U.S. Interference Escalates as Global Exchange Delegation Arrives in Honduras

Today, a Global Exchange delegation of 47 observers from 13 countries arrived in Honduras to participate in an international electoral observation mission organized in partnership with the Honduran Center for Democracy Studies (CESPAD) and the Honduras Solidarity Network (HSN). Our teams will be monitoring conditions across electorally sensitive regions leading up to the November 30 elections.

We are entering this moment with grave concern about escalating U.S. intervention and external pressure. The Honduran people deserve free and fair elections, free from manipulation, fear-mongering, or interference from any foreign government, including the United States. As international observers, we will closely monitor any efforts to shape outcomes or undermine Honduran sovereignty.

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump escalated U.S. involvement in the Honduran elections by endorsing National Party candidate Tito Asfura and attacking the other candidates as “communists,” “narcoterrorists,” and “unreliable.” Ted Lewis of Global Exchange said, “Trump’s declaration is not just disrespectful of Honduran sovereignty and democratic dignity; it is part and parcel of a full-on return to gunboat diplomacy.” A wave of similar red-baiting and anti-communist messaging emanating from congressional hearings, op-eds, and State Department communications reflects the broader posture Washington is taking toward these elections.

Karen Spring of the Honduras Solidarity Network said, “These red-baiting messages synchronize with those of the very same forces in Honduras that supported the 2009 coup. This election period has been marked by sharp polarization, fear-mongering, and sophisticated attempts to undermine confidence in the electoral process.”

Over the next several days, GX, CESPAD, and HSN teams will be traveling widely across the country, from urban centers to rural communities, to accompany local organizations, observe conditions at polling sites, and share timely information about what communities are facing on the ground.

Global Exchange has long stood with Honduran civil society, Indigenous and Black communities, land defenders, campesino movements, women and youth leaders, journalists, and human rights defenders, who continue to risk their lives to defend their territories, their rights, and their future. Our mission is grounded in solidarity with communities who have faced violence, displacement, and criminalization for demanding dignity and democratic rights.

Read our full press release announcing the mission and responding to President Trump’s statements here.

Watch the Press Conference (Livestream) live from Honduras: Anuncio del despliegue de la Misión Internacional: Global Exchange, CESPAD y la Plataforma Juvenil Electoral
Today, Thursday, November 28
8:00 a.m. Pacific / 11:00 a.m. Eastern
Hotel Plaza San Martín, Salón Audiencias
Livestream: https://www.facebook.com/CespadCentroDeEstudioParaLaDemocracia

Throughout the election period, we will be providing live updates from polling stations, communities under pressure, and from our mission headquarters in Tegucigalpa.

Follow Global Exchange for real-time coverage on:
Instagram, X, Bluesky, Facebook

Thank you for standing with us, and with the people of Honduras, in this critical moment for democracy in the Americas.

Written by Matthew Thorne, a delegate with Global Exchange’s international election observation mission in Honduras.

The question of U.S. intervention in the Honduran elections is in the air as around 6 million eligible voters head to the polls this November 30th. Amidst U.S. escalation of its rhetoric and military presence in the region, political tension and the spectre of violence is ratcheting up as later this week Hondurans will choose their president, all 128 congressional seats, 20 seats in the Central American Parliament, 298 mayors and over 2,000 municipal council members.

Several logistical mistakes and delays that occurred during the March primaries are certainly cause for concern, but of equal concern is that those errors are being used as pretext to undermine the integrity of the upcoming elections and set the stage for contesting the results. Improvements to the electoral systems since the March primaries “demonstrate that the process has a solid operational foundation for election day, even in areas where delays were identified in previous monitoring” according to the latest independent watchdog report and this has assuaged some, including U.S. Senator Peter Welch (VT).

However, the three leading parties continue to trade accusations and exacerbate fears amongst a polarized electorate. Attempts by the opposition parties to erode trust in the process has further contributed to a nervous atmosphere that could spell the possibility of contested results and post-election turmoil. For context, the 2021 elections saw 32 politically related homicides.

