“The poorest country in the hemisphere, a failed state, controlled by violent gangs.”
That is what we hear about Haiti in the news today—that is, when we hear about Haiti at all.

Long-time Global Exchange Board Member, Pierre LaBoissiere, is the co-founder of the Haiti Action Committee and the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund. In this interview, he responds to persistent and erroneous notions about Haiti and turns assumptions about the need for foreign intervention on their head. He calls for increased communication and solidarity with Haiti’s grassroots movements.

How is it possible that Haiti—a country rich in natural resources, including oil, bauxite, silver, gold, iridium, and beautiful Caribbean beaches—is considered the poorest country in the world?

Haiti’s “poverty” is rooted in a history of racist repression that continues today. Haiti’s troubles started in 1492 when Christopher Columbus landed on Ayiti, “the land of high mountains,” the island Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic today.

Spanish colonists first decimated the Indigenous Taino people and then quickly imported kidnapped and enslaved Africans to work their gold mines and sugar plantations. Then came the French, who, in 1697, took over the western part of the newly named Hispaniola Island (where Haiti is today). With the labor of one-third of all kidnapped and enslaved Africans of that era, the French turned Haiti into their richest colony, cultivating half of all the sugar and coffee consumed in Europe. Enslaved people produced all that wealth but did not share in it.

When France’s dispossessed rebelled against the aristocracy in 1789, it is little wonder that the enslaved masses in Haiti also rebelled and organized their own revolution that swept the French from the island. But when Haiti fought against slavery and won its independence from France, it then faced French sanctions that isolated the country economically until it agreed that its population, which had just emancipated itself from slavery, would pay “reparations” to compensate France for its loss of “assets.” During the next 122 years, Haitians were forced to pay an “Independence Tax,” totaling tens of billions in today’s dollars, while local elites with connections to colonial powers consolidated their grip on Haiti.

But Haiti is not only missing what was stolen then; the theft continues today. In the 1990s, the Lavalas movement came to power, and people’s movements around the country demanded long-overdue land redistribution. They fought to redirect their tax payments toward social development, like schools and healthcare. During the Lavalas government, rich people in the business sector were taxed—fairly but like never before—to pay for literacy programs, rural health clinics, and clean water projects.

The U.S. found Aristide and the Lavalas movement (which translates to “an unstoppable flood of water”) to be too much and removed him from office in a coup d’etat in 2004. After that, the U.S., France, and Canada supported one repressive regime after another, and the country remained poor.

We hear about a gang takeover, but you say we should call them death squads or paramilitary groups?

We call them death squads because of how they are organized and operate. Criminal gangs tend to go after individuals with resources or each other for turf, or they shake people down. They don’t move through an area systematically in its entirety—firing into people’s homes, invading homes of people who are disabled or elderly. There was an 82-year-old grandma who was thrown off a balcony and dragged through the street. What would the gangs get out of that?

The most well-known leader, Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, was a former elite police officer who uses his connections to protect other members. Even with warrants for gang members’ arrest, they have received police escorts and have even worked together with the police to “provide protection for a fee.” When you see this collusion between the police and these organized structures, you have to assume that it is organized at the highest level. They target particular neighborhoods, especially those known to support Lavalas or where people have demonstrated against the government. The gangs have declared they will not allow any kind of demonstrations in those areas. They shoot and kill demonstrators. Neither “Barbecue” nor “Izo,” the other major leader, has grassroots support to establish a government, but having a lot of guns can get you a fair amount of cooperation.

Haiti doesn’t manufacture weapons; how are they getting into the hands of these death squads?

According to a United Nations report, the weapons are coming in from South Florida. Some are purchased from straw buyers or from states with lax gun laws. The weapons are coming in containers through various ports of entry. They even brag about the weapons and show off brand-new ones direct from the factory, still in their wrappings.

