Cuba, Haiti, and Venezuela! These three neighbors have the same struggle, the same fight. Do you know, why? Because they do have the same enemy: U.S. imperialism.
We Haitians are still today paying the price for our 1804 revolution, for daring to overthrow slavery and colonialism and give birth to the Western Hemisphere’s first free, independent and sovereign nation. No, the United States was not a free nation. It was founded by slave owners. Haiti was founded by slaves who had freed themselves.
As such, Haiti was history’s first working-class victory, seven decades before the Paris Commune. This historic victory has never been acknowledged by the former slave-owning powers, which are now panicked imperialists waging war everywhere.
My country is the victim of heinous crimes committed by French, Canadian, and, above all, U.S. imperialism. They have devastated Haiti with the most ferocious exploitation and neocolonial domination. In the last 30 years, they and their proxies have invaded Haiti 12 times. These military interventions have worsened the situation and created chaos, all aimed at controlling our nation and plundering its precious resources like gold, rare earth elements, and, yes, cheap wage labor.
The Haitian people will always remain in solidarity with the Cuban and Venezuelan people, not least for the fraternal and unconditional internationalist solidarity shown to us by them.
The U.S. government is the number one terrorist in the world today. And when the world’s number one terrorist labels a nation or a group as “terrorist,” then you know that the nation or group is probably doing something right.
Today, the gusano offspring, Marco Rubio, is deciding Haiti’s future. Last month, three U.S. warships arrived off of Port-au-Prince to force the population to accept the appointment of U.S. puppet Alix Didier Fils-Aimé as de facto Prime Minister. He has hired the murderous mercenaries of the infamous Erik Prince to massacre with drones and death-squads hundreds of men, women, and children in Haiti’s slums. Fils-Aimé’s sole goal is to sell our country to foreign capitalists, just as was done during the first U.S. Marine occupation a century ago.
No one in Haiti believes the Trump administration’s grotesque lies that it is acting, and I quote, to “demonstrate the firm and unwavering commitment of the United States to the security, stability, and building of a better future for Haiti, at a time when the country is facing a profound institutional and security crisis.”
In reality, they themselves are the architects of Haiti’s crisis, orchestrated to reduce Haitians to a modern-day slavery that will serve the interests of U.S. imperialism as it wages war across the globe.
Cuba is today experiencing what we went through after our 1804 Revolution. Washington wants to make the Cuban people pay for their 1959 socialist revolution. That revolution has been an inspiration, a model, to the people of this hemisphere and the world for the past 67 years, much as our Haitian revolution was for the working, and above all enslaved, masses during the 19thcentury. We Haitians know the exploitation, coups, occupations, assassinations, and other horrors that we have endured and continue to endure under U.S. imperialism in recent decades. We do not want the Cubans, or any other people, to suffer our fate. That’s why we say loud and clear: Cuba and its revolution must be defended at all costs against the terrorist attacks of the Yankees! To defend Cuba is to defend ourselves!
Everyone can see how imperialism and its lackeys have reduced Haitians to misery and absolute poverty. Today, this is what the U.S. imperialists, led by Trump and Rubio, want to do to Cuba and Venezuela. They want to humiliate and subjugate those nations, plundering their resources, enslaving their people, controlling their destiny.
We, progressives and revolutionaries, say: NO! Cuba and Venezuela must not become two more victims of U.S. imperialism like Haiti and Libya.
The Haitian people will always remain in solidarity with the Cuban and Venezuelan people, not least for the fraternal and unconditional internationalist solidarity shown to us by them, by the Cuban and Bolivarian Revolutions. Cuba has sent and trained thousands of doctors, working under very difficult conditions, to care for us, while the U.S. sends soldiers to murder us and steal our resources. Bolivarian Venezuela has provided us millions of dollars in aid and loans through its PetroCaribe Program.
U.S. imperialism thought that it was invincible, attacking not only Cuba, Venezuela, and Haiti, but also Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, and Yemen. But Washington is not strong; it is desperate. It is flailing. This is the end of their empire. And we must speed up that end in every way possible. As Che Guevara said: “Create one, two, three, many Vietnams.”
We Haitians will never abandon Cuba and Venezuela, just as they have never abandoned us.
Return Guantanamo Bay to the Cuban people and La Navassa island to the Haitian people.
Lift the U.S. blockade against the Cuban people!
Stop war against the Iranian and Palestinian people!
Gaza, Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela, same struggle!
Free Nicolas Maduro and Cilia Flores!
Long live the Bolivarian Revolution of Venezuela!
Long live the Cuban Revolution!
Long live the struggle of the Haitian people!
This speech was delivered on Mar. 14 at a large, internationally live-streamed conference entitled “Cuba under Siege: Strategies for Resistance and a United Response” held at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City.
Most Excellent Speech
The Essential difference isctge Hsiti is Stsnding on their Africaness and As Suchbhas paid more dearly than tge other two neighbour’s… it usca distinction that the revolutionary left MUST APPRECIATE and Talk About the gross Continuing pervasive and ubiquitous force YT SUPREMACY in every vein and social as oectbif cintemporary global culture….BLACK PEOPLE REGARDLESS OF THE SITUATION GET THE SHORT END it the stick EVERY F-ing TIME and the ‘good’ white rich or middle class peeps Have to Start Saying So ….