Hanging over the contest is a legacy of challenges to Honduran sovereignty. 2025 marked the 16th anniversary of the coup d’état that ousted then President Manuel Zelaya (2006-2009), with the infamous papering-over of the coup by the U.S. State Department under Hillary Clinton. The failures of the subsequent series of U.S.-backed post-coup governments, notorious for electoral fraud and defying constitutional term limits, are highlighted by the 45-year sentence being served by former President Juan Orlando Hernandez of the National Party (2014-2022), who sits in a U.S. prison for drug trafficking. Meanwhile, Honduras remains the most impoverished country in Central America and voters have thus found little reason to trust in its institutions.

U.S. officials are not soft spoken on the issue. Just this week U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (FL-27), of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee characterized the Libre Party candidate Rixi Moncada as “the heir to the communist throne” and claimed that Moncada “wants Honduras to look just like Cuba.” The rhetoric from Salazar sets up a clear pretext for the Trump administration to target a potential Moncada win by lumping her together with other ‘communist’ targets in Latin America.

Salazar, who is heading to Honduras to lead a U.S. congressional delegation of observers, was sure to state the quiet part out loud – “the eye of the United States is upon Honduras this November 30th.” These statements addressed to the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee of which she is the chair, echo the long shadow of U.S. expectations of Honduran conformity and seemingly celebrate the infamous coup d’état, “16 years ago, the military saved its country from communism and today, they need to do the same thing.”

The rhetoric from Salazar, who underlines that her message is “supported by the State Department and the Trump administration”, carries significant weight amidst the buildup of U.S. military activities in the region, which includes the precedent-setting hosting of U.S. military attack planes in neighboring El Salvador, as well as airstrikes in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific killing 83 people which the UN has labeled as ‘extrajudicial executions’.

A long dependable framework of Honduran economic, political and military deference which was designed by the U.S. for the original Banana Republic in the late 1800s, may be in question. In January, current Honduran President Xiomara Castro of the Libre Party threatened to expel the U.S. military from Soto Cano Air Base in response to the Trump Administration’s mass deportation plan. Soto Cano is the largest U.S. military base in Central America, currently houses Joint Task Bravo, and carries the legacy of U.S. Colonel Oliver North who utilized the base for the Iran-contra operations in the ‘80s. Castro stated that “without paying a cent for decades they maintain military bases in our territory, which in this case would lose all reason to exist in Honduras.” Castro’s bold positioning was one single point in the long story of U.S.-Honduran relations that will continue to be written this November 30th.

Global Exchange Mexico News
August 2025

Global Exchange’s Peace and Justice program with Mexico has been deeply rooted since 1994 and is growing again now in 2025. As part of our mission of cross-border collaboration, we are sending this English-language newsletter that features selected articles, action alerts, video reports, analysis, social movement news, and volunteer opportunities. Your feedback and suggestions are welcome. Feel free to contact us at: Mexico@globalexchange.org
This issue focuses on Chiapas, specifically addressing recent attacks on the leadership of the Fray Bartolomé Human Rights Center.

The Fray Bartolomé Human Rights Center is Once Again Under Attack
Update and Action Request

Last July 22, in the middle of the night, the home of Dora Roblero, the newly appointed Director of the Fray Bartolomé Human Rights Center (Frayba) in San Cristóbal de las Casas, was targeted and invaded.

This chilling attack on the new leader of the state’s pre-eminent human rights group is anything but an isolated incident. The break-in comes in the context of surging violence and intimidation from criminal and paramilitary actors whose activities Frayba has been documenting for over a decade.

Please sign this petition to Mexico’s President, Cabinet officers, and heads of agencies in charge of security policy, urging them to respond to the deepening threats and violence facing the communities and human rights defenders of Chiapas.

Please also feel free to share and distribute this petition. It is being circulated by our longtime partners, the National Network of Civil Human Rights Organizations, “All Rights for All,” a coalition of 87 human rights organizations from 23 Mexican states.