In July 2022, the hierarchy of the Episcopal Church was caught red-handed when authorities in Haiti seized a haul of 17 semi-automatic weapons, a 12-gauge shotgun, four pistols, and 15,000 rounds of ammunition stuffed in a shipment from Florida bound for a Haitian Episcopal Church. Several high-ranking church members were imprisoned because of this scandal.

Who benefits from all this killing and chaos?

I translated a document revealing that some candidates for parliamentary office have been courted by foreign enterprises interested in Haiti’s mineral wealth. They would help finance electoral campaigns in exchange for votes approving projects giving access to the country’s mineral resources, specifically gypsum, oil, gold, and bauxite/aluminum.

Several of these areas are now controlled by gangs. Haitian grassroots organizations feel this is part of a larger plan that does not include the well-being of the people but destabilizes communities, forcing residents to leave. The people’s movement has mobilized against the push by the “international community” to impose changes in the Haitian Constitution, allowing full multinational access to Haiti’s minerals, including uranium and iridium. In the opinion of many, the gangs are guarding these areas for powerful economic interests. Many Haitians view the policies of post-coup governments to encourage mass legal migration as part of a plan to depopulate coastal Port-au-Prince neighborhoods and turn them into tourist resorts.

What will be helpful? Why doesn’t the people’s movement want foreign intervention?

The problem with foreign intervention is that foreigners only work with the Haitian elite, the business class, which doesn’t benefit ordinary people. The Haitian people remember the cholera epidemic brought by the last UN intervention. They remember the massacres, the sexual violence, and the commitment of foreign forces to keep corrupt governments in power. Many believe the uptick in violence was created to justify foreign intervention.

What is Lavalas proposing as a solution?

Lavalas has been presenting plans since 2018 to resolve the crisis. They have called for the resignation of the current leadership and the formation of a new government by a coalition representing various sectors of society. This coalition would select honest, competent individuals to form a government of public safety, called a Sali Piblik, focused on restoring the functionality of ministries such as justice/security, health, education, environment, and agriculture, and eliminating corruption. The Haitian police have enough equipment and enough honest officers to fight the death squads if they aren’t sabotaged by corrupt leaders and smuggled U.S. weapons of war.

Learn more at haitisolidarity.net.

STAND WITH THE PEOPLE OF HAITI! NOT ANOTHER INVASION!
JOIN US TO DEMONSTRATE
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 10th
SAN FRANCISCO FEDERAL BUILDING 7TH AND MISSION4:00 PM

Message from our friends at the Haiti Action Committee:

Haiti Action Committee condemns in the strongest possible terms the UN Security Council vote on Monday to authorize yet another invasion of Haiti. Organized and promoted by the US, the invasion will be fronted by Kenya, which has pledged to send 1000 police. The Kenyan police force is notorious for its corruption and brutality, including the recent killing of over 30 people in a peaceful demonstration over increased fuel prices. Soon, this police force – along with other foreign troops – will be murdering Haitians.

The authorization comes despite overwhelming opposition from multiple sectors of Haitian society, who have demanded instead the removal of the current regime of unelected and illegitimate Prime Minister Ariel Henry and the installation of a broadly representative transitional government. While the US characterizes this new intervention as an attempt to stop “gang violence,” the real aim is to prop up the current dictatorship and to fend off the broad-based efforts within Haiti to oust it.

This is why Henry, the neoliberal puppet of the US and the Core Group of foreign occupiers, has called for foreign troops and why Kenyan soldiers are preparing an invasion. Faced with collapsing infrastructure, the spectre of famine looming over half the population, a new cholera outbreak, and a defunded health care system, Haitians now fear that the militarized national police and their armed proxies, the paramilitary “gangs” who have been terrorizing dissident communities, will be buttressed by more foreign tanks and troops, to further oppress the civilian population.

