to serve the Haitian people and support their demands for sovereignty over their own affairs, but to bolster the illegitimate, criminal puppet government that they themselves have installed.

The Black Alliance for Peace, in alignment with the wishes of the Haitian masses and their supporters, absolutely stands against any foreign armed intervention in Haiti. We continue to demand an end to the ceaseless meddling in Haitian affairs by the United States and its alliance of interventionists. We hope our colleagues in the region who support democracy and self-determination will also stand with Haiti, and work toward establishing the Americas as a Zone of Peace by rejecting imperialism in all its forms.

END

Banner photo: A protester taunts police officers during Jean-Jacques Dessalines Day in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, October 17, 2022 (courtesy AFP)

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

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

The Crisis of Haiti is a Crisis of Imperialism

For Immediate Release   

Media Contact

info@blackallianceforpeace.com

(202) 643-1136

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Haiti/Americas Team of the Black Alliance for Peace 

~END~

ARTICLES :

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

https://blackallianceforpeace.com/bapstatements/nooascallforhaitiintervention

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://blackallianceforpeace.com/bapstatements/whoruleshaiti

What is the Core Group?

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

What is the OAS?

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

Haiti: On Interventions and Occupations

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

The Empire’s Front Yard and the Monroe Doctrine

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

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

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

Borders, Blackness, and Empire

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

PROCLAMATION: LIBERTY OR DEATH, JEAN JACQUES DESSALINES, 1804

Editors, The Black Agenda Review

06 Oct 2021 

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

END—

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

No to Foreign Military Intervention In Haiti! Yes, to Haitian Self-Determination!

NO TO FOREIGN MILITARY INTERVENTION IN HAITI!

YES, TO HAITIAN SELF-DETERMINATION!

An Open Letter to the Representatives of the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation

The Black Alliance for Peace asks that the representatives of the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation vote against a United Nations-sanctioned military force to Haiti. The Haitian people view the presence of the United Nations Integrated Office (BINUH) as a foreign occupation that, since 2004, has suppressed Haiti’s independence and sovereignty. We call on your countries to respect Haitian sovereignty and to support the Haitian masses in their stand against the ongoing occupation of their country by foreign powers. 

We want to point out that the Haitian people have been engaged in nonviolent, nonstop protests for eight weeks. Despite the erroneous representation of these protests in Haiti as simply “gang violence,” the latest demonstrations are a direct result of two factors. First, they are a response to the everyday economic misery caused by rising inflation, especially through the staggering increase in the price of fuel. Second, they are part of a long history of demands for the end of foreign meddling in Haitian affairs, especially via the installation and maintenance of an unelected and illegitimate government by the Core Group, of which the United Nations is a part.  

Attempting to solve the current crisis in Haiti through the deployment of a foreign armed force to protect unelected and illegitimate Haitian “stakeholders” will only exacerbate the situation for regular Haitian people. 

We share with you the words of a coalition of Haitian grassroots organizations responding to the erroneous claims by UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterrez, that the protests in Haiti were only “gang violence:”  

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

Here is the Haitian people’s response to the recently passed IMF austerity measures on the country, measures which included the removal of fuel subsidies, tripling prices and raising inflation by 30%:

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

A brief historical contextualization is in order:

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

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

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

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

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

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

UN Occupation Increases Violence and Instability

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

The consequences of Foreign Meddling and Occupation

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

No to Occupation. Yes to Self-Determination.

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

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

We ask that you think with all seriousness about supporting this western-led military invasion of Haiti to attempt to solve a problem that western states themselves created. All nations should be able to chart their own destiny, not just some. You must know the history of the proud Haitian people whose Revolution changed the course of world history and material aid helped the liberation of the Americas from colonial rule and enslavement. Despite the continued affront to its self-determination, the people of Haiti will continue to fight for its liberation.