What is Frayba? How we know them and why we respect their work

Some background on Frayba and the Zapatista uprising
Pattern of unchecked abuse and government indifference; why we support Frayba today

What is Frayba? How we know them and why we respect their work
The vital work of Frayba began in 1989 when the center was founded by the late Catholic Bishop Don Samuel Ruíz, whose parishioners affectionately called him “Don Sam.” Deeply influenced by the theory and practice of Liberation Theology, Don Samuel professed a revolutionary interpretation of scripture that redefined the essence of Christian life as one of alliance and solidarity with the poor and powerless.

Don Samuel’s approach during his forty years as Bishop (1959–1999) was to actively listen and engage with the realities of his parishioners’ lives.

Under Don Samuel’s leadership in the late 1980s, Frayba began investigating local problems and defending people and communities in need. They helped people falsely jailed, tortured, and even murdered, often for political reasons. They helped Indigenous communities fighting incursions and violent land seizures.

Starting in the 1960s, Don Samuel had insisted that his priests learn local Indigenous languages, and he trained hundreds of Indigenous deacons and catechists who spent years crisscrossing remote canyons, towns, and villages throughout the Lacandon rainforest. Unlike countless generations of their colonial predecessors, these “religious workers” came not to proselytize, but to listen—listen to understand and serve the needs and aspirations of the communities they were part of. This approach, which he called “evangelization by the poor,” led to deep and previously unknown levels of trust and community engagement. As word of these visionary practices spread, “Don Sam” attracted some of Mexico’s brightest minds and most intelligent hearts to the Diocese of San Cristóbal, the leadership of Frayba, and a small but growing contingent of civil society organizations dedicated to community empowerment and transformational development.

This tireless organizing over decades played an important role in fomenting and giving both resilience and a safe communications channel to communities that would later form the living backbone of what the world would come to know as the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN).

Zapatista Uprising

The EZLN is the group that successfully organized something of a military miracle on January 1, 1994, when thousands of lightly armed, bandana-wearing rural Indigenous men and women swept down overnight—many on foot—from their homes in the highlands. They swiftly captured four municipal capitals and by the end of New Year’s Day were in control of an area approximately the size of El Salvador. That was just the beginning.

The shocked reaction to the uprising was dramatically compounded by its timing on the day the bitterly controversial NAFTA accords went into effect. NAFTA, designed by and for “North American elites,” was negotiated between Mexico’s (Harvard-educated) president, Salinas de Gortari, and American (Yale-educated) President George H.W. Bush and subsequently embraced, ratified, and signed by President (“I feel your pain,” but also Yale-educated) Bill Clinton.

Now, the uprising by some of Mexico’s most marginalized people put their whole bipartisan “neo-liberal” project at risk of being exposed as the dangerous fraud—“It will improve the quality of life in all three member countries”—that it always was.

Then came the communiqués—and a mysterious, powerful, and even lyrical voice from the Lacandon Forest in Mexico’s extreme southeast corner that framed the uprising as an Indigenous-led “rebellion against extinction” and called on the rest of Mexico to join them in rebelling.

The response across Mexico was electric and immediate. Even as the Mexican Army closed in on and began slaughtering retreating rebels, people talked, organized, and on January 12 more than 100,000 Mexicans poured into Mexico City’s Zócalo to demand an immediate ceasefire and peace negotiations.

Behind the scenes, Don Samuel Ruíz and his brilliant team sought to convince the authorities to avert the kind of full-scale genocide committed in neighboring Guatemala just a decade before. Don Samuel was painfully aware of what happened just across the border when Guatemalan military rulers unleashed the army on Indigenous rebels, killing and displacing hundreds of thousands of people and—just between 1981 and 1983—obliterating 440 Mayan villages.