We remember the democratically elected governments of Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the Lavalas movement that were twice overthrown by US-supported coups d’etat. Had it not been for the coups, “Today, many of the beautiful dreams of the Haitian people would have already materialized,” a recent Fanmi Lavalas statement declared. “The anti-democratic forces have produced a hell on earth: kidnapping, insecurity, misery, hunger, corruption”—a failure that now requires a new occupying army to sustain it.

THIS IS WHY WE OPPOSE A NEW FOREIGN INVASION AND EXPRESS OUR OUTRAGE AT THE US GOVERNMENT’S POLICY

 

Yesterday the internet flooded with horrific images of border patrol agents on horseback violently capturing Haitian migrants who were trying to re-enter a migrant camp in Texas, on the banks of the Rio Grande, after they had crossed back into Mexico in order to get food.  Border patrol agents using lariats to whip and detain, were recorded yelling “This is why your country’s shit.” 

This is our taxpayer dollars at work. But we don’t want to pay for inhumane and racist deportation policies. It has got to change.

Global Exchange joins our allies at the Haiti Action Committee in denouncing the inhumane and racist deportation of Haitian refugees from the US-Mexico border, where thousands of people are living in terrible, even deadly, conditions, and are being systematically deported by the Biden Administration. This is a crime.

Contact the White House Comment line at: (202) 456-1111.

United States’ policies have helped create the failed economic and political conditions in Haiti that are forcing tens of thousands to flee. Haiti’s descent into terrifying chaos began after the U.S. assisted a 2004 coup that ousted democratically elected  president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. A disastrous post-coup occupation by United Nations forces undermined the economy and was even linked to the rapid spread of cholera and a deadly epidemic.

Now, the United States government, which bears much underlying responsibility for Haiti’s crisis, is returning planeload after planeload of asylum seekers — without even a hearing.

Haiti, recently hit by a major earthquake, does not have the capacity to absorb large numbers of returnees, yet the Biden Administration continues to deport thousands of people without regard to due process or consideration of the dangers that they may face upon return.

We urge you to act. Call the White House today and demand an end to the deportations. White House Comment line: (202) 456-1111.

Week of Solidarity with Haiti
Social Media Actions

From Dec 10th-16th, we will raise our voices in solidarity on social media and demand an end to US support for the illegitimate Jovenel Moise dictatorship in Haiti.

How to Participate

Join the Twitterstorm and Tweet one of the following throughout the week of December 10 -16: 

End US support For Dictatorship in Haiti! #StandwithHaiti #SolidaritywithHaiti #SupportDemocracyinHaiti

US! Stop Funding Police Terror – Stop Massacres in Haiti! @RepGregoryMeeks #StandwithHaiti  #SolidaritywithHaiti #SupportDemocracyinHaiti 

US! Stop Funding Dictators – Stop Massacres in Haiti! #StandwithHaiti #SolidaritywithHaiti  #SupportDemocracyinHaiti

UN! Stop Supporting the G-9 Death Squad – Stop Massacres in Haiti! @antonioguterres #StandwithHaiti #SolidaritywithHaiti  #SupportDemocracyinHaiti

Share a Selfie photo on Facebook, Instagram and/or Twitter in Solidarity with the People of Haiti

Join us and make a sign, grab some of your friends, co-workers, or family and show some solidarity with the people of Haiti and their struggle for a democratic future. (Or do one of just you, that is fine too!) 

We have heard from our friends in Haiti who’ve spent their days in the streets facing teargas and beatings how much it means to see the faces of people standing with them all around the world.  

STEP 1: WRITE YOUR OWN SIGN!
Example: “Stand With Haiti” or “Stop Massacres in Haiti”
STEP 2: TAKE A SELFIE!
STEP 3: SHARE ON SOCIAL MEDIA. Post your solidarity selfie on Instagram, Facebook, and/or Twitter with the hashtags #StandwithHaiti #SolidaritywithHaiti #SupportDemocracyinHaiti
STEP 4: Send a copy to Haiti Action Committee action.haiti@gmail.com so we can be sure to forward the photo to our friends in Haiti!

