U.S. Imperialism, Get Out! And Take Your Presidential Council with You…

(Français)

A French saying goes: ‘Those who resemble each other, always end up flocking together.”

Traditional Haitian political figures, who have flocked to the “transitional presidential council” (CPT) that U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken cooked up with the aid of a few lackeys from CARICOM in Kingston, Jamaica on Mar. 11, all have the same class instincts and nurse from the same imperialist teat.

At the same time, a Haitian proverb says “they are just crabs in a basket,” snapping at and climbing on each other, finding it easier to tear each other apart rather than to agree on any issue that concerns the nation.

Self-centered and cynical, these opportunists of the highest order are taking advantage of de facto Prime Minister Ariel Henry’s fall (to which they contributed nothing) to sneak into power while trying to deal the Haitian people a low blow.

After taking part for over two years in fruitless negotiations, all under Washington’s watchful eye, this pack of scoundrels is too happy to take part in imperialism’s CPT charade. Having finally lost Henry, the U.S. is now simply turning to other instruments in its arsenal for controlling Haiti.

What is hidden behind this CPT is perhaps even more scandalous than we think. It is not simply the flip side of a neocolonial coin, similar to the Republican/Democrat alternation that is used to fool and distract the American people. Due to the Haitian masses’ militancy, Washington has had to resort to this “collegial” formula a few times in the past four decades. In 1986 after Baby Doc’s overthrow, they formed the infamous neo-Duvalierist National Council of Government (CNG), which went through several reiterations before boiling down to two murderous generals, Henri Namphy and Williams Regala.

After engineering its 2004 coup against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Washington came up with the “Council of Sages,” of which Ariel Henry was a member. The U.S. used that Council as the camouflage to insert as de facto prime minister its preselected puppet, Gérard Latortue.

Washington can only perform this cheap card-trick once again, two decades later, due to the decay of the nation’s institutions and the decrepitude of its political life, a fragile state which the U.S. has worked to create so it can experiment on Haiti with its Global Fragility Act. This bipartisan project, passed in 2019 under Trump’s presidency, aims to establish a U.S. military base in Haiti and completely destroy our agricultural production, making us dependent on a lifeline of USAID “humanitarian aid,” which is simply excess U.S. agricultural output.

Thus, we are at a crossroads, as we were a century ago in 1915 when the U.S. began its takeover of Haiti’s economic and political life. Charlemagne Péralte and the Cacos, who were also characterized as “bandits,” valiantly fought for Haitian sovereignty.

Today, we see new Sudré Dartiguenaves clamoring to be the next tool of the imperialists in dominating the Haitian people. This CPT, shamefully sold to the world with CARICOM as its salesman, is thus a flagrant violation of Haiti’s sovereignty, and we must clearly and strongly denounce it, no matter what “pragmatic” rationalizations are dreamt up by its participants.

Washington had wanted to use proxy forces from Kenya, Benin, Chad, Bahamas, Barbados, and other “black-face” collaborators to do the initial repression (they call it  “peace-keeping”) and then carry out a “demonstration election” – as Edward Herman calls them – which would insert an “elected” puppet who could then sign Haiti up for Washington’s Global Fragility Act.

But the Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission has not been able to get off the ground, in part due to the resistance of the masses in those other neocolonies, particularly in Kenya.

So now it looks like Washington will have to once again, as it did in 1994 and 2004, lead France and Canada in the third foreign military intervention into Haiti in three decades.

On Mar. 24, compatriot Jean-Robert Cinéus tried to sail to La Gonâve but was turned back by seven U.S. Marines in a Zodiac boat which had come from U.S. Navy vessels stationed in Port-au-Prince bay.

Last week, SOUTHCOM’s Gen. Laura Richardson stated that the Pentagon “is prepared with a broad range of contingency plans.”

It also looks like the Global Fragility template is getting an early start. We have learned that former U.S. Marine John Manza has been named Executive Director of Washington’s Haiti Interagency Working Group. Previously he was Assistant Secretary General for Operations at NATO and is a “Professor of Practice” at the Joint Advanced Warfighting School, known as JAWS.

Then on Mar. 25, James B. Foley, who was the U.S. Ambassador to Haiti from 2003 to 2005, wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post which argued that, when he was ambassador, “the worst outcomes were avoided through decisive American intervention. Today’s crisis might require it as well.”

“In late February 2004, Port-au-Prince was falling into chaos,” Foley continues. “Criminal gangs loyal to then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide were on a rampage, even as a ragtag band of ex-military thugs led by warlord Guy Philippe pressed on the capital, seeking to topple the government… But it was only thanks to the timely arrival of about 2,000 U.S. Marines that anarchy was avoided and an interim government was established in a Haitian-run process.”

Continuing with almost unthinkable arrogance, Foley concludes that “Haiti’s dysfunction is a permanent condition that continues to force itself upon the agenda of American policymakers,” one of the most disgusting articulations of “white man’s burden” ever made.

The Haitian people must take to the streets in massive numbers to say “NO” to imperialism and its henchmen. Let us fight for the unconditional defense of Haiti’s sovereignty against the U.S., Canadian, and French troops which are poised to pounce. (We published last week excellent reporting by a colleague in Martinique about war preparations happening there.)

Yes, uprooting the Haitian oligarchy and its “tools” in the political class is important, but driving out imperialism is the only way we can achieve lasting peace, bread, health, and work. In short, it is the sine qua non of everything in the popular masses’ interest.

This new occupation will be directed against the popular movement – some of it armed – heroically resisting the social catastrophe into which the population has been plunged. The probable military intervention will target this movement’s leaders in an attempt to thwart the massive advance of popular protest against the parasitic political class which is no longer viable but which imperialism seeks to resuscitate.

Shame on all those who, instead of fighting this criminal machine, prefer to join it in crushing all attempts to organize the proletarian and peasant masses. Fanmi Lavalas, the Montana Accord, Pitit Dessalines, OPL, and EDE, to name only those, bring disgrace upon themselves. None of these parties or movements can claim to represent the aspirations of the working people when they shamelessly pledge allegiance to humankind’s greatest enemy. These opportunists will not have to wait long before the Haitian people completely reject them, just like Ariel Henry.

Currently, the urgency is the founding of a new democratic Republic by, for, and of the Haitian people. The urgency is to fight the “laboratory” that has poisoned us and which returns to the crime-scene as our savior.

Should we remain prisoners and slaves of a system that has ruined us and will not solve any of our problems? Definitely No! Any Haitian solution must be the product of the working masses themselves, not of ruling class tools working under U.S. supervision.

Fighting for national liberation is not the fight of the crabs in the Presidential Council. Rather we must organize with respect, determination, and sacrifice in order to destroy this formidable machine.

Foley ends his piece by writing: “Many are calling for Haitian-led or even Haitian-only solutions, but this is unrealistic…” Let us true Haitians show him how wrong he is.