In the face of growing public pressure across Mexico and around the world, the Salinas de Gortari government declared a ceasefire and halted its deadly advance into rebel communities. But the conflict was by no means over. The Army kept its troops in forward positions—establishing a multi-year siege that controlled access to Indigenous communities—rebel, “Zapatista,” and even unaligned—forcing residents to routinely submit to inspection at military checkpoints where they could be harassed, summarily detained, or worse.

In the tumultuous months and years that followed, millions of Mexicans mobilized, demonstrated, and sent donations to support the bold and articulate rebels in Chiapas. The rebel Zapatista communities invited like-minded organizers from around Mexico to a series of huge gatherings in their remote territories—where big ideas and dreams for Mexico’s liberation were hatched and took flight throughout the 1990s. But the Army didn’t go away, and in response, Frayba organized a remarkably ambitious, successful, and sustained non-violent community defense project that maintained a permanent (rotating) presence of volunteer “peace campers” in nearly 50 remote communities 24/7/365 for eight years. Their job was to accompany the communities and report on any abuses from Army occupiers. Maintaining the training and flow of thousands of these willing volunteers was a massive undertaking that was supported by organizations across Mexico and beyond.

In its early years, Global Exchange’s Mexico Program played a humble support role in this vast collective accompaniment—by recruiting, preparing, and housing a small but steady flow of Peace Camp volunteers throughout all the years of military occupation.

Pattern of Unchecked Abuse and Government Indifference; Why We Support Frayba Now

A lot has changed in Mexico in the last 25 years, in ways big and small, but some things have remained the same—such as the Fray Bartolomé Human Rights Center’s defense of threatened Indigenous communities. That is why Frayba was attacked in the 1990s and why it is under attack now. But the context is different.

Today’s attacks no longer come at the hands of the occupying Federal Army and the irregular (PRI-affiliated) paramilitary organizations aligned with them. Rather, most of the 16,755 cases of recent displacement documented by Frayba have been at the hands of competing crime syndicates such as the Sinaloa Cartel and the Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación, as well as a proliferation of smaller criminal actors trying to gain traction in these rural zones. Adding to this toxic volatility are new paramilitary actors such as the Pakales, who have intimidated dissidents and broken up protests.

Please take another look at this petition to Mexico’s President, Cabinet officers, and heads of agencies in charge of security policy that we also shared above.

It is extremely important that the government take these concerns seriously. They need to respond, investigate, and act on behalf of these communities that are unable to defend themselves against criminals with sophisticated arms. For years, Global Exchange has heard from human rights activists across Mexico who are deeply concerned that the government is not giving sufficient attention to threats like the ones still growing in Chiapas.

Thanks, and until next time.

P.S. The struggle for human rights in Chiapas is part of a broader movement.
Frayba’s call for protection is urgent, but it is not isolated. The struggle for peace and justice in Cherán and Ostula is also ongoing—and deeply connected to a larger system of militarization, state violence, and resource extraction that crosses borders.

Add your name in support of Cherán’s demands for safety, peace, and justice as outlined in their public statements. Sign here.

Support legislation like the ARMAS Act to stop the flow of U.S. weapons fueling violence in places like Chiapas, Cherán, and Ostula.

Take action for Frayba today—sign the petition demanding protection for Dora Roblero and the Frayba team.
Frayba Petition.

Together, these actions are part of one fight: for dignity, self-determination, and justice across the Americas.

Join Stop U.S. Arms to Mexico, Global Exchange, Community Justice, legal experts, attorneys, and advocates as we listen to the Mexico v. Smith & Wesson oral arguments and discuss the case’s implications. This landmark case marks the first time a sovereign nation has sued the U.S. gun industry to hold manufacturers accountable for facilitating illegal gun trafficking and marketing weapons favored by cartels.

March 4, 2025
Contact: Marco Castillo, marco@globalexchange.org, +1 (646) 826-9834
Bella D’Alacio, bella@globalexchange.org, +1 (754) 214-0786

Nearly fifty faith, peace, gun violence prevention and business organizations today called on President Donald Trump to keep his promise, made last month to Mexican President Claudia Scheinbaum, to “avoid the trafficking of high-powered weapons from the United States into Mexico.”