Support Haiti’s Campaign for Dignity! Help Build UNIFA’s New Teaching Hospital

Mildred Trouillot Aristide, former First Lady of Haiti, is an attorney, author and a member of the Board of Administration of the Université de la Fondation Dr. Aristide (UNIFA). Mrs. Aristide will discuss the current health crisis in Haiti, including the impact of COVID-19, and will report on the remarkable work of UNIFA. Since reopening in 2011, UNIFA has graduated 230 new doctors, 78 new nurses, 8 physiotherapists and 30 lawyers, providing young people in Haiti with the skills and knowledge to lead their country forward. Now UNIFA is launching its most ambitious project to date, a Campaign For Dignity to construct a new medical center and teaching hospital.

Also presenting:
Danny Glover – Actor and activist; has visited Haiti numerous times and has been a steadfast supporter of the work of UNIFA.

Congresswoman Maxine Waters

Laura Flynn – Author and educator who lived in Haiti from 1994-2000. Ms. Flynn remains deeply involved in Haiti’s struggle for democracy and human dignity. She now works as the Minnesota State Advisor for the Movement Voter Project.

Henri Ford, MD, MHA – Dean and Chief Academic Officer of the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine. A Haitian-born pediatric surgeon, Dr. Ford returns regularly to Haiti to provide medical care.

Ira Kurzban – Civil rights and immigration attorney who has spent decades fighting for the rights of immigrants and refugees, including those from Haiti. Mr. Kurzban was counsel for the Government of Haiti from 1991–2004.

K’Ronna Harmon – Umoja Scholar, president of the Black Student Union at Foothill College and a member of Students for Haiti Solidarity.

Learn more  and make a donation at www.haitiemergencyrelief.org

 

On March 19, 2020, shortly after international institutions made known that millions of dollars would be available to impoverished countries with COVID-19 cases, Haitian authorities finally addressed the coronavirus pandemic by declaring that there were two cases in the country.

People in Haiti were outraged by the silence and inaction of the authorities as news spread of preventative measures being implemented in the neighboring Dominican Republic and other countries. Since the initial declaration, the number of cases in Haiti has remained in doubt, with grassroots health workers and activists distrusting any government figures and demanding action to prevent a catastrophic spike in infections and deaths.

The government of the U.S.-imposed Haitian president Jovenel Moise, together with the U.S.-led Core Group consortium of foreign governments ruling UN-occupied Haiti, have been oblivious to the need to prepare the nation for the COVID-19 calamity. In a video message widely circulated on social media and broadcast on Radio Tele Timoun (Youth RadioTV), a Haitian medical student trained in Cuba charged that the necessary mobilization of hundreds of young trained health care professionals is not taking place. Photos and videos showing dirty rooms, filthy beds and rat-infested trash in the two largest public hospitals in Port-au-Prince have added to people’s outrage.

Summing up the sentiments of the general public, a woman trader in an open-air market commented that, “The authorities care only about lining their pockets…”, “They will not do anything for us; the choice I have is to die of the corona virus or starvation; dying by the corona virus will take me out of this misery…”

A raging discontent with the deepening misery is at the core of the nation-wide grassroots movement. On-going peaceful protests against corruption have been met with brutal repression, long detentions in filthy overcrowded prisons and killings by a deadly security apparatus. These forces, consisting of the UN-trained police, the restored Haitian military and paramilitary groups, have also been responsible for massacres in the impoverished neighborhoods of Granravin, Site Vensan and Lasalin among others.

The coronavirus pandemic has shone a spotlight on the deteriorating living conditions in Haiti. The ever-present crisis in the healthcare system is experienced by women laying on the bare floor of non-equipped maternity wards, and by men and children with various ailments unable to get care. According to recent studies, only about 30 percent of the population has direct access to potable water. In this situation, how are people going to wash their hands frequently? The lack of basic sanitation services, including trash and waste removal in densely populated cities, is exacerbating the crisis. The slashed health care budget has resulted in decreased services and closing of a number of health care centers and hospitals. There are now only around 124 intensive care unit beds and less than 100 ventilators for a population of about 11 million.

