(Français)
On Dec. 12 and 13, 2024, three sectors which hold all six political seats in the nine-member Transitional Presidential Council (TPC) issued statements which revealed how completely rotten Haiti’s political class has become. These three sectors once again showed how totally cynical and obedient they are in following U.S. imperialism’s dictates.
Already, back in March, these same hypocritical politicians colluded with CARICOM, a subcontractor of U.S. imperialism, to concoct and take part in this shameful TPC. On U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s orders, they all had to agree to the foreign military occupation of Haiti to be part of the presidential council. U.S. imperialism, with their Caribbean handmaidens, now effectively rule our nation.
As the TPC becomes increasingly dysfunctional, ineffective, and hated, instead of making a self-criticism, these three sectors are trying to exonerate themselves, distance themselves from it, and wash their hands of this project and the other dirty work they have done over decades.
So what are these three sectors which issued very similar statements, and who are the individuals that signed them?
First there is the Montana Accord, represented by Magali Comeau Denis, Ted Saint-Dic, and Ernst Mathurin, acting on behalf of that grouping’s Monitoring Office (Bureau de Suivi de l’Accord or BSA).
Then there is a statement by the Lavalas Family party, signed by Maryse Narcisse, Joël Édouard “Pacha” Vorbe, Anthony Dessources, and Jean Myrto Julien.
The third statement is signed by Saurel Jacinthe and lawyer André Michel for the December 21st Agreement, Clarens Renois and Liné Balthazar for the January 30 Collective, Claude Joseph and Claude Edouard for EDE/RED, and Gué Verlien of the Dessalines’ Children (PPD) party. (Gué Verlien and PPD head Moïse Jean-Charles have since denied that they authorized Verlien’s signature to be put on the statement.)
There are no words to describe the absurdity of these individuals who have contributed to constructing this house of cards which is now ready to collapse.
“The time has come to build, with all the forces of the country, a real alternative [to the TPC] to save the nation,” Montana’s BSA wrote,” while preserving the fundamentals of the [never made public] Agreement of April 3 [2024]” for a peaceful and orderly transition.
“While more than six million people are hungry, one million people had to leave their houses to go live in the street, the TPC and the government don’t show that they have any feelings for or capacity to respond to the population’s urgent needs,” wrote the Lavalas Family. Their representative, Leslie Voltaire, is currently the TPC’s rotating President of Haiti.
“To save, while there is still time, this transition which has been severely undermined by the nine President-Councillors’ desire to favor their particular interests to the detriment of the general interest, the undersigned stakeholders: 1) call on the CPT [TPC] members not indicted in the [BNC] corruption scandal to dissociate themselves from the three President-Councillors indicted in this scandal by a political act which consecrates their exclusion from the institution. 2) invite CARICOM’s Group of Eminent Personalities, as facilitator, to initiate talks between the President-Councillors and the Stakeholders to take note of the non-implementation of the Agreement of April 3, 2024 and the obsolescence of the CPT’s mission,” wrote the December 21st Agreement, January 30 Collective, EDE/RED, and Dessalines’ Children.
If you analyze these politicians’ statements, what they claim to criticize is insignificant, even meaningless, compared to their anti-patriotic behavior of supporting Haiti’s foreign military occupation. In fact, they are trying to trick the masses, as if they had nothing to do with the current chaos, nor with demagogy, corruption, and failure of their representatives in the TPC.
In other words, they are only thieves shouting: “Thief!” For years, they have been courting Washington in order to enter into its good graces while the Haitian state has been dismantled day after day with their assent, even complicity.
One of the reasons why these three statements were issued almost simultaneously is because these organizations worry about how quickly things are unraveling and want to redeem themselves, especially as the number of state crimes and state assassinations – from the poor in the slums to activists like Dickson Oreste – grows. It is a national shame! There are no words to describe the absurdity of these individuals who, directly or indirectly, have contributed to constructing this house of cards which is now ready to collapse.
To illustrate their hypocrisy, take the case of Anthony Dessources. Although he signed the Lavalas Family’s note critical of the TPC, the body has named him to be Haiti’s Ambassador to Canada. He does not even have the decency to decline the position.
It must also be noted that many “leftist” activists from Montana Accord affiliates – like the Roots of the Peoples’ Camp party (Rasin Kan-pèp la) and the teachers’ union UNNOH – work for or are advisors to people like Fritz Alphonse Jean (who represents Montana on the TPC) or for government officials like Education Minister Antoine Augustin, where they feed off the teat of taxpayers’ money.
It should also be noted that former Lavalas Family senator Nènèl Cassy’s branch of the Democratic Popular Sector (SDP) – not that of Saurel Jacinthe and André Michel – now holds the key positions in Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé’s office, appointing many activists to coveted sinecures in state agencies.
The popular movement should concede nothing to these blackmailers, these imperialist vassals who continue to heavily mortgage any real possibility of progress and change in Haiti. At present, we can only fight all the microbes attacking our political immunity as they use “the insecurity” as their pretext for not taking their responsibilities. Isn’t it ridiculous to claim to fight against insecurity when so many young people from disadvantaged or lawless neighborhoods are left to their own devices, unemployed, without schooling or any prospects for the future, themselves confronted with all kinds of insecurity?
What a sad irony when Haiti’s state is run only by corrupt lackeys and certified agents of the imperialist powers? Let these traitors to Haiti’s cause know that their actions and declarations will fool no one except their allies. The system’s garment is worn out. It can no longer be patched up to fool the masses. These desperate steps aimed to impress either CARICOM or the imperialist powers are far from frightening those who will certainly not let themselves be diverted from the path they have chosen, that of fighting until the final victory for Haiti’s national liberation.