As Trump designates cartels as foreign terrorists and the U.S. Supreme Court hears Mexico’s case against gun manufacturers, the organizations called on President Trump to take decisive action to address the unchecked flow of U.S. firearms that fuel violence, empower cartels, and force people to flee their homes.

“U.S.-sourced firearms and gun manufacturers are empowering cartels to devastate communities, fuel the narcotics trade, and intimidate local authorities, forcing migration from Mexico to the United States,” the letter states.

The groups urged Trump to “Issue an executive order to take assault rifles, .50 caliber rifles, and high-capacity magazines, used by the cartels in thousands of crimes, off the US retail market.” They also called on him to “instruct the Justice Department to order the inspection of every gun dealer that has been implicated in sales of firearms trafficked to Mexico.”

The open letter was signed by national organizations such as March for Our Lives, Global Exchange, Latin America Working Group, and Team Enough, faith groups such as the Maryknoll Office of Global Concerns, Kino Border Initiative, and Quixote Center, groups in Mexico including Derechos de la Infancia y Adoloscencia (Rights of Infants and Adolescents) and the Emmaus Community, peace associations (International Peace Research Association), and businesses such as the Opal Group and People’s Eye Photography. The letter was endorsed by several gun violence prevention groups in Texas – the source of more guns trafficked to Mexico than any other state – including Texas Gun Sense, Lives Robbed, and Students Engaged in Advancing Texas. The letter was also signed by 100 individuals.

“It is long past time to see more accountability around how guns from the United States — including guns manufactured right here in Massachusetts by Smith and Wesson — have fueled violence and trauma in Mexico and other countries,” said Ruth Zakarin, CEO of the Massachusetts Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence, which signed the letter. “The Massachusetts Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence stands in solidarity with the organizations, activists, and survivors calling for that accountability.”

“Everyone has been watching what Mexico will do in response to threats of tariffs,” said John Lindsay-Poland, coordinator of Global Exchange’s Stop US Arms to Mexico project. “We should be watching what the United States does to stop the iron river of weapons. That would benefit everyone.”

Read full letter and list of signatories

Right now, the Trump Administration is making good on their campaign promises to attack migrant communities.

Trump made xenophobia a day one priority, including removing restrictions on raid locations, stopping asylum, attempting to roll back birthright citizenship, and a series of publicized raids designed to instill maximal fear on people throughout the United States – and throughout Mexico and Central America.

We are not going to abandon one single person to this reckless and hateful onslaught.

In Mexico, frontline organizations for deportees and refugees are bracing for a surge in requests for their services now that Trump is in office. Government infrastructure is not robust enough to meet this upswing in service needs, so the immediate needs fall to migrant shelters run by civil society and religious organizations.

If you can, please make a donation to our emergency fund today.

We have partnered with established, reputable migrant shelters and legal aid organizations to ensure these funds reach those in need. These frontline organizations will use the donations to buy food, medical supplies, mattresses, pay essential bills, and sustain advocacy efforts. They’re going to need every ounce of our support.

Casa Tochan (meaning “our home” in Nahuatl) is a nonprofit organization run by civil society, offering shelter, support, and services for migrants and refugees in Mexico City.

CAFEMIN (House for Sheltering, Education, and Empowerment of Migrant and Refugee Women) is a nonprofit based in Mexico City, led by Catholic nuns dedicated to supporting migrant and refugee women.

Voces Mesoamericanas is a nonprofit organization in San Cristobal de las Casas, leading emergency efforts to support migrants in Chiapas.

We know that while our immediate focus is on the relief funds for these shelters, we must also continue the struggle to reshape the narrative and policies within the United States and the region. We must provide an alternative to the fear mongering, zero sum approach to immigration that has largely defined the approach of both political parties in the United States, to the detriment of the wellbeing of all of us.