Medical professionals are bringing these conditions to light, frequently protesting to demand personal protective gear and basic medical equipment and to address the unsanitary conditions in a number of institutions in the country. Sanitation workers, teachers, students, farmers, market vendors and even members of the police who are facing similar working conditions have protested and gone on strike.

While many healthcare workers go unpaid, public funds continue to be lavishly squandered on bogus multi-million dollar projects and the ostentatious lifestyle of government officials and foreign Core Group consultants. Reports of misappropriation and theft include about $4.2 billion stolen from oil sales as part of the Venezuela PetroCaribe program.

Haitians can see through the lies broadcast by those that rule the country. They know that the vast majority of the money raised around the world after the devastating 2010 earthquake, estimated at $11 billion, never reached them. They know that the United Nations denied its responsibility for the cholera epidemic and, after finally admitting culpability, has refused to pay reparations for the over 15,000 Haitians who have died. They have no faith in a government that has stolen elections and then ramped up repression even as the coronavirus has begun its deadly march.

The struggle against the coronavirus is a world-wide fight. It demands that we stand in solidarity with each other, across all borders. Despite the lack of coverage, the people of Haiti are confronting a dual crisis. Their struggle against a corrupt and repressive system and now COVID-19 demands strong advocacy and support. It is essential that we see their struggle as our own.

Written by Pierre Labossiere,  co-founder of the Haiti Action Committee and a Global Exchange board member.

 

Summer is almost here, but it’s not too late to sign-up for the trip of a lifetime! There’s no need to shelve that tour you wanted to take but never got around to planning.

We have three life-changing Reality Tours planned for June and July, and we have space for you.

Learn about the Indigenous rights movement in Chiapas, Mexico. Experience the beautiful highlands and Amazon of Ecuador, while meeting with local communities working for social and environmental justice. Learn about the newest wave of popular struggle in Haiti, as hundreds of thousands of Haitians put their lives on the line to build an inclusive, equitable, just, and sustainable Haiti.

This summer, see the world, meet the people, learn the facts, make a difference!

We hope you’ll join us!

Chiapas: Indigenous Rights & Environmental Justice

July 1 – 9, 2019

Travel to Chiapas to learn about one of the most successful Indigenous rights movements in the Americas – the Zapatista uprising and its ongoing struggle for Indigenous autonomy. From a base in the colonial town of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, we will travel to surrounding communities to speak with indigenous leaders, artists, educators, and students. This delegation will also include a focus on the ways in which Mexico’s criminal justice system disadvantages Indigenous women and the collectives fighting back; on new and intensified environmental assaults; and on U.S. bound migration from Central America through Chiapas.

Ecuador: Social and Environmental Justice from the Andes to the Amazon

July 12 – 20, 2019

Travel to the Ecuadorian highlands and the Amazon basin for a deep-dive into grassroots, Indigenous, and women-led efforts to resist the exploitative toxic practices of extractive industries. You will be introduced to some of the most successful local and international efforts to bring environmental and social justice to the Andes and the Amazon while enjoying Ecuador’s rich biodiversity and cultural traditions.

Haiti’s Popular Uprising: A Call for International Solidarity

June 2 – 11, 2019

Hundreds of thousands of Haitians have taken to the streets in mass mobilizations demanding accountability from Haiti’s political class accused of squandering billions of dollars in proceeds from Venezuela’s discounted PetroCaribe oil program. Chanting “we are hungry, we can’t take it anymore,” protesters are demanding that the thoroughly corrupt and fraudulently elected president, Jovenel Moise, resign immediately. Their demands have been met with vicious repression. It is an urgent moment for international solidarity to break the silence around Haiti. Join us on this timely trip where we will meet with a range of local Haitian citizens and organizations stepping up against tremendous adversity to build an inclusive, equitable, just, and sustainable Haiti.

