For 20 years now, ever since the US-backed coup d’etat in 2004 against the democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti has been under US/ UN occupation, an occupation that has perpetrated gross human rights abuses including rape and other forms of sexual abuse, an occupation that has brought cholera to Haiti and that has systematically destroyed Haiti’s institutions while increasing hunger and misery.
We join with Haiti’s popular movement to strongly condemn the call for an expanded foreign military occupation of Haiti. Turning to the UN Security Council, the OAS, and the US government to “stabilize” the crisis in Haiti today is akin to pleading with the arsonists to quell the fire they have unleashed.
Courageously facing police and paramilitary attacks, the population of Haiti has taken to the streets in ever-growing numbers, demanding their basic human rights and democracy, along with an end to corruption and to the plunder of public resources. They demand an end to US/UN occupation. They are demanding an end to IMF-imposed austerity, soaring prices of basic necessities, and declining real wages. Instead, they are demanding that their tax money be invested in education, healthcare, sanitation, clean drinking water, and support for Haiti’s peasant farmers who have been the backbone of local food production.
Moreover, the people are demanding an end to the terror inflicted by the Haitian National Police and paramilitaries, including the G-9 death squad led by ex-police officer Jimmy Cherizier, working with the PHTK regime. They are demanding an end to the proliferation of kidnappings, rape, police killings, and massacres throughout the country, such as the horrific Lasalin massacre. The people are protesting the atrocious conditions in Haiti’s prisons and the skyrocketing rate of prisoner deaths due to starvation, overcrowding, medical neglect and other abuses. All of these injustices have been occurring with total impunity, under the authority of the US/UN occupation.
The US government’s financing of the repressive Haitian National Police (HNP), which has escalated its attacks against unarmed protestors, has been extensive, increasing in correlation with the police’s documented collaboration with paramilitary death squads. As noted recently, from “2010 to 2020, Washington pumped in $312 million for weapons and training. In 2021, the White House and State Department sent a combined $20 million. In July 2022, the State Department bolstered the SWAT training program with a $48 million package.” All the while, HNP police killings of unarmed Haitians have continued with impunity.
Neither the major, international human rights organizations nor the UN Human Rights Commission are keeping track of the thousands of unarmed Haitians who have been killed and are being killed by the US-imposed PHTK regime’s police and paramilitary affiliates over the last 5 years. This past July alone, more than 500 people were killed in the impoverished neighborhood of Cite Soleil in Port-au-Prince. In a rare development, the US corporate media acknowledged this most recent killing spree, but attributed it to “gang violence” fitting the convenient racist narrative about Haitians in particular and people of African descent in general.
We join our partners at Haiti Action Committee and denounce the the UN, OAS, the US government, and the Core Group of claiming the role of guardians of the people of Haiti while they fan the flames of repression and violence.
We call upon people to condemn all foreign intervention in Haiti and to stand in solidarity with the Haitian popular movement in this vital moment.
All readers are encouraged to voice opposition to the US/ UN invasion and occupation of Haiti by doing the following:
Contact the office of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at ph: (212) 963-7160
Contact Your House Representative in Congress
Contact Your Senator in Congress
Contact the White House at ph: (202)-456-1111
Tell US officials in particular to:
+ Oppose US-financing/training of the Haitian National Police!
+ Stop US support for the Ariel Henry dictatorship!
+ Stop the Deportations of all Haitians!
Support Haiti’s Popular Movement with a donation to the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund.
To learn more about upcoming actions you can take to support democracy in Haiti please visit www.haitisolidarity.net.