Please join Global Exchange next week for an Immigrant Justice webcast on Wednesday, February 5, 2025, at 5:30 pm PST/6:30 pm MST/7:30 pm CST/8:30 pm EST. Learn about:

current federal immigration law and proposed legislation at state and federal levels
immigrants as part of local economies and contributors to the tax base
statistics on crimes against immigrant communities and crimes by immigrants
historical rights violations against immigrant communities and practical resources to assist
immigrant communities and protect human rights.

Please register in advance.

It’s up to us to defend our communities. Thank you for taking action.

Public Statement: Organizations Condemn Violence Against Garifuna Communities in Honduras

We, the undersigned organizations, condemn the recent attacks against Garífuna land defenders across Honduras, where Honduran National Police, private security forces, and individuals linked to organized crime have come together to harass, intimidate, and profile members of multiple Garífuna communities with the goal of displacing them out of their ancestral territories for the benefit of extractivist and colonial settler projects.

This violence reached a new climax on the night of October 6th, 2024, when Honduran National Police shot at unarmed Garífuna leaders in the Nueva Armenia community, who were peacefully reclaiming their ancestral territory usurped by the Palmas de Atlantida Company, leaving two leaders hospitalized and in critical condition. There has been no official response from the Honduras government on these attempted assassinations, which have also received minimal media coverage. In turn, Garífuna land defenders in Nueva Armenia continue living in a state of emergency, as there have been reports of strong police presence outside hospitals where injured Garífuna leaders are receiving care and in the Garifuna ancestral territory being reclaimed.

This violence is not new, contained, or an anomaly. It is part of an established history of human rights violations from the State of Honduras against Garífuna self-determination. In the case Cayos Cochinos Garífuna Community vs. Honduras, the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights established that the Honduran state had not consulted with Garífuna communities for the construction of a marine conservation center in the Garífuna lands of Cayos Cochinos, which restricted the Garífuna access to their homelands and led to countless violations by the military and the Cayos Cochinos Foundation. The IACHR asked the Honduran government to adopt necessary measures to ensure Garífuna self-determination, reparations, and the non-repetition of violations. It has been almost a year since the IACHR filed this case, but state police forces continue protecting tourism projects, international corporations, and the interests of palm oil industries above Garífuna ancestral rights.

As organizations who have followed the violence, persecution, and displacement of the Garífuna for years, we stand in unwavering solidarity with the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH) and we:

Publicly condemn Honduras’ police brutality and racist violence against Garífuna land defenders in Nueva Armenia;
Ask the Honduran government, by way of its Secretary of Security, Secretary of National Defense, and Secretary of Human Rights, that it guarantee the life, physical, mental, and moral integrity of Garífuna members in the community of Nueva Armenia and other communities defending their rights;
Urge the government of Honduras to carry out an immediate, impartial investigation into the attempted assassinations of Garífuna leaders in Nueva Armenia and hold accountable those responsible;
Express a deep concern that the actions committed by Honduran police officers and U.S.-vetted and trained special forces increase violence towards all Garífuna land defenders who reclaim their ancestral land rights, violating collective property rights and guarantees of non-repetition warned in the three rulings of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights against the State of Honduras.

For the reasons stated above, as organizations dedicated to the protection and promotion of human rights and the environmental, we raise our concerns about the violations occurring in Nueva Armenia and we remain firm in elevating the struggles of the Garífuna people. From different parts of the world, we reiterate our solidarity with members of OFRANEH, who are not and will not be alone in this fight for their ancestral rights.

Signatory Organizations:

Honduras Solidarity Network (HSN)
Witness for Peace Solidarity Collective (WfPSc)
Inter-Religious Task Force on Central America (IRTF)
Institute for Policy Studies – Global Economy Program
Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America (CRLN)
Hope Border Institute
Root Causes Initiative
Denver Justice and Peace Committee (DJPC)
Nicaragua Center for Community Action
The Cross Border Network for Justice and Solidarity
Rights Action – Canada / USA
Alliance for Global Justice (AFGJ)
Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC)
Latin America Caucus of Interfaith Council for Peace & Justice
Global Exchange
Massachusetts Peace Action – Latin America Caribbean Working Group
La Voz de los de Abajo
Wisconsin Environmental Justice & Infrastructure Initiative
Walnut Way Conservation Corp
Task Force on the Americas (TFA)
Rochester Committee on Latin America (ROCLA)
Grassroots International
Sustainable Agriculture of Louisville (SAL)

“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.