Hundreds of thousands of Haitians have taken to the streets in mass mobilizations demanding accountability from Haiti’s political class accused of squandering billions of dollars in proceeds from Venezuela’s discounted PetroCaribe oil program.

Chanting “we are hungry, we can’t take it anymore,” protesters are demanding that the thoroughly corrupt and fraudulently elected president, Jovenel Moise, resign immediately.

Their demands have been met with vicious repression. It is an urgent moment for international solidarity to break the silence around Haiti.

View our  webinar – A People’s Uprising and Demand for Democracy in Haiti to hear from activists and experts on the frontlines of this struggle:

Maud Jean-Michel is prominent Haitian organizer in the Haitian Community. She is an analyst and powerful speaker who has hosted radio talk shows since 1992. She currently hosts a popular educational program, “Sewom Patriyotik”, heard every Sunday on “Radio Timoun (Youth Radio)” .

Kevin Pina is a country expert for Haiti with the Varieties of Democracy Project, a joint academic project of the Universities of Notre Dame and Gothenburg in Sweden. He is founding editor of the Haiti Information Project and the producer of two documentaries on Haiti.

Robert Roth is a longtime activist and co-founder of the Haiti Action Committee. He has been a history teacher in the San Francisco Unified School District for the past 30 years.

Pierre Labossiere is a community activist, member of the board of directors of Global Exchange and a co-founder of the Haiti Action Committee.

Moderated by Isabella Bellezza.

by Seghel Yohannes

I did not know what to expect when I went to Haiti through Global Exchange. Like the majority of other developing nations, the primary U.S. news coverage in Haiti focused on the country’s poverty and devastation due to natural disasters. Haiti was on everyone’s radar in January 2010, the month of its devastating 7.0 earthquake. Multiple western nations, including the United States, pledged millions of dollars in aid toward Haiti. The media response was swift and hopeful, and dozens of high-profile celebrities took advantage of the limelight. Actors and politicians went to Haiti to build houses while camera crews followed them around.

Nearly six years later, Haiti has virtually vanished from U.S. media. I would go so far as to wager a guess that the majority of Americans don’t know that Haiti is currently in the midst of a heated presidential election, which has been rescheduled several times. Haitians have been waiting with bated breath for this moment for years. The current president, Michel Martelly, has been in power since 2011. Haitians have been extremely dissatisfied with his tenure, and he has had several allegations of corruption against him.

Soulouque, myself, and Réa overlooking Haiti

Soulouque, myself, and Réa overlooking Haiti

Even less likely to be known is that Haiti has been facing an ongoing cholera outbreak since approximately October 2010, considered one of the worst cholera outbreaks in recent history. Foreign aid workers mostly likely caused this outbreak. MINUSTAH, the acronym of the French translation for the United Nations Mission in Haiti, sent peacekeepers to Haiti in October 2010. The waste from their encampment was transferred to an open area where children and animals had access to it. Shortly after aid workers set up their camp, hospitals in the same region were faced with an increase in deaths from diarrhea and dehydration, symptoms frequently associated with cholera. The UN does not acknowledge responsibility for causing the cholera epidemic in Haiti.

So where did that leave Haiti in March 2015? During my incredible stay there, I met some of the most passionate, driven, independent individuals I have ever known. The most incredible of whom was Madame Réa Dol, a Haitian mother and teacher in her early 50s. For most of her life, she’s facilitated community-driven partnerships with the goals of education reform, medical treatment and prevention programs, and microfinance initiatives. She introduced us to activists, parents, and teenagers who were all fiercely invested in the future of Haiti and were building support systems for themselves and their families through education, innovation, and technology.