The Black Alliance for Peace, in alignment with the wishes of the Haitian masses and their supporters, absolutely stands against any foreign armed intervention in Haiti, and continues to demand an end to the unending meddling in Haitian affairs by the United States and Western powers. We hope that the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China will stand with the people of Haiti in its fight for liberation by voting NO on another military invasion to brutalize the long-suffering Haitian masses.

Signed,

The Black Alliance for Peace, Haiti/Americas Team

Banner photo: Armored UN military vehicles with armed soldier on board drives down middle of street in Haiti, with Haitian people watching. (courtesy UN News" - The United Nations)

BAP Rejects Calls for More Foreign Intervention in Haiti & Stands for Respecting Haitian Sovereignty and Self-Determination

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

For Immediate Release    

Media Contact

info@blackallianceforpeace.com

(202) 643-1136

OCTOBER 7, 2022 — The Haitian people have been protesting for months against ongoing foreign occupation and U.S. support for a corrupt government that was not elected by a popular vote or mandate. In the last weeks, popular protests and uprisings have intensified, but the U.S. and its allies have responded by claiming all the disruption in the country amounts to “gang violence” that needs to be quelled with increased foreign intervention, on top of the ongoing BINUH occupation. In addition to the ongoing UN occupation, nine thousand Dominican soldiers are stationed on the border with Haiti and videos have recently surfaced of Dominican military forces entering Haitian territory. Given the Dominican Republic’s history of anti-Haitian sentiment and violence, this is particularly concerning.

Responding to these circumstances, on September 30, The Black Alliance for Peace delivered an open letter to CARICOM (the Caribbean Community), urging the 11-nation group to support Haitian sovereignty and oppose further calls for foreign intervention. BAP reminded the leaders of CARICOM that the situation in Haiti could not be reduced to a sensationalist assertion that so-called gangs were behind the popular uprisings on the island:

"...the latest demonstrations are a direct result of two factors. First, they are a response to the everyday economic misery caused by rising inflation, especially through the staggering increase in the price of fuel. Second, they are part of a long history of demands for the end of foreign meddling in Haitian affairs, especially via the installation and maintenance of an unelected and illegitimate government by the Core Group, of which the United Nations is a part."

BAP member Netfa Freeman delivering open letter to CARICOM to the Embassy of the Republic of Suriname

BAP member Rebecca Bonhomme delivering open letter to CARICOM to the embassy of Antigua and Barbuda

BAP urges popular mobilization against continued U.S. intervention in Haiti and in support of Haitian sovereignty. This Sunday, October 9 at 4pm EST in Washington, DC, leaders from 87+ Haitian-American, faith, and human rights organizations will convene at Black Lives Matter Plaza and march to the White House “to demand the Biden Administration stop propping up a corrupt regime that has plunged Haiti into chaos, and to let Haitians decide their own future, including creating a legitimate Haitian-led transition back to democracy and security”. We encourage all who can to show up and support the Haitian people to decide their own future.

The Black Alliance for Peace has been consistent. The crisis of Haitian democracy is the result of the colonialist interventions of the U.S. and other Western powers. As we said in our communication with CARICOM: 

"BAP absolutely stands against any foreign armed intervention in Haiti, and continues to demand an end to the unending meddling in Haitian affairs by the United States and Western powers. We call for the dissolution of the imperialist Core Group, an end to Western support for the unelected and unaccountable puppet government of Ariel Henry, and for the respect of Haitian sovereignty."

We say No to Occupation. Yes to Self-Determination.

Banner photo: Canada Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly, U.S. Sec of State Anthony Blinken, and OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro in a meeting regarding Haiti. (courtesy of @Almagro_OEA2015 on Twitter)

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

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

Dear Dr. Barnett: 

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

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

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

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

A brief historical contextualization is in order:

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

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

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

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

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

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

UN Occupation Increases Violence and Instability

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

The consequences of Foreign Meddling and Occupation

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

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

No to Occupation. Yes to Self-Determination.

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

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

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

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

Signed,

The Black Alliance for Peace, Haiti/Americas Team

#####

END

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