December 8, 2023

The U.S. veto of the UN Security Council Resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza gives a green light for Israel to continue escalating a murderous military campaign that has reached genocidal proportions in Gaza.

This is wrong and the U.S. now stands visibly isolated on the world stage. And our government’s stubborn refusal to help put the brakes on what UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres termed a “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza is not just wrong, it is immoral.

It not only makes us complicit with every atrocity committed by the IDF, it unnecessarily puts us on a collision course with history and people around the world who should be our friends and allies.

For decades the U.S. has used its Security Council veto power to protect Israel from the consequences of its own excesses – like the invasion of Lebanon in the 1980’s, the use of prohibited weapons, decades of settlement on illegally occupied lands – the list is long. Israel has become accustomed to virtually unconditional U.S. backing, but this week’s veto is perhaps the most bitter one yet.

Over 17,000 people have been killed in weeks of brutal and indiscriminate strikes on Gaza in what Israel justifies as retaliation for the brutal October 7th attacks by Hamas. All life is sacred, but the world is not buying Israel’s story. Not when nearly half those killed in its military campaign are children, not when most of Gaza’s homes are already destroyed, not when more than a million internally displaced people fleeing the conflict go hungry, thirsty, unsheltered.

And the gruesome October 7th assault did not suddenly make the deeply corrupt, authoritarian ultra-nationalist Benjamin Netanyahu a wise leader who the U.S. should support even as he bombs and brutalizes the people of Gaza whose grandparents first fled there 1948 and who, since 1967, have lived under military occupation and domination by Israel.

The shock of what happened on October 7th is undisputed, the lessons are not. The U.S. is not obliged to follow Benjamin Netanyahu on an impossible campaign to “exterminate” his enemies. Joining the world in calling for a genuine and prolonged ceasefire is in the long-term best interests of the American people and of everyone involved. Violence begets more violence. New leaders who understand that are desperately needed.

In a statement explaining why he invoked the rarely used Article 99 of the UN Charter that empowers the Secretary-General “to bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which, in his opinion, may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security,” Guterres lamented the “appalling human suffering, physical destruction and collective trauma across Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” He said, “Hospitals have turned into battlegrounds [and that] without shelter or the essentials to survive, I expect public order to completely break down soon.”

The temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that was abandoned on December 1st should resume. The exchange of captives should resume. The constant deadly bombardment of Gaza must stop; truce and ceasefire must be revived.

Don’t let up the pressure on our leaders. Please tell the White House: Permanent Ceasefire NOW. Call and express your disappointment on today’s ceasefire VETO. America can do better.

Call the White House Today 202-456-1111

Is Peace Still Possible? Yes, but we must change the course we are on.

Last October 7th, Hamas operatives surprised Israeli border defenders who, despite vastly superior military capacities, were caught off guard and unable to contain a ghastly and vindictive wave of mass murder, kidnappings, and other gruesome atrocities. These heinous acts produced a wave of revulsion that swept the world. And that wave was accompanied by the sickening realization that the “total war” plan immediately declared by discredited Israeli strongman – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was guaranteed to bring more – vastly and disproportionately more – suffering to the millions of children, elders, and non-combatants locked in, unable to escape the densely populated confines of the Gaza Strip.

Global Exchange joined millions around the world who have urged restraint. We organized appeals to President Biden and our U.S. Representatives, pleading with them to use wisdom with their immense power and influence to stay the hand of Israeli vengeance and to keep the road of reconciliation open.