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A Fearless motorcyclist riding down a typical hilly mountainside

One example of innovation in Haiti is SOPUDEP (Society of Providence United for the Economic Development of Petion-Ville). SOPUDEP is a Haitian-founded and run grassroots organization located in Port-au-Prince. The organization’s Founder and Director is Réa. SOPUDEP’s focus is on providing accessible education to adults and children, supporting children’s and women’s rights, and creating programs of economic empowerment for members of their community. SOPUDEP also works closely with other local organizations to help them achieve these same goals in other communities that face economic and social challenges.

Another example of innovation in education is MOJUB, a literacy circle and community development organization established and run by women in an impoverished neighborhood of the city. MOJUB runs a school for the community, an Internet center (established through international support), and a microcredit program to help women launch income-generating activities.

During my 10-day trip in Port-au-Prince, the gorgeous and bustling capital of Haiti, I was lucky enough to travel with Réa and stay in her home with her family and 25 other American tourists. She built a hostel attachment to her home that travelers can rent out. In addition to her family, her staff and their children also live on her compound.

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Delicious beef, rice, beans, vegetables, and salad with amazing local avocados.

I had the heady and breathtaking experience of bearing witness to Réa’s daily life. Her cell phone rang every ten minutes. It seemed as though everyone in Port-au-Prince knew Réa. From finding foster-care placements to helping students at her school afford uniforms, Réa knew everything there was to know. After dinner at Réa’s home, I would hang out with Réa’s son, a budding business guru, the daughter of one of Réa’s drivers, a sweet nursing student solidly focused on her future, and Réa’s adopted 9-year old son, who was fluent in Haitian Creole and Spanish and could easily understand conversational French and English. This little boy was an exacting language teacher, and I credit him for teaching me proper pronunciation when speaking Haitian Creole.

As an American in Haiti, I felt incredibly aware and self-conscious of my ignorance. I speak conversational French and mistakenly assumed that I would be well equipped to communicate with those around me. While French is technically one of the official languages of Haiti, roughly 40% of the population speaks the language.  The official language of Creole is primarily spoken in Haiti and is an essential component of wide communication. Haitian Creole is a mix of French, Spanish, Portugese, Taíno, and West African languages, and I had so much fun learning it. Going around with my little journal and scribbling down phrases, I found it was easy to ask those around me for help learning. That was just the beginning. I have so much more to learn and can’t wait to go back. I have so many friends I can’t wait to visit!

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The following piece was written by Global Exchange member Charlie Hinton and originally appeared on SF Bay View.

The Feb. 29, 2004, kidnapping and coup d’état began a brutal ongoing U.S.-U.N. occupation that aimed to suppress Haiti’s people’s movement and roll back the hard-won democratic gains since the ouster of Baby Doc Duvalier in 1986.

Haiti Protestor

Demonstrator in Haiti on March 8, 2004, defiantly faces the deadly assault rifle of a U.S. soldier in an armored personnel carrier during a protest of the Feb. 29 kidnapping and coup d’état and ensuing occupation. His raised hands, five fingers outstretched, symbolize the five-year term mandated by the Haitian constitution that President Aristide was not allowed to complete. Many were killed by the occupation forces from Feb. 29 through March and April 2004 and to the present, including a Spanish journalist, Ricardo Ortega. – Photo: Kevin Pina, Haiti Information Project

The elimination of the traditional repressive and coup-fomenting Haitian military during the democratic period in 1995, one of the most popular actions of Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s presidency, forced the direct and overt involvement of U.S., French and Canadian troops in the destruction of Haiti’s democracy. Soldiers from other nations, including Ecuador and Brazil, later joined this occupation army, named MINUSTAH, which currently numbers 9,357 uniformed personnel.

