(Français)
“A people without memory is a people without a future.”
This quote from the French Marshal Ferdinand Foch should, on this 221st anniversary of the Nov. 18, 1803 Battle of Vertières, cause every conscious and principled Haitian, wherever you are, to reflect.
That epic battle, which won our independence, will forever symbolize the will of our ancestors – “the barefoot soldiers” (les va-nu-pieds) – to fight and risk their lives under the slogan of “Live Free or Die” to bequeath us this land as a legacy.
Vertières must always remain an unforgettable example, a lesson to be recited daily, in order to guide us to the way to liberate our nation from a new system of exploitation and neocolonial domination that destabilizes it while chaining and oppressing the popular masses in disguised slavery.
In Haiti’s current state, the same causes can produce the same effects. The lessons of November 18 therefore compel us to assume our own responsibilities in the face of history so as to fight our enemies for the reconstruction of national unity. Starting with:
- Reconnect with the dignity bequeathed by our ancestors, the martyrs.
- Rebuild a solid national sovereignty instead of turning to illusory, easy solutions leading to Haiti’s foreign military occupation.
- Strengthen national pride through a policy of inclusion and participation of the organized and conscious popular masses in the management of Haiti’s political and economic life.
- Reforge and reestablish a national liberation army on the scale of our history, a strong army, focused on the protection and physical security of the national territory for national economic development through local resources.
Indeed, 221 years later, Haiti deserves leaders capable of establishing military cooperation with the countries of the Global South and freeing itself from the Western powers’ neocolonial domination, because Haiti cannot and must not renew any military cooperation with the former colonialist powers under any fallacious pretext of strengthening security, nor submit to the United Nations’ supervision.
the attack on Spirit Airlines on Nov. 11, 2024 is a false pretext to facilitate the conversion of the so-called Multinational Security Support mission (MSS) from a mercenary force into an official UN “peacekeeping” force.
Just recently, a contingent of Haitian soldiers was sent to be trained in Martinique, a colony of France, from which Haiti won its independence. This deployment is a serious mistake, because it calls into question our glorious history, our ancestors routing the largest French colonial army. And the current colonial regime, the Transitional Presidential Council (TPC), is trampling this precious symbolism of Vertières.
What an absurdity to think that the same France, that in the past imposed colonization and slavery on our ancestors, would come back to give us an armed force to defend our nation’s interests. On the contrary, while pretending to provide “cooperation,” they are implanting a “Haitian” proxy force, just as the U.S. did in 1934 just after 19 years of pillaging and militarily occupying Haiti. And that force ensured Washington’s political and economic domination and plunder of Haiti’s mineral, agricultural, and human labor resources until now.
All pretexts are good to fight one’s enemy. In this sense, the United Nations (UN) and its cousin, the Organization of American States (OAS) – or the U.S. Ministry of Colonial Affairs – are doing everything they can to find facts, non-facts, and even misdeeds that could facilitate the implementation of their Machiavellian plan to militarily occupy Haiti under the UN’s humanitarian cover.
Indeed, the attack on an aircraft of Spirit Airlines on Nov. 11, 2024, forcing it to land at Cibao International Airport in Santiago, Dominican Republic, is a false pretext to facilitate the conversion of the so-called Multinational Security Support mission (MSS) from a mercenary force into an official UN “peacekeeping” force. Moreover, Leslie Voltaire, the TPC’s current president, despite the fact that he has zero legitimacy, already requested the MSS to become another UN occupation force in an Oct. 24 letter addressed to the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres.
The OAS Permanent Council also voted on Nov. 13 for a resolution sponsored by the U.S., Canada, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and El Salvador to ask the UN Security Council to send another “peace-keeping” force to Haiti, which would be the third in three decades. Once again, it will be up to the progressive sovereign nations, and a veto by Russia and/or China at the UN Security Council, to spare us from this sword of Damocles, namely: a new foreign military occupation under the cover of the “Blue Helmets” at the end of the 21st century’s first quarter.
Moreover, to commemorate Vertières, the hypocrites in power, the same ones who had demobilized the Haitian army under orders of the U.S. imperialists, shamelessly came to speak of the indigenous army’s prowess. They used the 221st anniversary of the Battle of Vertières to inaugurate a base of the Armed Forces of Haiti (FAd’H) located in the commune of Tabarre, named “Base Vertières.”
The Nov. 18, 1803 victory over the French colonial army inscribed Haiti in universal history as a symbol of resistance and courage, breaking the chains of colonialism and slavery for the first time. The epic of Vertières must teach current (de facto) and future leaders the importance and necessity of freeing themselves from all foreign domination and influence. Two hundred and twenty-one years later, Haiti needs a free, independent, intelligent, and enlightened diplomacy, guided by its own national interests instead of being governed by the dictates of the U.S. and other Western powers.
A true socialist revolution is necessary to break the spiral of violence and to restore hope!
The country certainly has a great need for soldiers, great revolutionary fighters, to do everything they can, like the barefoot soldiers who led the battle of Vertières, so that Haiti can get back on its feet and get rid of the regimes of collaborators of the imperialist powers, of the unpatriotic, of this cohort of squanderers, of anti-popular robbers of the ilk of this moribund TPC and all those accompanying it within the rotten government regime.