But despite broad public support for an urgent ceasefire to spare the lives of innocent civilians and hostages, President Biden instead boosted U.S. naval air support in the region, embraced Netanyahu, and gave the Israeli government a green light to escalate their attack. Biden’s mild requests to “minimize civilian casualties” were not enough to avoid the perception of American complicity with the war crimes implicit in the siege: starvation, bombing of civilians, and invasion of Gaza…a territory just smaller than Las Vegas, Nevada, but far more densely packed, with three times its population.

Another wave of revulsion and protest is now sweeping the world – provoked, this time, by the Israeli government’s disproportionate and sickening response and the U.S. failure to restrain its close ally.

I write on Day of the Dead, knowing this article will be published sometime later this month. I pray that by then, the killing will have stopped, that the deadly fire will have ceased, that mass starvation is averted, that hostages are safe at home, and that saner voices have prevailed. That is a lot to hope for, and I also fear that by the time you are reading this, conditions could be far worse – if the politics of vengeance, dehumanization, and unchecked retribution are allowed to prevail.

Around 2000 years ago when troops moved in to arrest Jesus of Nazareth in Jerusalem, his disciple Peter (the guy who later founded Christianity) drew his sword and sliced off the ear of one of their assailants. “Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.” Over the millennia, we’ve boiled that down to: “Live by the sword, and you’ll die by it too.” The core truth of that saying could not be more relevant today.

When violence appears to be the only option and the emotional logic of “protection” or “resistance” leads us to plan and carry out inhumane, soul-distorting actions we must pause, reconsider, and seek higher wisdom.

We live in a time when fires are breaking out planet-wide – literally from the equator to the polar circles. Our survival requires concerted global action. We cannot afford to double down on ancient hatreds or the unresolved post-colonial disputes of the 1900s. Yet that is exactly what is happening in the Middle East, in Ukraine, and elsewhere.

But peace isn’t easy. It is more than just the mere absence of deadly conflict. Even if things “calm down,” real peace and reconciliation must be based on justice and a fundamental recasting of the assumptions and interests underlying the conflict.

But for right now, we need to build a coalition for peace among the majority of people across the political spectrum who believe that killing is wrong, that the killing of innocents is worse, and that justice is never served by more indiscriminate killing.

It is easy to feel disempowered in the face of seemingly implacable hatreds and events that seem to be spinning out of control. But, knowing that we are by no means alone in our revulsion to brutality helps. And it gives us a place to start conversations with our neighbors, friends, and our political representatives that go beyond the biased narratives of mainstream media and the shouting matches that dominate on social media.

To bring you a fresh and in-depth perspective from the conflict zone, Global Exchange is working closely with our longtime partner, Ernesto Ledesma of Rompeviento.TV who has started reporting from the occupied West Bank. This reporting is costly and risky, but we do it in the spirit of reaching out and building “people-to-people ties” and human solidarity even in the most dangerous and stressful times.

One observation Ernesto shared in his first days of reporting from the West Bank is that when he asked Palestinians – intellectuals, construction workers, doctors, aid workers and others across the West Bank the question, “Can anyone lead the way to stop this war?”. To my surprise, they all had the same answer: “Joe Biden”.

As American President, Biden could be a force for peace. No one has more power to halt the Israeli onslaught in Gaza, to feed those who are starving, to treat those who are wounded, and to free those who are held hostage. He has the most power to compel the Israelis to halt the ongoing settlement and annexation of Palestinian lands that Israeli anti-peace extremists have cynically used for generations to sabotage Camp David, Oslo, and every other effort for peace.

But Biden’s positions and actions to date confirm that he has chosen war; and worse, has not even publically insisted that Israel – the largest recipient of American military aid in the region – adhere to the rules of war.

The American people, and his Democratic base of voters, are historically supportive of Israel but polls show sharply rising concerns about escalation and overwhelming support for an immediate CEASEFIRE.

President Biden must wake up to this new reality and show true leadership for peace. The course he has set for our country is morally, politically and strategically unsustainable. We must change it, now!