In July 2012, the illegitimately (s)elected president of Haiti, Michel Martelly, signed a cooperation agreement with Ecuador to train a new Haitian army. Later that month Brazil’s Defense Ministry confirmed it is prepared also to help Haiti restore its army. Martelly, who became president in a vote in which fewer than 20 percent of eligible Haitians participated, has made the reconstitution of the hated Haitian army one of his campaign commitments. The Haitian majority bitterly opposes a new army, because historically the army has been used as a tool of internal repression. As with MINUSTAH, many fear a new army will be used primarily to suppress the grassroots movement for democracy.

According to Jeb Sprague in “Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti,” the history of Ecuador training Haiti’s military personnel goes back to the period of the first coup against President Aristide from 1991 to 1994, when a number of Haitian Armed Forces cadets from wealthy backgrounds trained in Ecuador. Upon their return, they were first integrated into presidential palace security, then transferred into important positions in the police. They became known as “The Ecuadorians” and “quickly gained a reputation for brutal tactics.” Included in this group was coup plotter Guy Philippe.

Since the United States traditionally maintained its influence in Haiti through the Army, control of the police became increasingly important with the army disbanded. In 1999, the director of the U.S. Justice Department’s ICITAP (International Criminal Investigation Training Assistance Program) – which was in charge of choosing and training members of the newly-formed PNH (Haitian National Police) – was fired for protesting the recruitment of PNH trainees by the CIA. During the presidency of Rene Preval from 1996 to 2000, Preval’s security chief, Bob Manuel, who was close to the U.S., began to stack the leadership of the Haitian police with “The Ecuadorians.” They became involved in ongoing coup plotting after President Aristide won his second term in 2000.

After a planned coup attempt failed in 2000, several plotters from inside the police escaped to the Dominican Republic. Haitian Foreign Minister Fritz Longchamp requested their extradition, but Dominican authorities refused to hand them over, then announced they had been “‘given asylum in Ecuador,’ a destination likely facilitated by U.S. officials who had helped train the Haitian military and were now operating an air base in the Ecuadorian port city of Manta.” By early 2001 they were back in the DR, along with other former members of the disbanded Haitian army, including death squad leader Louis Jodel Chamblain, getting tactical advice and “plotting new attacks against the Lavalas government and its supporters.”

Many of these same plotters participated in the paramilitary insurgency that led to the U.S. coup d’état and kidnapping of Aristide on Feb. 29, 2004, the date the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1529 authorizing the Multinational Interim Force (MIF) of U.S., French and Canadian troops to occupy Haiti, which has been under U.N. occupation ever since.

They were joined and later replaced by other MINUSTAH countries, still under the banner of the United Nations. This force has been led by Brazil and includes many participant armies from South and Central America who have undergone U.S. military training at the infamous School of the Americas. Their main and ongoing effort has been to suppress the popular movement for justice and democracy that wants an end to the plunder of Haiti’s resources and has consistently supported Aristide. In the efforts to fully restore the institutionalized repressive apparatus, the Martelly occupation government has been working to re-establish the brutal Haitian military.

Former U.S. ambassador to Haiti Kenneth Merten said that Washington had no plans to help fund the army but would not interfere with Haiti’s right to set it up, but many remain skeptical. Martelly acknowledged that some countries have been reluctant to contribute but maintained that a military force was necessary to replace U.N. troops when they leave. He claims he wants to create a force that will help with development, natural disasters, protecting borders and supporting the police in security issues, but Haitians who have been victimized historically and by his recent attempts at army restoration do not believe him, fear continued repression and oppose a new army.

Some U.S. and U.N. officials seem concerned that restoring the army could undermine international efforts to train and equip a new civilian police force, a key goal of the U.N. mission in Haiti, but Haiti’s Defense Minister Rodolphe Joazile said Haiti’s plan did not signify any sidelining of international efforts to reinforce its civilian police. Due to financial constraints, the army would be relaunched with only about 1,500 troops, Joazile said. That’s 1,500 too many, according to the majority of Haitians.

Charlie Hinton is a long-time Global Exchange member, as well as a member of the Haiti Action Committee. He may be reached at ch_lifewish@yahoo.com.